Chapter 3

This is a prior draft to the version published on X. Changes are minimal.

By Thursday I had decided that the General had forgotten Tuesday. He had asked me to check a freight charge, approved a batch of payments, and complained that someone kept lowering the thermostat. These were ordinary interactions. I took them as evidence that ordinary relations had resumed.

At half past four he came to my office carrying a tie.

“You have the installation summaries?”

I showed him the folder. Mercer had opened two restaurants that spring, and we had supplied both kitchens. There had been delays with one ventilation system, a replacement compressor, and an argument about whether shelving had been included in the original quote. All resolved. The signed approvals were behind the summaries.

“Good. Just in case he asks.”

He began knotting the tie in the reflection of my window.

“And Alexei.”

I looked up.

“Tonight is a dinner.”

“I saw the menu.”

“Then you understand me.”

I said that I did. He straightened the knot and left.

The balance on Mercer’s account was unchanged. I had checked it that morning while allocating receipts. One hundred and eighty-three thousand four hundred and seventeen dollars and sixty-two cents. The oldest invoice was now eighty-one days past due.

His accounts-payable department had sent a message on Wednesday saying the invoices were approved and awaiting release. No date. I had started to reply, remembered the General’s instruction, and closed the window. There were few things more irritating than being asked to collect money and then forbidden to inconvenience the people who had it.

Nevertheless, I put only the installation documents in my folder. I was going to dinner.

At home I changed twice. The first shirt made me look as though I expected to work behind the bar; the second made me look as though I expected to be mistaken for somebody who could afford it. I chose the second. While dressing I checked the day’s trades, though the positions were closed and there was nothing to do. I had made a little over four hundred dollars. It would pay for the shirt many times, which was a useful thought until I remembered that the shirt was already mine.

The hotel stood above the ocean, behind a low wall and a line of cypress trees. I had been there before to deliver papers and once to correct an invoice with the purchasing manager. On those occasions I had used the entrance beside the loading dock. This time a young man opened my car door and gave me a ticket.

I walked into the lobby holding the ticket as though someone would immediately ask me to account for the car.

Beyond the windows a pale strip of water showed beneath the marine layer. A fire burned in a long stone fireplace despite the mild evening. Everything smelled faintly of cedar. The people sitting near the fire had arranged themselves with a freedom I could not imitate; even their bags occupied chairs without appearing to need permission.

Blanche found me examining a framed photograph of the hotel before its renovation.

“You’re early.”

“Five minutes.”

“Exactly.”

She took my arm and led me toward the private dining room. On the way she asked an employee to check a wine delivery and reminded another that Mrs. Mercer did not eat shellfish. The employee thanked her. I was still uncertain whether she had authority over either of them, but the uncertainty seemed to be mine alone.

The room had a round table, eight places, and doors onto a narrow terrace. There were no name cards. This disappointed me more than it should have.

The General was speaking to a tall man beside the windows. He introduced him as Mr. Astley, one of the hotel’s owners, then introduced me as Alexei, who looked after the accounts.

“We’ve met,” Astley said.

I remembered him now. He had come through the warehouse with the purchasing manager during the renovation. A payment had been held up because the hotel’s order number was wrong, and he had waited while I found the original email.

“You found our missing dishwasher,” he said.

“It wasn’t missing. It was on the wrong order.”

“It seemed missing to the chef.”

He was English, perhaps in his late thirties, with a quiet voice that made the General lower his own. He asked whether the warehouse was still as busy, and listened to the answer. I liked him immediately, then became suspicious of how little had been required.

Polina stood outside on the terrace. I could see her through the open doors, resting her forearms on the railing. She wore a dark blue dress and had left her hair loose. I had not seen her since Tuesday, although I had contrived to pass through reception several times the previous afternoon.

Blanche went to greet another arrival. The General took Astley toward the bar. I put my folder on a side table and went outside.

“You came,” Polina said.

“I was invited.”

“I know.”

There was a dampness in the air. Below us the hotel garden descended in shallow terraces, with small lights beneath the trees. A gardener was rolling a hose behind a hedge. For a moment I was glad to be there without needing anything more to happen.

“Is Mercer here?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

“Your stepfather reminded me that this is a dinner.”

She looked at me.

“Did that help?”

“I had been wondering what the plates were for.”

She smiled and turned back toward the garden.

“I’ve known him since I was a child.”

“Your stepfather?”

“Mercer.”

“I know.”

“He used to come on Sundays. They’d sit outside for hours after lunch, with all the plates still there. My mother would start carrying things in and he would ask her for another coffee.”

