Alix Ohlin - Signs and Wonders

“I think I’m doing better,” Doug said.

“Hey, man, that’s awesome. That is so great,” Victor said, wincing harder. “You know what? Let’s go out. Let’s get some of the guys together and celebrate your return to the world.”

It didn’t sound bad to Doug. He’d let his friendships slide over the past year, ignoring phone calls from his best man, from couples they’d socialized with, and repeated ones from Debbie. He preferred the company of his TV, watching all the shows Carol liked. After months of investigation, the guy who’d murdered his wife and child was finally on trial. The continuing news story kept him connected to her, to her lust for punishment and retribution. The murderer had cut his hair and lost weight. He looked younger and sickly and therefore more innocent. Who cares? he could hear Carol saying, her voice vibrant with anger. He deserves whatever he gets.

“What you deserve, buddy,” Victor said, as if eavesdropping inside Doug’s mind, “is a little bit of distraction. That’s what you deserve.”

That night, they went out with a couple other guys to a martini bar in a hotel around the corner from the office. He’d never been there before — they used to go a brewpub, since closed — and for this he was glad. They settled into a black leather booth in the corner. A couple of people were drinking alone at the bar. The waitress, a sweet-looking blond woman in her twenties, dropped off the bar menu. There were seventeen kinds of martinis.

In the past year his tolerance for liquor had ballooned, so it took a few rounds for him to feel any effect, and only after the third could he relax and pay attention to the conversation. His workmates were talking about the waitress’s ass. It was a nice-looking ass. She caught them looking at it and gave it a wiggle. There was another woman they were discussing, also pretty, sitting at the bar. She was wearing a pink blouse and matching skirt and had long, dark brown hair. She noticed the waitress giving them a show and rolled her eyes, but nicely, as if she saw the humor of it. Doug’s friends noticed him checking her out.

“Go talk to her, man,” Victor said. “She’s hot.”

“Smokin’,” said Wayne from Technology Services.

“Who says smokin’ anymore?” Victor said.

“I’m just saying she’s hot.”

“Smokin’,” Victor said, wincing for real. “Give me a break.”

Doug was starting to feel drunk, and grateful for it, nodding vacantly through all of this. He hardly noticed when Victor and Wayne went to the bar to chat up the dark-haired woman, gales of laughter soon pealing from their little group. He ordered another martini from the blond waitress, who brought it and said, “This one is compliments of the girl at the bar.”

“Seriously?”

“I think she likes you,” the waitress said.

From the bar, Victor gave him a thumbs-up. Doug tried to grin, but it looked more like a grimace, he knew. His smiling muscles were stiff from lack of use. He drank down half the martini and ate his olives, and by the time he finished chewing the guys were trailing back to the table.

“You’re never going to believe this, man,” Victor said, “but she gave me this for you.” He opened his palm and showed Doug a keycard envelope on which the room number was written in blue pen.

“She thinks you’re hot,” Wayne said.

“Maybe even smokin’, ” Victor said. He elbowed Wayne good-naturedly, and they both laughed.

Doug could feel the vodka now. “That’s crazy,” he said, not very distinctly, “we haven’t exchanged a single word.”

“So what?” Victor said. “She likes the look of you.”

He drained his martini. When he looked over at the bar again, the woman was gone. Victor and the other guys walked him to the elevator, pressed the button for him, and then left. He could see his face reflected drunkenly in the elevator’s mirror. Leering at himself, he couldn’t feel the muscles move, like after a shot at the dentist’s. The elevator stopped.

He found her room and inserted the key. Nothing happened. He tried again. Was she in there listening to him fumble? Not a very good advertisement for anything that might happen later. On the third try, the light flashed green and he turned the handle and stepped inside.

She was sitting on the bed, wearing a black negligee and watching CNN, a sound so profoundly reassuring to him that his knees felt weak. She was thin and olive skinned, with pointy shoulders. Her clothes were folded on the chair in a neat pink pile. Only when he saw her with her clothes already off did he understand that his friends had paid for her company.

“Hi, Doug,” she said, and turned off the TV.

“You can leave it on,” he said.

She pressed the remote again and a man said, “Next up, the story of a lost dog traveling hundreds of miles all by itself to find its way home.”

He sat down next to her, unsure of what to say or do. He’d never been in this situation before. “I had some trouble getting in.”

“Well, you’re here now,” she said, and patted his hand. “Are you okay?”

“I’m a little dizzy,” he admitted.

Patting his hand again, she stood up and fetched him some water from the bathroom, then turned down the volume on the TV.

“Who are you?” he said.

“My name’s Violet.”

“Where are you from?”

“New Hampshire.”

“I don’t know why I’m here,” he said. He felt close to tears. This wasn’t his thing, and it wasn’t going to help.

“Your friends thought you needed some company.”

“I do need company,” he confessed. “I do.”

“Okay, then,” Violet said.

He put his head in her lap. But she was bony and her negligee was slippery — Carol always wore cotton — and the whole setup wasn’t very comfortable, so he lay next to her in bed instead, his heavy head resting on the pillows.

“My wife died,” he said. “She was a teacher.”

“I wanted to be a teacher,” Violet said. They were holding hands. Her hair smelled good, not quite like candy, more like flowers. “I always liked reading.”

“You should do it,” he said. “You should be a teacher.”

“It’s kind of late,” Violet said.

“It’s not even midnight,” he said, and passed out to the sound of her laugh.

When he woke up, the room was dark and silent. It reminded him of waking in the hospital, and he was scared and sad, and his head hurt. “Violet?” he said, his voice sounding like a child’s.

“I’m here, honey,” she said, from the other side of the room. In the darkness, he could make out that she was dressed in her pink outfit again.

“Please don’t leave.”

“Okay,” she said.

In the morning she was still there, and they ordered breakfast from room service. Violet ate a waffle, licking syrup off her fingers. Without her makeup and in a sober light she looked less pretty than she had and even younger, actually, but somehow more tired.

“You had a nightmare,” she said. “You were talking but I couldn’t understand what you said.”

“I dreamed I was back in fifth grade and the other kids tried to kill me,” he said, and they both laughed. “Pretty weird, huh.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t be a teacher, if kids are that violent,” she said. “Maybe what I’m doing now is safer.” She smiled at him, then bit her lip. “You seem like a nice guy,” she said. “I’m sorry about your wife.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“My real name is Jane.”

“My real name’s Martin. Martin Douglas Robinson. I thought Martin was a sissy name when I was a kid, so I use my middle name instead.”

They shook hands formally, politely. He thought about kissing her, but he wasn’t really attracted to her. That part of him was dead or at least dormant; he took care of its occasional needs by himself in the shower, a quick and efficient system that worked fine in his opinion.