From The Dead (40 page)

* * *

Meghan walked through the glass doors as if nothing
was wrong. While her late arrival at the building wouldn’t go
unnoticed, she wouldn’t sweat it. The Oxford Meadows apartment
complex was her paycheck, not her lifestyle.

She almost collided with Bob, the office manager, who
rounded a corner and rushed for the front door. A stack of
paperwork beneath his arm, he glared at his watch from the corner
of his eye.

“I was wondering when you’d get here,” Bob sneered
between pants of breath.

“My exam ran late.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll be back in a couple hours. Got a
meeting offsite.” And off ran Bob, a man on a mission and without a
clue.

This job is a joke,
mused Meghan.

With a glance to the corner of the office, she found
the waterless fish bowl empty, which meant no one had deposited a
late rent payment. No mundane data entry today.

Despite keeping watch for residents approaching the
room, Taryn, the staff member on duty, had failed to notice
Meghan’s entrance. Engrossed in her task at hand, Taryn scissored
her way through a stack of
Summer is here!
decorations that
would soon don the office walls. Never a dull moment.

“Hey there,” Meghan said. She tossed her book bag
beneath her desk and transposed into the role of a leasing
associate.

Taryn looked up, as if to downplay the fact that she
had missed an office walk-in. “How’d the test go?”

“I think it went okay. Post-Civil War American
history.”

“Was the class any good?”

Meghan shrugged. “The instructor was pretty cool. An
old hippie, so it was a blast hearing him talk about the sixties,
especially since he lived it—well, ‘smoked it’ is probably more
like it.” She sat down and reached for a file folder from her
inbox. “Only one more exam to go.”

Taryn offered a half-interested nod and examined the
pile of construction paper through her wire-rimmed glasses.
Deciding on orange this time, she began another artistic assault.
According to Bob, the decorations would foster a sense of
homecoming when one arrives at Oxford Meadows. But Meghan knew half
of the single-parent and college-aged residents would flip the bird
to sentimental fuzziness as they parted with their monthly rent
checks.

Opening the folder and flipping through its contents,
Meghan grimaced. “I just processed this paperwork. What was Bob
thinking when he gave this back to me?”

“He said there was supposed to be an extra charge for
the damage to the door post.”

“Why doesn’t he put a note on this stuff? I can’t
read his frickin’ mind.”

Taryn laughed. “Are you in a bad mood or just being
yourself? It gets hard to tell.”

“I don’t have patience with stupid people.”

Meghan thumbed her way through a few opened envelopes
that also sat in her inbox, then carried them to the computer, a
shared resource among the staff. Shared because, after all, they
needed to reserve funds for construction paper and such.

“Did you end up going out last night?” Meghan
asked.

“Yeah, Chad and I caught a movie,” Taryn replied. “We
hadn’t seen each other for a few days. Two paramedics are on
vacation, so he and some others have taken turns covering those
shifts.”

Meghan started typing. She gave Taryn a half-glance
over her shoulder and asked, “Did you notice a change after you got
married? Did the romance come or go?”

“I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like much changed. I
guess I’ll know better in six years rather than six months. He’s a
sweetie, though.” Suddenly interested, Taryn leaned forward. “Why?
Are you and Brian thinking about taking the big step?”

Meghan typed faster. “Oh, we’ve talked about it in
passing,” she replied. “But nothing serious. He seems content with
the way things are, so I don’t push it.”

“How long have you been together?”

“Eight years.” The words sent a shock through Meghan.
How had it been that long? She recalculated the years in her head
but arrived at the same figure. By the time Taryn’s next question
arrived, Meghan had started counting Valentine’s Days.

“What do you love best about him?” Taryn asked.

Meghan couldn’t recall when she’d last considered it.
The answer should have been simple, but with her guard down, she
was left searching for an answer. She shuffled a few papers,
searching for a nonexistent lease agreement to buy some time.

But in the end, Meghan could think of just one
response.

“He’s never cheated on me,” she said.

“With all the college girls around here, that’s a big
accomplishment.”

While relieved she’d concocted an answer, Meghan
considered the answer deficient. Taryn’s question continued to
linger in her mind like a rash, a relentless nag, refusing to be
ignored.

Interrupting her silent struggle, a pair of high
school kids walked past the office, armed with beach towels and
aiming for the back door. Although close in age, one of the teens
towered almost a foot above the other.

“Pool’s not open, guys,” Meghan shouted across the
room, hoping to catch them before they wasted extra steps.

Turning on their heels, the teenagers roamed into the
office, the taller one scrunching his nose as he morphed from
navigator to mouthpiece. “When does it open?” he asked, his face
overlaid with an expression of perpetual boredom.

“Memorial Day weekend,” Meghan answered. They
couldn’t be older than fifteen. And there was no way they were old
enough to drive.

“Can we just go out there anyway?”

“It’s dry concrete.”

“I know.” Definitely not older than fifteen.

“Well, what do you think you’re gonna do with a
concrete hole and no water?” Halting, Meghan leaned back in her
chair. She inspected the shorter boy’s avoidance of eye contact,
then added, “Do you kids even live here?”

“My friend lives in number twenty-five,” the taller
teenager said.

Without breaking her gaze, Meghan pointed her red
fingernail at the shorter kid, who drew on the carpet with his bare
foot. “Is this your friend?”

The shorter kid looked up. Wide-eyed, he all but
admitted his status as a trespasser, which appeared to add more
guilt to his conscience.

“No,” the taller one replied, adjusting his shell
necklace. “My friend’s at school.”

Without a hint of hesitation, Meghan shot her finger
in the direction of the front door. “This isn’t a park. Get
out.”

The shorter boy, already out the office door,
appeared relieved. The taller one scratched his cropped, red hair,
then turned and followed, grumbling a muffled expletive on his way
out. When a slamming of the front door sent echoes down the hall,
Taryn stared at Meghan.

