The Girl in the Box 01 - Alone

by Crane, Robert J.

  She thumbed an icon for an orange concoction – a Sex on the Beach – and the display brought up a close-up of the drink alongside a description and a breakdown of its contents. And that cheery voice again: “Good choice! Please swipe your card.”

  Her purse was tucked into the inner pocket of her jacket, so Samantha withdrew it, took out a thin, clear piece of plastic, and swiped it over a sensor in the display’s bottom corner. A second later the screen turned green, her card had been debited, and a glass was flipped out by a mechanised arm from beneath the bar. Before Samantha could even blink, a tube joined the arm and sloshed out the liquid, hummed before spitting out two crescents of ice, and whipped out of sight.

  Samantha sighed, ran a tentative finger around the top edge of the glass. Leaning forward, she lifted it just an inch and sipped.

  Well. At least it wasn’t bad.

  “Excuse me?”

  Samantha looked up. To her right stood the man whose back had been to her when she walked in. He stood back a short distance – maybe a metre or so – and there was this wary, almost deferential kind of look on his face. Probably isn’t coming any closer in case I bite, Samantha thought.

  “Err, hi,” the man stammered after he didn’t receive a response. “I, um – well, I wondered if I might buy you a drink maybe?”

  Samantha lifted the glass laconically. “Already got one, thanks.”

  The man pulled a face, wiped a hand across his brow. “Yeah, I see that. Um …” He faltered a moment or two and laughed nervously. His eyes darted to the other side of the bar, and both of them knew he wished he’d never come over. Then he looked back at her, drew a sheepish grin, and continued. “Sorry. I’m being pretty clumsy, aren’t I?”

  One blonde eyebrow drifted up on the woman’s face … and then without really thinking about it she said, “A little.”

  The man took this as cue to take the seat one down from her, leaving that same safe distance between them. He eyed the drinks menu momentarily as it greeted him in its chipper tone, then swivelled sideways and looked awkwardly at her.

  With a sidelong glance, Samantha took him in. A choppy mop of black hair topped his head, his face was lean and boyish and set with dull blue eyes, and there was a very fine covering of stubble on his cheeks. He wore a jacket – much drier than Samantha’s – and a pair of partially frayed jeans which had faded across the front. Probably close to her age, Samantha thought; maybe a little older.

  “I haven’t seen you here before, have I?” the man asked.

  Samantha sipped. “I sincerely doubt it.”

  All he did was nod at that, and then turned to his display. Samantha took the opportunity to twist away from him, just incrementally – just enough to perhaps give the hint that she wanted to be alone.

  The song changed, fading from the low beat to something frenetic and poppy. Samantha definitely didn’t recognise this.

  “Good choice!” came a muted electronic voice, followed by, “Please swipe your card.”

  The man did, and in short order a pint glass presented itself and was filled with a brownish liquid. Cider maybe; it had an amber sort of colour and less a head than a film of froth.

  But Samantha’s deterrent wasn’t enough; the man said, “Looks like you got pretty wet. Weather out there’s nasty, huh?”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  Another pause – and was it inexplicably less awkward than before? – and then the man turned in his chair and stuck out a hand.

  “My name’s Rupert.”

  For a moment Samantha eyed it tentatively – and then she swivelled halfway and extended a hand of her own. “Samantha.”

  A bright smile passed over Rupert’s face. “It’s good to meet you, Samantha.”

  3

  The wall behind Thoroughfare’s bar was lined with bottles – all of them empty, just for show. After taking one, two long draughts of his drink, it was these that Rupert studied.

  “So,” he said, “forgive me for asking, but what were you doing out in the storm? Streets are usually pretty clear this time of evening when the sun’s out, let alone pouring it down.”

  “I got out of work late,” Samantha answered. Like Rupert, she didn’t look around; instead she lifted her glass, leant in and drank from it. The ice was working fast. Not ideal. The rain hadn’t been cold, but as it seeped further into her clothes she was starting to feel the first hints of a chill. No, Samantha didn’t need a cocktail topped off with ice. What she needed was something like hot chocolate – teaspoons extra heaped.

