“You need more proofâI have all the proof I need. You didn't have someone drop dead on youâyou didn't see Bob.”
“Just keep an open mind, honey. I mean, I worry about your going blind or something. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe you should go back to the ophthalmologist. Maybe it was too early to detect it before.”
“We'll see.” He hugged her and felt her solidarity pulling away. Her hands lingered on his arms.
“Honey, I don't think you're crazy.” She said softly. “You'll go back to work tomorrow and everything will be fine, you'll see.”
“I'm not worried about what I'll see,” he answered, closing his eyes. “I'm worried about what I don't see.”
When David walked by Bob's cubicle he was surprised to find Bob there, chatting on the phone. David managed to avert his eyes as he passed, staring at the faded pattern on the carpet where the weight of Bob and his chair had created a sort of crop circle. He stopped by Bruce's office and knocked. Bruce, who was also on the phone, motioned him in. David sat down in one of the chairs across from him and diverted his attention to the corporate artwork on the walls around him until Bruce was finished.
“Good to see you back, David. We were worried about you.”
“It was quite a bug I caught.” David laughed weakly, tapping his chest. “I'm almost cleared up, not to worry. So I wanted to touch base on the rollout at the Davis site next week.”
“Actually, not to worry, DavidâI've got John working on it,” Bruce answered, picked up his pen and studying it intently. “We weren't sure when you were coming back, and I didn't want you to worry.”
“I've kept updated the whole time I've been home. We've e-mailed every day, and I've even changed my PowerPoint presentations to match your suggestions.”
“I know you did, David. I just wasn't sure when you were coming back. You weren't clear about that in your e-mails. Hey, I know you hate all this rollout stuff, anyway. So let's meet again in a few days. The numbers will be back from accounting for last month, and we can work on the budget, all right.”
“Sure, Bruce.” David stood up to leave.
“Oh, one more thing. It's about Bob Fuller.”
“What about him?”
“Well, I wouldn't worry about it too much, but Julie let me know that he complained to HR about you.”
“About me? Why?”
“He said the âcompany' sent you over to his house a couple of weeks ago to harass him into retiring because we think he's sick and don't want to pay disability. Did you go over to his house, David?”
“Yeah, I did, Bruce, but it wasn't on company business or anything like that. I heard he wasn't feeling well, and since I was in the neighborhood, I dropped by.”
“I figured that there was some sort of reasonable explanation. But you know Bob.”
“Yeahâhe's a crackpot.” David laughed. “Thinks he holds the whole ship together. I was just trying to be niceâhell, I don't even like the guy that muchâand he goes on and on about this conspiracy to get him to leave the company. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be nice.”
“Well, you two might want to steer clear of each other for awhile,” Bruce laughed. “I'm sure Julie won't even contact you, since he's had a long history of being a troublemaker, but I thought I'd give you a heads up. In fact, I'll give Julie your side of the story later today.”
“I can stop by and give it to her. It's no big deal.”
“Why don't you let me, since I've been handling it since you've been out. It's all cleared up and nothing for you to worry about.” Bruce stood up and showed David the door.
Should he be worried about Bruce's insistence on taking care of this for him? David had no reason not to trust him. He stopped in the lunch room to buy a cup of coffee, passing by Bob, who was reading a newspaper at one of the tables. David pushed a bill into the bill slot and looked over his shoulder at Bob's arm, which was obstructed from view by Bob's back.
“Something on your mind, David?” Bob asked, not looking up from his paper.
“No, not at all.” He carefully removed his coffee from the machine. “So I guess that was a pretty nasty cold you had, huh?”
“Mmm-hmm. Maybe you caught itâI understand you've been out sick as well.”
“Yes, quite a doozy.” David strained again for a glimpse of the arm as he passed Bob on his way out. “I'm better now, thanks.”
“I didn't ask you.”
“Yeah, well, see you later.” Who the hell did Bob think he was, anyway, David thought angrily. He was a nobody, a nobody who was going nowhere in the company and never had been. David was glad that his principled stance of avoiding Bob all these years had finally been vindicated in this display of pettiness and immaturity. Surely karma had come to call for Bob Fuller. Or had it?
