Beautiful World, Where Are You(6)

He smiled benignly, watching the progress of their coffees behind the counter. Funny, he said, I had a bad dream the other night about you getting married.

What was bad about it?

You were marrying someone other than me.

The woman laughed. Do you talk like this to the women at your work? she said.

He turned back to her, amused, and replied: God no, I’d get in awful trouble. And quite rightly. No, I never flirt with anyone at work. If anything they flirt with me.

I suppose they’re all middle-aged and want you to marry their daughters.

I can’t agree with this negative cultural imaging around middle-aged women. Of every demographic, I actually think I like them best.

What’s wrong with young women?

There’s just that bit of . . .

He gestured his hand from side to side in the air to indicate friction, uncertainty, sexual chemistry, indecisiveness, or perhaps mediocrity.

Your girlfriends are never middle-aged, the woman pointed out.

And neither am I, quite yet, thank you.

On the way out of the cafe, the man held the door open for the woman to walk through, which she did without thanking him. What did you want to ask me about? she said.

Joining her on the walk back up the street toward her office, he told her he wanted her advice on a situation that had arisen between two of his friends, both of whom the woman seemed to know by name. The friends had been living together as roommates, and then had become involved in some kind of ambiguous sexual relationship. After a time, one of them had started seeing someone else, and now the other friend, the one who was still single, wanted to leave the apartment but had no money and nowhere else to go. Really more of an emotional situation than an apartment situation, the woman said. The man agreed, but added: Still, I think it’s probably best for her to get out of the

apartment. I mean, she can apparently hear them having sex at night, so that’s not great.

They had reached the steps of the office building by then. You could loan her some money, the woman said. The man replied that he had offered already but she had refused. Which was a relief, actually, he added, because my instinct is not to get too involved. The woman asked what the first friend had to say for himself, and the man replied that the first friend felt he was not doing anything wrong, that the previous relationship had come to a natural end and what was he supposed to do, stay single forever? The woman made a face and said: God, yeah, she really needs to get out of that apartment. I’ll keep an eye out. They lingered on the steps a little longer. My wedding invite arrived, by the way, the man remarked.

Oh yes, she said. That was this week.

Did you know they were giving me a plus-one?

She looked at him as if to ascertain whether he was joking, and then raised her eyebrows. That’s nice, she said. They didn’t give me one, but considering the circumstances I suppose that might have been indelicate.

Would you like me to go alone as a gesture of solidarity?

After a pause, she asked: Why, is there someone you’re thinking of bringing?

Well, the girl I’m seeing, I suppose. If it’s all the same to you.

She said: Hm. Then she added: You mean woman, I hope.

He smiled. Ah, let’s be a little bit friendly, he said.

Do you go around behind my back calling me a girl?

Certainly not. I don’t call you anything. Whenever your name comes up, I just get flustered and leave the room.

Disregarding this, the woman asked: When did you meet her?

Oh, I don’t know. About six weeks ago.

She’s not another one of these twenty-two-year-old Scandinavian women, is she?

No, she’s not Scandinavian, he said.

With an exaggeratedly weary expression, the woman tossed her coffee cup in the waste bin outside the office door. Watching her, the man added: I can go alone if you’d rather.

We can make eyes at each other across the room.

Oh, you make me sound very desperate, she said.

God, I didn’t mean to.

For a few seconds she said nothing, just stood staring into the traffic. Presently she said aloud: She looked beautiful at the fitting. Lola, I mean. You were asking.

Still watching her, he replied: I can imagine.

Thanks for the coffee.

Thank you for the advice.

For the rest of the afternoon in the office, the woman worked on the same text-editing interface, opening new files, moving apostrophes around and deleting commas. After

closing one file and before opening another, she routinely checked her social media feeds. Her expression, her posture, did not vary depending on the information she encountered there: a news report about a horrific natural disaster, a photograph of someone’s beloved domestic pet, a female journalist complaining about death threats, a recondite joke requiring familiarity with several other internet jokes in order to be even vaguely comprehensible, a passionate condemnation of white supremacy, a promoted tweet advertising a health supplement for expectant mothers. Nothing changed in her outward relationship to the world that would allow an observer to determine what she felt about what she saw. Then, after some length of time, with no apparent trigger, she closed the browser window and reopened the text editor. Occasionally one of her colleagues would interject with a work-related question, and she would answer, or someone would share a funny anecdote with the office and they would all laugh, but mostly the work continued quietly.

At five thirty-four p.m., the woman took her jacket off the hook again and bid her remaining colleagues farewell. She unwound her headphones from around her phone, plugged them in, and walked down Kildare Street toward Nassau Street, then took a left, winding her way westward. After a twenty-eight-minute walk, she stopped at a new-build apartment complex on the north quays and let herself in, climbing two flights of stairs and unlocking a chipped white door. No one else was home, but the layout and interior suggested she was not the sole occupant. A small dim living room, with one curtained window facing the river, led onto a kitchenette with an oven, half-size fridge unit and sink. From the fridge the woman removed a bowl covered in clingfilm. She disposed of the clingfilm and put the bowl in the microwave.