Hannah
Cat Saunders wasn’t one to beat around the bush. In one brief phone call a few days after her email, she had told Hannah she needed someone on board immediately, that if Ben liked her, that was all she needed to know, and could she start by attending their regional meeting at the Marriott in a few days? There would be a select group of high school girls speaking briefly about their experiences with the program, and Hannah could interview them afterward with a videographer.
And that was how Hannah found herself ushered by an event coordinator to the back of a small corporate auditorium with a cameraman named Justin, who had his feet up on the chair in front of him and looked like he might be about to take a much-needed nap. They were there to listen to the program but also to await being told where they were supposed to set up after the presentations. Justin was mildly annoyed, since he had two bags of equipment and needed time to assess the space and the light. But Hannah found the presentations helpful for background, and the girls’ brief speeches gave her a few additional ideas for questions. She hadn’t spoken to Cat yet in person; she was acting as an emcee on stage, introducing, cajoling, encouraging laughter and applause as needed, all in a vibrant red jumpsuit. Her hair was a little tousled and her makeup subdued, as if not to distract from her fire engine of an outfit. Hannah remembered reading somewhere that men loved the color red, and she was surprised to note that most of the people in the audience were men, maybe seventy percent. She’d thought there were more female teachers and school administrators, but maybe these were businesspeople, venture capitalists. Maybe she considered this more of a fundraiser and photo op than a meeting, which would explain why Ben was there, sitting on the aisle in the tenth row with a few other men he seemed to know well.
As she passed by him, he reached out and grabbed her hand, then stood up and gathered her into a hug.
“You’re here!” he said.
“Observant as always,” she said with a smile.
“I knew you and Cat would like each other,” he said. “Two powerhouses.”
“Well, one.”
He frowned while he smiled, a particularly Ben kind of face that was impossible for anyone else to make.
“Don’t hide your light, Hannah,” he said. “I think I’ll embroider that on a pillow and give it to you for Christmas.”
“I’d like to see you with a needle and thread,” she said.
“Let’s catch up later,” he said. “I know you’ve got work to do.”
He nodded to the coordinator, who smiled back appreciatively, and they continued to their seats.
After the final speech, Cat said something about refreshments followed by breakout groups, and the coordinator appeared by Justin’s elbow and said they had secured a room for them, a suite.
They set up on the fourth floor, in a suite with a large common area. The coordinator said she’d bring all the girls back in an hour, and Hannah told her no, she wanted to meet with each of them alone, in twenty- or maybe thirty-minute shifts.
“But that’s…more work,” the coordinator said.
“Yes, but it will result in much better interviews,” Hannah replied. “We don’t want them distracted.”
“Yeah, plus we need it quiet when we’re rolling sound. We can’t have a bunch of talking in the room,” Justin said.
“Okay,” the coordinator sighed. “I’ll bring you the first girl and hold the rest in room 405, and you can just walk them back and get the next girl.”
“Great,” Hannah said.
The windows faced south, and Justin grumbled about the light, taped up filters, and rearranged the furniture. Instead of the sofa and upholstered chairs, he brought over two barstools from the kitchenette to face each other.
The first girl, Sami, a thin, olive-skinned brunette, had not spoken on stage. She seemed especially nervous, biting her fingernails, sniffing compulsively. When Justin’s explanation of how to thread the microphone cord through the back of her sweater confused her and he moved toward her to show her, she stood up quickly and said no, not to touch her.
“It’s okay,” Hannah said. “He’s just trying to help.”
They finally got her situated and started to record, but Sami wasn’t very talkative and kept glancing over at Justin when she was supposed to be looking at Hannah.
“Can you tell us a little bit about the afternoon you were attacked?”
“No, because there’s a lawsuit. My lawyer says I can’t discuss it.”
Hannah bit her lip. Why had they put Sami in the mix if she couldn’t speak to her experiences? She shifted gears to the last questions on her list, asking her about how me3 had helped her, and she answered all those questions readily.
“Circling back now, I know you can’t talk about the facts of the case, but can you describe how you were feeling that day?”
“I was feeling hopeful. I had a biology test, and I had studied really hard, and I thought I was going to get a good grade on it.”
“So you were having a pretty good day?”
“Yeah.”
“Anything else you remember about feeling good?”
“I had lunch with my friends outside because it was sunny. It was the first sunny day in a long time.”
“And after the attack, which we won’t get into, what was the first thing you did that made you feel better?”
“I called my sister,” she said.
Those words rang in Hannah’s ears, staying, vibrating, taking up space. Because she’d done the same thing, hadn’t she? All the air in the room seemed to evaporate. Hannah put her hand on her throat, willing herself to swallow, breathe, feel grounded again. It had been a long time since she’d had a panic attack about those boys in high school. Images of that night suddenly swam in front of her eyes. The pale flesh of a bare, numb foot. Then, just as suddenly, the paw of a fox, the hoof of a deer. She shook her head slightly, erasing them, trying to center herself again.
Finally, the air started to come back to her lungs. She didn’t faint. She didn’t throw up. It was entirely possibly no one had even noticed what was going on inside the theater of her own head.
She was able to form a few more questions about the organization and the help of peers and wrapped up the interview a little too quickly, perhaps, but professionally. Sami left, and Hannah went to the bathroom, blew her nose, put eye drops in her eyes, which always had a way of waking her up, setting her straight, and went out into the corridor to retrieve the next girl. Please, she thought, let this girl have a different story, one that doesn’t mirror my own.
As Hannah walked down the soft blue-and-gray carpet toward the descending numbers, closer to the elevator and the middle of the building, she was almost to 405 when a door opened at the far opposite end of the hallway, toward the exit stairs. The other suite, on the corner, she supposed. A flash of red caught her eye, and she realized it was Cat Saunders exiting. She swiped her key card in the room directly across and went inside. They probably had a whole bank of rooms on the fourth floor, and Hannah wouldn’t have thought anything of it if Cat hadn’t been barefoot.
Hannah stood outside 405 now, quietly, waiting, not knocking, expecting something else to happen, and it did.
Another person came out of the suite, one of the high school students who’d spoken earlier. Carly something, last name started with a W. Wendell? Wentworth? She’d have to check her notes. Blond and curvy. She was laughing a little, and she reached back inside the door and pulled out someone else playfully before they both knocked on Cat’s door.
Ben. She saw him for just a second before she turned her back, tried to be invisible at the opposite end of the hall. But she’d seen enough. She’d seen his hand on the young woman’s back, guiding her across the hall.