"Don't let the flower die, Jake." Her voice cracked. "Don't let the flower die."
He looked at his big hand encased in hers.
"Right," he said with an incredulous grin. "Don't let the flower die." He gave a knowing nod, as if this was a secret they alone shared. And followed it with a wink.
She reached up with her right hand, gripped his tie, and slowly tugged him down. Her face scrunched into a wrinkled smile, and her eyes struggled to focus on him. "Be nice to the children, Jake." She closed her eyes and nodded gently.
"Yeah," he said knowingly. "Got it." He pulled gently on his hand, but she wasn't ready to let go.
Her eyes opened as if she had just been awakened. Still holding the tie, her left hand reached up and patted him lightly on the cheek. "You're such a nice boy." The grin stretched out on her face; she let out a soft sigh. Her grip loosened, and Jake stood upright, nonchalantly fixing his tie. The old woman pointed to the flower. "You're going to want to put that in water."
"Yeah. I'll do that right now," he said, hoping she would be satisfied and scurry off on her merry way. But instead, she stood in the hallway, smiling her wrinkled smile and gripping her wooden cane.
"Is—there anything else I can help you with?" he said, slowly.
"Oh, no. I'm done." She stood with stiff confidence, her head wobbling ever so slightly.
"Then, ah, I'll just go and put this in some water, like you said?”
She nodded enthusiastically.
"Okay. Well, have a nice day.” He backed up into his apartment, closed the door softly, and set his eye to the peep hole. The old woman still stood in the hallway, smiling, apparently oblivious to his departure.
"Is she blind?” he muttered. No, just crazy, he decided.
He hung his head, his hands still straddling the tiny glass portal. He could feel the stem of the rose pressed between his palm and the door. This was all he needed today. It wasn't enough to have a day of boring sales calls. He had to add to it the annoyance of some crazy old woman making him late to work.
He tilted his head back up and peered through the hole; his heart skipped a beat. Though he could see quite a distance down the hall, the old woman was nowhere in sight. His hand snapped to the doorknob, but he didn't twist it. His desire to avoid talking to the old woman was stronger than his curiosity. He pushed off the door and went back to the living room, tossing the flower onto the kitchen counter as he passed.
Jenna pulled the phone from her ear. "Was someone at the door?"
"You wouldn’t believe me if I told you."
She shrugged. "I didn't hear the buzzer."
"She didn't buzz," he said, checking his tie in the mirror, "she must have slipped in."
Jenna fumbled with the phone, "Yeah. Hold on, Jake's talking to me."
"We can talk about it later."
"You sure?"
"Yes. I'm sure." He leaned over the couch and gave her a kiss. "I'll see you tonight."
Her brow furrowed. "I might be late."
It was easy for him to guess why. Jenna had worked hard to secure the understudy position for a major musical production at the Sunbury Theater, and today was her day to run lines with the cast. She’d heard rumors of a talent scout stopping by, so this was a big day for her.
"Knock 'em dead," he whispered.
"They're as good as dead." She smiled.
Jenna went back to her conversation, and Jake grabbed his briefcase off the counter. His eyes fell on the beautiful white flower laying in the grout between the rose colored tiles. He wanted to just throw the thing in the trash, but it was easy enough to fill a glass from the sink and plop it in. Besides, Jenna liked flowers. Perhaps he would even score a point or two. The little flower fit perfectly in the tall thin glass. Jake admired his handiwork, for a fraction of a second, before heading out to work.
To his relief the old woman was nowhere to be found.
Chapter 3
Jake ran down the granite steps of his apartment building, cell phone pressed firmly against his ear. "Yes. I have three pages of leads. I plan to be at it all morning... Yes, I know there's a deadline." His mind was so lost in the conversation, he missed the little girl hopping on the sidewalk and almost slammed right into her. She hopped backwards, lost her balance and toppled to the ground.
