Whisper

by Krystal Jane Ruin

  “Piece of cake for your thoughts?”

  I open my eyes. Jerod grins at me from the other side of the wide reception desk. He slides a paper plate towards me with a wide piece of green-frosted vanilla cake on it.

  “I took a picture of it before we destroyed it,” he says. He finds the picture on his phone and shows me the long sheet cake, decorated to mimic the rolling green hills and mountains of Scotland.

  “It’s nice.”

  He smiles down at the photo. “Yeah. Land of our forefathers. Kind of. What isn’t mixed with other stuff.” He puts his phone away and nods at the cake. “Eat it. It’s your birthday. You should have cake.”

  I pick up the fork and slide it through the fluffy concoction.

  “Uncle Arthur is downstairs.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep. The whole family. Including that girl.”

  I smile a little. Uncle Arthur and Aunt Cecily adopted Enid thirteen years ago when she was five and Jerod still calls her “that girl.” She is super weird though. “Doesn’t she have school or something?”

  He laughs. “He said she’s deferring for a semester. He wants me to talk to her about traveling to Europe before she goes.” He rolls his eyes.

  “She’s going alone?”

  “Naw. She’s going with some other weirdos. Aunt Cece can’t even think about it without crying.”

  The cake icing melts on my tongue. “I’ll wait for them to come up here.”

  He drums his hands on the table. “So. How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “Good fine?”

  “Sure.”

  “Feel old yet?”

  “No.”

  He laughs again. “I have to wear a suit now. That’s making me feel kind of old.”

  “Well, if you want, you can wear these drab skirts I have to wear, and I’ll wear a suit.”

  He wrinkles his nose. “Yeah…I can just see Dad’s face if I came to work in a skirt.”

  I laugh. “That would make my life.” I watch him quietly through a few bites of cake. “What’s the bad news?”

  He lifts his brows. “There’s no bad news. I’m just thinking.” He looks towards the elevators at the far side of the long room. “Those lead up to the apartments, right?”

  “Are you moving in? Are you taking my penthouse?”

  He chuckles. “No way. I mean, yeah, Dad wants me to move in. But I don’t know. Not into the penthouse, just into one of the suites. I want Fallon to move in with me, but Dad’s not having that.”

  I stuff more cake into my mouth to hide my scowl. “Have you known her long enough to move in with her?”

  His eyes stare at the ceiling, unfocused, and a faraway smile plays across his face. “I don’t know. It’s been seven months. That’s long enough, right?”

  I shrug. “Do you like…have feelings?”

  He looks at me, and his smile broadens. “There are feelings.” His gray eyes shine under the fluorescent bulbs. “I don’t love her. I don’t think. But, you know, I like her a lot.”

  Men are not very bright sometimes. I bite my tongue and nod.

  “She makes me feel…good, you know?”

  A cringe takes over my face before I can stop it.

  He sees it and laughs. “What? I thought you liked her.”

  Not very bright at all. “Um…I don’t really know her.”

  “Yeah, I guess not. We should all hang out. Go out on a double date with you and…whoever.”

  No one. Me and no one.

  He clears his throat. “Anyway, I wanted to make sure you got some cake. And I wanted to warn you that Uncle Arthur wants to take us out for dinner tonight.”

  “Okay. Just us?”

  “Yeah. Well, us and Aunt Cece and their kid.”

  “Enid.”

  “Whatever. I wanted Fallon to come, but she’s got an art thing or something.”

  “An art thing?”

  He laughs. “She told me.”

  “But you weren’t listening?”

  “I have a lot going on today.”

  “Mm, hm.” I finish off the cake and push the plate back across the desk. “Thank you.”

  “Yeah. So…it’s a fancy place.” He takes in my plain ivory button-down shirt. “So, you know.”

  “Change?”

  He laughs. “If you want.”

  “I’ll change. What time?”

  He looks at his watch. “Seven-ish. We’ll meet you out here.”

  “Great.”

  He takes the plate and carries it to the trash can between the elevators. Then he heads back down to the lobby, waving to me as the doors slide shut.

