Page 24 - Vol. VII #7

Condolences (continued from preceding page)
tic when her hand flew to her mouth in response to
a loud, rasping sob she’d failed to stifle. She shook, rattled by all she was suppressing, fresh tears snak- ing their way down her face. And us? We’d seen what we’d seen, could not pretend it hadn’t happened though we wished, desperately so, to do just that.
studying something unexpected. Semiotics? Animal husbandry? None of us could quite remember. She wasn’t from here, not originally.
Eventually, Ron made a movement forward and opened his mouth, presumably to say something comforting. Emily recoiled.
The day after the CEO’s first email, another fol- lowed, announcing an in-office memorial service of sorts—“details TK.” None of us were sure if it would be appropriate to attend the actual funeral or even when it was set to occur, so this time set aside in Warren’s remembrance eased our con- sciences, settling the matter. We would, in our own way, honor him here, where he spent so much of his waking life. It was fitting, we agreed, nodding sagely at one another.
“It’s just really fucking sad, okay?”
With that she was out the door, gone. The last drop of liquid splashed into the abandoned cup. The ripples unfurled one by one across the water’s surface.
~
Some of the higher ups who had worked with Warren for years, maybe decades even, did attend the of- ficial service, the one organized by whatever family or friends he maintained outside of this place, blurry people who existed to us only in the abstract. Roy, who had gone, revealed the following afternoon in the kitchenette that Warren’s ex-wife had shown
It had been unspoken but understood that Emily, whose graduation would coincide with the end of her three-month internship, would fill the vacancy created by Maureen’s promotion. She was helpful and competent enough. She took initiative, we all said, though we had no specific examples to of-
up unannounced, dressed in a blinding turquoise pantsuit with a matching brooch on the lapel, and sat alone in the back of the church, stony-faced through- out. Before the service had even ended, she’d disap- peared without a trace.
fer up. And, in truth, nobody wanted to take the time to interview new candidates if it could be helped. But after the incident her future seemed less certain. It wasn’t as though she had any de- tractors in particular—who could begrudge her an emotional reaction under the admittedly incredible circumstances? Rather, she became an object of fascination. Previously her presence in a room was not felt—a gust of air as she passed by, if that. She took up little physical space and drew no attention to herself. Half of us hadn’t even known her name, to be honest. But now? We couldn’t not see her. Couldn’t not be reminded.
Maureen scowled when she learned that Warren had
If she was late to work we feared the worst. If she was away from her desk, we wondered what she was up to. If she wore her hair up one day after wearing it down for four, we mined the decision
for meaning. We alternatively gave her too little work to do, because there was no telling how close to breaking she was at any given moment, or too much, because we couldn’t have her suspecting that we pitied her.
The details did, indeed, come. On Friday, we sidled one by one into the multipurpose room on the second floor where a projector had been set up by Doreen, the IT girl, to display a photo slideshow. Warren transformed upon the wall before our eyes, a toddler one second, a middle-aged man cross-
What did we know about Emily outside of the inci- dent? Her cheeks were round and often flushed, as though she had just come in from the cold. Sometimes she wore glasses, other times she did not. She carried a canvas tote bag containing her lunch in tupper- ware containers with transparent blue lids and a book whose title and cover changed weekly. She was
17
ing the finish line of some mystery race the next. College student Warren smiled down at us from between twin curtains of hair that fell to his shoul- ders. It was as though we were discovering him for the first time, a peek into another world into which we’d never been allowed or maybe had just never thought to venture.
been divorced after all. Nina smirked.
~
~
Carefully arranging white-bread finger sandwiches and sloppily-frosted cupcakes on a long plastic table that had been set up against the wall, Emily cap- tured our notice one by one. Our wonder flickered into tension into a sort of anticipation. Would she offer a repeat performance, a renewed ritual of hys-