55: “My chiropractor is not going to be happy with me,” Sarah Werner groaned. She was lying on the desk in the observation room, the computer monitor and keyboard pushed to the side.
Guards had checked on them regularly about every thirty minutes, and Werner waved them off each time.
Porter slid back up in the chair. His everything hurt too.
He glanced at the clock hanging in the corner. “It’s been about three hours. What’s she doing in there?”
Sarah turned her head and looked back through the one-way window. “Still reading. We should have gotten lunch.”
Porter’s stomach grumbled in agreement. “I want to be here when she finishes. Best not to give her time to digest.”
“No words related to food, please.”
“Sorry.”
Porter raised his arms over his head and stretched. He fought back a yawn. “You don’t have to wait with me if you’ve got something else to do. I don’t want to hold you up.”
Sarah did yawn, covering her mouth. “I’ve got absolutely nothing else to do today.”
“No significant other in your life?”
Sarah laughed. “I’m a criminal defense attorney in one of the country’s most dangerous cities. I made the mistake of selecting an office with an apartment above it, which means my work literally comes home with me within just a few steps. Not that location matters, because I spend eighty hours or more a week with my head buried in case files regardless. If I’m not planted at my desk, I’m here or at the courthouse, sometimes the police station. Every decision I make sabotages any chance I may have at a life.” She rolled her head and smiled at him. “This is the closest thing I’ve had to a date in about four months.”
Porter felt his face flush. “Really? How am I doing?”
Sarah turned her gaze back to the ceiling and studied her fingernails. He noticed that they were not too long. If she wore polish, it was naturally toned. “You get points for originality, that’s for sure. Your choice of venue is a bit subpar, though better than some.”
“Maybe I could take you to dinner? Make it up to you?” The words slipped out before Porter realized he said them, and he wished he could take them back.
It was Sarah’s turn to blush. She nodded at his hand. “Maybe you should clear that with home, Romeo. I may be hard up, but I’m not ready to go there yet. I don’t even own a cat.”
Porter’s thumb slipped over the edge of his wedding ring. He looked down at the band. “My wife passed away last year. I probably shouldn’t wear it anymore, but my finger doesn’t feel right when I take it off.”
Sarah turned back to the ceiling. “Our date just officially turned awkward. I’m sorry.”
“I’m out of practice. In high school, I could turn a date south in under four minutes.”
“Oh, big man on campus, were you? I can’t imagine what you were like in high school.”
Porter had to think for a minute, the distant memories teasing at him, barely visible through a long tunnel. “Sometimes all that seems so long ago. Then at other times it feels like yesterday.”
“The type of memory designates the appeared distance in time.”
“What does that mean?”
Sarah let out a shallow sigh. “Oh, something I read in a psychology text as an undergrad. The brain perceives happy times as recent activities when recollecting them. Horrible memories, though, they are pushed way back, sometimes forgotten or blocked altogether. Some sort of defense mechanism, I suppose. Surround yourself with the good, put some distance between you and the bad, that sort of thing.”
“Maybe I should be the one lying down, Doctor.”
“Want to trade?”
“The chivalrous gentleman in me would never subject a lady to this chair. The damn thing is nearly barbaric.” Porter shifted his weight, the cold wood digging into his hind end. “If it was in the interrogation room, I’d get it—keep the suspect on their toes, but in here? Some poor guard probably spends a good chunk of his life in this chair.”
“This desk is sorely lacking a memory foam pad too. No bueno.” She turned back to him, resting her head on a hand. “What do you remember?”
“From high school?”
She nodded. “Did you spend a lot of time getting shoved inside lockers, or were you the one doing the shoving?”
Porter chuckled. “I’m sure someone would have locked me in if I fit. I was a bit chubby.”
“You?”
“Oh yeah. One fifty and five-two as a freshman.”
“That’s not too bad. You obviously grew out of it.”
“I was the number one target whenever we played dodgeball. Then, junior year, I shot up nearly a foot. Looked like someone grabbed my head and stretched me out. Felt like that too. I remember it hurt like hell, and I lost all coordination for a while there. My arms and legs seemed too long. I’d trip over myself walking down the hall. I was a mess.”
“I bet nobody screwed with you then, though. You were tall for high school.”
Porter shrugged. “They didn’t really mess with me before. I was a bit of a class clown. Someone tried to pick a fight, I’d crack a joke, all would be well.”
“Too bad you couldn’t hold on to that humor as an adult.” Sarah grinned, her eyes twinkling in the dim light.
“Thanks.”
She swung her legs off the desk and sat up on the edge, smoothing her gray skirt. “What’s your best memory of high school?”
Porter thought about that for a second, drew a blank, then sat back up straight in the chair. “Oh no, I shared something with you. Now it’s your turn. You’re a pretty girl. I bet school was a breeze for you.”
“Huh. I’m not sure what I should read into more. The fact that you called me pretty or called me a girl.”
“Hell, you clearly didn’t skip a single session of that psychology class, did you?”
“Not a one.”
“I’m sure at some point we all became men and women, but I’m not quite sure at what age that occurs. I still feel like a kid, think of myself as a boy,” Porter told her.
“I think it’s around the time we get a mortgage, a real job. When we stop being the responsibility of others and take on responsibilities of our own.”
“When we become fully visible,” Porter said quietly.
“What?”
“Just something in Bishop’s diary. He felt little children were invisible to the rest of the world and become less transparent with age. We’re fully visible as adults, then fade again as we get older until society no longer sees us anymore,” Porter explained.
“Huh. That’s a bit profound. I think I’ll keep it,” Sarah said.
“I prefer not to collect my psychological and spiritual guidance from psychopaths.”
“Yet you recalled the words verbatim.”
The bang at the glass caused her to jump off the desk with a yelp.
Porter stood up, his eyes fixed on the one-way window.
Jane Doe stood there, inches from the other side. The diary pinned against the window beneath her outstretched palm.