Catherine McKenzie - Hidden

Her eyes fluttered closed. “So I did.”

“Would you like me to do it?”

“Sure, go right ahead.”

He stood up. The left side of his shirt had come untucked, and there was a pen stain blooming from his breast pocket.

Thirty. Still eager.

I gave him six months before he’d be on the receiving end of module 3: Firing.

That, or he’d be the next CEO.

“Right, so, okay, I thought I’d talk about opening doors in closed conference rooms…”

I tuned him out, letting my gaze wander around the high-tech room until it came to rest on Tish. She shifted her body, and I swear we locked eyes for a moment. I gave her a slight eye roll. The corner of her mouth lifted in what seemed like an answering smile. For a moment, I felt like I could read her thoughts, that they were echoing my own—What the fuck am I doing here?

Then she turned her head away.

The lights flickered.

An error line flowed through her image, and the illusion was gone.

Around when the company made our email into Facebook, they also installed a high-tech conference room with the latest in two-way video technology. Part of the consultants’ motivation—what, you thought this didn’t have something to do with them?—was to provide a more cost-efficient way of firing people without making it too impersonal. We’ve all seen Up in the Air; Skype-firing has its drawbacks. But, apparently, a roomful of technology that makes it seem like someone who’s actually five hundred miles away is sitting across the table from you is enough to trick the brain. Kind of like how Luke falls in love with Princess Leia after seeing her in R2-D2’s fluttery blue light projection.

At least, until he realizes she’s his sister.

Of course, the system had other applications too. More effective cross-company meetings, a flashy recruiting tool, and a good way to train incoming managers in the art of not being a wimp and firing your own people.

Which is how I found myself watching Tish’s image, trying not to focus on the increasing amount of time we now spent in communication with each other, how much of a fixture she’d become in my life so quickly.

Because something that felt this good couldn’t be wrong, could it?

And anything that might skip across my brain like a flat rock thrown sideways, well, we’d agreed not to say those things, to push them down.

So, no harm, no foul.

When I got the meeting invite, I felt a frisson of…something else I pushed down. But I certainly dressed more carefully than usual that day. I wore my favorite shirt. I got a haircut I told myself I needed anyway. I gave myself an attentive shave. And when Claire said something about me looking good at breakfast, I pushed the stab of guilt down too.

The funny thing was, neither of us spoke about it in advance. I mean Tish and I. We’d been debating about best movies off and on for a couple days, and when I got to the office there was an email from her containing the case for High Fidelity.

John Cusack while he was still hot. A seamless transition from book to movie. The Beta Band. “Is that Peter fucking Frampton?” John Cusack while he was still hot. Need I go on?

Is the John Cusack point supposed to be determinative for me?

Not sure. Are you a guy who can appreciate male hotness from an aesthetic point of view?

I’m about three on the Kinsey scale.

Interesting that you’d go there.

?

Just that you’d take that as a sexual orientation question.

It wasn’t?

Men.

That’s not an explanation.

Sure. Right. Now why don’t you love this movie? Lack of light sabers?

I laughed out loud and glanced at the Han Solo figurine on my desk, which was a present from Seth for my last birthday.

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

It’s amazing how convincing you are.

Anyway, I have this meeting…

Right. Me too.

I sat staring at the screen, waiting for some acknowledgment that my meeting was with her, wondering why neither of us had brought it up.

Whether our silence was speaking for us.

Then my computer chimed, reminding me that I had a meeting with Underhill, Patricia, in five minutes.

I stood, looking around my desk for something to bring with me for luck.

My eyes came to rest on the Han Solo figurine. I reached out and tucked it into my pocket.

I think I’m falling, I thought.

I know, little Han Solo replied.

When Dunn the Corporate Drone finished his safety stupidity, Tish resumed her lecture. As I bent my head over my notes, I tried to rid myself of the disappointment that our meeting wasn’t just the two of us. But although we weren’t alone, I felt acutely aware of her presence. Like how you do sometimes in a crowd of people. How you can tell exactly where they are at any given moment, even though you haven’t looked in a while. Like some thread connected us.

Two hours later, the meeting was over and I looked up from my doodle/notes to meet Tish’s eyes again. I smiled and started to wave at her, stopping in the middle as it struck me that it might come off as weird to my colleagues. She nodded her head and clicked a button, and then she was gone.

We all stood and made our separate ways out of the room. Marketing Guy was talking to someone I didn’t know about the list Tish should be on, if she wasn’t already. I smiled, but I felt restless, like there was somewhere else I was supposed to be, something else I was supposed to be doing.

I got back to my desk, and there was the usual host of emails waiting for me, but also one from Tish. The Re was:

Strange?

I clicked it open.

Well, that was strange, she had written.

Strange good?

A moment, two, then ping!

Strange good.

We used the conference room a lot.

I wake up next to Seth with an almighty crick in my body. When I look over at him, I suppress a laugh. He’s fallen asleep with the book he was reading across the bridge of his nose, his book light still on. I guess it’s a measure of how tired we both were that we slept despite the cramped quarters and illumination.

I lift the book from Seth’s face as gently as I can and leave his room, letting him sleep in, sleep yesterday off, if that’s possible.

Beth’s already up and downstairs, sitting at the kitchen table, working away on her laptop. Amazingly, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else here, only their detritus, which I’m sure my mother will be here to start cleaning up as soon as she gets my father out the door.

“There’s coffee,” Beth says, not looking up.

I put the book down on the table and help myself to a large cup, keeping it black, though I generally don’t drink it that way. Yesterday feels like it’s clinging to my brain, and Beth’s black tar might scrub it away.

“You don’t have to stay,” I say to Beth, “if you should be getting back.”

“Ha!”

“What?”

She grins at me. “You don’t really mean that. At least…I hope you don’t.”

“I don’t, but I’d understand if you have to. If you’re needed elsewhere.”

“I can’t think of anywhere else where I’m needed more than here.”

“Are you trying to make me cry?”

“Little bit.”

I reach for a Kleenex. “That’s not really a challenge these days, you know.”

“How about making you laugh?”

“That might be harder.”

“I’ll work on that.” She picks up the book from the table. “What’s this?”

“What? Oh, it’s the book Seth got that poem he read from. Jeff had it.”

Beth starts flipping through it and I read the title again. Just This Side of Childhood by Zoey Underhill. Why did Jeff have this book? Underhill, Underhill…

“Who’s Tish?” Beth asks.

“She’s…she worked with Jeff. She was here yesterday.”

“Why would she give him this? Were they good friends?”

“I don’t…I don’t think so. She gave it to him?”

Beth holds the inside cover of the book open to me. Written on it, under a date from three weeks ago, are the words To Jeff, I’m a proud mama! Tish.

“This must be her daughter’s book.”

“Okay.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“Beth.”

“Don’t you think it’s…weird that she’d give it to him?”

“They worked together. Maybe she gave them to a bunch of people?”

She stays silent.

“You don’t think—”

She shakes her head. “No. I really don’t. I’m sure it’s fine.”

“But that might explain a few things. Like how distracted he’s been. And I found her crying outside—”

“No,” she says firmly. “Don’t go there.”

“Why? Rick did it. Why not Jeff?”

“Yeah, my asshole ex-husband cheated on me, but it was only a one-time thing. It’s not like he was leaving me for her or anything. He only told me because he wanted forgiveness.”

“As if.”

“I know, right? Only…”

“What?”

“When he’d moved out and I’d calmed down, I missed him. And I got to thinking that I wished I didn’t know about it. If he could’ve kept it to himself, then we’d probably still be together.”