"Are you okay?" He juggled his briefcase and phone. "I'm sorry. Can you hold on a second, Bob? What? Yeah. Okay. I'll see you in a sec." He flipped the phone closed and bent down. "Are you hurt, honey?"
The little girl seemed dazed at first, but quickly recovered and climbed back to her feet. "Ah'm okay. Nuthin’ ith bwoken."
He looked her over anyway. All he needed was to start the day off with a lawsuit. "I'm really sorry, sweetheart. I didn't see you there."
She looked up with big eyes. "Don’t wowwy. Thumtimes ah’m gwothed in thtuff too."
He squinted down at her. "Gwossed in stuff?"
She squinted back, and pursed her lips. "You know, in-gwothed."
He stared at her blankly, trying to translate in his head.
She put her hands on her hips. "Not wookin’ weyer ah'm gowin."
"Oh!" He laughed. "Yes. I need to watch where I'm going."
"With all that mutho math, yaw gonna huwt thum-one."
He gave her a quizzical expression. It was odd to hear one so young using the term muscle mass, and the way she stood facing toward him, engaged in the conversation, reminded him more of an adult than a child.
She held her hands clasped in front of her pink ruffled shirt. "But ah fawgive you.” Her eyes were trained on his as she spoke. "It hoppinth."
He smiled and shook his head. "Well—I will try harder to watch where I'm going."
The little girl shrugged. "Okay. Thee you wound."
He looked at her amazed.
"Unless theyor thumpin elth you wanna thay."
"No," he blinked. "Ah, hey..." He looked behind him, realizing for the first time that he was talking to a toddler. "Where's your mommy? You shouldn’t be out here alone."
"In dayor," she said, pointing to the apartment building.
Jake remembered the news piece about the Cape murderer, and a nervous snake curled in his gut. "She lets you play outside by yourself?"
"No, sheeth right dayor." The little girl pointed to the front of the apartment building. Jake could see the profile of a very pregnant woman sorting through a handful of mail just inside the glass doors.
"That's your mommy?"
"Yup, lookin’ at mayol."
"Well you better catch up before she misses you."
The little girl smiled up at him. "It wath nithe to meet you."
"It was nice meeting you, too.” Jake smiled down at her. "I'll see you around."
She began climbing up the granite steps. Jake turned and jogged down to the parking lot and got in his car.
The ride across town was uneventful. But the time he normally would have spent rehearsing sales scripts was spent watching the scene with the little girl play out over and over in his mind. He couldn’t believe how mature she’d acted. Most of the children Jake knew were loud and full of energy. They definitely didn’t know words like muscle mass or engrossed. And, they certainly wouldn't have recognized the subtle cue that a conversation was coming to an end.
Jake slammed on the brakes, only narrowly avoiding a collision with a sandy-haired boy with freckles. His mom and two freckly sisters had already reached the other side, but he had stopped in the middle of the road and was looking up at something of interest.
A horn bleated behind Jake’s car, then sounded again.
"Lady, do you mind!" Jake yelled out the passenger window at the woman on the sidewalk.
She looked around, then gave him a puzzled look. The girls glared.
Jake glared back.
Was she his mom? She had the same fair skin and freckles and sandy blond hair.
"Hey! The light’s green!" screamed the driver behind him, followed by another beep.
&n
bsp; Jake gripped his steering wheel and leaned toward the passenger window again. "Lady! You want to get your kid under control?"
"Are you talking to me?" she hollered back.
Jake shook his head in frustration. What was going on with these people and their children? Parental neglect was running rampant in Sunbury. He rocked back into his seat, and stared out at the sandy haired boy, who was now staring back.
Jake tapped his horn, and scowled. At this point there were multiple horns going off, and every pedestrian in sight was looking in his direction—as though he was the problem. Were they all blind? Did they not see the boy in the middle of the intersection?
His hand shot to the door handle, but, before he could open the door, the boy turned and started hopping toward the curb.