“That sounds like him.”

In fact, I had exchanged perhaps twenty words with Mercer in my life.

“He was always very nice about the food,” she said. “Very appreciative. He could keep you carrying plates for another hour by appreciating them.”

She picked a dry leaf from the railing and turned it between her fingers.

“Once I drew a restaurant for them.”

“A restaurant?”

“They were talking about one he was going to open. I was twelve. There was graph paper in the house, so I made a plan. Tables, windows, kitchen. I used different colors.”

“What happened?”

“I brought it out. He put his coffee on it.”

“Deliberately?”

“No. There was a tablecloth. I suppose he thought I was giving him something to put under the cup.”

She let the leaf fall into the planter below.

“I told him what it was. He said, ‘Go find your mother, sweetheart. We’re talking business.’”

“What did your stepfather say?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did he laugh?”

“I said I don’t remember.”

I imagined her standing beside the table with the drawing, waiting for someone to pick up the cup. It was a very distinct image. I could have described the dress she had worn, though she had not mentioned a dress. I found this certainty persuasive.

“Did Mercer ever apologize?”

Polina turned her head.

“For what?”

“Humiliating you.”

“He didn’t know he had done anything. I doubt he even looked at me.”

“That doesn’t improve it.”

“I wasn’t trying to improve it.”

Inside, the General’s voice rose in greeting. Mercer had arrived with his wife. He was broad through the shoulders, gray-haired, comfortably dressed, and already laughing at something he had said in the doorway. His wife handed Blanche a small paper bag, which Blanche opened with evident pleasure.

“Come in before he calls us,” Polina said.

Mercer greeted her affectionately. He placed a hand on her shoulder and said she looked wonderful. She thanked him. Nothing in her face suggested she had just been discussing him; she even asked about one of his children.

Then he shook my hand.

“Accounts,” he said, remembering.

“Alexei.”

“Right. Good to see you.”

His wife asked whether I had been with the company long. I answered, and she asked a second question. I had prepared myself to dislike both of them and found her cooperation insufficient.

De Grieux arrived last. He apologized, greeted Astley as someone he knew, and kissed Polina on the cheek. She allowed it without stepping toward him. I noticed the distinction. I had become extremely proficient at noticing distinctions that did not tell me anything useful.

We sat. Blanche placed Mrs. Mercer beside Astley and the General beside Mercer. Polina took the chair to my left. De Grieux sat on her other side.

I had been given precisely what I wanted and immediately discovered an objection to it.

The first part of dinner went well. Mercer praised the technicians who had worked through a Saturday to get his second kitchen ready. He remembered Luis’s name and asked whether his back had improved. The General promised to pass on the compliment. I said that Luis would appreciate it, and Mercer turned to me with genuine warmth.

“Good people. You have to hold on to good people.”

I could have mentioned that good people expected wages on Friday, but the thought was only a private joke at that stage. I had many such thoughts. Most remained harmless because I kept them to myself.

Astley asked about the new restaurant. Mercer explained why they had reduced the number of tables rather than crowd the room. He spoke sensibly about service, the kitchen’s capacity, and the difference between filling a seat and making a customer want to return. I understood why the General listened to him. He had built something too.

Mrs. Mercer told Polina about a daughter who was moving house. Blanche spoke to a waiter without breaking the conversation. De Grieux asked for water and received it before I had finished wondering whether I should pour my own.

There was no conspiracy. It was an agreeable dinner among people who had known one another for years, and I might have enjoyed it if I had been able to stop measuring how naturally everyone else belonged there.

When the first plates were cleared, Mercer asked about the General’s aunt.

“Much the same,” the General said.

“Still at home?”

“For now. We’re waiting to hear what the specialist thinks.”

“Remarkable woman.”

“Yes.”

“You give her my regards.”

“Certainly.”

The General glanced at his phone beside the bread plate. De Grieux asked Astley a question about the hotel’s summer bookings. The conversation moved on so smoothly that I wondered whether I had imagined the moment of attention that had passed around the table.

Polina leaned toward me.

“Has he paid?”

She spoke quietly enough that I alone could hear.

“No.”

“Since Monday?”

“Nothing.”

She looked across at Mercer, who was describing a lease negotiation.

“Ask him.”

I waited for the smile that would let me treat this as a continuation of our conversation on the terrace. It did not come.

“Now?”

“When there’s a pause.”

“Polina.”

“You know what to ask.”

Her voice was ordinary. She reached for her glass. I watched her take a drink, certain that she understood exactly what she was doing and equally certain that she could not understand it or she would not be doing it.