David sat through his usual litany of meetings, asking the right questions and making the right recommendations despite a thin underlying haze of distraction. It occurred to him that he could sleepwalk through his job while he attended to more pressing matters in his life. He had certainly done the reverse for years. He reasoned that during times of acute distress, it was best to focus one's resources in the same direction. He looked at his hands, his arms, analyzing every pore for its fullness and clarity. How had he lived this long without such intimate knowledge of his appendages he did not know. He felt an overwhelming urge to strip in front of the bathroom mirror, to examine and recognize every inch of his being. He wanted to know how they had expanded and built upon themselves, from his birth to this moment. At least he would have the possibility of watching their deconstruction from this moment until death.
A coworker dropped in to talk about some sales figures. David heard himself answer questions, laugh on cue, tap his pen against his shoe, but he was somewhere else, deep in his thoughts, his skin. He tried not to look at her, at Janine, instead staring at the wall or at this desk. What if she began to disappear? He did not want to know. He took a sip of his coffee and concentrated on the figures in front of him. But if he knew something she didn't? Would she not have the right to know? He glanced up quickly. She looked fine as far as he could tell. But what about Bob? Was there a way to access his personal file, to look through his medical leave? Bob was not a direct report of David's, but maybe he could get Bob's supervisor, Jack, to look into it? Better yet, maybe Julie could let him peek at Bob's records.
“David, are you OK?” Janine asked, and for a brief moment, she looked entirely transparent. David stood up and stepped back, but she had reappeared as soon as she had disappeared.
“Janine, I know this is a personal question, but have you been sick recently?”
“Why?” She asked, drawing her hand to her cheek. “Do I look flushed?”
“Noâ¦I justâ¦don't know why I'm asking you. Well, actually I am. You seeâ¦I just had the flu really bad, and if you haven't had it already, you may want to leave so you don't catch it. I don't want anyone feeling as bad as I did, that's for sure.”
“Oh, um, thanks your concern, David.” Janine chuckled hesitantly. “Actually, I'll be OK. I'm as healthy as a horse. Can't remember the last time I've been sick.”
“Um, OK.” David returned to his seat. “I just thought I'd warn you.”
Later that day, David took the elevator down to Bob's floor. Bob's desk was empty, so he waited another hour before making another pass. This time Bob was chatting with one of his reports, going into detail about the upcoming company bus trip to New York. Their eyes met, and Bob glared at him. A third time David passed by, Bob was on the phone, taking care of nonbusiness-related things.
“I don't think he works at all.” David explained to Julie, who sat at her desk staring at her hands with Zen-like precision. “I don't see why we should be paying him to sit around all day on company time and then act like some sort of martyr.”
“David, Bob was in here about an hour before you.” She explained gently, looking out the window before meeting his gaze. “He thinks you're spying on him, trying to get him fired. He says over the previous five years that you've spent maybe five minutes with him, and now every time he turns around you're there. I told him he was being paranoid.”
“I'm not spying on Bob.”
“Then what business do you have in his department, if any direct business?”
“I don't. I pass through Bob's department to get to marketing. I used to go through sales, which is shorter, but I needed a change of scenery, you know, spice things up a bit.”
“Well, I think you'd better go back to walking through sales. I don't want Bob back in here next week complaining to me that you're showing up in his department again. Let Bob's supervisor handle Bob. I'll pass along your concerns to him, but this is where your involvement should end.”
“Not a problem. I really don't care to spend any more time with Bob than I have to.” He stood to open the door but turned back to Julie. “By the way, is there any way you can let me know whether Bob has taken any illness-related leave in the past few months and why? I know that he asked for advice concerning FMLA.”
“I'm not at liberty to tell you that, David,” Julie answered, standing up also. “Please remember, this is where your involvement ends.”
“I'm only interested for personal reasons. After all, he did accuse me of being a company thug sent to lean on him at his house.”
