The lobby floor remembers water

The man in the grey coat adjusts his tie knot. I stand near the reception desk, where the marble counter weighs three hundred pounds. The air smells of chlorine and old dust. He turns his head, looking directly at me, and his mouth opens into a shape that knows my name. It is written in red ink on a piece of stationary bearing my best hand script. The building I know, but never enter, is silent. The smooth tile beneath my boots feels cool, wet. I look at the coat’s cuff; it lists times instead of names. A stain spreads across the marble, dark green and thick. I lift my foot, pressing it down onto the wet section. The coat shifts, and the man does not look away.