III
JUNE 20, THE PRIOR MONTH
15
After a long day of negotiating deals and writing memos and revising spreadsheets and wrangling conference calls, all she wanted was a bowl of soup and a chardonnay.
Crab soup, of course. She was in Maryland. What other kind would you have?
Elly Morgan made her way through the serpentine path that connected her wing of the motel to the main building. She was lucky to have gotten the room; there’d been a political debate this evening and most of the hotels and motels were booked. She’d probably heard about the debate but had paid no attention. The thirty-year-old brunette thought the constant barrage of cable news totally sucked. She and her boyfriend leaned toward artsy British shows on Netflix and, for dessert, Pixar and superheroes. (Who didn’t just love laser eye beams blowing up buildings?)
The election was in November. She’d focus around Halloween.
Now, after a ten-hour day, Morgan wanted a fast, peaceful meal.
Crab soup.
She walked into the outdoor bar, done up in a sort of faux New Orleans style. Mardi Gras beads dangled. A mural depicting an eerie papier-mâché masked man with a leering smile covered one wall. The music, however, was Top 40. Very disorienting. The place wasn’t crowded at all. The hour was ten, past regular dinnertime. She saw a couple in the corner, in their thirties. Eyes locked. The world outside their love—or lust—didn’t exist. Two men were at another table, watching a game. The younger, in a suit and tie, resembled an actor she couldn’t place. The other, big and unsmiling, wore jeans and a leather jacket over a T-shirt.
A table or the bar itself? she debated. One thing she knew from traveling: the emptier the dining room, the slower the service. She walked to the bar and sat. She and the bartender exchanged smiles and nods.
Morgan had ordered a white wine at lunch, but only to keep her businessmen customers happy. She’d sipped only teaspoonfuls during the meal (they’d had martinis and Manhattans).
Now, she went for her first real drink of the day. A nice Alexander Valley Chardonnay. It was crisp and oaky. She began to relax, finally. She looked over the menu. Yes! They had the lovely soup. She ordered.
A man sat down at the bar, to her left, leaving a tactful stool between them. He ordered a vodka and diet Sprite—an odd and wholly unappealing combination—and examined the menu.
A minute or two later: “So how you doing tonight?”
She glanced the man’s way. He was in an athletic jacket with the collar turned up. He wore a baseball cap, the logo of the New York Mets. His glasses were tinted. His hair, beneath the hat, boyishly mussed. He seemed familiar. Maybe she’d seen him last night when she arrived after the long drive from West Virginia. No, from somewhere else, though probably he simply fell into that generic good-lookin’-fifty-year-old demographic. Her sister had joked they were the number one male presence on Tinder.
She sighed. But Southern born and bred, Elly Morgan was polite to her core. “Pretty good.”
“You here on business?”
“I am, yes.” Her territory included retail stores from Pennsylvania down to North Carolina. She was on the road every few weeks, and the number one rule she’d learned was never, ever ask anyone—a man especially—a question that might elongate the conversation.
“Can I ask what line?”
“Wholesale cosmetics.”
“Ah.”
She sipped wine, pulled out her phone, and studied her screen. She wished she could call Josh. But he was on an airplane. Maybe she’d try her sister.
“I’m just in town for a thing here tonight,” the Mets fan went on. “But I got around during the day. I like college towns. Pretty interesting place. There’s a Civil War memorial. Did you know that Maryland never seceded from the Union but it was the only state that officially had federal and Confederate troops?”
She didn’t. She didn’t care.
He ordered another drink.
Without looking his way, Morgan sensed he was studying her. She regretted not changing from the tight-fitting silk blouse. In the meetings she wore, as she always did, a loose jacket. She had a voluptuous figure, and she knew he was focused on her chest.
She hit a recent call button.
“Hi, this is Karen. Please leave a message.”
So, sis wasn’t going to help her out.
“Voice mail,” the man said. “Curse of existence.”
Apparently the volume was high enough so he could hear. Rude to comment. Also, she had no clue what his comment meant.
He leaned a bit closer and she felt his arm brush her elbow.
“Excuse me,” she said and turned his way.
He backed off. “Sorry. Just was going to ask if you wanted a better drink. My treat.”
Better drink?
“Wine can be so boring. You don’t look like a boring girl.”
That’s it.
“Could I get that soup to go?” she said to the bartender.
“Sure.”
The Mets Man apparently got the message. He finished his drink and paid cash. He rose, said, “Have a good night now.”
Polite Morgan nodded distantly.
He wandered off.
Stay?
No way. Sharks circle back on their prey.
In five minutes the soup had arrived. She signed the check and stood, ignoring the gaze of the man seated to her right. Was he eyeing her figure too?
She ignored him. How tiring this all was. She knew it had happened from the beginning of time, men and women, but now, still, in the #MeToo era? Did some men simply not get it?
Walking back to her wing, over sidewalks surrounded by flowering trees, she smelled the enticing aroma of the soup and she thought: Calm down, girl. You’re tired, you’re stressed from the negotiation, you miss Josh. Don’t overreact. Looking over her body was wrong, it was an assault in a way, but it wasn’t terrible. The incident hadn’t become ugly. It was one of the thousands of incidents just like it that she’d had to endure, being a woman in . . . No, not just in the business world, but anywhere.
She’d had to endure, being a woman. End of story. She should—
“Look, I’m sorry.”
Morgan gasped.
Mets Man had been on an intersecting sidewalk. He stepped in front of her.
She had to stop.
“I was out of line. And—”
“You’ll excuse me. I’m going to my room.” She fished her phone from her pocket. He noticed this.
He was well over six feet tall, broad-shouldered. He held up a hand. “Look. I’m not dangerous or weird.”
The jury’s still out on . . .
“I just find you extremely attractive. You’re my type. And I think I’m not so bad to look at myself. And there are some other things about my life that are . . . appealing.”
“I’m talking to management.” She turned, her heart pounding hard. When’s the right time to scream?
“Wait,” he commanded and grabbed her arm.
“The fuck are you doing?”
“Just calm down. Let’s have a drink and—”
“Are you crazy?”
He gripped her harder.
She swung a fist at his mouth and collided solidly. She was the daughter of factory workers and had put herself through college doing the same kind of labor.