  “What do you do?” Rupert asked.

  “Graphic design.”

  Rupert made an impressed kind of noise. Samantha had heard it before. Apparently in some circles confessing you worked in the entirely unglamorous world of graphic design was on par with announcing you were a brain surgeon. “Not bad!” Rupert looked across to face her. “What kinds of things do you work on? Like logos, or products …?”

  “My team is product design,” she responded, and then after a momentary pause she tacked on, “We’re behind on an upcoming deadline and I got stuck there for a few hours and missed my bus. And all the ones that came after it.”

  “Riding out the storm in here, then.”

  “Pretty much.”

  Silence descended upon the two again save for the music playing in the background, which drew to a very low, very quiet crescendo and then petered out. Nothing came in its wake.

  Rupert pushed out of the chair and returned to the jukebox, taking his half-finished glass with him. Great, Samantha thought to herself. Maybe he’s done talking to me now.

  He wasn’t.

  “Any requests?”

  Samantha’s eyebrows twitched. She cocked her head across her shoulder. “What?”

  Rupert nodded his head toward the jukebox. “Any requests?”

  “I, uh …” Ah, music; another of those things Samantha was out of touch with – and now she’d have to admit it. Which was always wonderfully embarrassing. Especially when it was a stranger you were stuck alone with. “Um, I don’t really listen to much music, I’m afraid.” A touch of red bloomed, if only very slightly, at the tops of her cheeks.

  “No?” Rupert asked. He nodded to himself, shrugged and turned around. “Never mind. I’ll pick a few songs. You can tell me what you think afterward.”

  Samantha stared. He was so determined. His interruption had been unexpected (and maybe even a touch pleasant), but now all she wanted was to be left in peace, to drink her drink (drinks?) and then wander home whenever she was permitted. Just because she was the only other person in the place didn’t mean she wanted his company. Even if his attention and clumsiness had been, in a way, sort of nice.

  A new song started. This had a jazzy sort of twang, an American woman singing over the top. As Samantha listened to the intro, she took another sip of her cocktail. A third of it was gone now, and in addition to becoming ever colder it only served to remind her that her stomach was empty.

  God, she was so hungry. Did this place do food? She didn’t suppose it did. Or if it did then it was the kind that was dispensed through a tube; certainly nothing hot.

  She looked down at the screen, but it had dulled and changed to match the surrounding mahogany. So well did it match, in fact, that she had to run her fingers across to even locate the minute seam between device and surface.

  “Having trouble?”

  Samantha looked up. Rupert had returned and he peered at Samantha’s futile swiping. Still the screen remained, for all intents and purposes, dead.

  “Um,” she started, feeling another hot rush in her cheeks out of embarrassment, “yeah.” She looked back down at it, rubbed her fingers across this way and that, jabbed in a few places, and then turned back to him. “Do you know how this thing works?”

  Rupert leant forward and indicated a tiny red dot an inch or so beneath the screen’s bottom edge. “See this? Touch it and the display reactivates.”

  He pressed it lightly, and th
e faux mahogany the screen had displayed faded and was replaced with the menu from before.

  “Hello! Welcome to Thoroughfare! Please make your selection.”

  Samantha glanced at Rupert. He grinned back at her, not condescendingly, and she averted her eyes and mumbled, “Easy when you know how.”

  “Don’t get out much?” he asked.

  “Err, no.”

  He made an ‘mm’ kind of a noise and nodded, and then slipped back down into a seat – but not the seat he’d first had, but the one right beside her! Samantha tried not to shoot him a sidelong glance – or glare – and instead fixated on the menu in front of her, that twinge of redness still riding the very tops of her cheeks like the first hints of sunburn.

  The first screen on the display was full with only drinks, but along the right-hand side were a number of sub-categories. Right at the bottom, stylised with a cartoon graphic of a crisp packet, was an icon underlined by the word FOOD. Samantha thumbed it.

