The corner of your eye is the watchdog of the brain. My mother was big on what we might or might not catch in the arc of our peripheral vision. She made games of the lessons that sharpened the farthest reaches of our sight. She’d write things, sometimes quite small, on a piece of paper, and if we could read it, off to one side or the other, without moving our heads or eyes, we scored points. But she was tricky. I got caught out on to be or not to be because she’d actually written to be or not do he. Of course, my brain had taken the shortcut and my overall score had taken the hit. Never trust a shortcut, she’d say. Use one if you have to, but sacrifice a goat in thanks if it didn’t land you on your ass.
I remember seething with envy over Simon’s points bonanza for translating Your chores are (B), but you (Ar) to (Fe) your shirts anyway. He’d been studying the periodic table of elements for an upcoming exam, so our mother took out two birds with Your chores are boron (B), but you argon (Ar) to iron (Fe) your shirts anyway.
The unreliability of the watchdog was also a way for our mother to teach us to take our own mental temperature. If a sharp pull from the corner of the eye resulted in anything useful, well, there you go. And if it didn’t spotlight anything important or even anything interesting for more than a few times in a row, then it meant you had been working too hard and probably needed to power down and read a comic book or something.
My mother loved comic books. She memorized operas and devoured rich literature. She read novels, pored over poetry, and studied the newspapers. But none of that is love, and nothing lit her up like a stack of new comics. Simon caught the fever, but I never did. I was happy enough to avoid it because the medicine was expensive. I saved for a new bicycle while Simon’s allowance evaporated weekly at the hobby store.
Now, in the food court, at my usual table, a male-shaped blur tugged in the margin of my right eye. Brian Menary took up a seat at a high table off to one side and midway to the exit from where I sat.
It could be that he lived nearby. People lived places. People, in fact, lived here. I lived here. My mother had lived here. Certainly, he had to live somewhere. So why not in this town? And if he lived here, he’d go out sometimes. Why wouldn’t he eat here at this food court and take late lunches as I tended to do and . . . oh, hell. What if it wasn’t even him?
And just like that, I derailed my first reaction, the crucial instinctive reflex, and accordingly, I also murdered its firstborn plan, which was to walk right over to his table, sit down, and look him in the eye with a fire that pinned him to his seat. We’d have a chat about the weather and the football scores and what he’d been up to for the past nineteen years—and just what exactly the hell did he mean by being aggressively in the same place as I was, at the same time that I was there, and on more than one occasion to boot.
Oh, boy. Not crazy-sounding at all.
Now gripped in doubt, I furiously pretended to read my phone, keeping my head cocked so that perhaps-Menary shifted, backlit and indistinct, at the farthest reach of my eye. I wouldn’t let even his shoulder drift out of the frame. I couldn’t bear the thought of his leaving the room, which would also have his leaving me with this ridiculous uncertainty to tote back home later.
My cheeks stung with the heat of my imagined audience’s curiosity. Surely everyone was looking at me. I’d certainly be looking at me. They must have been able to feel the thrumming of my pulse and the pressure change it boomed into the room. Somehow it didn’t help at all that not a single head had swiveled in my direction.
I bought a buffer of privacy in plain sight by mock-startling at the phone that had not rung or moved in my hand. I pretended to swipe the screen with a flourish, tucked the phone in under the curtain of my hair, and took a call that no one had made. Safe in the sanctuary of oh-she’s-on-the-phone, I examined and discarded several options of how I could leave this food court knowing more than I had coming into it. It had to happen.
And why, exactly, should I be the only one in the room feeling branded and spotlighted? At least I knew I belonged here. Let him see me looking. Let’s see what he does with that.
I raised my head, phone still at my ear, and let probably–Brian Menary see me find him in the crowd. A flicker of surprise zipped between our locked stares, and my bravery lasted only one tick of the second hand. I dropped my eyes to my knees and, for a heart-knocking moment, desperately wanted the previous minute back. A do-over. No such thing, Plucky. You’re in the soup now, little girl. The memory of my mother’s voice rang clear and smirking.
For the benefit of anyone who might be looking, I said my good-byes to the nobody on my silent phone and stood, snatching up my purse and jacket. On my feet, I found that I’d resolved myself to the only option that would guarantee any progress. I’d have to go ahead and walk over th—
Shit. He was gone.
In no more than a blink and a glance down to find the strap of my bag, Menary had slipped from his chair and faded into the thin crowd.
“Son of a bitch,” I whispered, sorely disappointed and uncomfortably brimming with unexploded courage.
But God bless my mother and her games, I caught sight of him again, out of the direct line as was his trained habit. He was watching for me. There was still a chance to leave here wiser.
I walked past the shop window where he’d slouched low to browse some gadgety thing on the shelf in one of those electronic-wizardry gift shops. I stopped in the trickle of midday shoppers, made a small show of looking around, and turned on a purposed heel and headed back the way we’d both come.
I had to trust that he’d noticed the feint and would try to keep up with me. I would not risk looking around, even discreetly, to see if he was still there. If he wasn’t, I’d feel foolish only to myself. And if he was there, I’d blow it. I slowed, knowing that he’d have to rein it in, too, then I took off at fresh pace, less than a dash but more than a stride.
The food court restrooms were set into the right side of the corridor: men’s room first, then the ladies’. With more of a flail than a plan, I hit the ladies’ room door hard enough so that it swung to the full range of its hinge and banged an echo down the short hallway. I blocked out the objections of my saner mind and doubled back instead and, quietly, slipped into the men’s room.
Thankfully, the man at the urinal was done and just zipping up. I leaned my ear to the door, held up one finger against the startled outburst that might have launched from him, and mouthed, I’m sorry!
The din of the ladies’ room door would have carried into the food court. If Menary hadn’t seen me duck into the hallway, he would surely at least have noted the noise. I heard footsteps pass the men’s room. The footfalls stopped in front of the ladies’ room, but the door didn’t open. I had him, or someone at least, in my trap, such as it was, with me between him and the exit.
Sorry, I mouthed again to the slack-jawed, red-faced man who stood holding his hands away from his sides, too stunned to make a break for the sinks. I pulled open the door and stepped into the buzz of the faltering fluorescents. Brian Menary turned easily, then with full flinch, to face me.
“Well, that was easy,” I said.