The man, and now she was starting to feel unsure that it was Troy, maybe just a man who looked similar, or even a man who didn’t look that similar at all, turned around to face Diane. As he pressed his back against the door to open it, he looked at her.
“Excuse me,” Diane said much louder than she had intended, “is this the restroom?”
He said nothing. The door swung shut, then open, in smaller and smaller increments. The man who looked like Troy was gone.
“What are you doing, Diane?” It was Laura. She was not smiling. Her branches were still bleeding a little onto the floor.
“Nothing. I just—”
“Restrooms are back that way.”
Diane pointed at the door to the kitchen.
“Nope, back that way,” Laura said, her face giving nothing away but bland service industry congeniality.
Diane walked toward the restroom, but she did not need to use it so she just slowed her way back into the restaurant and past the coffee counter, glancing into the kitchen area. She couldn’t see anyone in it.
“They’re right over there, Diane,” Laura said from across the room. She pointed with a leafy arm, her face no longer congenial, her eyes unmoving, unmoved.
Diane turned and went into the restroom. She stood in front of the mirror for a minute, her hands gripping either end of the sink. It had been Troy, she knew it. Or, well, maybe it hadn’t been. And anyway she was here to find out about… Ethan? Ellen? She couldn’t remember the name. Nothing about herself seemed certain. She shouted into the sink. It did nothing in response. She shouted again, wondering if the people out in the dining room could hear her. No one came in, anyway. She wasn’t sure she had even been shouting out loud, or if she had only thought about shouting. Her throat felt raw.
She ran the sink and then the hand dryer and then returned to her booth.
Dawn was there.
“The waiter told me you were in the restroom. She said to have a seat. Sorry I’m late.”
“Hi, Dawn. It’s good to see you.”
Her throat was tight and sore as she spoke, and she tried to make her voice sound normal.
“What’s this?” Dawn grabbed the notepad Diane had left sitting on the tabletop.
“No, you don’t have to—” Diane started. “It’s just some things—”
Dawn grinned as she read it.
“Well, first off, I am fine. How are you? Do you have a pen?”
Diane indicated the pen next to the salt, pepper, and sand shakers.
“Ah, great.” Dawn took it and checked off the questions as she answered them. “The family’s great. My sister is pregnant. My father retired and is making hammocks. As a hobby, you understand. He’s made thousands, leaving them in a giant pile on his front lawn. The neighborhood association is upset because they think it’s a political statement, some kind of conceptual art installation about the existence of mountains.”
“Yikes. That’s very controversial,” said Diane, finding a gap in the conversation she could work her voice into. “I mean, I believe in mountains and all, but I understand it’s a controversial viewpoint. I would never force that viewpoint on others.”
“Right, well, that’s not what he’s trying to do at all. Don’t get down on my dad. You don’t know him. He just likes making hammocks and then putting them in a pile. That’s something he’s always loved.”
“I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I’m glad your father is happy.”
“He says kids come by sometimes trying to steal hammocks from his pile to hang between two trees and lie on. He manages to chase most of those vandals away. He acts irritated when he talks about it, but, between you and me, I think he likes the challenge.”
Dawn checked the next thing off the list and added, “Yes, I have a family. It might have made more sense to put that first.”
Diane didn’t think that anything about today was likely to make sense. She felt nauseous after that moment in the restroom and was extra glad she hadn’t ordered any food, invisible or not.
“I’m feeling okay,” Dawn said, pen over the next question. “I had a migraine recently, although of course I didn’t know until someone told me.”
“Of course,” said Diane. Why of course?
“Also a bout of food poisoning. Had to miss a couple of days.”
“You got a migraine from food poisoning?”
“What? No, how would that happen? It was just food poisoning. We have the salmon deliveryman come by every Tuesday, and leave fresh salmon on our porch. Lately the quality seems to be deteriorating. He used to put an entire live fish there and lumber away. We’d open the door to find a wet creature with panicked, unblinking eyes, flopping around outside our door. We’d kill it with strychnine and have delicious steaks and salads and pastas. But lately, he’s just been leaving wet piles of torn, pinkish gray flesh that I hope is salmon. Honestly, I think he’s just tossing it from the sidewalk, not even walking up to the porch anymore.”
“I’ve never heard of any kind of meat causing food poisoning. Just wheat and its by-products.”
“Well, me neither, of course, but after we ate this week’s salmon delivery, and it was especially moist and spongy this week, Stuart and I both felt a bit sick. We couldn’t get out of bed for days.”
“Is Stuart your husband?” Diane asked.
“Who?”
“Stuart.”
“Who is Stuart?”
“You just said his name is Stuart. The man you live with.”
“I live alone, Diane. Single as single can be.”
Diane suddenly felt like the words she was saying were twisting in her mouth and coming out as different words altogether. No part of the conversation was connecting with any other part. She might throw up after all, but she had just been in the restroom. It would look strange to run back to it so soon. The thought of that slight embarrassment kept her stomach in check.
“Who did you eat that salmon with the other night?”
“Nobody. Just me. Like I said, this is my first time out with someone else in over a month, I think. So glad you invited me.”
“Right. I’m glad you agreed to meet me.”
A gray-gloved hand rose over the edge of the table, holding two coffees. It quietly slid them in front of the two women. They pretended they did not see the hand, maintaining eye contact and waiting in polite silence as it pushed food they had never actually ordered onto the table: a Greek salad for Diane and a Denver omelet for Dawn. The hand made a subtle flourish of accomplishment and then disappeared back under the table.
“This is about”—Dawn looked back at Diane’s list—“Evan?”
Diane moved the Greek salad away from her, one hand on her stomach.
“Yes. I remember working with Evan. I remember him going missing from our office the same time you were out sick. He called me the day you came back, and when I went to his cubicle, where I was certain he worked, there was no cubicle there. Just a plant and a photo and a chair.”
“Mm.” Dawn’s mouth was full of omelet. She seemed very hungry. It must have been the recovery from the food poisoning.
“And neither you nor Catharine remember anyone named Evan working with us?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t,” Dawn said, having swallowed the mouthful of egg. Diane felt a surge in the back of her mouth and had to take a moment to keep herself together.
“It’s just that,” she said after that moment, “how can you sit so close to where someone worked and have no recollection of them?”
“Well, Diane, I—”
“You didn’t call in. Catharine had some of us ready to go to your house to find you, Dawn. But then you get back to work and Catharine is like ‘No, I was totally in the know,’ and you were like ‘Yeah, just food poisoning.’ But I’m telling you the feeling around the office before you came back was that you and, and”—Diane glanced at her notepad—“Evan were both missing. We almost had to get the Sheriff’s Secret Police involved.”