Page 80 of Stay Awake
“Are you all right?” I ask.
She nods and shakes her head at the same time. Then she bursts into tears. “You’d better go in.”
The office has been redecorated from understated classy neutrals to a brash color scheme of urban grays with touches of electric blue and lime green. The place looks more like a hotel lobby than an office.
Despite the upbeat decor, a sense of despair hangs over the place. In the middle of the office, a woman with corkscrew curls hugs another woman with long red hair. Their eyes are puffy. They’ve both been crying.
“I can’t believe it,” says the woman with red hair.
“Neither can I,” says her friend as they embrace.
“What happened?” I ask.
Both women swallow hard like they’re about to deliver bad news.
“Liv, you should sit down,” says the woman with the curls.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
My mind races as I try to think what could have happened to cause such despair. I look across the office into an expansive glass-walled meeting room, where staff sit around a boardroom table looking shell-shocked. Some hold their hands to their mouths. Others openly sob.
“What’s happened?” Panic laces my voice.
“I can’t put it into words because if I do, then it will be real… and I don’t want it to be real,” says the woman with the corkscrew hair.
Her friend with red hair takes my hand and lowers me onto a backless round sofa, like I’m an invalid. “This is so hard, Liv,” she says, sitting next to me and resting our interlocked hands on her tartan skirt. I look into her despondent eyes in confusion and try to figure out how she knows my name.
“Ted is dead,” she says, finally. Her freckled face puckers in sorrow. Fresh tears well in her eyes.
“Dead?” I respond weakly. They both burst into tears.
Their sadness is infectious. Tears stream down my cheeks and my chest is heavy with grief.
I don’t know why I’m so emotional. After all, I don’t actually knowwho Ted is, other than that Dr. Brenner seems to think he’s my friend. I came to the office to find him.
My voice trembles. “Everyone must be in shock.”
“We’re devastated. We can’t even imagine what you’re going through. You’ve been through so much already, Liv. And now this…” Her voice drops off.
I’m hit by a sudden dizziness as her words reverberate in my head. Dr. Brenner also alluded to a trauma in my past. My body sways. Both women grab hold of me as if they’re afraid I’ll collapse.
“We should get her something to drink,” one of them says to the other.
They help me to the office pantry, where someone pulls out a white chair for me at a matching table and someone else brings me a Coke.
“For the sugar,” she says, pulling the aluminum tab with a hiss and handing me the cold can.
I take a few sips and set the can aside, watching colleagues console each other with drawn-out comforting hugs. Someone turns on an enormous television hanging on a wall in the pantry area. The electronic theme music of the afternoon news program blasts across the office.
“Police have released the name of the man who was murdered while he slept in a midtown apartment last night,” says the newsreader. “He is Edward ‘Ted’ Cole, an executive atCultura Magazine.Police say they have opened an investigation into his…”
The name echoes in my head as the TV blares. Ted is dead. That’s why he didn’t come with me to my appointment with Dr. Brenner.
Footage runs on the screen showing the wordsWAKE UP!written in blood on a window.
I have the same message on my wrist, just like the man who called me at that grim basement apartment earlier said when he made those vile accusations. He suggested that I murdered someone this morning. I gasp as I realize that “someone” must be Ted. Is it possible that I killed the very man that everyone in this office is mourning?
There’s no way I could have killed him. I’m not violent. I faint at the sight of blood. It’s ridiculous to even think I might have been responsible. But Ted is dead, and I have a big black hole in my memory and a slogan written on my skin that matches the one daubed at the crime scene.