“Your stepfather specifically told me—”

“I heard.”

“Then you know.”

She set down the glass.

“Yes.”

A waiter came to my right with the next course. I moved my hand from the place where he needed to put the plate and thanked him too loudly.

Mercer was telling Astley that the difficulty with the proposed site was access for deliveries. I knew something about this; I had seen one of our drivers return after being unable to get into a loading bay Mercer’s architects had approved. I could have joined the conversation naturally. Instead I counted the ways in which the General could make my life difficult.

He could dismiss me. He could also do less. He could take away the work I understood and leave me answering phones. He could ask someone else to approve everything I entered. He could tell the receptionist why.

Worse, Mercer might delay the payment. There was nothing abstract about that possibility. I had promised Denise we would pay on Monday. Luis and the other technicians expected their wages. The loan payment would go out whether we had received anything or not.

“If you want the money collected, this is the wrong way,” I said quietly.

Polina looked at me.

“Did I say I wanted you to collect it?”

I stared at her.

“Ask when he means to pay.”

“What difference does that make?”

She turned her fork over between her fingers.

“You needn’t.”

I felt a rush of relief so immediate that I was ashamed of it.

“I’m not refusing.”

“All right.”

Then she turned to answer something de Grieux had said.

For perhaps a minute I was free to eat my dinner. Nobody was watching me. Polina had released me, if release was what I wanted to call it. I cut a piece of fish and found I could not swallow it without drinking water.

Across the table Mercer put down his knife.

“That’s why I’ve stayed with you all these years,” he told the General. “We can pick up the phone and sort things out. Nobody sends me through six departments.”

The General smiled.

“We try to keep it personal.”

There was the pause.

“Then perhaps you can tell me when we should expect the overdue balance,” I said.

Mercer looked toward Astley first, as though the question might have come from him. Then he turned to me.

“I’m sorry?”

“On your account with us.”

My voice sounded unexpectedly steady. I had imagined stumbling, having to repeat a word, the General interrupting before I reached the end. Instead everyone had heard me, and everyone was waiting.

“Which balance?” Mercer asked.

“One hundred and eighty-three thousand four hundred and seventeen dollars. Sixty-two cents.”

The General shifted in his chair.

“Alexei looks after the ledger,” he said. “He takes these things very seriously.”

Mercer gave a small laugh. It was an exit offered to both of us.

“Clearly. Send it over to my office and they’ll have a look.”

I could have stopped there. He had answered; I had obeyed. The waiter at the door could have come in, Blanche could have asked Mrs. Mercer about her daughter, and in a day or two the General might have decided that I was merely awkward.

“They have looked,” I said. “They confirmed yesterday that the invoices are approved. We’re waiting for a release date.”

Mercer’s expression changed.

“Then I imagine they’ll give you one.”

“The oldest is eighty-one days past due.”

I had not been asked for that figure. I supplied it because I possessed it, and because for the first time since entering the hotel I did not feel obliged to make myself smaller.

The General set his glass down.

“That’s enough. We’ll deal with it at the office.”

Mercer looked at him.

“Is there a problem I should know about?”

“No. None.”

The speed of the answer made it worse.

“If there’s a query, you can call me,” Mercer said. He was speaking only to the General now. “You know that.”

“Of course.”

“We’ve been doing business a long time.”

“I know. I apologize.”

The last words came quietly. I heard them more clearly than anything I had said.

Beside me Polina had put down her fork. She was looking at Mercer, but there was no smile on her face. I could not tell whether she was satisfied. I could not even tell whether she wanted me to look at her.

Mrs. Mercer adjusted the napkin on her lap. Astley moved his plate slightly to make room as the waiter finally entered. No one touched the wine.

Blanche asked Astley whether the path through the lower garden would be open by the weekend.

“It opened this morning,” he said.

“Then we should walk down after dinner.”

Mrs. Mercer asked where it came out. He described the steps toward the beach. She said she remembered them from years ago, before the renovation.

Within a minute a conversation had been established to which we could all listen without participating in what had happened. I had never properly appreciated the work involved in this.

The General asked Mercer about the delivery entrance at the new site. Mercer answered courteously. He did not look at me again.

I ate two mouthfuls of fish that had become cold. My hand shook slightly when I lifted the glass, though it had not shaken while I was speaking.

Under the table my phone pressed against my thigh. I wanted to take it out and look at something comprehensible: a number, a message, any screen on which the result of what I had done might be displayed.

Polina spoke to de Grieux. I could not hear what she said.

After the main course the General suggested coffee in the lounge. He spoke with the strained brightness of a man determined to demonstrate that the evening was proceeding according to plan.

