Work Trip
A Mercy Short Story
This is a deleted chapter from Mercy, the novel that I intend to start serializing in January 2025. The flow isn’t right for the book, but it’s great for a sample! Isla is the New Business Liason for Scottsville City Hall; Bill is the City Manager. Here they’re attending a conference to try to find some new businesses to attract to their small city in Maine.
It was dark when Isla picked Bill up Monday morning. She’d insisted on driving to Boston, needing at least that much control over the situation. She used to imagine that Bill lived in a basement apartment in a late 20th century split-level ranch. He ate all his meals with his Mom, who lived upstairs, and spent Saturdays vacuuming the whole house like he had since he was 12. The decor was tidy and ugly, lots of quilted geese in embroidery hoops, fake flowers, that sort of thing. Of course, Isla was the one who actually lived with her parents, but that was different because...well, because she wasn’t Bill.
Anyway, she’d been all wrong about him. He lived in an apartment in a downtown building a very short walk from City Hall. She had never been there because it was too small for office gatherings, though she had no doubt he’d have hosted them if he could. But she’d heard all about it because he was so excited to get it. City Hall was his life; living practically in it was a dream come true.
<<I’m here.>> Isla texted.
<<Great! Good morning! I just need to pack a couple more things. Want to come grab a cup of coffee? I have plenty of mugs.>>
Isla did not, of course, want to grab a cup of coffee, since the casual intimacy of doing such a thing might imply they were friends or something.
<<No thanks, I need to do a better job of scraping the windshield since I have a minute.>> Weak, but better than nothing, she hoped.
She didn’t leave the car, but she kept it running for the heat. Soon Bill was stooping to look in the window, smiling with sheer delight. She wound it down.
“Good morning!” Bill enthused.
“Just toss your stuff in the back seat,” she said.
“Great scraping job,” he said as they pulled away from the curb, “Great visibility!”
“Uh huh.” She rolled her eyes in the dark.
Bill talked a lot. She listened for key words that might indicate he was saying something she needed to know, “Main Street”, “businesses”, “the conference”, “contacts”, “investors”, “owners”, but they didn’t come up much. Instead she caught, “bagel”, “vegan cream cheese”, and then, as he traced his way back to supper, “stuffed crust.”
“So are you a vegan or not, then?”
“Oh no, I’m not,” Bill assured her.
“But the vegan cream cheese…?”
“Oh I just heard great things about it so I gave it a try.”
“Heard great things from vegans I assume?”
“Yes, that’s right.” He nodded encouragingly, as if she were an infant who had just figured out which hole the toy triangle goes in. He was insufferable.
“I’m going to get a coffee. You want anything?” She pulled into the drive-thru at Dunks.
“You should have come in and gotten the free joe!” He waved his travel mug cheerfully. She noticed how freshly clean and shaved and vaguely chalky his pink jowls were.
It started snowing in Eliot. The roads became greasy and it would take awhile for the sand trucks to get around. A dicey moment when she braked at the on ramp led Bill to offer to drive, a note of gallantry in his voice.
“I’ve got it.” She said. She turned on the radio in hopes he would be quiet.
Parking in Boston was, as usual, a joy, although the snow had continued thick and fast, so ducking into the garage did come as a bit of a relief. The lobby of the conference center was wet and gritty with gray slush. Their conference was in “Ballroom #1”, which was plush with thick maroon and gold carpets, velour chairs, deep molding on the walls and chandeliers. Impressive, perhaps, and Bill said, “Mi’lady” and bowed as they entered. Isla snorted.
A woman with a clipboard bustled up and checked the name tags that served as passes, hanging from their necks on lanyards. “Some of the exhibitors are a bit late,” she said anxiously.
“That’s ok,” Bill said, “Plenty to see already.” A nice thought, but not really true. He left a pamphlet on each table that had a “reserved” placard on it. Isla noticed three hours later that both placards and pamphlets were in most cases still untouched. She wearily sat down with a hot dog in a soggy bun from a vendor in the hallway and looked at the dozen business cards in her hand. Bill found her.
“Wow, this is great,” he said, though perhaps slightly lacking in conviction, “I’ve just been talking with a guy who manufactures dog dishes. I think he might be a good contact.”
“Is he looking to move his factory?”
“I think he might open a retail shop?”
“Did he say so?”
Bill shrugged. “Oh, and I met a great burger chef!”
“There’s burgers?” Isla paused mid-bite.
“Not here, but his menu looks great.”
She nodded wearily. “Bring it along. I’ll e-mail him. That’s not a bad idea, actually.”
“Think we should stay after lunch?”
“Is there anyone that we haven’t talked to?”
Bill shook his head with an accomplished air. “Nope, I think we’ve hit every one. Maybe twice!”