Jake stabbed his foot on the gas pedal, and the tires screeched as he peeled off down the road. He slammed the stick shift into second, then third, but forced himself to refrain from punching the gas pedal a third time. He didn't need to add a speeding ticket to his list of irritations for the day; his finances couldn't handle one more shred of debt. In the end analysis, there was simply no money to float a temper tantrum at this time.
He pushed on through traffic, staring numbly at the bumper of the car in front of him. In his mind he could see the mother and the other pedestrians with their judgmental stares and frowns of disapproval. Why were they looking at him? Why weren’t they looking at the child obstructing traffic?
None of it made any sense.
Chapter 4
Jake stared at the papers littering his desk, then slid the phone in toward him. There were enough names to keep him busy for several days, but he didn't have days. He needed to finalize at least two contracts before the close of business, or there were going to be cut backs. Last year it was a week of vacation time. His boss, Bob Miller, had gathered everyone in the conference room and explained that the company could not sustain four weeks paid vacation time, and that he was deeply sorry, but something had to be cut. Jake believed him. Bob had introduced health insurance initiatives, 501ks, and in-work fitness programs to help relieve stress and make the team more productive. There was no law requiring him to do these things, and it wasn't a corporate tactic to draw employees from other software firms. Data Tech was the only software company within eighty miles of Sunbury. Bob was just a good guy, and a great boss.
Jake considered himself the luckiest man on earth to have snagged a job straight out of high school. It was a data entry position and didn't pay much, but it got his foot in the door. In four short years he’d been able to triple his salary, hopping between jobs within the company, and now he was on the short list for junior programmer. But he had to run sales calls first; it was a right of passage within the company. Every programmer had to know the software well enough to convince someone else they needed to buy it. It was also Bob's personal philosophy that a programmer hungry enough to make a sale is a programmer hungry enough to make a program the client wants to buy.
"Hey, Jake."
He looked up.
Debbie Jones, Bob's secretary, stood sideways in the entrance to his cubicle showing off her enormous belly. She looked like a snake that had just swallowed a hamster.
"You need to cut back on the brews, Deb.” He pointed. "You’re getting a pot belly.”
She scowled playfully. "Bob wants to talk to you in his office at nine, okay?"
"Did he say why?"
"Nope. He probably just wants to go over sales prospects with you."
Jake looked at the papers on his desk again. There wasn't room to add more prospects, but maybe Bob had some closers. It would be a relief to work on a couple that had already been primed. He leaned back in his chair with a squeak and smiled up at Debbie. "So, when you gonna have that thing?"
She rubbed her belly, and her eyes sparkled. "Three more weeks, end of July."
"Do you know what it is yet? I mean, other than a baby?" He froze, as if something startling had just occurred to him. "It is a baby, right?"
She ignored his joke. "Jack and I want to be surprised, so we didn't find out. I thought everyone knew that."
"We-ll, I don't get up to the fourth floor very often. I think they're afraid I'll lead an insurrection."
"He really has you busting your butt, doesn't he?"
"Yeah, but it’ll only be for awhile. Soon this will all be nothing but a fond memory, and I'll be coding with the big boys."
"I bet you will," she said, backing into the aisle and disappearing behind the partition. "Nine a.m. In Bob's office.”
He saw the top of her head bobbing away.
"Yes, ma'am."
Jake looked at the clock. He had fifteen minutes, enough time to make one call, if all went well. He slid the pages around searching for the most promising lead. It would be nice to go to the meeting with something already in the can.
As he scanned the sales documents, he gradually became aware of a low steady thumping coming down the aisle. Jake turned and looked, but there was no head above the office dividers. The stomping got closer. And louder. Soon a little blond boy appeared in the entrance to his cubicle.
"Amazing," said the little boy, panting. "This is definitely my favorite part. I don't know why you guys don't do this all the time."
Jake blinked.
