Picture of a Dead Person (Day 1 Part 2)

Lucille Warner didn’t leap into Yuna’s arms. Instead, she gently turned her head back and looked at Yuna. “Um, it’s been forever!” Yuna exclaimed. She gave up on the hug and dropped her hands.

Lucille’s posture tightened. There was some man she didn’t recognize also by the water cooler—obviously watching the scene—but Lucille decided only one was better than everyone else out there. She turned to face Yuna, because by then she had realized Yuna was coming whether she liked it or not.

“It has,” Lucille muttered back as Yuna came closer to her. As Yuna penetrated Lucille’s personal space, the Pear Berry perfume Yuna had worn every day since the day they met wafted into Lucille’s nose. Instead of the familiarity it used to bring, like the warmth in her heart when the annual sale would be back on and Yuna would insist taking her to break to buy out their entire stock, all Lucille could think about was the bottle she herself had bought Yuna years ago. Sitting idlily on Yuna’s shelf while Lucille was gone. She tried not to think about that fruity pear berry, even as it was flooding her senses.

Yuna was waiting for Lucille to say something, and Lucille assumed it was explode back into the person she used to be. Wrap Yuna up in that embrace, squeeze her tight, and giggle on about something strange that happened. Breathe in that signature perfume.

Lucille didn’t.

Yuna blinked before scoffing, “Toby told me you’d be shy.”

Dr. Tobias Traver was the shrink they had forced Lucille to visit twice a week once her hospital stay had ended. He was a lithe man with a tight smile that sent shivers scattering down Lucille’s spine. He always crossed his legs and sat uncannily straight—he was the type of person Lucille would’ve made fun of a million years ago, but now he reminded her of a porcelain doll, one with the eyes that blinked when you set it down. Lucille wished she could close him anyway in her closet with the rest of her fears. 

Lucille swallowed in regard to Yuna’s remark. She stood there, stiffly.

“How long are you going to pretend not to know me?” Yuna asked. It was so cutthroat, so sharp, Lucille took a step back.

Yuna would have intimidated anybody. She was towering, most of the men in the office were about the same height as her, and she had these knifelike eyes that could slice apart whomever she wanted. And Yuna knew it. Every stranger was terrified of her. Yuna didn’t have enemies because no one wanted to stand opposite her, but these aren’t the things you noticed standing next to her.

That may have been the reason why Lucille’s hair stood on edge when Yuna was around, because Yuna was no longer someone she knew.

As long as I can, Lucille thought, but kept that inside. She took a deep breath as her eyes skirted over to the wall, where some old man who once contributed something watched over them. There was a shine in his spectacles and a chip in his teeth. Lucille liked pictures of dead people; they can never come back to haunt you. Or at least she thought.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” Glenn Hearst appeared from around the corner. His eyes fell on Lucy, and he awkwardly smiled, thinking of the way one of his closest friends brushed right past him no doubt. “We can catch up later,” he added, although still surprisingly with that confidence.

“We gotta go, Arden’s back in town,” Hearst said to Yuna, who didn’t even look at him as she processed this information.

Yuna sighed but kept her eyes locked on Lucille. “We can catch up later,” she repeated, mocking a smile.

Lucille nodded as Hearst spared an awkward glance and he and Yuna went back to work.

Lucille stood right where she was when Yuna was talking to her, her feet locked into the ground, and her eyes still set on the empty air Yuna previously occupied. She knew she had to go talk to Clove Prescott soon, discuss what her return to the office meant, but Lucille didn’t think she could face another zombie she used to know. Not right then.

She willed her body to turn the degrees required to face the water cooler. She fumbled with the paper cups and pushed the blue knob down, watching as the water dispositive itself into the cone. Lucille tilted her head back and let the cold liquid flow down through her throat in one violent go, before tossing it in the wastebasket effortlessly.

She took a deep breath and turned her head to the left. I’m ready, she lied to herself.

But that man was there. Lucille jumped a little, having forgotten he was there the entire time.

He must have tensed when Lucille looked over to him; his eyes seemed wide, but how would Lucille now? She hoped he was shocked, or every time she looked over to him, she would flinch.

Then they both stared.

“I’m,” she began to say, but she never figured out the rest of that sentence. I’m . . . Lucille? I’m . . . not sure who you are? I’m . . . afraid?

“Sorry,” the man offered clearing his throat and having a sip out of his cup.

“For what?” Lucille asked without thinking better about it.

But he didn’t have an answer either. Because what was he sorry for? For overhearing her and Yuna, for scaring her, for what happened to her? He must have known. Lucille knew that everyone knew.

He hesitated.

Soon he began to flee the scene. He weaved past Lucille and tried to smoothly toss his own cup in the trash, but instead it landed right next to the can.

Lucille turned back to watch him blush and advert her gaze as he scrambled to correctly throw it out. She couldn’t help but crack a smile, and when she realized what she was doing, that for the first time in a long time something had made her lip curved upwards, she shot it back down.

“I’m Lucille,” she said in exchange.

He straightened out his spine and looked around, checking if there was someone else she was talking to.

“Ryder Mackey,” he coughed.

She must’ve made a face because then he quickly explained.

“My father is Robert.”

“So, you’re Ryder?” Lucille asked, raising an eyebrow.

Ryder shrugged. “Weird mother,” he added before turning away and leaving her standing there.

Once again, Lucille watched the space he occupied.

It took a long time for her to turn around and finally make her way to Clove Prescott’s office, but when she got there, Clove was nowhere to be seen.

Lucille sat in silence for ten minutes until the boss appeared, thinking of Ryder Mackey. What he must know about her.

And all she knew was that his father was Robert, and his mother was weird.

Lucille knew she’d ponder how unequal knowledge could be for the rest of her life.

Like a photograph of a dead person.