Catherine McKenzie - Hidden

“I’m not sure. Why the hell weren’t you answering your phone?”

“I’m sorry. I told you. I forgot to charge it. You can’t imagine how bad I feel.”

“You have to be reachable, Tish, if you’re not going to be…If you’re not going to be there, you have to be reachable.”

“It won’t ever happen again. Forgive me, okay? Please?”

He looks at me for a minute. Water drips from me like a leaky tap.

“Why don’t we get you out of those clothes,” he says eventually. “Go to the kitchen. I’ll get you some things.”

I nod. When I get to the kitchen, there’s a full bottle of liquor sitting on the table, an empty glass next to it. These must be for Brian, but we have other glasses.

I pour an inch of vodka and toss it back. My empty stomach protests, but the rest of me welcomes it.

“Will you pour me one of those?” Brian’s holding a towel, an old pair of sweats, and a T-shirt I used to sleep in in college that I thought I threw out years ago.

“One finger or two?”

“Surprise me.”

I pour him two fingers, hand him the glass, then strip down, letting my clothes slap to the floor.

“Aren’t you worried the neighbors might see?”

I dry myself with the towel quickly, then slip the T-shirt over my head as I take in the shadows in our spotless backyard. The daffodils are up, though the rain seems to be trying to drown them.

“I doubt the little perv across the way is going to get too excited about seeing me naked.”

“You underestimate the teenaged boy’s mind. Besides, if it gets me excited, why not him?”

I smile as I climb into the sweatpants and take a seat across from him. His glass is empty. He looks like he wants another.

“I’m guessing not today. So what happened?”

“Zoey passed out onstage.”

“I know, but why? Is she okay or was it nerves?”

“Zoey doesn’t get nervous.”

He picks up the bottle and pours himself another couple of inches, but doesn’t drink it down.

I reach across the table and rest my hand on Brian’s arm. The hair on it is smooth, familiar.

“What’s going on? Is something wrong with Zoey? You’re kind of…you’re scaring the shit out of me, to be honest.”

“I’m sorry. I’m scared too.”

“What is it? Please tell me.”

He shakes his head, looking lost. “One minute she was fine, excited, you know how she gets right before she goes on. Keyed up, distant. Then that kid, that Ethan kid, he screwed up, not in a big way, but enough of a stumble that I was thinking she’s got this sewn up, and then before she could even say her name she was on the ground, out like a light.”

“Did she eat breakfast? You know sometimes she forgets to eat if you don’t remind her.”

“That’s not it. Tish…she was out for five minutes.”

“What? That video on the Internet was only a couple of—”

“Wait, what?”

“Jeff’s kid, Seth…he was watching it on his computer and—”

“A video? What are you talking about?”

The wind picks up outside, pushing the branches of a tree that’s always been too close to the house against the glass. It screeches and moans in a way that would signify monsters coming if this were a horror movie. Which it might be.

“You don’t know about the video?”

“Are you saying that Zoey’s mishap is on the web?”

“I guess they were taping the event?”

He thinks about it. “I forgot. They were.”

“I think they were streaming it out live, and when Zoey fainted…”

“Jesus. Thank God Zoey doesn’t know.”

“What’s wrong with her, Brian? What’s wrong with our daughter?”

He finally picks up the glass and downs it in one gulp.

“I don’t know.”

I spend the night in Zoey’s room, curled up in the old squashy chair from our first apartment that ended up in here somehow, missed by my mother-in-law’s decorator, who tore through the house in a burst of color wheels and fabric swatches right after we moved in. I doze fitfully, my brain stuck on the possibilities I finally pried out of Brian, but that won’t be confirmed, or unconfirmed, please God, until we see the specialist on Monday.

Another weekend to face without knowing what’s going on in my life. Another Monday where my worst fears might come true.

Brian passed out in the living room around eleven. When his beeper buzzes an hour later, I let it go unanswered. Somebody else can take care of whoever’s calling him tonight. I tuck a pillow under his head and put the spare duvet over him. Judging by the depth of his snores, he’ll be out for a solid eight hours.

When the sun’s thinking about rising, I realize Zoey’s gone still, assuming the position of someone who’s only pretending to sleep. I walk across the room on half-asleep, tingling legs. I climb into Zoey’s bed and wrap myself around her back.

“I’m sleeping.”

“I know, honey.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t have to.” I breathe in her smell, loving how she still uses Johnson’s baby shampoo on her thick tangle of hair. I can pretend, sometimes, that my baby is still a baby because she smells that way.

“Dad’s freaked.”

“Cut him some slack. He worries about you. We both do.”

