The Ignored Read online

  I wasn’t going to be fired. I’d been promoted.

  Banks stopped talking, looked at me. “Aren’t you going to take notes?”

  I looked at him. “I didn’t bring a notebook,” I admitted.

  “Here.” Sighing heavily, he pulled a pad of yellow legal paper from the top drawer in his desk, handed it to me.

  I took a pen from my pocket and began writing.

  When I returned to my office an hour later, it was a little after eleven-thirty. Derek was gone. I put my notes and the papers Banks had given me down on my desk and walked over to Hope’s station. She was gone, too.

  As were the programmers.

  And Virginia and Lois.

  They’d already left for Stacy’s birthday lunch.

  I did what I always did, waited until twelve-fifteen, until most of the other people in the building had gone, and then drove to McDonald’s, ordering my lunch from the drive-thru and eating in my car at a nearby city park. I don’t know why, but I was hurt by the fact that they hadn’t waited for me. I shouldn’t have expected anything else, but I’d been asked to sign the card, Hope had written “See you at the lunch!” and I guess I’d let myself think that I was actually wanted and welcome. I ate my cheeseburger, taking out the pickle, and listened to the radio as I stared out the car window at a teenage couple making out on a blanket on the grass.

  I drove back to work feeling even more depressed.

  They arrived back from the lunch a half hour late. I was walking from desk to desk, passing out interoffice phone directories that Stewart had left in my in box and asked me to distribute, when Virginia and Lois passed by me on their way to the steno pool. They were both walking slowly, both holding their hands over their obviously full stomachs.

  “I ate too much,” Lois said.

  Virginia nodded. “Me, too.”

  “How was it?” I asked. It was a pointed question. I wanted to make them feel guilty for not waiting for me, like Charlie Brown in the Christmas special when he sarcastically thanks Violet for sending him a card she obviously did not send.

  Virginia looked at me. “What?”

  “How was the lunch?”

  “What do you mean, ‘How was the lunch?’”

  “I was just curious.”

  “You were there.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  Lois frowned. “Yes, you were. I was talking to you. I was telling you about that accident my daughter got in.”

  I blinked. “I wasn’t there. I was here the whole time.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. Of course I was sure. I knew where I’d been for lunch, knew what I’d done, but I nonetheless felt chilled, slightly uneasy, and the thought irrationally crossed my mind that there was a doppelganger out there, a double acting in my stead.

  “Huh,” Lois said, shaking her head. “That’s weird. I could’ve sworn you were there.”

  I was ignored. By everyone.

  I hadn’t noticed the extent of it at first because the company was not one big happy family. It was a pretty impersonal place to work, and even friends did not get much of a chance to speak in the hallways beyond a quick “hi”.

  But people seemed to go out of their way not to notice me.

  I tried not to think about it, tried not to let it bother me. But it did bother me. And I was reminded of it each workday, each time I sat in my office with Derek, each time I walked through the halls, each time I took my breaks or went to lunch.

  It seemed frivolous to dwell to such an extent on my own problems, to be so chronically self-absorbed. I mean, there were people in Third World countries dying every day from diseases that science had the means to eradicate completely. There were people in our own country who were homeless and starving, and here I was worried that I didn’t get along with my coworkers.

  But everyone’s reality is different.

  And in my reality, this was important.

  I thought of talking about it with Jane, wanted to talk to her about it, even planned to talk about it, but somehow I never seemed able to bring it up.

  On Friday, Hope passed out the checks at four o’clock, the way she always did. I thanked her as she handed me my envelope, and I opened it up to look at the check.

  It was sixty dollars less than it was supposed to be.

  I stared at the printed number, not sure of what to do. I looked over at Derek. “Is there anything wrong with your check?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. Haven’t looked.”

  “Could you check?”

  “It’s none of your business,” he told me.

  “Fine.” I stood up and took my check down the hall to Stewart’s office. As usual, he was sitting at his desk, reading a computer magazine. I knocked once on his doorframe, and when he didn’t look up, I walked in.

  He frowned at me. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have a problem,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  There was a chair available, but he didn’t offer it to me and I remained standing. “My paycheck’s sixty dollars off.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Stewart said.

  “I know. But you’re my supervisor.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? That I’m responsible for everything that goes on in your life?”

  “No, I just thought — ”

  “Don’t think. I don’t know anything about your little check problem, and to be honest with you, Jones, I don’t care.” He picked up his magazine, began reading it again. “If you have a question, talk to Accounting.”

  I looked down at the check, at the attached pay stub, and I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. I cleared my throat. “It says here in the hours box that I only worked four days last week.”

  “There you go, then. That’s why your check’s short. Case closed.”

  “But I worked five days.”

  He lowered his newspaper. “Can you prove it?”

  “Prove it? You saw me. Monday I helped you with the IBM memo and retyped that page for the new keyboard. Tuesday I met with you and Mr. Banks to talk about GeoComm. Wednesday and Thursday I worked on the list of processing functions for GeoComm. Friday I turned in what I’d done and started on that Biweekly Report System update.”

