Russell Banks - A Permanent Member of the Family

Ed said, “We could keep going, y’know. Head for Cape Canaveral, check out the Space Center and all.”

She said, “They shut the space program down, I thought.”

“I guess maybe they did.”

He knows her from some other crowded room, but can’t remember which room or when. Good-looking brunette, broad forehead, high cheekbones — eastern European, he guesses. A little fleshy from drink and insufficient exercise. Fortyish, with minor evidence of wear: a younger woman’s butch haircut laced with gray that she would color but doesn’t believe she’s old enough yet for a dye job, black pantsuit to hide her muffin top, red shoes. They’re called pumps, he thinks.

He takes her in as she slips between strangers, not exactly on a beeline for his corner of the ballroom but not stopping to sniff the roses either. He likes to read people from a distance — that’s what he calls it, reading people. Speed-reading. She’s trying to disguise her intent, glancing at him as if by accident, then looking away as if she’s not coming for him but for some guy on his right or left, one of these hearty fellows, hard drinks in hand, bellowing so as to impress each other and the occasional nearby woman with their intelligence and wit and the size of their annual bonus.

Like him, they’re plumbing and heating supply sales managers, retailers and wholesalers from all over, most of them middle-aged and older men with wives at home. There are some wives here, of course, heavyset women in their fifties and sixties wearing pastel and silently monitoring their husbands’ alcohol intake from their seats at the tables while keeping a wary eye on the few female sales reps working the room for new accounts. Maybe that’s what she is, a manufacturer’s sales rep he flirted with at some other January convention in some other Sunbelt city, and she enjoyed it enough to give him a second shot at writing her a purchase order. With female reps it’s usually kitchen appliances and sinks or high-end bathroom fixtures. He’d definitely remember her if he’d signed on the first time around.

She half smiles and lets her left hand float toward his. Slight makeup overkill, large green eyes, mascara running from contacts worn only when she goes out. The nail polish matches the red pumps. No wedding ring, he notices. Recently divorced? She says, “Hello, Stanley.”

He takes her hand in his, holds it a half second longer than he would a stranger’s. “Well, hello! Nice to see you.” He doesn’t say “again.” He’s not 100 percent sure they’re not strangers. She knows his name, but why not, it’s stuck to his jacket lapel. He flicks a glance across her breasts in search of a name tag, but there isn’t one. Must not be a rep. Definitely not a hooker. Not friendly enough.

“You don’t recognize me, do you, Stanley?”

“It would help if you wore your name on your chest like the rest of us.” He flashes the smile he sometimes uses to change the subject.

“I work for the hotel. Remember? Events coordinator?”

“Right! Events coordinator.” It was here in Miami, then, the Marriott. Had to have been five years ago, the last time the suppliers’ National Business Association held their annual meeting here. Since then it’s been Phoenix, New Orleans, Atlanta, Memphis. He met her in this very ballroom. Five years ago.

Her name is Ellen, that much rushes back, but not her last name. And not much else, though he feels his face heat up as if he’s embarrassed. He’s not sure if it’s because he didn’t recognize her right away or because of something that happened between them, something said or unsaid, done or undone, something he can’t quite call to mind — like her last name — without her help. He’s sure she remembers everything, her direct gaze tells him that much, and he is afraid that she expects him — or until this moment, expected him — to remember everything, too.

She looks mildly amused by his embarrassment. Forgiving.

He says her first name, “Ellen!” as if he’s been waiting to say it since he got off the plane this afternoon. “You look terrific,” he says and means it, up close she does look terrific, smart and energetic and good humored without being one of those scary, live-wired women who live on a permanent stage. She’s a woman who keeps an interesting tension between high spirits and control. The sort of woman he’s always been attracted to. Like his wife.

That’s when he remembers. It was late the last night of the convention, and they ended up in his room, both a little drunk. How could he have forgotten? It wasn’t the sort of thing that he’s done more than once or twice in his entire twice-married life — in fact, now that he thinks of it, the first time he ended up in a hotel room alone with a woman who was not his wife was nearly twelve years ago. Not many months afterward, that woman became his second wife and eventually the mother of his three children. All the more reason he should have recognized Ellen right away, should even have anticipated seeing her here. And looked forward to meeting her again, or dreaded it. He’s not sure which. He is sure he didn’t sleep with her.

They met that first time at the registration table in the lobby. He said his last name, and without looking up she passed him an information packet and his plastic name tag. Then she glanced at him and quickly smiled, as if surprised by his good looks. He knew he was conventionally handsome. Not male model or movie star quality, just handsome for a plumbing and heating supplier.

“If you have any questions or need anything, don’t hesitate to call me,” she said. She reached into her purse, took out her business card and gave it to him. He held her card in both hands and read it, smiled back and thanked her by name. Damned attractive woman. Friendly too.

After that, they kept running into each other in the hotel, at first by accident in the lobby, then on the elevator, at the hotel gift shop where he’d gone for toothpaste and she was picking up a pack of cigarettes, and then in the evening deliberately at dinner in the main ballroom sitting next to each other as if they hadn’t planned it, ducking the after-dinner speakers and heading for the hotel bar “for a nightcap” that lasted till midnight. They met for breakfast the next day and had lunch at a sidewalk café by the bay. They kept their voices low and their heads close.

With increasing speed they had dropped into personal, almost intimate conversations, and he thought of her as his only friend at the convention, although he was more than casually acquainted with dozens of the other managers here. He talked about his wife, Sharon, and his kids and described his life in Saratoga Springs, careful not to complain, but making his cloudy dissatisfaction with his life obvious. “It’s a good town for raising kids. For owning a split-level house with a two-car garage, shopping at the malls, running a plumbing supply company.”

She got it. “Sounds a little lonely,” she said.

“Yeah, well, you can be lonely anywhere, I guess. Even in a crowd. Like here.”

“Maybe especially in a crowd. Crowds can sting your heart when you’re alone in the world. Like me.”

He liked that phrase, “sting your heart.” Not something Sharon would say. “C’mon, you’re not really alone in the world. Attractive single woman, financially independent, exotic city like Miami, et cetera.”

“Unmarried, no kids, no close family nearby, et cetera. No steady boyfriend. Just a cat named Spooky to greet me when I come home from work. That’s being alone in the world, Stanley.”

“And you’re not lonely?”

She shrugged. “No more than you, I suspect. With your wife and kids and minivan.”