“Do you see yours?” Holly asked. Peter looked and immediately saw his garment bag. His heart sank as he watched it approach, unstoppably. He knew that as soon as it reached him, Holly and he would part. “There it is,” he said, and picked up the bag. Now the two looked at each other once more. He knew it: as soon as she left his sight, the world would close up over her, the way a pond closes up over a pebble that’s thrown into it, and she would be lost. He would even begin to wonder if she had ever existed.
“I guess I better get my rental car,” he said.
“Dad ordered a car for me,” said Holly. “I guess it should be outside.”
They looked at each other. The carousel continued to turn. A couple of times, they both began and halted a movement to embrace. Then Holly lightly pressed the fingers of her right hand against the breast pocket of his suit jacket, which was right above the breast pocket of his shirt, which was right above his heart.
“Call me about dinner,” she said. “Dad can make his specialty. I hope you like goat.”
“I do! I mean, I’m sure I would, if I’d ever eaten it.”
Holly dropped her arm down and he caught her fingers in his left hand, held them for a second, and let them go.
So long, he said. Bye, she said. She picked up her suitcase and walked away, turned once after she had gone a few yards to smile back at him, continued on; and then Peter lost her in the crowd.
Peter took a deep breath. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to fix a picture of Holly in his mind. Then he slipped two fingers into his shirt pocket and felt the page from the paperback; then he patted his jacket in that spot a couple of times. He stood still a moment. And now he had to begin to collect his thoughts. He checked that he had everything. His laptop, his briefcase, his garment bag. He slung the laptop case over his shoulder and picked up the other two, the regulation battle array for the traveling businessman. He started off, looking for the signs that would point him to the rental car agencies. The trail wasn’t well marked, and he got turned around a couple of times, and when he finally did find the right place he looked at his watch and realized he better call the Los Angeles office and his own office to check messages. So he put down all his stuff and got out his primitive cell phone. A meeting had been changed. Back in New York, somebody needed some numbers. Now he had to decide: it would actually be a waste of time to call the person in New York. But he would look efficient if he called from the airport. So he did, and he and his colleague had a pointless discussion that nevertheless made them both feel better about having “touched base.” Peter had, he thought, conveyed proper on-the-ballness. He made two other arguably unnecessary calls. Taking a small notebook out of his briefcase, he used the plastic mechanical pencil to scribble some reminders to himself and then clipped the pencil inside his shirt pocket. It didn’t occur to him that Holly had just held that pencil, for by now his mind was like a set that had been struck and entirely rebuilt for a new scene. He couldn’t think about Holly when he was thinking about all the expectations he had to meet over several different time horizons. Most immediately, there were the logistics of renting the car and driving to his hotel, a nontrivial challenge in this city. Then there was his schedule for the next couple of days. He had it all recorded in several places, but he could not help going over it again and again, re-solving the same problems of how he would get from one meeting to another on time, girding himself for the possibility that a client might actually ask him a question, refiguring some calculations. Lurking behind these thoughts were worries about a couple of matters that he knew he hadn’t attended to properly. Still further forward in time, he had to consider how the results of this trip would play in New York. And then there were the projects that were to come to fruition within the next few months. And, finally, while he stood there in line for his rental car, his thoughts leapt all the way ahead to the rest of his life and career.
At the counter now, he listened as the attendant in her tie and vest explained that there was a problem with his reservation. He accepted the offer to go bigger for the same amount and signed in all the appropriate places. Before moving on, he checked again: garment bag, laptop, briefcase. Wallet. Credit card back in wallet. Contract in inside jacket pocket. Map from the rental-car counter. The drive into Los Angeles was not too bad. Stuck in traffic, he remembered something else he needed to do and awkwardly jotted that down on his map. He got off at the right exit, although he suddenly had to cross several lanes of traffic to do so. He found the huge intersections nerve-wracking. Twice, coming from both directions, he overshot his hotel. But finally he arrived.
He checked in. The clerk handed Peter a large envelope that had been hand-delivered, documents and binders sent over from the Los Angeles office, and, following a well-practiced script, he described some of the hotel’s special services and its various breakfast offerings. “I very much hope you enjoy your stay with us,” the clerk said. In his room, Peter hung up his jacket. Sitting on the bed, he returned more calls. On one, he had to dance around a bit. Then he lowered his back on the bed. He took a deep breath. He squeezed his eyes shut. And then, as if there had been music playing all this time, particularly beautiful music, which he had been too distracted to notice, Holly came into his mind. Now he swelled with a simple, single feeling. All his worries melted away. A picture of Holly appeared. She was standing on a scrubby, dusty California hillside and the late afternoon sun caressed her face. She was smiling at him. Maybe … he wondered … would she have gotten home? … maybe he could call her right now?
Lying there on his back and staring at the ceiling, Peter became aware of the left side of his chest, the place under his shirt pocket. He felt the pressure of Holly’s fingers there. He wondered … he wondered if he could possibly feel the weight of a folded piece of paper in his shirt pocket? Of course not. He lay on his back looking at the ceiling and thinking about Holly, about the page from The Magic Mountain, the title page, on which she had written “Holly” and her father’s phone number. He lay on his back staring at the ceiling and thinking about these things. He was preparing to lift his right hand and retrieve the page. He paused before doing so. He paused a little longer.
Then he did lift his right hand and inserted the index and middle fingers into his shirt pocket. The starched oxford cloth felt surprisingly rough and sharp. He waggled his fingers inside the pocket; he didn’t feel a piece of paper. He waggled his fingers again, and then he put his hand down by his side. Still lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, he took a couple of deep breaths. All the blood seemed to drain from his body. The piece of paper was gone.
He knew that within seconds his heart would race and his nerves crackle; for the moment, though, he felt the odd, stunned serenity of a condemned man. Now, using both hands to keep the pocket open, he looked inside. He turned the pocket inside out. The piece of paper was lost, there was no doubt about that. Peter would surely conduct a frantic and thorough search. Like a drunk desperate to find enough change for a drink, he would turn out all the pockets of his clothes, where he would find all those little pieces of paper that he had accumulated during his trip. “Not valid for flight.” He would rifle through the documents in his briefcase and then, with steely patience, turn them over one by one. He would slide his hands around the various plastic sleeves of his laptop case, finding errant pens and business cards. He would retrace his steps to the front desk and then to his car, where he would unfold and refold and unfold his rental car contract and open the trunk. Then, returning to his room, he would in one last frenzy strip out every article of clothing in his garment bag and search through all the pockets and every pleat and cuff. He would even look in the pockets of the shirts that were still in the plastic bag from the cleaners. Magicians did things like that, didn’t they? The card you picked would appear inside another sealed deck, or an apple?
All of this would be completely useless, he knew, but he would do it. He stared at the ceiling. He closed his eyes. He could see the printed words on the page clearly. As for the handwriting, he could remember its general look and the space it took up, but he could not picture anything specific, except the name: “Holly.”
Holly.