  “I can’t be expected to keep track of every little movement made by every little person in this organization. To be honest with you, Jones, I’ve never known Accounting to make a mistake like this before. If they say you only worked four days last week, then I’m prepared to believe them.”

  He returned to his magazine.

  I stared at him. This was an Orwellian nightmare, a real-life Catch-22. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I forced myself to take a deep breath. Over the years, I’d grown immune to this sort of reasoning. In the abstract. The three-hundred dollar Pentagon hammers, my dealings with the cable company, all of this had caused me to take for granted the absurdity of the modern world in which I lived. But to come face-to-face with this sort of thinking on such a personal level was not only unbelievable but truly infuriating.

  Stewart continued to ignore me, made a big show of licking his thumb and turning the page of his magazine.

  He was smiling to himself, and I wanted to smack him, to just walk around the side of his desk, slap him upside the head, and wipe that smirk off his smug pretty-boy face.

  Instead, I turned and left, walking straight to the elevator. Accounting was on the third floor, along with Personnel, and I saw Lisa behind the counter as I walked through the third-floor lobby. I ignored her and headed down the main hallway, in the opposite direction of the conference room.

  I spoke to a clerk, then an accountant, then the finance director, and though I’d half-expected to hear that I had to get Stewart to sign a form verifying my whereabouts on each working day last week, the director apologized for the error and promised to get me a check for the difference by Monday.

  I thanked
him and left.

  I told Jane about it when I got home, related the entire story to her, but I couldn’t seem to impart to her the feeling of frustration, the powerlessness I felt in the face of Stewart’s disbelief in me and his complete faith in the infallibility of the system. No matter how much I talked, I couldn’t make her understand how I felt, and I ended up getting mad at her for not understanding, and both of us went to bed angry.

  Six

  I don’t know why my job affected my relationship with Jane, but it did. I found myself being unnecessarily curt, getting angry at her for no reason at all. I guess I resented her for not being stuck in a crummy dead-end job like I was. It was stupid and irrational — she was still going to school and working part-time, so of course she couldn’t be in the same boat I was in — but I took my frustrations out on her anyway. I felt guilty for doing so. Throughout all those frustrating months when I could not find work, she had been there for me. She had put no pressure on me, she had never been anything but supportive. I felt bad that I was doing this to her, treating her this way.

  That made me resent her even more.

  Something was definitely wrong with me.

  I’d called my parents when I’d first gotten the job but hadn’t talked to them since, and although Jane kept pressuring me to do so, I kept putting it off. My mom had been supportive, my dad happy that I’d finally found work, but neither of them had been thrilled, and I’d felt vaguely embarrassed. I didn’t know what kind of job they’d expected me to get after graduation, but it was obviously something better than this one, and I felt even more awkward about discussing my work with them now than I had that first time.

  I loved my parents, but we didn’t exactly have the closest family in the world.

  Jane and I were not as close as we had been either. Until recently, we had occupied the same little universe, that of the college student, and our free time had been spent together, doing the same things. But there were differences now, gaps. We were no longer in sync. I worked from eight to five, came home, and my day was done. I relaxed and read, or watched TV. She had night classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on those evenings did not come home until after nine. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays she did schoolwork or prepared activities for the kids at the day care center.

  Her weekends were spent in the library or in the bedroom, buried in textbooks.

  My weekends were free, but I still wasn’t used to that. Truth be told, I didn’t really know what to do with myself. Throughout my college years, I’d either had a part-time job or, like Jane, I’d done schoolwork when I wasn’t in class. Now, having two days with nothing at all to do left me at loose ends. There was only so much work that needed to be done around the apartment, only so much TV I could watch, only so much time I could spend reading. Everything grew old fast, and I was conscious of the weight of all this free time. Occasionally on weekends, Jane and I would go grocery shopping or hit a movie matinee, but more often than not she was doing her school stuff and I was left to my own devices.

  It was on one such Saturday that I found myself in Brea Mall, checking out Music Plus, buying tapes I didn’t really want because I had nothing else to do. I’d just stopped by Hickory Farms for some free samples when I saw Craig Miller coming out of an electronics store. I felt a sudden lift in my spirits. I hadn’t seen Craig since before graduation, and I hurried toward him, smiling and waving as I approached.

  He obviously didn’t see me and continued walking straight ahead.

  “Craig!” I called.

  He stopped, frowned, and looked over at me. The expression on his face was blank for a second, as if he didn’t recognize me, then he returned my smile. “Hey,” he said. “Long time no see.” He held out his hand and we shook, though that seemed like kind of a weird and formal thing to do.

  “So what are you doing now?” I asked.

  “Still going to school. I’m going for my master’s in poly sci.”

  I grinned. “Still hanging out at the Erogenous Zone?”

  He reddened. That was a surprise. I’d never seen Craig embarrassed by anything. “You saw me there?”

