Free The Apartment: A Novel by Greg Baxter

happy as anyone would be to walk around with her. But I have already met Janos and now Manuela, and I start to feel that I am meeting people I’ll see again. It is not that I don’t like them. It is simply that they reinforce the idea that you can never escape who you are, never truly anonymize yourself. Even if you never speak to anyone, people see you, and they get to know you for themselves. We cross the road through another underground passage. Manuela doesn’t ask any more questions about the Navy, or about me at all, which is a relief, but she tells a funny story about an office colleague who went with her to a conference last week, and who is uncomfortably antisocial. She met some interesting people at a dinner event but he followed her around, reminding her they needed to go back to the hotel and sleep. Every interesting conversation that almost happened with these interesting people was ruined by the colleague, who introduced serious questions about economics whenever the opportunity arose. She went back to the hotel with him, then waited an hour and sneaked out. When she returned a few hours later, very drunk, there was a note that he had slid under the door, saying he was disappointed that she hadn’t done as he said. He’s not my boss! she says. If it weren’t for people like him, says Saskia, economics would be left entirely to people like you. That’s a terrible thing to say! says Manuela. Saskia rolls her eyes. I feel I understand exactly how this friendship works.
    We stop in front of a large department store, which is all glass. Manuela suggests we keep going. This is where my colleagues get their suits, she says. You have to be careful or you will come out looking like a civil servant. Saskia says, He’s just getting a coat. I say, Let’s have a look here and go somewhere else if we have to. We walk through the entrance into a thick gust of heat. All the walls are mirrors and all the effects are chrome. The light is bright and the music is loud. It’s electronic muzak – a bass line repeating with chiming and twinkling bits inserted. The sensation of walking into this environment out of a freezing, old city is profoundly unpleasant. I take off my hat and Saskia takes off her gloves and Manuela takes off her coat. She is wearing a little brown-and-green dress, and tights. Saskia has told me she is a maneater, and this is easy to imagine. She ties her hair up in a ponytail. She has a small, slightly freckled nose and green eyes. Do you need anything? I ask Saskia. I’m broke until next week, she says. How about you? I ask Manuela. I’d never buy anything here, she says, for women at least. Okay, I say, and we go straight to the escalator. What kind of coat are you looking for? asks Manuela. Something better than what I have now, I say. Buy something trendy, she says. I say, I’m not a trendy person. I’m thinking of something classy, something I can wear until it falls apart. I see, she says, and looks at my boots. I pick a foot up so we can all examine the boots, and think about them in relation to a coat. I like my boots, I say. Me too, says Manuela, but they’re combat boots. They don’t look like combat boots unless you hold them up like that, says Saskia. I put my foot down. Oh well, I say. I can buy classy shoes another day, when it gets warmer.
    We land on the second level, which is still the women’s section, and Manuela, before we turn onto the next escalator, grabs a low-cut red dress with shoulder pads. See? she says. My mother would wear this. And suddenly something catches her attention, and she disappears across the floor and among the high racks of dresses and tops and sweaters and skirts and jeans. Saskia gives me a look. You okay? I ask. Fine, she says. She stresses you out? I ask. No, says Saskia. She’s just Manuela. Saskia looks upward, to the next level. I am below her on the escalator, two steps behind. I am looking up at her body and the back of her hair. She takes her