“Well, however baseless Bob's accusations are,” she answered, smiling. “Doesn't give you free reign to try and prove them true.”
David walked down the hall to his office, feeling desperate. Bob was his only link beside the old woman. And Janine, whatever happened with Janine? If Janine was never sickâ¦of course, that didn't mean she wasn't going to fall sick tomorrow, or the next day. He wondered whether he could find out Bob's lunch hour and make himself visible in the lunch room or the parking lot, places Bob may be headed. He pressed the button at the elevator and glanced around. The halls were empty from end to end and ghostly quiet. He tried to think whether there was a company-wide meeting or special celebration that would draw people to congregate in one area other than here, but none came to mind. He walked slowly down the hallway, glancing into empty offices and file rooms and meeting rooms. It was as if everyone had disappeared. He slipped into the stairwell and ran up the stairs to the next floor. Again, the same quiet and emptiness. He jogged through the cubicle stations, even peeked into the restrooms. He was entirely alone. He could not think of much else to do, except pick up his briefcase and drive away as quickly as possible, even though it was an hour before he was scheduled to leave.
He did not want to go home; being alone would only make it worse, this fear. Maybe if he went back to the office everyone would be back, same as usual. He drove aimlessly before deciding to stop at the old woman's place. Maybe a walk to the market, or whether she wanted to go would calm his nerves. He pulled up at the building and made his way up to the apartment.
He knocked on her door, 403, and waited, wondering what he would tell her, not that he needed to say anything. They both understood that their needsâhowever desperate and painedâwere met with silence, and they had come to accept that silence as solace, as understanding. He thought of her yellowed, cloudy eyes and nest of hair and felt comfortable in a way he could not explain to Sara, Sara whose legs and heart opened to him with regularity until recently. Sara's eyes veiled and lips grew terse as she brewed their coffee in the mornings, even though he had come to take it in his pajamas rather than a suit more often than not these days. She thought the old lady didn't exist, and even though she discounted the possibility of an affair, given his fluctuating mental state, she knew something drew him away from their home with increasing frequency. However, she had decided it was alcohol, for she often accused him of smelling like whiskey. Maybe the old woman gave him a sip of whiskey sometimes, but not enough to accuse him of alcoholism.
“Who are you?” An old man with a crooked bulbous nose and thick white hair inquired from cracked door.
“Iâ¦I'm here to see the old woman,” David stuttered. “Are you her husband?”
“What old woman?”
“The woman who lives here.”
“No woman lives here. I live here three years.” He held up three crooked fingers. “You have wrong apartment.”
“Wait,” David put his hand in the closing door. “Do you know where she is?”
“What is her name? You can look on the mailboxes.”
“I don't know. She's short and hunched over with blue eyes and tangled hair and she goes to the market a lot.”
“That sound like a lot of people who live here.”
“But this was the apartment I came to. I remember. I remember the numbers because it was my grandmother's birthdayâApril 3rd.”
“You have the wrong apartment.” The man pushed on David's hand, and he retreated further into the hall before it shut. He slowly walked past the other doors on the floor, trying to contradict his previous memory of where the woman lived. No, he remembered the needlepoint room plaque on 403. She was not a figment of his imagination. Could she be? If anything, she was more real to him than anything these past few weeks. He drove home and pulled out the scrapbook his mother had assembled for him when he left for college. He flipped through the pages, which revealed, among ticket stubs and award papers, pictures of him: sports pictures, class pictures, vacation pictures with his parents. Finally he came to one of his grandmother. She sat dwarfed in the overstuffed chair at his parents' house, the low-burning flame of her yellow-blue eyes flickering as she posed stiffly, for a birthday or a Mother's Day he could not remember. Her wild hair was molded and flattened for the occasion, a combination of water and Aqua Net. He put the scrapbook away and closed his eyes, remembering her features and form, her smells, the soft gutturalness of her voice, with increasing clarity. He opened his eyes, half expecting to see her next to him, sitting in a chair, but he was alone.