Mary Robb - Down the Rabbit Hole

“Actually, yeah. I do.”

“Well, that shows what you know. Get back to your office now and pay close attention—all the answers you seek are there. Go on. Now. ” She made shooing motions with her hands, moving toward him. “Go on!”

As if pushed by an invisible force field, he backed away from her.

“Wait,” he said, before she propelled him any faster. “Who are you?”

She stopped, her yellow eyes going wide and her red-lipped mouth gaping into a smile. As she bent toward him, her hands on her hips, his nervous glance fell on her tiara, upon which a large rhinestone heart anchored the center position, flanked by dozens of smaller heart-shaped glittery things, some of them on springs and bouncing with tiny ineffectual glee.

“Who am I?” She reared up, her hands on her hips, and boomed a laugh. Next to them, a mousy-haired girl in a cubicle looked over her shoulder. Spotting Jeremy, she turned in her seat, eyes alive with interest.

“Hi,” she said, her lipsticked mouth broadening into a smile.

“Not him , you idiot,” Mrs. Hartz snarled. “He’s not real. Get back to work.”

The girl flushed and snapped back to her computer.

Mrs. Hartz crossed her arms over her chest and regarded him. “I am Queenie Hartz—that’s Mrs. Hartz to you—and I run this place. You’d do best to listen to me or else . . .”

Her eyes—brows raised, impish smile—demanded that he ask.

“Or else what?” he complied.

“Or else . . . off with your head! ” she crowed. With another flick of her hands he was tumbled backward down the hall until he reached the corner, bumped off the adjacent wall, and then rolled another dozen feet or more and found himself sprawled in front of his own cubicle.

“Pay attention, boys and girls!” her voice said, much farther off now. “You know what happens if you don’t pay attention!”

Angry, he picked himself up and brushed himself off. “No!” he called back. “What happens?”

There was an unnerving moment of silence before a peal of maniacal laughter shivered through the air-conditioned room. “Nothing!”

* * *

“It was just . . .” Macy swept her hair back behind her ear and concentrated on her menu, hoping her inner turmoil did not show on her face. “Disappointing. That’s all. I thought there was more to him.”

“You were with him for seven months, Macy,” her sister-in-law, Carolyn, said. “That’s longer than, like, anyone in your history of dating. Are you trying to tell me you were looking for something more all that time and couldn’t find it?”

“No.” Macy looked up, wondering how to make herself clear without revealing the humiliating truth that she’d lost a guy to a phone. “There was a lot there, I’ll admit it. But when it came down to it he just wasn’t everything I wanted him to be. And it was just under seven months. Enough time to spot the flaws.”

Carolyn slapped her menu down on the table. Macy noted a flush creep into her pale cheeks and felt terrible. She understood Carolyn’s disbelief. He had seemed perfect for her. She had thought so too.

“I’m sorry,” Carolyn said. “I just don’t understand you. Surely you know that everybody has flaws.”

“Of course. But they have to match up, you know? They have to be flaws you can live with.”

“Sure, but . . .” Carolyn made a frustrated sound. “We liked him! Even your obnoxiously overprotective brother liked him. And believe me, when Lute likes someone you’re dating, things are a lot easier at our house, I can tell you.”

Macy lay the menu in her lap and smiled at her. “Then I’m sorry. I truly didn’t intend to disrupt your home life.”

Carolyn sighed. “It’s not that, and you know it. Something must have happened, because the last time I saw you, you were head over heels.”

Macy snorted, then took a sip of her water, eyes skittering away from her sister-in-law’s too-perceptive gaze.

“Hey, it was subtle but I spotted it.” Carolyn jabbed a finger into the table. “I’ve known you since you were ten, okay? And now you tell me you’ve dumped him. I have to say I’m shocked. And a little skeptical that he just wasn’t everything you wanted him to be .” This last she said in a voice intended to imitate Macy’s, but it smacked dangerously of Minnie Mouse.

“See?” Macy sat forward. “ This is why I don’t like dinner parties. If I hadn’t brought him to your little shindig you’d have never known him, never liked him, and peace would reign again in the world. Instead, this little ripple in my pond has your boat rocking. But okay, we went. Did you not notice how absent he was half the time?”

“It wasn’t just our little shindig . It was Thanksgiving too.” Carolyn’s brows drew together. “What do you mean, absent? Oh, well, he did take that phone call.”

“ And he spent the whole evening checking his email. He did that on Thanksgiving too, remember?”

“But he was expecting something, right? A contract or something?”

Macy waved a hand. “Whatever. What about the time Lute caught him checking Facebook?”

“He did?” Carolyn was starting to look doubtful. Then her face cleared. “Wasn’t he trying to get in touch with his niece? Or sister? Or someone like that?”

“His cousin.” She sighed heavily, giving Carolyn a helpless look. “But there was always something like that. Something he had to pick that damn thing up for—maybe something valid, maybe not—but either way, he’d look and then he’d get sucked into it and poof! He’d be gone.”

“What do you mean, he’d be gone? He leaves?”

“Mentally!” Macy picked up her water glass. The agitation was beginning again. She took a few quick swallows. “You know, I spent months feeling like it must be me. That I must be boring. So I upped the chatter, tried to engage him, felt bad about myself and why he couldn’t seem to focus on me for more than five minutes at a time. And you know what I finally realized?”

Carolyn looked at her, probably surprised by the heat in her voice. “What?”

“That I was bored. Me! Not him. For the longest time I was sure that I was the problem, that if I were smarter, prettier, more interesting, he’d put the damn phone down. But no. The problem wasn’t me, it was him. Sitting at a table watching someone look at their phone is boring . So one day I’d just had enough. See ya!” She flipped a hand and shrugged, letting her gaze slip past Carolyn so she couldn’t read the hurt in it.

Carolyn nodded. “Yeah, okay. I can see that.”

The waiter arrived and took their orders. When he was gone, Macy added, “Besides, my life coach says it’s inefficient to spend time with people you’re hoping will change, that it’s a surefire way to derail your future.”

“Life coach.” Carolyn snorted.

“Stop it, I told you how much he’s helped me. I’m focused now. I’m clearing my life of anything that doesn’t serve my goals, and it’s working. The fact is, if love is not adding value to my life, it has no place in it. Letting things without value take up space in your life drains your energy for fulfilling yourself with what’s really important.”

Carolyn frowned for a long moment, then, as if she hadn’t even heard what Macy had just said, asked, “But couldn’t you have talked about it? Did you tell him the phone thing was a problem? You know, relationships are hard work. It’s a cliché, but everybody says it for a reason. Not everything’s going to be perfect right—”

Macy held up a hand. “Carolyn, I love you. But if you continue down that conversational path my head will explode. C’mon, I’m not an idiot. I’m twenty-nine years old. I know a relationship takes work.”