HIDDEN

A novel by Lynda Ellestad

Content note: This excerpt includes sexual references, distressing recollections, and workplace bullying.

CHAPTER ONE

Work

Reports are piling up on Edward’s desk. His green desk blotter is covered over with stacked file folders, each a project requiring his immediate attention. He’ll have some serious catching up to do when he returns. I find it soothing to think of him overwhelmed and anxious, buried in work.

I shouldn’t be here, hovering in the doorway to his office, on the cusp of his personal space. His wife, Barb, stares at me from a black-and-white portrait next to his computer screen. There’s another photo on the wall behind his desk, enlarged, clearly in a place of honour— Edward and two other men, preening, each clutching the carcass of a dead fish by its gaping jaw. Wherever he is, he needs to stay gone.

I glance over my shoulder. No one’s nearby or looking my way, so I take a tentative step in. The thrum from the activity in the corridors and cubicles behind me instantly lessens. The air in his office is stale and undisturbed, yet I feel Edward’s presence. It’s like he’s still close by, perhaps trapped behind the drywall, imprisoned with the steel studs and the dust. I hug my arms to my chest. It’s not healthy to think this way.

Barb’s black eyes follow me as I cross the room to the front of his desk. She’s a faintly pretty woman with an oval face and etched eyebrows, a hint of a smile at the corner of her lips. She’s staring up at me as though she wants to ask a question. I can almost see her forehead wrinkling, her lips twitching with—

There’s sudden movement behind me. Rebecca, Edward’s personal assistant, stands in the doorway. I feel like I’ve been caught at something shameful. The urge to crawl under his desk is almost overpowering, but I force myself to stand up straight before her. She lifts a pretty eyebrow. She thinks I’m odd; I can see it on her face.

She breezes past me and places three black binders on the corner of Edward’s desk. They cover the last of its surface. If the green blotter is under there somewhere, I can’t see it. Rebecca’s perfume is a faint musk, sexual, almost primal. It lingers in the air between us and mixes with the stale air to create something I can’t name—a disturbing presence over a thick absence. I feel a rush of vertigo and reach out to touch the edge of Edward’s desk.

“Is he coming in today?” I ask, trying for nonchalance. Rebecca turns and stares at me for a long moment. I won’t look away. I have the right to ask a question. I hold her gaze, though I feel something contract deep in my pelvis.

“I don’t know, Ada. I really don’t.” She’s a lovely woman with long shiny brown hair, slender hips and big breasts that pull at the fabric of her white blouse. Edward likes pretty young women for his personal assistants.

We stare at each other for another moment until she sighs in frustration and gestures impatiently towards the door, like I’m a toddler underfoot. How dare she? She must be half my age. If she only knew, if she had the slightest idea. I want to push her so hard she falls back against the desk, splays across it like a—

“Ada,” she says in a tight voice, “isn’t it time you went to your desk?”

I blink, standing in front of her, my mouth hanging open like a fool. I snap it shut. What’s wrong with me? Why did I come in here?

“I . . . yes. Yes.” Turning with what little dignity I can muster, I leave Edward’s office and hurry to my cubicle. There’s a terrible headache thumping behind my eyes as I take my coat off and throw it on the side table next to my desk. I settle in my chair and rub at the back of my neck. I’m hungover. That’s why I’m out of sorts. I never should have gone out last night. I don’t know what I was thinking. I can still smell him—the odour of his flesh, a mix of sweat and raw earth. Of rage. The hard fat around his hairy abdomen, the slapping sound our bodies made. No! I won’t think of it. I fumble to turn on my computer and desk lamp and then sort through my inbox. Three reports, two of them from Greg Moretti, my least favourite of the seven shareholders in this environmental engineering firm. It will be a difficult day.

“I heard that sigh, Ada.” This from Patricia, my coworker behind the partition in the next cubicle.

“Morning, Patricia,” I say through the thick fabric. “Two from Greg.”

“Oh, you poor thing. Happy Tuesday.”

“Yeah, happy Tuesday.” I pull the first of his reports from the pile and find the document on the network. His handwriting is difficult to decipher. It’s erratic and sharp in a way that reminds me of needles. I have to squint down at the page to make his corrections and edits.

“Those reports done yet?” I jump in my chair. Greg has materialized behind me. I swivel and stare up at him, wide-eyed and no doubt looking like a lemur who’s about to bolt down a hole. I hate that I respond to him this way.