“What time is check-in at the hotel?”
“3. Hey, want to walk around the city?” He smiled to generate enthusiasm.
Isla loved the city, but she didn’t think she loved the city with Bill. She also wasn’t sure she loved the city in slush 2 inches deep, and the Christmas windows still made her sad.
“Love to, but I’m at work.” Bill sighed and chuckled appreciatively as Isla continued. “I think I’ll just head to the hotel and see if I can get started with these e-mails in the business center while I wait until check in. If you don’t want to come, you could take the T, or just text me, I’ll come back for you.”
“I can take the Uber,” Bill said. His smile seemed smaller and faker than usual, but he nodded to reassure her.
“Ok, sounds good. See you later.” Isla grabbed her backpack and strode off before he could try to make plans for supper. She felt a little bad, but not bad enough to subject herself to an afternoon and evening with him.
It was kind of a shame, she thought as she sat with her laptop in the drafty hotel lobby, to have come all this way and have time on her hands and just be doing the same old thing she did every day at the office. Bill was posting selfies at the Art Museum, some of them with museum staff or passers by. He needed friends, she thought sadly; it couldn’t, wouldn’t be her, but she still felt a pang of guilt about it.
At 3:30, she wandered to the lobby to check in and passed the pool. Bill was doing slow laps, the only one there. He resembled a mottled pink walrus, she thought, pinker than usual in the damp heat of the pool room. Then she thought ruefully, Why can’t I be kinder? She fed a dollar bill into the vending machine. Well, after all, walruses are surprisingly graceful in the water.
At about 5, he texted her. <<Want to get some supper? Hotel restaurant looks good.>>
<<Oh, man, I’m sorry, just ordered pizza to my room.>> She immediately opened the Domino’s app.
<<Want to bring it to the lobby? I’ll get some, too.>>
<<Think I’m just going to sit back and see what’s on TV if you don’t mind.>> She knew he did mind, but she just couldn’t bear his happy bobbing face, trying to find something to talk about, trying to engage her when she didn’t have anything to say, trying to pretend they were friends.
<<Ok, see you in the morning.>>
She was on her fourth episode of Celebrity Chefs at 9:30, not sleepy, lazily flipping through the room service menu. She wasn’t hungry, really, but she decided she could pick at some french fries with cheese and bacon for fun. They wouldn’t be good; they’d be mushy and too greasy and the cheese would be some sort of synthetic concoction. But she picked up the phone anyway.
“I’m sorry, room service stopped at 9, but you can pick up an order in the bar. Name please?”
“Uh...Isla Campbell.” She hadn’t wanted to leave the room, but oh well. It would just be for a minute.
The fries weren’t ready. She slid into a seat to wait. It wasn’t crowded, of course, but there was someone loudly talking to a buddy about a home improvement project gone wrong. And there was an unsmiling man staring at her from the other side of the horseshoe shaped bar. He made no attempt to hide his gaze, and he didn’t look away. He looked angry, not wildly so, but coldly and strongly. Isla felt suddenly vulnerable. She would maybe forget about the fries. She slid back off of the bar stool and as she turned, saw in her peripheral vision that the man had quaffed off the rest of his drink as he also rose to go.
But in front of her, near the door, she saw Bill, sitting in a booth with a menu. He didn’t see her. His face without the pasted on smile seemed older, more lined. His neck creased at his collar. She’d never noticed the stoop in his shoulders. He seemed smaller, though still thick about the waist. He seemed lonely and uncertain. Was it her fault?
The man from the bar brushed past her, very close to her, brushing her with his coat, turning to meet her eyes as he did. She saw him take a chair in the lobby facing the elevators. He picked up a magazine.
She sat down with Bill. “Come here often?” she said, by way of a casual joke to break the ice but becoming instantly flustered as it occurred to her that it was a classic pick-up line.
Bill didn’t take notice or make it awkward. He smiled a smile that for once she knew wasn’t fake but, instead, relieved, and in the back of her mind wondered if she’d ever been reading his smiles correctly.
“Hi! Great to see you.” As if it had been months and not hours. But why was she so critical, she wondered. She was not the poster child for knowing what to say to people. “I was just getting a bite.”
“Me too.”
“Oh! I thought you had pizza?”
“Haha I did...this is just a snack. You didn’t eat yet?”
“Didn’t get around to it.”
“Too much HGTV?”
Bill laughed as if her jokes were funny. “No, no, I got to talking to some folks in the lobby. Lots of interesting people coming through.” Bill nattered on and on about Trekkies and toddlers, asylum seekers, Mr. and Mrs. Santa, while Isla thought about how annoyed she’d be to encounter someone as chatty as Bill in a hotel lobby. But then, she wasn’t everyone.
