My Dark Vanessa(48)

From the corner of my eye, I see a drunken guest stagger into the lobby, and I stare more intently at the computer screen, hunch my shoulders, and scowl, knowing he’s less likely to bother me if I look like a hag. I hear the man say, “Hey there, honey,” and my stomach drops, but his eyes are set on seventeen-year-old Inez behind the front desk. I turn back to the computer, the journalist’s email. Getting your truth out there. My truth. As though I have any idea what that is.

Behind the front desk Inez tries to hide her glass, but the man sees. “Whaddya got there?” He peeks over the desk. “Drinking on the job? Bad girl.”

It doesn’t feel like my hand moving the mouse around the screen. Someone else guides it to the upper right corner, clicks “forward.”

Inez’s laugh is high and strained. The man takes this as encouragement and puts both elbows on the desk, leans in close. He squints at her name tag. “Inez. That’s a pretty name.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

The man shakes his head, wags his finger. “There’s no way you’re twenty-one,” he says. “Feels like just looking at you is enough to get me arrested.”

My fingers move from key to key, typing [email protected] into the recipient field as I watch the drunk man tell Inez how pretty she is, how she makes him wish he were thirty years younger. She scans the lobby for help, a thin smile plastered on her face, her eyes resting for a moment on me as I take the mouse, move the cursor to “send,” and click.

The forwarded email takes off, the confirmation of message sent flashes at the top of the browser, and then—nothing happens. I don’t know what I expect, for an alarm to be tripped, a crescendo of sirens, but the lobby remains the same, the drunk man still leering, Inez still eyeing me for help as I stare back, thinking, What do you want from me? You really need me to rescue you? This is nothing. You’re safe; he’s on the other side of the desk and he’s not going to get you. If you’re that scared, go into the back office or flat-out tell him to leave. You should know how to handle this.

Behind me, an elevator opens and a houseman emerges pushing a cart stacked with crates of wine for the courtyard event. Inez, seeing an opportunity, darts out from behind the front desk.

“Do you need help, Abdel?” she asks. The houseman shakes his head, but she grabs one end of the cart anyway. The drunken guest watches her disappear down the hallway, arms limp at his sides. Once she’s gone, he looks over his shoulder, notices me for the first time.

“What are you looking at?” he asks, and then lumbers back outside into the courtyard.

Letting out a breath, I turn back to my computer screen and start the email-Twitter-Facebook loop all over again when my phone buzzes with a call from Strane. I watch it vibrate against the desk until it goes to voicemail. He tries again, then again, one after another. With each missed call, something within me gains momentum—a sense of smugness, a feeling of triumph. Maybe that journalist isn’t wrong after all. Maybe there is vengeance lurking somewhere within me.



After my shift, I go to a bar. Perched on a stool in my work suit and sucking down whiskey and water, I scroll through my contacts, shooting off texts to see who might be willing to engage at eleven fifteen on a Monday night. Ira ignores me, as does the man I brought home a few weeks ago who left my apartment as soon as he could after I turned silent and unresponsive beneath him, my body curling into itself, hands hiding my face. Only one takes the bait: a fifty-one-year-old divorcé I slept with a few months ago. I didn’t like how he spoke to me or how he treated the age gap like something out of a porno, calling himself Daddy and asking if I wanted a spanking. I tried to tell him to relax and be normal, but he didn’t want to hear it, just clamped a hand over my mouth and said, You want it like this, you want it, you know you do.

Me: I’m drinking alone.

Him: Young girls shouldn’t ever drink alone.

Me: Oh?

Him: Mmhmm. You should listen to me. I know what’s best for you.



Between the texts, I receive another call from Strane—the seventh since I forwarded him the journalist’s email. Hitting “ignore,” I text the divorcé the address, and within fifteen minutes, he and I are sharing a cigarette in the alley behind the bar. I ask him how he’s been; he asks me if I’ve been a bad girl.

I eye him as I take a drag and try to gauge how serious he is, if he expects me to answer.

“Because you look like you’ve been bad,” he says.

I say nothing and look down at my phone. There’s a text from Strane: I don’t know what you’re trying to communicate by sending me that email. As I watch, another appears: I don’t have the patience for any games right now, Vanessa. Give me the courtesy of behaving like an adult. The divorcé moves toward me, backs me up against the brick wall of the bar. Shielded by the dumpsters, he presses his body into mine, tries to shove his hand under the waistband of my pants. At first I laugh and try to squirm away. When he doesn’t stop, I shove him with the heels of my hands. He backs off but still looms over me, out of breath, his shoulders heaving. I flick my cigarette; ash spills onto his shoe.

“Relax,” I say. “Just be cool, ok?” My phone starts to ring, and because the divorcé is there, or because I know I’ve worked Strane into a panic, which is all I really wanted, or because I’m drunk and therefore stupid, I swipe up to answer. “What do you want?”