Page 85 - Vol. V #6

“...it occurred to her what she was doing was strange. She was ac vely communi- ca ng with someone who claimed to be dead.”
That satisfied the group, who began to walk. Abby brought up the rear.
that it would be accepted. She’d be expected to give a talk. Abby found that after cresting this latest mountain, the view was lacking. Or worse, there was no view, just another mountain to trudge up.
The convention’s hotel was in the financial district but after walking for twenty minutes, the streets gave way to bookstores and cafes. Abby found
this felt more familiar, an odd echo of what she’d normally be doing on a Saturday. But this time she’d been included by her lab mates and Rachel’s guiding lance was nowhere to be seen.
dinner and so she and her labmates gathered in the lobby of the hotel to cab there together. It was strange seeing them in this context, all of them there and the familiarity building a quiet, under- stood solidarity in the unfamiliar city.
No, it couldn’t be him.
But as they easily talked and posed for photos,
Abby stood apart. She had done the lion’s share of
the work on the paper. Spent more hours in lab.
This was her triumph, not theirs. Abby wondered
if that was what they saw her as: the hardest
worker or the most ambitious. One was a team-
mate, the other an annoyance. She knew that she needed to put this to rest. Abby
“Hey, we’re thinking of walking, that okay by you?” the female half of The Couple asked Abby. The night had turned balmy, Abby considered. But the girl’s smile seemed pitying, as haphazard as her lab work.
feigned a sudden stomach illness. She walked across the street and ignored the stares she knew she was getting. Or maybe they weren’t staring
at all, and hadn’t even registered her departure, Abby considered. Would the group know to save her a seat at the restaurant?
“Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”
It wasn’t until she was nearly to Queen Anne that she realized that she had lost track of him. He had
“It’s just–” the girl began, the smile retracted. “It’ll be a long walk.”
disappeared once again.
“Sounds fine to me,” Abby said, and tried to show
This was stupid, she decided. She had no idea 76
her teeth as a flag of truce.
~
Across the street, a boy emerged from an ice cream shop. There was something about him that made her stand on her tiptoes. The icicle sharp
Seattle wasn’t much different than San Francisco. features, the glasses—it was The Ex-Whatever. More trees, less hills, more scattered in some The recognition surprised Abby; his hair was ways. The university had flown the entire lab much curlier now, a drape of brown brambles up to the conference. Her advisor was hosting a much longer than his photo.
Twenty somethings emerged from bars, as famil- iar to her as pigeons. A sushi place advertised sake bombs. Head shops featured tiedye shirts.
Abby tracked The Ex-Whatever as he walked past them on the opposite sidewalk and then disap- peared down another street. When he was out of sight, Abby told them that she used to know that guy. He was her “Ex-Whatever.”
She didn’t add that he may or may not be dead. They shrugged and kept walking.
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