The Safekeep(3)

Hendrik’s gaze drifted, refocused on the entrance: Louis had arrived. He was having a stern conversation with the ma?tre d’, leaning too far over the front desk, gesturing his argument. His new girl stood to the side, looking embarrassed and nervous, a shaky smile stuck on tightly. She had a violently peroxided bob, a badly made dress—the bodice had been sewn too tight and the hems were messy. Her face was very red. She was pretty in a way men thought women ought to be pretty.

“Good lord,” Isabel said, and Hendrik snorted. Louis looked up just then, to nod at them in indication to the manager. Hendrik waved good-naturedly. The couple made their way over, a fourth chair in tow, and the first thing Louis said was, “They said they didn’t have enough chairs, can you believe how—”

“I reserved for three,” Isabel said. Louis sat down in a huff, arranging his dinner jacket, and his girl hovered awkwardly—did an uneasy dance with the waiter who’d come with the extra chair, his trying to get the seat pushed under her, her not understanding, fumbling.

“They’re a restaurant,” Louis said. “They should have spare chairs.”

“Hello, Louis, welcome,” Hendrik said. The table stilled a moment. Then Louis answered with a sound, a short and frustrated sound, and got back out of his chair: leaned over to kiss Isabel, shake Hendrik’s hand. He smelled strongly of cologne. His hair was slicked back. His tie done tightly against the apple of his throat.

He said, “Hello. This is Eva.”

The girl rose to shake hands. She tipped over the flower piece with her chest, said “Oh no,” and tried to right it, accidentally pulled at the tablecloth when she sat back down. All the cutlery gave a shake.

Hendrik said: “Lovely to meet you.”

“Oh, it’s so good to meet you, both of you. I’ve heard so much, and I’ve been telling Louis how I’ve been wanting to meet you, haven’t I, Louis? Haven’t I been saying how much I—”

“She has,” Louis confirmed. He was inspecting the menu.

“So you two have known each other for—” Hendrik started, and Eva jumped back in with an “Oh, a little while but it feels like forever, doesn’t it, Louis? I always say, I always say how it’s only been a few months but I’m sure we must’ve known each other in a past life because I’m so certain we’re—”

“Shall we order?” Isabel said, waving down a passing waiter. Louis had kept them waiting. She wasn’t used to eating so late in the evening, was hungry, all the more irritated for it.

Eva, caught midbreath, kept her smile intact. She turned even redder. “All the same,” she said, and then trailed off, didn’t finish her thought. When it was her turn to order she fussed and said she’d never heard of half the words on the menu, and leaned into Louis and said, “Oh, but you order, darling. You’re always so smart about these things anyway.”

They went with the scallops. When the food arrived Eva asked what scallops were, and Louis meant to answer just as Hendrik jumped in and said, “Oh, but guess.”

Eva seemed caught out but then guessed, quietly: a potato of some sort?

No one said anything a moment, and then Hendrik jostled as though he’d been kicked under the table. He put his elbows on the table and asked Eva what it was that she did—if she studied, or worked, or lounged happily about all day—and Eva, in reply, cycled through a new flush, took her time in answering: putting down her cutlery, wiping her hands on her napkin, draining the last of her glass. It was her second, Isabel noted, or third. “Well,” Eva said. And, “Well, you see—” And then a tumble of words: “Oh, must we talk work? So boring.”

Isabel looked away, out the window. It was only the reflection of the restaurant, echoed back at them in muted shadows. She said, “You don’t seem the type who can afford to be bored of it.”

Louis said her name once, a dagger: “Isabel.”

Isabel met his gaze and offered no apology.

Louis said, “Eva is being humble. Aren’t you?” He didn’t wait for Eva to reply, answered for her: “Eva was a typist for Van Dongen. She stopped, recently, when ah, an… ah—”

“An aunt,” Eva supplied.

“An aunt, yes, you see, passed on a sum of money—”

“Yes,” said Eva, breathless.

“So this clever girl here is quite self-sufficient, Isabel. I don’t care to think about what you were implying.”

Isabel retreated into a sharp silence. The conversation continued—stopped and stuttered. Hendrik pushed at the tension, teased in a way that went over Eva’s head. Louis clearly noted it, then ignored it: with every irritation he turned to Eva and immediately went soft with a wet-eyed look, an easing of the mouth. Isabel thought the expression made him look stupid. Louis had also brought a girl to their mother’s funeral, years ago. She was in all the pictures now, and no one remembered her name. Not even Louis, the one time Isabel asked him. She’d been making an album.

When they were leaving the restaurant, Isabel excused herself to the bathroom. She hadn’t had much wine—it always made her heavy-headed, mean—but the little bit she’d had, in the humid evening, settled over her like a fever. She wet a paper towel, pressed it to her neck.

Eva came in right then. Isabel threw away the towel. Eva didn’t go into any of the cubicles: she leaned back against the counter, clumsy. She was drunker than Isabel. The crooked hemming of her dress showed even more like this. The lights gleaned brightly off the yolky shine of her hair. Isabel thought she could almost smell the peroxide.