She pulls the covers up over our shoulders.

“There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Well, I really hope so, but we’re going to do some tests to make extra sure, okay?”

She goes silent and I realize after a moment that she’s crying. Her hot tears splash against my arm.

“Why are you crying, sweetie?”

“Because I ruined everything.”

“What? Of course you didn’t.”

“I fainted in front of…in front of everyone. I lost. Ethan won.”

“It’s only a competition. There’s always next year.”

“Mmooomm.”

“I know, I know. That’s so not the point.”

The tears are still falling but, despite herself, I can feel her smile.

I eventually persuade Zoey to get up and into the shower. I go downstairs to make her the greasiest, most tempting breakfast I can make in a house where a health-conscious doctor lives. Bacon is out of the question, but I’m pretty sure there are eggs, and some full-fat cheese hidden in the meat drawer.

Brian’s up, sitting at the kitchen counter with his laptop open. A quick glance confirms he’s watching the video. Zoey standing, Zoey going gray, Zoey on the ground.

“Can you believe they’ve put it to music? What the hell is wrong with people? Can you tell me that?”

“Put it away, Brian. Zoey’ll be down in a minute.”

“We’re going to have to tell her about this.”

“I want to get some food into her first. Maybe let her have a few minutes where she doesn’t have to think about it?”

He glances up from the screen as he closes the laptop. “Do you think that’s possible?”

I look at him. At the concern in his eyes. At the pure certainty I feel that he’d do anything, anything, to keep her happy. To keep her safe.

I did a good thing here. In my whole life, this is the best thing I have done. Brian. Zoey. My family.

“I hope so, Brian, I really do.”

He nods and stands. “I went to the store. I got bacon.”

“Bacon?” Zoey says behind me, her voice carrying almost the right amount of enthusiasm.

Her hair’s loose and wet from her shower. She looks thin, thinner than she should be. Maybe that’s the explanation? Maybe we’ve been missing what she’s been silent about because silence isn’t her thing? But she’s always been thin. I was all knees and arms until I was thirteen, and then I was knees and arms with hips. Zoey’s the same.

“Doctor’s orders,” Brian says. “It’s a little-known fact that bacon’s a natural cure. In fact, Native Americans introduced the first settlers to it, only they called it salt pork.”

“Daad, you are so full of…”

“Shit,” I say, laughing. “Your dad is full of shit.”

Zoey’s mouth makes an O. “You are so going to get in trouble! Did you hear what she said, Dad?”

“I heard it all right. She challenged my knowledge of history. And natural remedies.”

He tries to keep his face serious, but he barely gets the words out before he breaks into a full belly laugh. Then I’m laughing and Zoey’s laughing and the room, the house, is filled with laughter.

The phone rings.

I’m closest to it, so I pick it up. “Underhill residence.”

“Hey, um, Mrs. Underhill?”

“Yes?”

“This is Ethan. Ethan Zuckerberg?” His voice rises at the end, like he’s questioning who he is.

“Oh. Hi, Ethan. And…congratulations.”

Zoey’s laugh cuts out like she’s been unplugged. Her whole body is tense with focus.

“Um, thanks, I guess? Can I…talk to Zoey?”

“Let me see if she’s free.”

I cover the mouthpiece with my hand. “It’s Ethan. Do you want to talk to him?”

“You don’t have to,” Brian says.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll take it in the other room, okay?”

“Of course.”

I hand her the portable phone and meet Brian’s gaze over her head. He raises his eyebrows, and I can see the fear of a thousand generations of fathers in his eyes. Boys. Boys! Our daughter is talking to a boy.

I smile at him. “Why don’t we cook that bacon?”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

He walks to the fridge. I’ve got one ear on the mumble of Zoey’s voice in the other room.

“No…it’s all right…what? What!”

And now the fridge and breakfast and bacon are forgotten, and Brian and I are through the door to the dining room, but not before Zoey hits the ground.

Two weeks after the “sex conversation”—as I’d taken to trying not to call it in my head—Tish was standing across a conference table from me, her hands resting on a lectern.

“So, we’ll be starting off with module 1 today: How to identify staff that ought to be considered for termination,” she half-read her notes with a bored tone of voice. She was wearing the woman’s work uniform: a dark blue skirt, a white Oxford shirt, and discreet earrings. Her hair was parted in the middle and loose around her face.

One of the guys from marketing put up his hand. “Mrs. Underhill?”

Her jaw clenched. This was already his fourth question of the day, and we were only five minutes into the meeting.

“Yes, Mr. Dunn?”

“You skipped the Safety Minute.”

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.