  Just as she’d thought. Nothing hot: only pub snacks. Crisps, nuts, crackers, pork scratchings … She cringed inwardly, touched the icon for salted peanuts – and was cut off by Rupert swiping his card before the electronic voice could even prompt.

  Samantha stared at him as a mechanical arm flipped a white ceramic bowl onto the bar surface and a tube appeared to spew out a mound of nuts. Rupert grinned back.

  “Think of it as that drink I couldn’t get you.”

  Peanuts all coughed out into a neat heap, the tube removed itself from sight with a whir. A moment’s pause, and Samantha muttered a slow, “Right. Thanks for that,” before turning to her bowl and leaning forward on crossed arms. Cocky fucker.

  These peanuts would have to do, Samantha mused. Something in her stomach was better than nothing – even if she wished the something was something more substantial. Like chips. Or a burger.

  As she ate, Rupert hummed along to the song, tapping out the beat on the bar with his hands. The only pause came when he picked up his glass to drink again, and even then it gave only three to four seconds of respite.

  Something quicker replaced the jazzy number, with electric guitar and a frenzied drumbeat. That made Samantha’s nose turn up.

  Rupert caught it. “Not a fan?”

  “No.”

  “What about the last one?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

  Samantha shrugged, swallowed a half-chewed peanut and said, “It was okay. Better than this.”

  “I guess it’s kind of an acquired taste.”

  He went back to tapping out the beat on the bar, although much faster this time, and he struggled to keep up in places. Samantha continued at her bowl, took another sip of the cocktail – the coldness stung the ends of her front teeth – and shot a glance toward the door. Two very thin, very long panes of glass were inset in the wood. Rain continued to hammer down, and a very brief flash of lightning threw the buildings opposite into relief.

  Samantha wasn’t going anywhere for a while. Well, it could be worse. Rupert hadn’t yet asked the next logical question she usually received about her work, and that was a pleasant change.

  “So what kinds of products do you design?”

  Well. Wasn’t that something.

  4

  “Mostly packaging,” Samantha said. She pulled a face. “On occasion we’ll have toys or games, but it’s rare. Nothing too quirky.”

  Rupert nodded. “What’re you working on right now?”

  “Can’t say. Non-disclosure agreement until it’s launched.”

  Rupert snapped a finger and punched his leg in mock frustration. “Damn. Still, sounds pretty interesting.”

  Does it? Samantha thought. Does it really?

  “So is that near here, or …? No, it must be. Or you wouldn’t be out in the rain like this.”

  It was Samantha’s turn to nod. “Quarter mile away, give or take. At a business park nearby.”

  “Oh, I know the one you mean!” Rupert’s eyebrows knitted, and he started clicking his fingers. “Erm, Haagensen? Haakenson?”

  “Close,” Samantha said. “Haakenstad.”

  “Ah.” Rupert seemed to visibly relax into his chair. “What kind of name do you suppose that is? German?”

  Samantha shrugged. She picked up another peanut, popped it between her lips. After she swallowed she said, “Dutch maybe?”

  “Dutch,” Rupert said, nodding slowly. “Dutch. You know, I think you might be right.” And he looked at her and grinned.

  Before Samantha could stop them, her lips turned up in an inexplicable smile. She twisted back toward her peanuts, which were now almost gone, and pretended to fiddle with the hair on the right side of her face. Although she suspected he’d seen regardless. That was always the way it happened.

  But if he did, Rupert didn’t say anything. Instead he asked, “What do you think of this song?”

  Samantha opened her mouth to answer – with a no, because hip-hop was another brand of music she had not come to enjoy throughout her little exposure – when her phone jingled blaringly from her jacket pocket. She stepped up, grabbed at her folder and said, “Sorry, I’ve got to take this,” and hurried off into the ladies’ room.

  Door closed safely behind her, Samantha looked down at the display. It hadn’t been a call, but a text message – although Rupert didn’t need to know that.

  Where are you? Mum.

  Place called, Samantha began to type, hesitating as she tried to remember the name of the bar, Thoroughfare. Got out of work late and no buses. When’s the storm supposed to finish?

  Ten seconds passed before a reply came through.

