She was fairly sure she’d be bad at it.
Scritch-scratch! Scritch-scratch!
Was someone cleaning the windows outside?
The faces peering at her looked alien, as if she were viewing them from upside down. She took a breath. At least she wasn’t sleepwalking in The Breviary right now, or fighting with Saraub. In its way, this office was a relief. She tried to remember that.
The faces kept watching, so she squeezed her hands into fists and closed her eyes. Pretended the room was empty of people and perfectly symmetrical. Opened her eyes again, but tried to keep the image there, of black nothing. She could still see, but the trick calmed her enough to continue.
“Sorry to hold you up. I love this project!” she said. She tried to sound excited, but the effect was more used-Hyundai salesman: unctuous and just the wrong side of smart. Mortimer frowned. So did Jill. David Galea, who brought Cokes to her cubicle when she worked through lunch, looked down at his notepad like he was embarrassed for her.
She unrolled the plans. Lots of lines on oversized white paper.
Scriiiittccch!
What was that? The sound was dull and had give, like shell dragged against concrete: it rattled, leaving pieces of itself behind.
“Hydroponics are environmentally friendly, and the running water buffers plane and traffic noise pollution. The design of the future.” She continued, talking to a room she’d decided to pretend was empty.
“These plans were made by Manny in design, and he did a great job, but I should remind you all that they’re rough,” she announced as she handed out the five-by-seven replicas of the latest design, ten to each side. The hands that took the papers were disembodied. Unrelated. Papers rustled as they were passed, like phantoms.
SCRITCH!-SCRAAAAATTCCCH!
Who the heck was making that sound?
“I don’t like the colors—orange is for hazard signs, not plants, and those grid lines will be gone when we present this to the client.” Her voice trembled as she spoke.
Someone at the far end of the long table wrapped his fingernails against the wood—she couldn’t see whom. She unrolled the master plans with her hands. The details were marked with light ink and hard to distinguish from the blue paper and small graph boxes. She didn’t remember what they represented. That sound, so distracting:
SCRITCH!-SCRATCH! SCRITCH-SCRATCH!
She turned to the corner behind her. Because of the mind game she was playing, everything seemed dark. Something twitched. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, it was bright again. Her imagination? The OCD?
At the far end of the table, Mortimer wrapped his slender knuckles against the teak table. He wore red Santa Claus suspenders under his blue wool jacket, and they made him seem deranged. What seventy year-old man wears suspenders? “Go on,” he said. “We don’t have all day.”
She continued, trying not to look in the corner. Not to look anywhere. “What the client liked about Jill’s proposal was its unique style, but…” the words left her. She focused on her hands, whose wrinkled knuckles looked like newborn gerbils. Jill’s boxy, Brooks Brothers jacket was too big. Its sleeves met her fingers, and it smelled like a hospital, which of course reminded her of Betty.
Scriiiiitttccch! Scraaaaaaaaaaaaatttccch!
She couldn’t help it. The sound was too big to ignore. She jerked her head toward the corner behind her, and saw. The man from her dream. He stood with his back to her, and he appeared as a shadow, only darker; the reverse outline of a sunspot when you blink.
She broke out in a quick sweat. Can OCD make you hallucinate? Can you get flashbacks from hash? She looked away, hoping he would disappear. No one else was reacting, which she knew meant he could not really be there…right?
“Practical considerations…” she said. Sweat dampened her temples. She tried to remember those considerations, but her mind drew a blank. Her team was boring holes through her skin with their eyes. Little lasers of humiliation. A few looked nervous, like her discomfort was contagious, but most were openly hostile. Limping chickens in coops are always the first to get pecked to death. Nobody likes the weakling of the pack.
Scritch!-Scratch!
She couldn’t help it. She looked back into the corner. The man’s shape had gotten more distinct. Pieces of the plaster wall fell to the floor as he worked: scritch!-scratch! To dig, he was using his index finger, which he’d worn to the bone.
Another tap from across the room, and then, “Ms. Loomis? Lucas? Is something wrong?”
SCRITCH! SCRATCH!
SCRITCH! SCRATCH!
She covered her ears with her hands. The scratching