I stood when the others stood. Mercer took his wife’s hand to help her from the chair. She thanked Blanche for arranging everything, then turned to me and said it had been nice to meet me.

There was no sarcasm in it. I would have preferred some.

As we reached the door, the General touched my arm.

“A word.”

He waited until the others had gone down the corridor. Through the open doorway I could see a waiter collecting the folded napkins.

“Give me the folder.”

I retrieved it from the side table.

“It only has the installation—”

“Give it to me.”

I did.

He held it against his side. For a moment I thought he was going to strike the folder against his leg or throw it onto the table. He did neither.

“I told you.”

“The money is overdue.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

He kept his voice low. This required me to stand closer to him than I wanted.

“He told me to send it to his office. They’ve already—”

“I heard you the first time.”

I stopped.

“Go home,” he said.

“Am I dismissed?”

I hated him enough at that moment to want the drama of it. I had an account with money in it. I had made more on Monday than he paid me in weeks. I could have survived dismissal; for a few angry seconds I even wanted the opportunity to show him how little I needed him.

“From dinner,” he said. “We’ll discuss the rest tomorrow.”

He went toward the lounge carrying the folder I had brought to justify my presence.

I remained in the corridor until a member of staff asked whether I needed directions. Then I went outside to collect my car.

The fog had come in. Water shone on the driveway, and the lamps along the wall had acquired blurred rings. I gave the valet my ticket. He said it would only be a moment, with the same pleasant attention he had offered on my arrival. This seemed almost indecent.

Polina came through the doors while I was waiting.

“You’re leaving?”

“I’ve been invited to.”

She stood beside me beneath the canopy. Behind the glass, de Grieux was speaking to Astley. Neither looked toward us.

“What did he say?” she asked.

“That we’ll discuss it tomorrow.”

She folded her arms. The night was colder than it had been on the terrace.

“You should have stopped after he said to send it to the office.”

“You heard him. He was pretending not to know.”

“Perhaps he didn’t.”

“His people knew.”

“That isn’t what I said.”

I looked at her. She was watching the driveway.

“You asked me to do it.”

“I asked you a question to ask him.”

“Which I asked.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t complain about the answer.”

“I’m not complaining.”

This was unbearable. She would not praise me, but neither would she give me anything firm to resist.

“After what you told me outside, I thought—”

“About the drawing?”

“Yes.”

She looked at me then.

“Alexei. It was a drawing.”

My car appeared at the bend in the driveway. I watched it approach with an irrational hope that the valet would discover some problem and have to take it away again.

“Why did you tell me?”

She did not answer immediately.

“I remembered it when I saw the table.”

“And why did you ask me to ask him?”

“I wanted him to answer you.”

“Well, he didn’t.”

“No.”

The valet stopped beside us and got out. He held the door open.

Polina looked at my face as though she had noticed something she had missed at dinner.

“Did you enjoy it?”

“What?”

“When they were all listening.”

I could have answered at once if she had accused me of stupidity or cowardice. Instead I felt again that brief steadiness, the room waiting while I supplied the cents.

“No,” I said.

She lowered her eyes.

“All right.”

The valet was still holding the door. I gave him too much money because I could not bear to search my wallet in front of them, and got into the car.

Polina stepped back. She did not return to the hotel until I had started the engine. I watched her in the mirror, trying to decide whether waiting had meant concern, regret, or merely that I was looking at her.

At home I took off the shirt and hung it carefully in the wardrobe. There was a small spot near the cuff that I had not noticed before. I rubbed at it with a wet towel until the fabric darkened, then left it hanging on the bathroom door.

The General sent a message at eleven sixteen.

*Eight tomorrow. Bring the full correspondence with Mercer’s office.*

I opened my laptop and found the emails. There were enough of them to make a respectable case. The invoices had been received, queried, clarified, approved. We had asked for payment. They had promised to advise. Every date supported me.

I arranged the thread in order and saved it for printing.

Then I opened Polina’s messages.

Her last message was still *Good*, from Monday. Nothing in the conversation recorded what she had asked of me that evening. It occurred to me that if I showed someone the entire exchange, the only improper thing they would find was the account information I had sent her.

I typed, *What did you expect me to do?*

I read it twice. The question was dishonest. I knew what she had expected; she had told me plainly. What I wanted to ask was what I should have received for doing it.

I deleted the sentence.

After a while I wrote, *Did you get home?*

I sent that and left the laptop open on the table. The emails were ready for the morning. There was nothing else I needed to do, but I sat there in my undershirt until the kitchen light switched itself off.