Read You Don't Love This Man for Free Online Page B

whir, flutter, nor sigh from the cylinders, though, so I began approaching the customer side of the counter on purpose, hoping to provoke some observable effect in the things. On one slow afternoon I had even walked up and down the length of the counter, past all five teller stations, in a vain attempt to produce signs of life. The cameras remained silent. Catherine had called security, and they had assured her the system was working—the silence, it seemed, was intentional. In some climate-controlled warehouse, then, there hummed a server that stored among its digital mementos multiple five-image sequences of me walking. I liked to think a photo existed in which I was captured at a point of graceful, mid-stride levitation, but I also knew a large number of the images consisted of nothing but my face directly in front of the lens, peering in.
    It was Catherine and the police who were watching me right then, though, and waiting for something—the officers in earnest, but Catherine as a bit of playacting.
    â€œRight,” I said. “Let’s take a look.”
    Catherine headed to her desk, as she had obviously already intended to do. Catherine often hesitated in order for it to appear that I did not. I never asked it of her, and I don’t know, really, why she did it. I suppose it amused her.
    The gentleman collecting fingerprints abandoned Amber’s teller station and moved toward the front doors, muttering crossly to himself. Martinez and O’Brien headed in his direction, and though I was only a handful of strides away from the counter and could see the Rorschach-like swirls and eddies left in the powder upon its surface, I resisted the temptation to examine them. Instead, I followed Catherine to her desk.
    â€œI don’t understand why you’re still here when there are probably a thousand things you need to do,” she said. “But here, if you’re going to stay and bother me, you forgot to sign my transfer application, and it’s due Monday.” And without taking her eyes from her computer screen, she took a form from her in-box and put it in front of me on the desk.
    What she had said was incorrect, though. I hadn’t forgotten to sign the form that released Catherine to apply for other open positions with the bank. I had ignored it. “So you really do find me a pain,” I said.
    â€œNot true,” she said. “We’ve had this discussion. I just want to advance like anyone else.” On her screen, a tiny hourglass spun, emptying and refilling itself.
    â€œIt’s not due until Monday. I’ll sign it then.”
    â€œYou’re taking the day off on Monday.”
    She was right. I took the piece of paper in my hand and looked at it. It was just a form, bureaucratic and meaningless. “I sometimes wonder if you’ve forgotten the situation I got you out of.”
    She sighed. “I have not.”
    â€œYou have, and now you feel like being a service manager is just treading water,” I said. “You’re sick of digging through paperwork and of the drive to the northern district for the monthly meeting and of all the business with keeping the tellers sharp.”
    â€œI don’t mind any of that.”
    â€œYou must, or you wouldn’t want to be free of it. But remember Tony Sacco, how he had you trapped in his branch dealing with his insanity day after day until he made the mistake of letting you go to that managers’ meeting for him so he could play golf? And so there you were, asking me if there was any chance I could get you transferred out. And I did. It took a ridiculous number of very artful phone calls, but he let you go.”
    â€œAnd I’ve always been thankful.” She shook the mouse impatiently, and the hourglass veered back and forth on the screen. “As I’ve told you every time you’ve mentioned it over the last ten years.”
    â€œOh? Do I mention it too