  I slip out of my chair and move into the secondary conference room. A congratulations banner hangs on the back wall, and the room is littered with blue balloons and plastic cups. A golden tray sits in the center of the table under the banner. The only thing left of the cake is crumbs and bits of dried icing.

  I pick up a plastic cup and sniff the empty inside. It smells faintly of champagne. I hid under my desk when they filed out to go downstairs. Not because I didn’t want them to invite me, but because I knew they wouldn’t. At least this way I can pretend like they might have if they saw me.

  My hand tightens around the cup until it cracks. Yeah, sure. Let Jerod go the private school founded by our grandfather while I waste away at Holy Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows Preparatory School for Girls, getting watched around the clocked and poked with a stick every time I asked a question about anything. Sure, let Jerod graduate early and put him on the fast track to an MBA at Chicago’s snootiest university, founded by our great-grandfather, while I work as a receptionist at my own father’s real estate empire. Sure. Make Jerod vice president while I stay a receptionist and waste away. And then throw him a birthday party in front of my face and make me stay out there and answer the phone, even though he knows I make everyone talk to the machine first.

  I’m not bitter. It’s fine. It’s all totally and completely fair and fine. I toss the broken cup into the trash bin by the door and lean against the wall, my arms folded tight across my chest. I get it. Jerod isn’t crazy. Only the women in the family are insane.

  My father would never talk to me about it, but I got Uncle Arthur to tell me about her a few times. About Aunt Alara. He gave me a photograph of her while we were visiting him in New York one summer, years ago, after my head had been silent for a few years. It was a picture of her riding a golden carousel unicorn. He remembered how much I used to love unicorns. I keep the picture in my nightstand under a pile of journals the therapist made me fill out as a teenager.

  I have her cursed eyes. And her long wavy hair, though mine is much darker than hers. She looks so peaceful and happy in the photograph, smiling through the pain. Until she couldn’t take it anymore and threw herself off a bridge and into oncoming traffic.

  I know why she did it. It was the only way to make the voices stop. They didn’t have Delerium Codex 40 thirty years ago when she died.

  All alone in the world…

  I’m always alone.

  The silence is broken by a sigh. Not from me. It hisses around my ears.

  The muscles in my back stiffen. But I stop my thoughts before they drift too far. It’s just the air conditioner. Or something.

  A pressure builds in my temples. An empty champagne bottle on the table teeters. I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath to calm my nerves. The pressure eases, and when I open my eyes again, the bottle’s still. I stare at it for a moment. I guess there’s no harm in getting a little carried away while I’m alone.

  I pick up another plastic cup and concentrate on it. The pressure builds again, pushing out, like heavy wind against a fence. The cup starts to crumple on its own. A small smile lifts one corner of my mouth.

  “There you are!”

  After so much silence, the voice startles my system, and the crumpled cup rolls to the floor.

  It’s just David Davis from the mailroom. He loiters in the do
orway, a bright and warm grin stretched wide across his face. He’s been out running errands, I’m guessing, because his usual neat crop of dark hair is wind-blown and falling into his eyes. I retrieve the cup and toss it into the trash bin.

  “I figured you’d still be up here.” Happiness shines in his eyes.

  “Yeah.” I leave out that I wasn’t invited, though I suppose I could have gone anyway if I wanted. Annoy my father. Watch him try to hide it.

  “I’m about to head down now and join the fun,” he says. “I just needed to drop some things off.” He holds up the bundle of letters in his hand.

  I nod and wait for him to carry on with it. He doesn’t.

  “You having a good birthday?”

  I suppress a groan. “It’s great.”

  He bobs his head and glances around the room. “You didn’t show up earlier.”

  “No.”

  His smile holds. “Yeah. They were mostly focusing on Jerod’s graduation and…stuff.”

  “His promotion to vice president?” I’ll say it for him. No need to be polite. The banner is right there in all its giant, obnoxious glory.

  David’s smile waxes guilty. “Yeah.”

