their walking in the door. All he can think of is how good it feels, and how mysterious—how inexplicable—these feelings are. Lying beside Ruth, steeped in the pleasurable after-chemicals, Rocco is willing to believe that he’s made a mistake about where she works. But he can’t bring himself to ask her outright. First you have sex with a woman . . . and then you suggest that she might not know where her own office is.
He wants a cigarette; he wants a drink. Two things he hasn’t wanted in . . . he can’t remember how long. Rehab saved him, he knows that . . . If it hadn’t been . . . That’s not what he wants to think about.
The only light leaks in from a streetlamp outside, but still Rocco shuts his eyes—he doesn’t want to see Ruth’s face—when he asks, “I was trying to remember today . . . I know you told me a million times. But . . . what’s the name of your company?”
“STEP,” Ruth says guardedly. Or is he imagining guardedness? “Actually, I told you a zillion times. Don’t you listen to me at all, ever?”
Once Rocco’s started, he can’t stop, perhaps because he can’t figure out how he can return to the subject later without making it seem more important than it is. “I know you told me. But the thing is, I went there today, and there’s no such company.”
There. He’s said it. He wishes they weren’t both naked. He wants to pull the blankets over her, to protect and shield her.
Ruth doesn’t flinch. “Why would you go to my workplace?”
“To give you the flowers. Ruth, there is no such company.”
“Not anymore,” she says.
“And you don’t work there.” He touches her shoulder, as if to soften what he’s saying, but she brushes his hand away.
“I did. The company dissolved overnight. My boss went MIA. I think the frat boys were involved in something darker than glorified Airbnb. Maybe they pissed off the wrong guy in Moscow or Juárez. I think they were into some heavy dark stuff.”
“How long ago was this? How long ago did your company dissolve overnight?”
Rocco’s afraid that he sounds as if he’s imitating her when he’s just repeating what she said. He can’t bring himself to say that none of the neighborhood doormen recalled ever having seen her. Ruth might reply that’s no surprise, that it’s a terrible picture of them kissing, her face is practically squashed into his, and besides, doormen have come and gone, the management companies are nightmares, they hire and then fire the workers before they have to start paying benefits. Why is he interrogating her?
She’d have every reason to get defensive. Or would she? If she doesn’t have a job, where does she get her money? She dresses well, wears expensive perfume. Do her grandparents support her?
“Hello-o!” Ruth snaps her fingers, close enough to his face to be annoying but not close enough to be infuriating. “Are you still with me? The start-up vanished into thin air . . . let’s see, three days ago. No, wait. Four. You were up in the country. My God, Rocco, we must be in really close touch, I mean psychically, if you sensed there was a problem there—and you went to find me.”
“The doormen had never heard of you and your company.” Rocco is sorry the minute he says it.
Ruth coughs so long and hard that Rocco hands her his water glass and makes her take a sip.
After a while, Ruth croaks, “Everybody got threatened. The consensus was: What happened never happened. There never was a STEP start-up. I wasn’t supposed to know, but I heard that two guys showed up in the lobby with guns. I wouldn’t be surprised if the doorman quit on the spot.”
“And it took you all this time to tell me?”
“Listen, Rocco, please. I know this might seem strange, but will you watch a movie with me? I want to show you something.”
They get up and get half dressed and go into the living room and nestle on the big couch in front of the flat-screen. Ruth clicks through the streaming channels until she finds a French film about a guy who gets fired and can’t tell his family and leaves for work at the same time every day and goes and sits in his car and comes home when his workday is supposed to be over.
Rocco’s tired. The subtitles flash across the screen too fast for him to read.