When the food came, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. Isla was beginning to be tired. She ate half the fries. “I think I might head up to hit the hay,” she said, “I’m sorry to abandon you.”
“Oh that’s ok,” Bill said, “Want to take the fries?”
“Nah, I won’t eat them and I don’t want to carry them around the city tomorrow.”
“Ok. I’ll take care of them.” Annoyance flashed through Isla’s mind, needlessly. She was sure the waiter would take care of them. She wasn’t asking Bill for anything. But then, what did it matter? “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Bill was saying.
“See ya.”
The lobby was big and cold with a high ceiling. The front desk was vacant, and Isla hoped the check-in clerk was fetching a mop; all the tracked in slush from the storm was making the tile floors slick. Isla’s footsteps echoed in the bright, empty, chilly lobby and she shivered; she just wanted to get back to her dark, snug little room and fall asleep to House Hunters.
The elevator bell dinged; Isla stepped through the doors as they parted and right behind her, startlingly close, was the stranger from the bar. Her eyes met his for one terrifying moment before she could stop herself from looking into his face; he must have been watching; he must have been right around the corner; he must have been so close he could reach out and touch her; he must have not wanted her to know; he must…
“Hold it!” Bill’s shrill voice called out. The man reached for the door close button as Isla reached for the open; Bill slid in between the closing doors. Isla had never been so glad to see his florid, oblivious face. “Whew, just made it! Three, aren’t we?” he asked Isla as he pushed the button. “What are you?” He asked the broad-shouldered stranger. Isla braced herself to hear his voice; she was somehow afraid to. But the man just glared at Bill and pushed the 2. The doors opened almost as soon as they’d closed and he strode out, staring a threat into Isla’s eyes one more time.
As the doors clanged shut, Isla slumped against the wall. “Oh Bill,” she laughed slightly, “We’re not 3. We’re 8.”
“Oh!” he laughed, “Why didn’t you say so?” The doors opened on 3 and just as they closed, Isla saw the door to the stairwell begin to open and her scalp prickled.
“Nevermind,” she said.
“So up and at ‘em early tomorrow, huh? I think our first appointment is at 8.”
“Mm...hmm,” Isla’s brain was still buzzing, “Ok, um….what time does breakfast start?”
“6:30? Meet you then?”
“Ok…” Their floor. Isla wanted to run to her room. The angry man wouldn’t search every floor, would he? How could he? Why would he? She should report him; what would she report? A man got on the elevator with me? And then he got off?
Bill’s room was right across the hall from hers. They put their keys in and opened their doors.
“Good-night,” Isla said.
“Sweet dreams,” Bill’s trying-too-hard smile washed over Isla, the something lonely and beseeching in his eyes, so benign and unthreatening.
“You too,” she said, and smiled a real smile at him for maybe the first time ever.
Isla put on her pjs, brushed her teeth, and piled all of the furniture in front of the hotel door. Then she got into bed, pulled the fluffy duvet up over her head and shoulders so that just her face peeked out, and turned on the TV to drown out any thinking.
Morning came too soon. She had asked for a wake-up call and set alarms on her phone and the radio; she was taking no chances of oversleeping and being woken up by a call from Bill. The day was starting to dawn and looked like it would be clear, washed clean by yesterday’s storm. She felt good when she saw the grey light beginning to come through her windows.
She arrived in the lobby just as a stout middle-aged woman was putting out a tray of waffle batter. By the time Bill came, she was sitting at a table in the breakfast nook of the lobby, just opening a container of strawberry yogurt. She watched him greet a toddler that had waved excitedly at him, then saw him stride towards her with new confidence.
“Good morning, Chicklet!” Bill said cheerily, evidently buoyed by that moment of friendliness last night.
“Never,” she said authoritatively, “Call me Chicklet again.”
“No,” Bill said, sitting down, “No, I won’t.” Then he stood back up to get his breakfast.
Bill came back with a waffle and orange juice. A couple at the next table leaned over jovially. “Live long and prosper,” said the man. Bill smiled and raised his hand in a Vulcan greeting before turning his attention back to Isla.
“Could you run me through the agenda for today again, please?” she inquired politely, frostily.
“Ah, yes...yes of course.” Bill’s eyes were quizzical and a little sad. She noticed the network of fine lines around them and rushed to quench a tiny spark of empathy somewhere deep inside of her. She had never asked, she thought, never wanted, to get to know Bill well enough to see past his onerous fake cheerfulness, and she didn’t know what to do with him now that she had.
After breakfast, they retrieved their bags and checked out; Bill’s tiny rolling suitcase hummed busily behind him as they walked out into the chilly day. Isla got into the driver’s seat and said, “Where are we going now?”
For more stories in the Mercy world, try these, previously published on Substack:
It stopped too soon! I want to read more>