  “You took me there, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  There was a moment of silence, and it was awkward because I didn’t know what to say and it was obvious Craig didn’t either. Strange. Craig was a natural motor-mouth and had never been one to let silences remain unfilled. As long as I’d known him, he’d never been without a comment or a reply. He’d always had something to say.

  “Well,” he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I better get going. I’m supposed to be home now. Jenny’ll kill me if I’m late.”

  “How is Jenny?” I asked.

  “Oh, fine, fine.”

  He nodded. I nodded. He looked at his watch. “Well, hey, I’d better be going. Nice seeing you again, uh — ” He looked at me, caught, instantly aware of his mistake.

  I met his eyes and I knew.

  He didn’t recognize me.

  He didn’t know who I was.

  I felt as though I’d been slapped in the face. I felt like I’d been… betrayed. I watched him trying to come up with my name.

  “Bob,” I prompted.

  “Yeah, Bob. I’m sorry. I just forgot for a second.” He shook his head, tried to laugh it off. “Alzheimer’s.”

  I merely looked at him. Forgot? We’d hung out together for two years. He was the closest thing to a friend I’d had at UC Brea. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of months, but you didn’t completely forget the name of a buddy in less than half a year.

  I understood now why he’d been so awkward and formal with me. He hadn’t known who I was and had been trying to bluff his way through the conversation.

  I thought he’d try to make up for it now. He knew me. He remembered me. I figured he’d loosen up a little, stop acting so stiff and distant, start a real conversation, a personal conversation. But he looked again at his watch, said, “Sorry, I really do have to go. Good to see you.” Then he was off, giving me a quick impersonal wave, heading briskly through the crowd, away from me.

  I watched him disappear, still stunned. What the hell had happened here? I looked to my left. On the bank of televisions in the window of the electronics store I saw a familiar beer commercial. A group of college chums was getting together with beer and potato chips to watch a Sunday afternoon football game. The young men were all good-looking and good-natured, comfortable enough with themselves and each other to pat one another’s shoulders and slap one another’s backs.

  My college life had not been like that.

  The scene of the men laughing as they sat around the television faded into a close-up of an overflowing glass of beer, overlaid with the beer company’s logo.

  I had not had a group of friends in college, a gang with whom I hung out. I had not had any real friends at all. I’d had Craig and Jane, and that had been it. My Sunday afternoons had been spent not with a group of pals, watching football, but alone in my bedroom, studying. I stared at the TVs as another commercial came on. I had not realized until now how solitarily I had spent the four years I’d attended UC Brea. Those media images of close camaraderie and lasting friendships had been only that for me — images. Their reality had never materialized. I had not known my classmates in college the way I’d known my classmates in grammar school, junior high, and high school. College had been a much colder, much more impersonal experience.

  I thought back on my college classes, and I suddenly realized that I’d gone through my entire academic career having had no personal contact with any of my instructors. I had known them, of course, but I’d known them in the same way I knew characters on TV, from observation not interaction. I doubted that a single one would remember me. They’d known me only for a semester and even then only as a number on a roll sheet. I never asked questions, never stayed after for extra help, always sat in the middle of the room. I had been completely anonymous.

  I had been plan
ning to hang around the mall a little longer, check out a few other stores, but I no longer felt like doing so. I wanted to be home. All of a sudden I felt strange wandering from shop to shop alone, anonymously, not noticed or known by anybody. I felt uncomfortable, and I wanted to be with Jane. She might be busy studying, she might not have time to do anything with me right now, but at least she knew who I was, and that alone was a comforting thought, incentive enough to make me leave.

  I found myself thinking about my meeting with Craig as I drove back to the apartment. I tried to explain it, tried to rationalize it, tried to play it off, but I couldn’t. He had not been a mere acquaintance, someone I saw only in class. We had gone places together. We had done things together. Craig was not stupid, and unless he’d had some sort of brain tumor or mental illness or drug problem, there was no way he could have forgotten who I was.

  Maybe the problem wasn’t with him. Maybe the problem was with me.

  That seemed the most likely answer, and it frightened me to think about it. I knew I was not the most interesting person in the world, but was I so hopelessly boring that even a friend could forget who I was within the space of a couple months? It was a terrifying idea, and an almost unbearably depressing one. I was not an egomaniac, and I certainly didn’t harbor any illusions about my making a significant mark on the world, but it nonetheless unnerved me to think my existence was so meaningless that it passed entirely unnoticed.

  Jane was on the phone when I arrived home, talking to some girl from work, but she looked up when I entered, smiled at me, and that made me feel good.

  Maybe I was reading too much into all this, I thought. Maybe I was overreacting.

  I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I studied myself for quite a while, trying to be objective, trying to see myself as others might see me. I was not good-looking, but neither was I ugly. My hair, light brown, was neither long nor short, my nose not big and not small.

  I was average-looking. I was of average build, average height. I wore average clothes.

  I was average.