Down the Rabbit Hole

“What is this?” she boomed, spying Jeremy. As she approached, her yellow eyes became eerily clear and narrowed with displeasure. “You’re not in your office! You’re not paying attention!”

It was hard to miss the malevolent gleam in her eye, as if his noncompliance might give her permission to do something awful.

“I’m paying attention to you,” he said. He found himself sweating, despite his confidence that there was little she could do to hurt him.

“I’m not the point,” she said.

“There’s a point?” The question sounded sarcastic but he meant it. In fact the idea that there was a point gave him hope.

“That question proves you’re not paying attention!” Her voice was piercing, especially at close range, but it was the waves of hostility and impatience that were most unnerving. “Look at all the other boys and girls; are you doing what they’re doing?” She bent from the waist to peer in at Brian. Though his back was to her, Jeremy could tell his trembling had increased from the force of her attention.

She laughed—a gruesome sound—and her eyes shifted to Jeremy, conspiratorial. “I don’t think he’s truly paying attention, do you?”

“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.