  I push myself off the wall and squeeze past him without a word. I head to the bathroom, figuring he’ll have the decency not to follow me in there, even though he can since it’s unisex.

  “Do you want to walk down to the bar with me?” he asks, following behind me.

  I stop outside the door. “No.”

  He runs his free hand through his hair in an attempt to restore some order to it. “Are you sure? You don’t want to have a birthday drink?”

  “I’ll get one tonight. My uncle is taking us out.”

  “Oh. Okay. Well…I’ll see you later?”

  I push the door open with my hip. “Yeah.” The door swings shut with him still standing out in the hall.

  I stow myself away in a stall and plop down on the seat, listening. He doesn’t come inside. Cold silence surrounds me, and I drop my head into my hands. I keep telling myself that I don’t mean to be rude to him, but he just won’t stop trying to talk to me. It’s irritating. When I first started working here, he constantly came up with the most asinine reasons to visit the reception desk. He needed to borrow a pen. He needed a paper clip. There are more paperclips in the mailroom than there are people on this planet.

  He’s a nice guy. I just…I can’t. I tried dating. It’s too stressful. Bad things happen when I’m stressed. Things break. Things get loud. It’s easier to be alone. No one to worry about. No one to hide from. The company rather frowns on inter-office dating anyway, and it’s one rule I’ve been happy to abide by. It’s far too awkward. I see people do it all the time. It always goes bad, and they have to come to work and smile anyway. I don’t need that mess in my life.

  Our positions should be switched, really—David’s and mine. I’m not friendly enough to work reception, though I know that’s part of the appeal. My dad likes a cold, callous receptionist to keep the solicitors at bay. But the mailroom is quiet. I’d like it back there, I think. At reception, the phone is always ringing, the elevators are always dinging. People are always talking.

  He could at least give me a job I don’t hate. I could work in advertising, on the design team. I would love that, actually. I have ideas for billboards and online adverts. If university had been an option, I think I would have majored in art or music. Those were my favorite subjects at the prep school.

  Honestly, if Jerod can be vice president at twenty-two, and Kaius can run the finances at twenty-five, I don’t see why I couldn’t be the marketing director. I’m still his kid. He could spare a tiny bit of special treatment for his daughter.

  A hissing sigh echoes off the walls around me. It stops my thoughts dead.

  A tremor runs through the center of my body. I stare wide-eyed at the stall door.

  There’s another sigh, followed by heavy and steady breathing.

  I jump up from the toilet and squeeze into the small space between it and the wall. “Don’t do this,” I whisper to myself. “Stop freaking out.” It’s nothing. It’s a hallucination caused by the schizophrenia. That’s what the medication was for. It was to suppress the voice in my head. Because it wasn’t real.

  I breathe in and out slowly. Deeply.

  The disembodied breathing continues.

  It’s not real. It’ll go away. I squeeze my eyes shut and hold on to the stall wall for support.

  “Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaade…”

  My eyes fly open.

  The voice is low and distant. But I recognize the deep undertones. I bite my tongue. No. I’m not going through this again. I’m not going to be medicated again. That crap made me ill. All I could do when I was on it was zombie walk my way through classes and sleep. I just got off monthly check-ins with the psychiatrist. Like, two months ago. If I tell anyone I think I’m hearing shit again, my life is over.

  Silence fills the bathroom, and my insides relax.

  It’s okay.

  Wow, way to overreact.

  I leave the stall and move over to the sink out of habit. I hold on to the edge of the thick, marble basin and stare at my reflection. See, Jade, you idiot. It’s fine.

  My eyes find the circular air vents in the ceiling. I don’t know why I always look at the ceiling when I think I hear something. I wait for the voice to return. For anything.

  There’s nothing.

  3

  The Voice

  We have the balcony to ourselves—benefit of being a Xacharias. It’s just Uncle Arthur and Jerod and me, which is great. I love Aunt Cecily, and I like Enid, but Cece always asks too many questions about how I’m doing, and well…Enid is weird.

