Robert Lennon - Familiar

He says, “No makeup.”

She can only beg, with a look, for his patience.

“You look pretty.”

“Thank you.”

She puts her hand on his thigh, just for a moment, then removes it.

When he stops the car, she opens the door, takes up her bag and binder. She kisses him — this seems expected.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “About yesterday.”

He nods, gently unsmiling.

“We’ll have to… we’ll…”

But his face tells her he’s had enough. She shuts the door and he drives away.

She recognizes the building. It’s gray cement with an angled roof and small square windows that don’t open. She has come here from time to time, as part of her real job, to meet with researchers or deliver results for outsourced work. The entrance is on the other side, on the science quad, so she walks there. She passes a few graduate students, a man she thinks she recognizes, but nobody says hello. It’s already hot and the wind blows her hair into her eyes. She wonders how she usually does her hair — probably not this way.

A directory inside the entrance tells her that administration is on the second floor. She takes the stairs. A moment later, here she is, in the hall outside the main office. Its double doors are propped open. Beyond them a receptionist or administrative assistant sits behind a desk, typing on a computer beside a nameplate reading BECCA SELGIN.

It’s unclear what to do next. Is her office in there, part of a complex? Or is it out here, off the hallway, alongside what appear to be professors’ offices and seminar rooms? She walks to the end of the hallway and back, then to the other end, looking for her name. She doesn’t see it. There is nothing to do but go in.

The woman called Becca looks up. She is in her twenties, pale, overweight. A dish of candies sits beside the nameplate. She smiles at Elisa but not without some restraint, some reluctance. “Morning! You’re in early.”

Elisa holds up the binder. “Lots to read.”

“Oh yeah, how was it?”

“Very informative.” This is going well, she thinks. Then she says, “Any mail for me?”

The girl appears a bit flustered, as if this is not something she is often asked. “Uh… maybe? Check your box?” Her eyes dart to the left, as though that’s where the mailboxes are.

“Thanks, Becca,” and she walks left.

There is a small room off the main one, accessible from the hall, with wooden pigeonholes on either side, and after a moment Elisa finds her name. There is no mail. But she can see now that the administrative offices lie along two short hallways, one on this side of Becca’s station, one on the other. She leaves the mailroom and walks down the hallway on this side, looking for her name on a door. The doors are all closed. She’s glad she came in early.

“Are you looking for Judith?” It’s Becca’s voice.

Sweat is breaking out under her arms. Is she looking for Judith? She supposes that’s what a person who would be walking this way should be doing. So, after an excruciating pause, she says, “Yes.”

“She’ll be late. She’s got a doctor appointment. Oh geez, maybe people aren’t supposed to know.”

“It’s all right.”

This, then, means that her own office is not in this hallway. Correct? Because if you’re going down the hall toward your own office, nobody asks you if you are looking for Judith. So she draws a silent breath, turns on her heel, and crosses in front of Becca with what she hopes comes off as a purposeful stride. She is wearing the pumps she wore to the conference. They’re the only shoes in her closet that she is sure have been associated with work. Becca says, “You look different.”

Elisa doesn’t stop, it’s a conversation she is not prepared to have. Over her shoulder: “Oh?”

“Oh God, I didn’t mean bad. I’ll just shut up.”

She’s down the hallway, peering at nameplates. “Don’t worry!”

And here, finally, is her office. A note card, hand-printed with her name, is taped to the wall beside the door. The door is locked. She takes out her keys, finds one she’s never seen before, shoves it home. The door opens. She pushes inside, closes it behind her.

She stands with her back against the door, breathing shallowly. Her relief is profound.

The room is perhaps twelve feet square. Several plants, a coat rack, a desk. On the desk is a phone, a printer, a computer. There is a file cabinet, several chairs, bookcases covered with papers and binders. The shades are drawn, as if against afternoon light.

She crosses the room and opens them. Now she sees a photo, on the desk, of Derek and the boys, the same one that shocked her in the hallway last night. She opens a drawer and puts the photo in it.

Hours might pass before anyone knocks. This is what she hopes. She boots up the computer.

The computer desktop is uncluttered, the background image generic. It’s like her machine at the lab, which in this life, she supposes, is someone else’s lab. There are links to various web pages, which she double-clicks. They lead to university sites, administrative resources, that require a password.

She tries the password she used at the lab, a random series of numbers and letters. It doesn’t work.

Though there is nothing in the world she wants less to do than open the door and go to Becca’s desk, that’s what she does.

“Hey!” says Becca. She’s eating a granola bar.

“I am totally discombobulated today,” Elisa tells her.

“Tell me about it!”

“And I am spacing on my password.”

This gets her a pair of raised, excessively plucked, eyebrows.

“Seriously?”

“I know, right? Do you have a list somewhere?”

Becca shakes her head; her voice takes on a more businesslike tone, as if some line has been crossed. “You gotta go to the SRIT web page and enter your e-mail, and it’ll ask you the secret question, you know, and then you can change the password. I’ll send you the link.” She turns to her computer and starts typing. “They tell you not to, but I write mine down. It’s on a sticky under the desk.”

Elisa goes back to her office. No sticky under the desk. On the computer, there’s an icon for an e-mail program, and she opens it. And there’s her day’s work, laid out before her: thousands of e-mails, doubtless stretching back months, years, that will tell her what she said and whom she said it to, and presumably what on earth it is she is supposed to do here all day. The sight of this list, and the nested series of folders where the e-mail of the past has been archived, paralyzes her. She feels the way she did when, as a little girl, she pressed her nose to the glass of the TV screen to see what static really was: a mesmerizing and random and utterly boring thing that nevertheless compelled and frightened her. Then, as now, she felt fascinated and doomed. She opens the e-mail Becca has sent, and clicks the link. Enters into the browser window the e-mail address she has just learned. Hits “FORGET PASSWORD?”

The security question is “RULE 2.”

This was all about the third rule, Derek said.

Shit, fuck, damn. What the hell are these rules?

Elisa is certain that, should all else fail, she could walk over to the IT office and act like a dumb bitch and make them hand over the password. It’s a nice morning and already she is longing for a bit of fresh air. But she wants this finished now. She wants to crack this thing without getting up off her chair. She rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands and groans. Okay. Okay.

She picks up the phone and calls Derek’s office, and he answers. He says, “Is everything all right?”

“Can you answer a question for me?”