“No...not, not yet,” I stammer, my headache pounding behind my eyes. “I’ve just started the first. I only got in a short while ago.”

He looks at his watch and sighs hugely, extravagantly. “Well, I’ve been here since six. I guess we run by a different clock. Get them to me as soon as you can. Sooner, actually.” He turns and strides away to his office, head back, chest out, looking grim and terribly important.

“Sooner,” I whisper. “Jerk.”

“I heard that, too.” Patricia chuckles from behind the partition. I can hear her getting up from her chair, the creak and groan of the mechanisms, a soft grunt from her. She’s not a small woman. She pokes her head around the partition. Her thick white hair hangs loosely to her shoulders. She’s in her early sixties and has soft brown eyes and thin lips and a face that’s slowly melting and becoming more complicated. Just like my own will any day now, I suppose. She leans against the partition, folds her arms over her thick chest and takes a quick look over her shoulder to see if anyone is listening.

“Edward isn’t in again,” she says. “Rebecca came by earlier. She’s actually worried about him. No one’s been able to get hold of him.”

“That’s odd,” I say, flushing at the memory of Rebecca’s clear disdain directed at me only a few moments ago. “He’s probably just taken a few days and gone hunting or fishing. Some manly thing.” I stare down at Greg’s report on my desk, hoping she’ll get the hint. She doesn’t.

“Yes, but even his wife doesn’t know where he is.” She glances around again, then leans towards me and whispers, “Barb contacted the police on Saturday morning. Don’t tell anyone I said that. Rebecca asked me not to mention it, and here I go and blurt it out. But clearly something’s wrong.”

“Maybe they had an argument. That’s a possibility. And Edward can take care of himself. He’ll show up. Men like him always show up eventually.”

“You really don’t like him, do you?”

“No, I don’t like him.”

“Why, Ada? What is it about him? I can’t say I like him either, but he’s no different than the rest of them.”

“He’s a bit different.”

“Well, I suppose,” she sighs. “Hey, how’s your back today?”

“Much better, thanks.” I move from side to side to show her. I started cleaning my laundry room on Saturday. Or was it Friday night? I pulled a muscle and it was still a little sore yesterday. I was limping around the office. I glance down at the blisters on my hands, almost healed now. I don’t even remember getting them. They—

“—tonight?”

“Sorry?” I look up at Patricia.

“I was just asking if we’re still on for tonight.” I have no idea what she’s talking about. “Oh, Ada, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about the group.”

The group. The women’s group. She’s been at me to go to this for months now. She pleaded with me yesterday as we were getting ready to leave for the day. It means so much to her. I couldn’t think of another way to get out of the building, so I agreed to go. This will be hell. She only invited me because she thinks I’m troubled. She thinks I’m eccentric and that living alone has made me unstable. I suppose it is ridiculous to find yourself, at forty-six, still living in the house you grew up in. Absurd, really. The same cold walls, the same dark basement. I feel another rush of dizziness and grasp the armrests of my chair to steady myself. Maybe I am eccentric. How does one know?

“No, no. I haven’t forgotten,” I lie, offering her a wooden smile. I resent these intrusions on my life. “Text me the address, will you?”

“I’ll do you one better. I’ll pick you up—it’s on the way. I think you’ll get a lot out of this, Ada. I really do.”

No doubt she thinks it will help me find a man, fix something broken inside so a man will want to be with me. I feel the wet weight of the stranger’s body on top of me again and take a sharp breath in. Patricia’s eyes widen for the briefest instant and I feel naked in front of her, as though she truly sees me, right into my soul. My heart quickens, but then her eyes clear and there’s only the usual distance between us. I feel hot tears welling. What in heaven’s name is wrong with me?

I clear my throat and stare down at Greg’s report. “Sounds good,” I say. I’m too ashamed to look at her. “I guess I better get this done.”

“Yes, you better get back at it or Greg won’t have those reports as sooner as he’d like.” She giggles at her little joke and shuffles back to her desk. Her chair groans and I hear the puff of air released from her lungs as she settles in.

* * *

Half an hour later I’m standing at the door to Greg Moretti’s office, reports in hand, the edits made. He waves me in with an absentminded flick of the wrist. He holds his hand out for the reports. “Are these perfect?”

“I think so,” I say, regretting the words the instant they’re out of my mouth.

