The Way Inn Read Online Free

trains. But because we so often found ourselves proximal, Maurice had developed the impression that he and I were friends. He was monstrously mistaken on this point.
    â€œMorning, morning all,” he said to us, setting his coffee and Danish-heaped plate on the table and sitting down opposite me. I smiled at him; whatever my private feelings about Maurice, however devoutly I might wish that he leave me alone, I had no desire to be openly hostile to him. He was an irritant, for sure, but no threat.
    â€œGlad to see you down here, old man,” Maurice said to me, not allowing the outward flow of words to impede the inward flow of coffee and pastry. Crumbs flew. “I was concerned about you when we parted. You disappeared to bed double-quick. I thought you might pass in the night.”
    â€œI was very tired,” I said, plainly.
    â€œOr,” Maurice said, leaning deep into my precious bubble of personal space, “maybe you were in a hurry to find that girl’s room!” He started to laugh at his own joke, a phlegmy smoker’s laugh.
    â€œNo, no,” I said. I am not good at banter. What is the origin of the ability to participate in and enjoy this essentially meaningless wrestle-talk? No doubt it was incubated by attentive fathering and close-knit workplaces, and I had little experience of either of those. At the conferences, I was forever seeing reunions of men—coprofessionals, opposite numbers, former colleagues—who had not seen one another in months or years, and the small festivals of rib-prodding, backslapping, insult and innuendo that ensued.
    â€œWhat’s this?” Phil asked, clearly amused at my discomfort. Rosa/Rhoda’s expression was harder to read; mild offense? Social awkwardness? Disappointment, or even sexual jealousy? I hoped the latter, pleased by the possibility alone.
    â€œNeil made a friend last night,” Maurice said. “I found him trying it on with this girl . . .” he paused, eyes closed, hands raised, before turning to Rosa: “. . . excuse me, this woman . . . in the bar.”
    â€œJesus, Maurice,” I said, and then turning to Rosa and Phil: “I ran into someone I know last night and was chatting with her when Maurice showed up. Obviously, at the sight of him, she excused herself and went to bed.”
    Maurice chuckled. “I don’t know. You looked pretty smitten. Didn’t mean to cock-block you.”
    â€œ Jesus , Maurice.”
    â€œYou’re a dark horse, Neil,” Phil said.
    â€œJust a friend,” I said, directing this remark mostly at Rosa/Rhoda.
    â€œOf course, of course,” she said. Then she stood, holding up her phone like a get-out-of-conversation-free card. “Excuse me.”
    â€œSo, what’s her name, then?” Maurice asked. “Your friend.”
    A sickening sense of disconnection rose in my throat. I didn’t know her name. Against astonishing odds I had reencountered the one truly memorable stranger from the millions who pass through my sphere, and I had failed to ask her name or properly introduce myself. I had kept the contact temporary, disposable, when I could have done something to make it permanent. Maurice’s arrival in the bar had broken the spell between us, the momentary intimacy generated by the coincidence, before I had been able to capitalize on it. And now I was failing to answer Maurice’s question. He surely saw my hesitation and sense the blankness behind it.
    â€œBecause you could ask the organizers, leave a message for her. They might be able to find her.”
    â€œShe’s not here for the conference,” I said, relieved that I could deviate from this line of questioning without lying.
    â€œNot here for the conference?” Maurice said, now blinking exaggeratedly, pantomiming his surprise in case anyone missed it. All of Maurice’s expressions were exaggerated for dramatic effect. When not