Chapter 242: Lady With No Number Above Her Head
The soup was good and the steak after it was better and they sat at the table longer than they needed to, the way you sat at tables when the food was worth it and there was nowhere pressing to be.
Kelvin had his elbows on the table and was going through his phone with one hand and his water glass with the other, his eyes moving between the screen and the window and back.
He had the energy of someone whose mind was already somewhere else, already on the next thing.
"Beach tomorrow," he said, not looking up from his phone. "There’s one about twenty minutes from here. People say it’s one of the best in the area."
Liam looked at him. "How do you know that already."
"I looked it up on the plane." Kelvin set his phone down and looked at Liam. "While you were sitting there staring at the wing."
Liam said nothing.
"There’s also a market in the evening apparently," Kelvin continued. "Local stuff. Food, music, whatever. We can hit the beach in the day and then go there after." He leaned back in his chair. "And I heard there are girls at that beach. A lot of them."
Liam picked up his water glass. "Of course that’s part of the plan."
"It’s not the plan," Kelvin said. "It’s a bonus feature of the plan." He picked up his own glass. "There’s a difference."
Liam smiled at the window.
"You’re not excited enough," Kelvin said, watching him.
"I’m excited."
"You don’t look it."
"I’m excited on the inside," Liam said. "That’s where it counts."
Kelvin looked at him for a second. "That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard." He shook his head and picked up his phone again. "Beach tomorrow. Market in the evening. That’s the plan. Be excited about it."
"Okay," Liam said.
"Say it like you mean it."
"I mean it."
Kelvin looked at him.
Liam looked back at him.
"Fine," Kelvin said. He set his phone down. "I’ll be excited enough for both of us."
Kelvin’s phone buzzed on the table. He looked down at it and his expression shifted, not dramatically, just a small adjustment, the specific adjustment of someone reading a message from a person who required a different version of themselves.
He looked up at Liam.
"What," Liam said.
"My dad," Kelvin said. "He wants me to get ready. Something about checking a business with him tonight."
"Okay," Liam said.
Kelvin looked at him. "You want to come?"
"No," Liam said. "I’m good."
"You sure? It’s not always boring. Sometimes it’s just mostly boring."
"I’m good," Liam said again.
Kelvin looked at him for a second and then nodded and stood up and put his phone in his pocket. "Alright. When I get back we go out. Explore a bit. See what’s around."
"Yeah," Liam said. "Go."
They both stood and left the restaurant and went back through the corridor and into the lobby and to the elevator. Kelvin pressed the button and they stood there waiting and the doors opened.
There was already someone inside.
A woman.
She was wearing a sheer white blouse, thin enough that the black bralette underneath it was visible through the fabric, the buttons done only halfway up, the rest left open.
Dark fitted trousers sitting low on her hips.
Her dark hair was pulled back loosely, a few strands falling across the side of her face that she hadn’t bothered to move.
Her skin was clear and her features were the kind that hit you once and then kept hitting, full lips, sharp jaw, eyes that moved to them when the doors opened and stayed there for a second longer than necessary.
She was not the most beautiful woman Liam had ever seen.
Liam and Kelvin stepped in.
They both moved to the side without discussing it.
The doors closed.
Kelvin leaned slightly toward Liam and said quietly, barely moving his mouth, "She is so hot."
Liam nodded once. "Crazy," he said, just as quietly.
’Someone can actually look like this,’ he thought, keeping his eyes on the doors. ’I’m glad I followed Kelvin to this place because he would never have done her justice describing her to me.’
He looked up.
He looked for the number above her head the way he looked for the number above everyone’s head.
There was nothing there.
Not a low number. Not a zero. Nothing. Like the she wasn’t registered by the system.
Liam stared.
"What the f—" The words came out before he caught them, not loud, but audible, fully formed in the small space of the elevator.
The woman turned and looked at him.
Kelvin turned and looked at him as well, they were both shocked by what they had just heard.
Liam stood there with his mouth still open from the word that had escaped it.
The woman looked at him for a moment.
Then she looked up.
Above his head.
Her eyes moved the way eyes moved when they were reading something, tracking left to right, and then her expression changed, just for a second, something moving behind it that was not the composed look she had been wearing.
Then she put it back.
She looked at him and smiled. Calm and easy, like nothing had happened.
Liam nodded. Slowly.
Still in the particular state of someone whose brain was running fast and producing nothing useful.
The elevator reached their floor and the doors opened and Liam and Kelvin stepped out and the doors closed behind them.
Kelvin walked three steps down the corridor and stopped.
"Okay," he said. He turned around. "First of all." He looked at Liam. "She was beautiful. Like actually. I don’t think I’ve ever." He shook his head. "Did you see her face? Her whole—" He gestured at the general space where the woman had been standing. "Everything."
Liam was walking toward their room.
"Liam," Kelvin said, following him. "Are you listening to me. That woman was something else. I need you to acknowledge that with me right now because I cannot process it alone."
"She was beautiful," Liam said.
"Thank you." Kelvin fell into step beside him. "See. That’s all I needed." He was quiet for two seconds. "Her eyes though. Did you see her eyes when she—"
"Are you not going to change?" Liam said. He stopped at their door and put the keycard to the lock.
Kelvin looked down at himself. At his fitted shirt and his trousers. "Change?" He shook his head. "I’m going like this." He stepped back slightly and straightened his shirt with both hands.
Then he stood with his arms slightly out at his sides, chin up, the expression of a man who had decided he looked exactly right.
Liam looked at him.
"Whatever," he said. "Get going already."
Kelvin grinned. "I’m already gone," he said. He went to his bag and picked something up from it, an ID card of some kind, tucked it into his pocket, and moved back to the door. "Beach tomorrow. Be ready."
"Go," Liam said.
Kelvin went.
The door clicked shut behind him and the room went quiet.
Liam stood there for a moment.
Then he walked to the bed and dropped onto it flat on his back, his arms at his sides, and looked at the ceiling.
The ceiling was the same ceiling it had been an hour ago, high and white and clean, the lamp from the desk throwing its soft light across the lower edge of it.
The city was outside the window doing what it was doing and the hotel was around him doing what it was doing and none of that was what his head was on.
’Why was there nothing above her head,’ he thought. "Is it a glitch from the system?"
He had never seen that before.
Everyone had a number.
Everyone he had looked at since the system had started, strangers on the street, people in classrooms, Tasha, Elena, Sofia, Clara, the girls in the elevator an hour ago.
Everyone had a number. The number was just there, readable and present, a fact above a person’s head the same as their face was a fact.
This woman had nothing.
Not a low number. Not a suppressed one. Nothing at all. Like the system had looked at her and decided not to render anything and moved on.
And she had looked above his head.
She had looked above his head the way he looked above people’s heads and her expression had changed and then she had put the change away and smiled at him and the doors had opened.
’What does that mean,’ he thought. ’What is she.’
He stared at the ceiling and turned it over and got nowhere with it.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Liam exhaled through his nose.
’I told him to change,’ he thought. He lay there for one more second. Then he stood up and crossed the room and opened the door.
The woman from the elevator was standing in front of it.
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