_OceanofPDF.com_Dance_Dance_Dance_-_Haruki_Murakami

signals in her? Unlikely. Soon the clock pushed eleven. Lunchtime. I
headed out and walked around, trying to think what I was in the
mood for. But I wasn’t hungry, and no place caught my fancy. Lacking
will, I wandered into a place for some spaghetti and salad. Then a
beer. Outside, snow was still threatening, but not a flake in sight. The
sky was solid, immobile. Like Gulliver’s flying island of Laputa,
hanging heavily over the city. Everything seemed cast in gray. Even,
in retrospect, my meal—gray. Not a day for good ideas.
In the end, I caught a cab and went to a department store
downtown. I bought shoes and underwear, spare batteries, a travel
toothbrush, nail clippers. I bought a sandwich for a late-night snack
and a small flask of brandy. I didn’t need any of this stuff, I was just
shopping, just killing time. I killed two hours.
Then I walked along the major avenues, looking into windows, no
destination in mind, and when I tired of that, I stepped into a café and
read some Jack London over coffee. And before long it was getting on
to dusk. Talk about boring. Killing time is not an easy job.
Back at the hotel, I was passing by the front desk when I heard my
name called. It was the receptionist with glasses. She motioned for me
to go to one end of the counter, the car-rental section actually, where
there was a display of pamphlets. No one was on duty here.
She twirled a pen in her fingers a second, giving me a I’ve-gotsomething-to-tell-you-but-I-don’t-know-how-to-say-it
look. Clearly,
she wasn’t used to doing this sort of thing.
“Please forgive me,” she began, “but we have to pretend we’re
discussing a car rental.” Then she shot a quick glance out of the
corner of her eye toward the front desk. “Management is very strict.
We’re not supposed to speak privately to customers.”
“All right, then,” I said. “I’ll ask you about car rates, and you
answer with whatever you want to say. Nothing personal.”
She blushed slightly. “Forgive me,” she said again. “They’re real
sticklers for rules here.”
I smiled. “Still, your glasses are very becoming.”
“Excuse me?”
“You look very cute in those glasses. Very cute,” I said.
She touched the frame of these glasses, then cleared her throat. The
nervous type. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” she