  Not tonight. Want me to pick you up? Mum.

  Please. How long will you be?

  Another pause, then: Give me ten mins. Roads are wet. I’ll honk.

  Thanks.

  Samantha replaced the phone in her jacket pocket, gave herself a quick once-over in the wall-length mirror. She looked presentable, and her hair was even drying now, so she adjusted her jacket, realigned her folder in her grip and pushed back out into the bar.

  No one had entered in the short time she’d been gone; only Rupert was in the room still, moved to one side where he now stood observing a small framed painting – or print, most likely, Samantha thought – with a new glass in hand.

  He looked up. “Welcome back.”

  “Hi,” Samantha responded briskly, weaving between the seats for her former position at the bar.

  “It’s a Warhol,” Rupert said, cocking a thumb over his shoulder at the frame, then following up the stairs in her wake and dropping into the same seat beside her. “At least, I think it is. I’m not really up with art. I bet you are.”

  “Um, not really.” Samantha looked over her shoulder at the print briefly – it was small and she couldn’t really make it out from here – before turning back to her company. “Hey, do you want this?” she asked, lifting her glass and shaking it from side to side. “Or these?” she added, nudging the bowl of nuts.

  Rupert blinked. “Full already?”

  “No, no, just I’m being picked up in a moment. I got called by my – a, erm, friend.” Another flush of red rose to her cheeks, and Samantha felt herself burn at the embarrassment of the lie. Had he caught her hesitation? Fuck, probably he had. “We were supposed to meet up tonight and, um, I kind of forgot. Work and all.” And she laughed an awkward laugh that felt far too false. Probably felt about the same to Rupert.

  Rupert shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  “Thanks,” Samantha said with genuine relief. She flashed a quick grin, pushed the bowl and glass over to the man, and then let herself lower fully into the seat, unaware that she’d been tense. Then again, what was new?

  For a minute or so there was only music. Samantha would glance toward the door – and then after no more than twenty seconds, she’d glance again. Still the weather did not slow. Good thing her phone had gone off when it had. Now that she knew she was leaving, she couldn’t wait to be back home.

  �
�You never did answer my question, by the way.”

  Samantha jerked very slightly and looked around. “Hm?”

  “The song. I asked whether or not you like this kind of music.”

  “Oh! Um, no, not really,” she confessed.

  “Ah,” Rupert said. “Well, it’s not for everyone I suppose.”

  “I suppose not.”

  More quiet and more sidelong glances toward the door. How long had it been since Samantha had talked with her mum? Definitely not ten minutes yet. But it sure felt like it. And even if it had been, it would be more than ten minutes before her mother arrived, wouldn’t it? Because she’d have to get ready to go out – and that meant kitting out in her longest leather coat, digging out the umbrella, telling Imogen to be good –

  “Quiet tonight,” Rupert said, cutting through her thoughts.

  “Little bit.” And awkward now, too. God, he probably thought Samantha had begged her caller for a lift to get away from him. The creepy bar guy who’d started talking, bought her some peanuts and now, with no one else to talk to and no place to go unless he dared venturing out in the rain, was stuck forcing uncomfortable conversation with a girl who didn’t seem to be particularly interested. Christ, Samantha, you could at least be a little more outgoing. Just so he doesn’t feel quite so stung.

  She opened her mouth to force something, force anything – and from outside a horn blared once, twice, and then fell silent.

  Rupert glanced over. “That’ll be your ride, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Samantha said, slipping out of her seat and tucking her folder back in under her arm. “See you around.”

  “See you ‘round.”

  She reached the door in what was probably record time, extended a hand and grabbed the handle – and just for the slightest of instants, she paused. To say something, to cock her head back over her shoulder and just thank him, for the peanuts or the music or the impressively stilted conversation – anything whatsoever just to make him feel better for having come up to speak with her in the first place. And she was thankful, sort of, even if given the choice she’d’ve preferred him not to have bothered. Because he had at least made a nice gesture. And if it had been her, she knew that she’d be kicking herself and feeling like a social klutz for weeks.