  After the waiter takes our order, Arthur unfolds his cloth napkin with a flourish and smiles around the table. “Tell me about your travels, son. How did you like Italy?”

  “Oh my god, Italy was gorgeous!” Jerod sets his wine glass down and leans into the table. “We had this rock-climbing instructor at Lake Garda…” He lets out a low whistle and shakes his head. “It almost made me mad I brought Fallon with me.” He laughs and Arthur joins in.

  “How are things with the girlfriend, by the way?” our uncle asks.

  Jerod grins. “Things are good. Yeah. They’re really good. She’s great.”

  I roll my eyes and pick up my wine glass for something to do. I’m not much for alcohol. A group of us snuck some a few times at the preparatory school, but alcohol and prescribed poison don’t mix at all. It was never worth the extra surveillance and puking.

  “Try it,” Arthur says, giving my glass a nod. “It’s fruity and sweet. You’ll like it.” He winks and lifts his wine in a toast. “To the future, eh?”

  We clink glasses, and I take a small, tentative sip. It warms my throat and stomach, but he’s right. I do like it. I take another, longer sip.

  Arthur smiles at me. “What about you, hon?”

  I raise my eyebrows. “What about me, what?”

  He laughs. “You have any prospects I should know about?”

  I snort at the same time Jerod lets out a loud laugh. I kick at his shin under the table and smile sweetly at him when he winces. “Actually, no, Uncle. Men are scum. Excluding present company, of course.”

  “Uh-oh.” Arthur laughs again. “What happened?”

  Jerod rubs at his sore leg. He scowls at me, though his eyes are bright. “For something to happen, she would have to actually try. She shuts down people before they even open their mouth.”

  “Come on now.” Arthur’s laughter fills the balcony. “You gotta get out there. You’re young. You’re beautiful. You don’t have to marry anybody.”

  “Griffin talks about her a lot,” Jerod says. “You like Griffin, don’t you?”

  I shrug. The Vaughns live next door to my parents. The guys grew up together. They’re practically brothers. Arthur knows Griffin well. I didn’t see him much, of course, given how I was in and out of clinics and psych fa
cilities and then locked up at the prep school with stricter rules than prison.

  “Yeah? I’ve always liked Griffin,” Arthur says. “Your dad says he’s interning at the office?”

  Jerod nods. “Yeah. He’s not interested in real estate, but it’s paying for his Masters.”

  “Music, right?”

  “Yep. He says he’s torn between teaching at university level and working in theater.” Jerod nods in my direction. “I’m waiting for him to propose. He’s crushing on her real bad.”

  “Choke on a log.” I take another long sip of wine while they laugh at me. Griffin is always nice to me, but I’m sure Jerod is blowing things out of proportion, given how he got all the dramatic and lovey-dovey genes, what little there was to go around. Griffin is nice to everyone. He’s just that kind of guy.

  “I think he’s always been a little sweet on our Jade,” Arthur says, his tanned cheeks glowing from the alcohol. “I remember how much time he would spend trying to get her attention at parties.”

  “I think you’re getting old, dude,” I say. “Your memory is glitching.”

  Jerod squints at Arthur’s thick crop of dark hair. “Do I spy a few grays up there, old man?”

  Our uncle laughs. “Wisdom, boy. It just makes me sexier.”

  The waiter returns with large, deep-green salads. “More wine?”

  “Yes, another glass for everyone. Thanks.”

  I look down into my cup, prepared to protest, and I’m surprised to find it empty. Oh well. I’m not medicated anymore.

  “How long are you here for?” I ask to take the focus off myself.

  Arthur stretches back in his seat. “A couple of weeks. We’re staying in the mansion.” He grins.

  Grandpa’s sprawling estate is just outside of the city limits on a large plot of land. I haven’t been there since I moved into the penthouse, but when I was younger, I remember calling it a castle.

  “Yeah, it’s been awhile since we were up here,” Arthur continues. “We miss the place. And we wanted to give ourselves enough time to reconnect with everyone before sending our little girl off on some adventures.”