“What?” Meghan asked, not about to justify her
firmness. “They weren’t supposed to be here.” Case closed.

Taryn crossed her legs and cocked her head, then
grabbed a permanent marker and threatened the construction paper
with a black decorative flair. Restoring their conversation, she
asked, “What did you and Brian do last night?”

“We had dinner. He loves a Mexican restaurant around
the corner, so I agree to go once a month.” Meghan examined a
freckle on her arm. While she felt like an amoeba under the
microscope of Taryn’s third degree, Meghan didn’t mind. In fact,
Taryn’s questions had begun to pique her curiosity. Years had
cycled and recycled, and she sensed a hollowness buried within.
Suddenly the once-a-month Mexican dinner seemed to personify her
relationship: going through the motions, then coming back for
another round, where the only thing that changed was the color of
her margarita. And lately those margaritas were frozen.

While Meghan had always considered herself fearless,
she now found herself in a safe zone and wondered where the comfort
had crept in.

“It ended up in a fight,” Meghan muttered at
last.

“About what?”

“It was a stupid little thing. His cell phone rang
the whole time, and he refused to shut it off one hour for dinner.
Apparently another department had worked into the evening on a
project, and they needed his input on every detail. So he picked up
the phone each time it rang. He does that all the time, and it
drives me nuts because it’s plain rude. Anyway, I got aggravated
and told him to turn it off.”

“He freaked out about that?”

“Well, it grew from there. We started getting into
the whole career issue. He said he intends to become the top
advertising executive in the industry, so it requires a lot of his
time. Then he reminded me that, hey, we’re not married, so it
shouldn’t be a big deal. I said something back, and the whole thing
snowballed.” Meghan squinted as her frustration resurfaced.
Although she had put the scene to rest when she’d fallen asleep
last night, now she found herself indulging its resurrection.
Because Meghan’s trust toward people had grown thin long ago,
verbalizing her difficulties had become rare and overdue. Maybe
Taryn could offer insight from a wife’s perspective.

“Suffice to say,” Meghan continued, “he wanted me to
mind my own business, and that hurts after being involved for such
a long time. Makes me feel like a hood ornament on his car.”

Meghan and Taryn had only worked together for a few
months, but conversations were frequent when a room was shared four
days a week between the same two individuals. Meghan had revealed
little about Brian, save a few details of a special event here and
there. Taryn chewed a fingernail as if to decide whether to press
forward. “Where did you two meet, anyway?” she asked.

“In Cincinnati, at this old Italian restaurant,”
Meghan replied. “A girl I worked with had gotten engaged, so a few
of us went out to celebrate. Brian was sitting a few tables over at
a dinner meeting.” Meghan furled her eyebrows. “I remember thinking
he didn’t fit in with his group. He was dressed just like them,
suit and tie, and had the same professional demeanor, but it didn’t
matter. Here were four guys old enough to be his father, and then
there was
Brian
. He seemed to keep the conversation rolling,
though.

“Anyway, his chair faced mine, and when I looked up
at one point, we caught each other’s eyes. Then he went back to his
business conversation. A while later, I looked up again, and the
same thing happened. He was cute, but I figured it was a chance
encounter, nothing more.

“Eventually I stepped out into the lobby to make a
phone call. Not even a minute passed before he walked through the
door and said, ‘Excuse me, but I couldn’t help but meet you. I’m
Brian Garrett.’ Very polished, like he forgot to step out of
executive mode. In fact, I had to giggle because he even shook my
hand! Then he said he had to get back to his meeting and asked if
he could take me to dinner sometime.”

“Did you say yes?”

“Yeah, I decided it wouldn’t hurt. What took me by
surprise, though, was that he ended our conversation. He was
confident—to the extreme, almost as if he had the whole thing
planned and knew my answer ahead of time.”

“And you said he’s in advertising?”

“Yes.”

“So basically, he closed the deal?”

“Kind of seems that way, huh!”

“And you kept seeing each other after that?”

“Just one date, then it went platonic. I didn’t think
we were compatible at all. He was wrapped up in a material world,
and that never impressed me. But we got along well, and he was a
good listener back then, so we became friends and talked almost
every day. From time to time, he would bring up the idea of dating,
but I always turned him down. That didn’t deter him, because the
way he sees it, ‘no’ is always negotiable. Finally, after five
months as friends, I gave in and agreed to a second date.” Meghan
paused. “The truth is, before he came around, I hadn’t been on a
date in a long time.”

Taking a seat near the computer, where Meghan had
started to update invoice records, Taryn had lost interest in her
construction paper. “So you stayed attached?”

Meghan shrugged. “Yeah, but it was tough. He’s an
overachiever. Work beckoned him constantly, so he would make dates
with me, then postpone them, and I wasn’t used to that.” A hollow
feeling settled into Meghan’s gut. Or maybe it was flatness.
Whatever it was, it felt eerie to her. It possessed a hint of
familiarity, a long-present taunt, which she had never paused long
enough to notice.

“So what kept you holding on to Brian?” Taryn
asked.

Meghan thought for a moment. “I felt alone. He stood
by me.”

At the word
alone
, Taryn stopped asking
questions. And Meghan didn’t want to elaborate. For that matter,
Meghan didn’t know why she had chosen that particular word, but it
had seemed suitable in an odd way.

Now in a daze, Meghan tried to refocus on her work.
But reality had become cold pewter to her, hard and factual, like
the account numbers in front of her eyes.

The Landing

Available at major online retailers in August
2012!

Rediscover
From The Dead
and
The Landing
at John Herrick
Online!

Get to know John Herrick

Uncover bonus content

Read John’s blog

And more!

Visit John Herrick Online:

www.johnherrick.net