“You think so?” He looks up at me with his beady little eyes. His balding head reflects light from the fluorescents above us. “You think so?” He drops the reports on his desk. “Hey, Henry. Come in here.” One of the articling students, a stumbling, awkward boy with greasy hair and acne who has the misfortune to be walking by at this particular moment, stops dead in his tracks. “Henry, I need your opinion on something. Get in here.” Henry lurches into the room and stands uncertainly in front of Greg’s desk. “Ada here says she thinks she did a good job on these reports. What are your thoughts, Henry?”

“I was very careful,” I say, my heart beating too fast, the room spinning slightly. I’m twisting the hair at my temple in my nervousness and have to force my hand down to my side. “I checked and rechecked. I just can’t guarantee I got everything, that’s all I meant.”

“Henry,” Greg says, ignoring me, “I asked you a question.”

“I—I’m sure she did a good job. I’m sure the reports are fine.”

“Oh, you’re sure they’re fine, are you? Is that something you want to stake your career on, Henry? That these reports, which Ada thinks she got right, are just fine?”

“No, that’s not what I meant, Greg,” Henry sputters. “I—”

“Yet it is what you said, isn’t it?”

“Do you need me here for this?” I ask, surprising myself. “Do you need me here to watch this or can I go back to my desk now?”

He’s silent only for a second. “Both of you get the hell out of here and go back to work.” He dismisses us with another absent flick of his hand, disgust on his face, already pulling a report in front of him.

I’m shaking by the time I leave his office. My legs feel jerky and wrong. I stumble to the end of the hall and pause there, not certain anymore where my desk might be. The door to the washroom is a few feet away. I push through it and slam the door of an empty stall, collapsing on the toilet seat. I’m safe, for a brief moment, inside the four steel walls. Breathe. Just breathe. This happens every time I deal with Greg. It’s nothing new. It only feels worse this morning because of my hangover and my run-in with Rebecca. That’s all it is. Let it go. Wave it off.

I can feel my heart rate returning to normal and the shaking lessening. Even my headache begins to disappear. When I get up from the toilet and leave the washroom I only hesitate a moment before the way back to my desk presents itself. Relieved, I settle back into my cubicle and finish the last report.

Fifteen minutes later Therese blows into the office. I hear her from a mile away, bellowing greetings to everyone as she passes.

“Good morning, good morning!” she hollers to Patricia and me as she throws her keys and her ugly red bag on her desk with a clatter. Therese is short and stocky, almost masculine with her large hands and her heavy brow. Her self-cut, grey-brown hair sets off in several directions at once and she wears Birkenstocks no matter the weather. She isn’t afraid of anyone or anything. I wish I could be more like her.

“Ada, my dear,” she says, hanging her dung-coloured coat on a hook on the partition, “Tell me you did something fabulous last night. Tell me something spellbinding.”

I can see my moon face in the bathroom mirror of the hotel late last night. Wide eyes staring blankly back at me. Then large hands pulling at me, pushing me down on a rumpled bed. The sickening scent of him. A wave of shame and revulsion washes over me. Why did I do that? “I have nothing spellbinding for you, I’m afraid.” I can feel the heat on my face. “Still cleaning my laundry room. Still sorting through boxes.” If I told her the truth about last night and the hookup in the hotel room, she’d probably laugh and say, “Good one, Ada!”

She looks disappointed only for a second, and then throws her head back and howls laughter at the ceiling. “Still down in your laundry room? Ada, you are something else.”

In spite of myself I feel pleased that she’s laughing, as though I’ve said something hilarious when it’s simply Therese being Therese.

“I was just telling Ada about Edward,” Patricia says, having emerged again at the side of our partition. She looks uncomfortable. Therese nods, suddenly serious. Her smile disappears.

“You heard what Rebecca said?” I ask. She nods again.

“I texted her earlier,” Patricia says, avoiding my eyes. This is a woman who can’t keep a secret. She’s always been this way. In some ways, it’s endearing.

“What will happen now, do you think?” I look back and forth between them. “If they’ve contacted the police, will they come here?”

“I imagine so,” Therese says, bending to pull up her thick socks. “I can’t help but think Edward will just show up, though.”

“That’s what I think, as well,” I say. “My mom always said, ‘You go home when there’s nowhere else to go.’” I turn back to my computer. I’m glad he’s gone. I hope he stays gone forever. I see his desk piled high with folders and binders, the green blotter buried beneath. Something about his desk. Something I need to—

I hear movement behind me and feel Therese and Patricia’s absence, like some light or warmth has been removed from the air around me. Like they were never really there at all.

Buy HIDDEN - the complete novel