Catherine McKenzie - Hidden

“Oh, it’s you,” she said.

“Do we…?”

“You were with that John guy, right? On the driving range?”

“Still am.” I nodded toward my table. “Sorry about that.”

“Forget it.” She rolled her eyes. They were a dark green, the color of the dress she was wearing. It was a kind of loose, flowy thing made out of a fabric I didn’t know the name of. “I assume he’s not a friend of yours?”

“God, no,” I said.

The chef handed her a plate of juicy white meat with a crisp brown layer of skin lying across it. She waited for me to accept my own plate, and we moved down the line.

“Which branch do you work at?” she asked.

“Springfield.”

“Me too.”

“You new with the company?”

“Nope.”

“Then how come we don’t know each other?” The office was big, but not that big.

“You must be at the other Springfield.”

Johnson Company had recently acquired another company, located about five hundred miles away, in another town called Springfield. The name duplication was already causing problems. Mail had gotten lost, emails misdirected. There was a rumor that the CEO had tried to get the other Springfield, as we’d taken to calling it, to change its name.

The actual town.

Seriously.

“That’s too bad,” I said.

“How so?”

“It’d be nice to have another golfer in the office.”

“There must be tons of guys who play where you are. Isn’t it some golf mecca?”

I rolled my eyes. “Three courses and counting.” I leaned in so I wouldn’t be heard. “They’re mostly a bunch of duffers, to be honest. But you, Christ, you really schooled that flagpole. You taught that flag a lesson.”

I stopped, realizing I might be speaking through one too many glasses of wine.

“That wasn’t my intention but…thanks.”

“Did you play professionally?”

“College.” She paused, considering. “Scholarship.”

I spooned some stuffing onto my plate. She took a generous helping of cranberry sauce.

“And after college? Sorry, I don’t normally ask this many questions.”

“It’s okay. I wasn’t good enough to take it anywhere, so I gave it up.”

“You could’ve fooled me.”

“Lots of people can hit it at the flag on the range. It’s bringing it together on the course that matters. Besides, you should see me putt. I suck at putting.”

“I highly doubt that.”

She shrugged as she ladled gravy over her meat. “You’ll never know, right?”

“How’s that?”

“You live in your Springfield, I live in mine. Never the twain shall meet.”

“But we’re meeting now.”

“One-time thing. I have it on good authority these types of shindigs are going to be cut in the next budget.”

“That’s too bad.”

We’d reached the end of the line. I searched for something else to say.

“What department do you work in?” I asked lamely.

“HR. You?”

“Accounting.”

She raised her eyebrows, two dark slashes in an alabaster face. “The two most hated departments in the place. Anyway…”

“We should be getting back.”

“We should.”

“It was nice meeting you…I never got your name.”

She shook her head. “Nope. Never the twain shall meet, remember?”

“All right, then. It was nice not meeting you, whoever you are.”

“It was nice not meeting you too.”

Tuesday morning, and Beth is insisting that I get out of bed, out of the bedroom, out of the house.

“Out of the house?”

“Yes. The great outdoors. Have you forgotten about it?”

“Fuck off.”

“Finally.”

“What?”

“That’s the first emotion I’ve seen you express since I got here. Those pills Dr. Feelgood has you on are too strong. I think some anger is what you need.”

I tuck my knees under my chin. “What I need is for this all to be some sick joke.”

“But that’s not going to happen, so what are you going to do about it?”

“Hiding in here seems about right.”

“I had another plan in mind.”

Beth’s plan involves shopping for a dress to wear for Jeff’s service, and some secret mission she won’t let me in on. And because she’s my older sister, and I’ve been programmed all my life to follow her instructions, I get up, shower, and come downstairs to face the rest of my family in the bright daylight streaming through my kitchen.

My mother and father are sitting at the breakfast table with Jeff’s parents. Our house seems to have become Grief Command Central, and I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it. Thankfully, the other onlookers or well-wishers or whatever I should be thinking of them as have left, back to their lives, leaving only their Tupperware behind. God knows how many casseroles there are in the freezer.