The boy bolted off down the aisle, his loud stomping heard clearly as he circled the entire outside of the sales office. Jake stood and looked over his divider. He could still hear the stomping, but couldn't see the boy. He looked around. A few co-workers were talking on their phones in nearby cubicles, and Debbie was standing near the elevator with someone from accounting. No one was paying any attention to the running boy. No one. Where was this child's mother? And why didn't anyone care to stop him from making this unholy racket?
Jake stepped out of his cubicle just as the boy rounded the corner, stomping even more loudly. How was that not bothering anyone?! Jake put his hands up. "All right, slow down. Slow down."
The boy came to a stop. "You know," he said, catching his breath, "When I run, it makes my skin all tingly.” He held his arms out. "I love that feeling."
Jake gave him a stern look. "You can't be running around in here like that."
"This is the best place to do it!” His eyes glowed. "Listen,” he said, pounding his sneakered feet against the hard wood floor. "It makes noise underneath, and off the walls too!"
Jake stared, dumbfounded, then looked around the office. "Can no one hear this?!" he asked, loudly.
Three cubicles down his co-worker, Amy, poked her head up over the divider. "Hear what?"
"This!" said Jake, thrusting his hands toward the little boy. Jake leaped backwards. "Wh- whoa!”
Amy's brow rose sharply. "You okay, Jake?"
He dropped to the floor and looked under the dividers. The boy wasn’t there, only the feet of his co-workers. "What on earth...?” he muttered.
"Jake?"
"Yes?!" He said with a groan.
"What are you doing?"
He got back to his feet and looked around. "I think I'm losing my mind."
Her head cocked to the side. "Well, if you find it, let me know. Maybe mine's sitting next to it.” She gave him a crooked smile. "Well, gotta get back to work.” And with that, she ducked back down behind her office wall.
He wished he could do the same, but there was something bizarre happening, and there was no ignoring it. Children didn't just vanish from a busy office, or show up out of the blue for that matter.
Jake heard the elevator ding and turned to see Debbie stepping though the doors. Next to her, with the broadest grin he had ever seen, was the little boy.
"Deb!" he blurted.
She was still talking to the accountant who was standing outside the elevator, but she looked up and acknowledged him.
"DEB!" he shouted again, and took off down the aisle.
She glanced again and gave him a look as if to say, whatever your game is, I'm not playing.
&nb
sp; "No, Deb! Hold the door!"
Both of them were looking at him now, but that didn't stop her from letting the elevator doors close.
Jake rounded the corner and stopped. "Really? Really, Deb?"
The accountant laughed.
Jake ignored him and ran to the stairwell. Bob's office was only two floors up. If he pushed it, he might be able to get up there as she was stepping out. He took the stairs two at a time, gripping the rail and swinging himself around at each turn. In seconds he was on the fourth floor, pushing through the door and down the hall. Debbie was just stepping out of the elevator, the doors stood open behind her. As Jake barreled down the hallway, she turned toward him. Her arms crossed on top of her belly, and a look of irritation formed on her face.
Jake slowed himself and thrust his hand between the closing elevator doors. The bumpers squeezed against his flesh, and the doors reversed direction.
"I've never seen someone run up two floors to catch an elevator," she said. "You know it does go back down."
Jake scanned the inside, but the little boy was gone.
"I have a lot of work today, Jake. I'm about to go on maternity leave..."
"Do you believe in ghosts?" he said, still staring into the hollow innards of the elevator.
He could feel her eyes probing him, noticing the sweat on his temple, the tightness of his jaw, the intensity of his expression.
"You're serious." Her voice broke when she said it.
He swallowed. "Something strange is going on. I could have sworn I saw a little blond boy in here with you."
"You ran up two flights of stairs because you thought there was a little boy in the elevator with me?"
He turned toward her, realizing by her expression, that he had probably said too much already. If he didn't implement some damage control soon, he might find himself the subject of endless water cooler discussions, or worse, fired. It was too late to deny what he had said, and there was no way to shrug it off as a joke—his only hope was to allow her to shrug it off as a joke.
UNSEEN Page 2