Chapter VIII

Anna skipped trippingly into work. Her date with Sean had gone well and she was looking forward to her seeing him again. After giving Colleen a polite wave, which was met with a distinct glare, she walked to her office and shut the door. She began to organize the papers and on her desk and look at her client list. A number of union members had not paid their dues and she amused herself by composing strongly worded letters. Afterwards she consulted the list of bricklayers who were not currently in the union. A number of their names were marked with an asterisk. She made a mental note to tell Steve to have a word with the unfortunate gentleman and extol the virtues of belonging to a union. She hummed a tune to herself and the morning passed swiftly along.As the clock neared noon she began to look anxiously at the door. Her work ceased to interest her and eventually she gave it up entirely in favor of staring at the clock. She watched the minute hand tick slowly into the twelve position and she glanced swiftly at the door.

Nothing happened. Her door did not open as she had expected. She looked at the clock again. The minute hand was advancing mechanically to the five position. She got up slowly grabbing her sack lunch. She wondered if perhaps she had misread Sean’s signals. She was certain they had agreed to have lunch together. She walked woodenly to the lunchroom, a lump forming in the pit of her stomach. She was sure she had been stood up. Perhaps Sean had decided to go back to Connie. She gripped the paper bag more tightly and pushed open the door to the kitchen before stopping. Her mind filled with the image of Shelley’s dead body and she backed out hastily letting the door swing shut. She ran up against something hard and jerked to a stop. She swayed, but hands steadied her and stayed on her arms. She tilted her head up expecting to see Sean’s brown eyes, but instead her’s were met with the pale green of Steve’s irises.

She instantly tried to pull herself away. Steve’s arms were like steel, unrelenting. She struggled, but found herself pushed forward into the lunchroom. Anna shut her eyes refusing to see the linoleum and its dark stain. She felt herself being set down into one of the plastic chairs and she heard the scrape of another as it was pulled out. She felt the table vibrate as Steve’s heavy frame sunk into the chair.

“You can open your eyes now.” He said.

Anna did so automatically. Not because of the command, but because the voice she heard was so unlike Steve’s regular dull monotone. She thought it must be a different person, but there he was sitting across from her. Her lunch bag in the center of the table, his long arms propped up on the table, his large hands folded obscuring the lower part of his face. Anna could only stare in shock. The person sitting across from her was not the Steve she knew and she felt a different lump building in her stomach. It was a tight knot of fear. For some reason she could not explain to herself she was deeply afraid of this new Steve. They stared at each other for several seconds. Steve moved his eyes slowly toward her lunch bag. He brought a meaty hand out and moved the bag toward her, its paper crinkling along the Formica surface. His eyes moved in that same languorous way toward her face, their pale green hypnotizing her.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” he said, his eyes never leaving her face.