His shoulder learned the shape of mine

The doorman's shoulder found mine again. Same one as last week. I know it was the same one because my bruise — the one I have been not mentioning to my mother — lit up on contact, a second press into the same already-sore spot. He did not step back. I did not look at him. Looking would make it a record and a record requires evidence and I have none, only a shoulder that is learning the shape of a man I will never name.

I walked in and the hostess opened the door herself. Long windows onto the avenue, a husband hovering at the study doorway with a glass he never finished. A second chair at the table, empty. I will find out who belongs in that chair. I will find out Saturday, alone, when I come back to watch.

She asked me, smiling with nothing warm behind it, whether I had brought my little helper today. I said nothing for so long the silence became my answer and I could tell she heard it. I am keeping a list. Not on paper. In the animal part of my brain where I rank people into bins they don't know about.

At 10:15 her daughter wandered in and asked if she could touch a braid. I crouched. She held one plait for nine seconds. I counted. That child will never know what those nine seconds did. I am not her mother. I am the woman who crouches.

By lunch I counted four hundred dollars in hundreds into my own palm under her eye and did not say thank you. That was a decision too. She watched me count her money like I was checking for fakes. I was not checking for fakes.