The one person missing is Seth, who’s gone to school again. He wouldn’t tell me how it went yesterday when he got back, simply grumbling that it had been “fine.” This seemed like a good sign, a pre-Jeff-is-gone kind of behavior. But his troubled sleep continued, all thrashes and moans, and I held him like a baby, rocking him until he finally quieted.

After rising to hug me and tell me how glad they are I’m going out, my parents start bickering over the sections of the newspaper, as they have all my life. I feel a wave of embarrassment at their lack of tact in front of Jeff’s parents, one of those couples who give the impression they’ve never had an argument. But they act oblivious, hug me, and start on the dishes, Mr. Manning washing, Mrs. Manning drying, their grief etched in their faces, their meticulous movements.

I slump into a chair next to my mother, resting my chin in my hands, and stare out the window at the sunny day. Beth plunks a bowl of cereal in front of me, Seth’s special-occasion Froot Loops. I eat them, my hunger emerging after a few bites. Froot Loops are better than I remember.

“Josie called for you again,” my mom says.

“Okay.”

“Are you going to return her call?”

Josie’s one of our closest friends, but I haven’t been calling anyone back.

“Eventually.”

“Jesus, Mother,” Beth says. “What kind of question is that?”

“It’s a normal question. Why do you have to be so harsh all the time?”

Beth mutters something under her breath about her that, thankfully, only I hear. Or maybe my father hears it too. I notice a smile creep onto his lips, which quickly disappears when my mother gives him a quizzical look.

I eat the rest of my cereal, then bypass Jeff’s parents and put the bowl directly into the dishwasher. I always have to (had to, damn it, had to) remind Jeff to do the same, part of our normal married banter, the little rubs of everyday life.

“We’re going shopping,” Beth announces to no one in particular, then leads me out the door. My car’s parked on my side of the driveway, where I park it every day, where I parked it Friday.

Before.

Jeff’s side of the driveway is a blank expanse of cracked asphalt. It was on our list of things to try to fix this summer, if we had the money. His car must still be in the company parking lot. Should I ask Beth to pick it up? Do I even want it picked up, another reminder of his absence? Maybe I should give it to my parents, who’ve lived my whole life with one car, although they’ve never wanted to go to the same place.

I hand my car keys to Beth without speaking and buckle myself into the passenger side. I can feel anxiety creeping through my body, starting near my heart and radiating outward. The thought of actually being behind the wheel seems inconceivable. How can I ever be responsible for the tons of metal and plastic, the bumper, the hood, the windshield? The instruments of Jeff’s demise?

I shudder and pull on the seat belt so it slaps tight against my shoulder. It’s going to be fine, I think as Beth backs carefully out of the driveway, willing myself to believe it. Just fine.

The mall’s nearly empty. It’s early, and it’s Tuesday, so I shouldn’t be surprised, but somehow I am. On the way here, I imagined being swept up in a sea of people, jostled, slightly claustrophobic, normal. Instead, it simply smells clean, and like there’s more air in it than usual. One more reminder of how different today is. How I shouldn’t be here.

“What do you think our best bet is?” Beth asks.

“Huh?”

“For an outfit, for—Christ, you’re not going to make me say it, are you?”

“I’m sorry. We should go to Stacy’s, I guess.”

“Don’t apologize. Please. Speaking before thinking. You know how I am.”

“Sure.”

“So Stacy’s is…?”

“This way.”

I angle in the right direction and Beth matches her stride to mine. She reaches down and takes my hand, and despite the numbing drugs, I’m almost in tears. I squeeze her hand and slide mine from hers. It’s something I’ve noticed, these last few days. Aside from Seth, anyone else’s touch, a kind word even, brings me close to the breaking point.

Beth doesn’t say anything as we pass by the jumble of clothing, knickknack, and electronics stores. When we get to Stacy’s, we weave through the racks of summer lines and frothy prom dresses. I don’t see a dark outfit anywhere, only a riot of color.

But Beth’s the older sister for a reason. She directs me to the fitting rooms, and before I have time to strip off my clothes, she’s back with three black dresses slung over her arm. They all look similar, black sheaths devoid of any personality other than widow. If I slap on the strand of pearls I got for my sixteenth birthday and a pillbox hat, maybe someone will mistake me for Jackie O, time-warped to the future.