Free Hidden by Catherine McKenzie Page A

seat next to her, introducing myself to a middle-aged woman in a cocktail dress who turned out to be the chief operating officer’s wife.
    The COO was deep in conversation with a very pretty, very young woman, the newly acquired wife of our sixty-year-old CEO. She was the talk of the company, her “modelling” photos circulating around the office. Some of them had been enhanced and/or captioned. You can imagine. I hoped the guys behind it weren’t on the outs with IT.
    The seat next to hers was empty, for the CEO presumably. I couldn’t for the life of me understand how we’d ended up sitting here.
    “What are we doing at this table?” Claire murmured.
    “I was wondering the same thing.”
    “I see big things in your future, young man,” she said, squeezing my thigh under the table. “Big things.”
    The thought of that possibility made me nervous, and I decided to switch to water. Drinking as much as I wanted to seemed like a bad idea in the circumstances.
    The first courses of salad and soup passed slowly. The COO’s wife was very nice, but we had less than nothingin common, and I began to regret my no-drinking decision. When the waiter came to refresh the glasses, I decided to allow myself a glass of wine. One glass with each course ought to keep things reasonable but bearable.
    The main course was set up as a buffet against the back of the room. As we rose to take our place in line, Claire told me to go ahead, she’d meet me back at the table. I suspected she was going out for a smoke, but I didn’t call her on it. We had a sort of don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy with respect to her smoking.
    I tucked into line behind a woman whose long, wavy black hair hung loosely over her bare shoulders. We waited next to one another at the turkey station, while a man in a chef’s hat carved to order. The woman glanced at me when I asked for a large helping of dark meat.
    “Oh, it’s you,” she said.
    “Do we …?”
    “You were with that John guy, right? On the driving range?”
    “Still am.” I nodded towards my table. “Sorry about that.”
    “Forget it.” She rolled her eyes. They were a dark green, the colour of the dress she was wearing. It was a kind of loose, flowy thing made out of a fabric I didn’t know the name of. “I assume he’s not a friend of yours?”
    “God, no,” I said.
    The chef handed her a plate of juicy white meat with a crisp brown layer of skin lying across it. She waited for me to accept my own plate, and we moved down the line.
    “Which branch do you work at?” she asked.
    “Springfield.”
    “Me too.”
    “You new with the company?”
    “Nope.”
    “Then how come we don’t know one another?” The office was big, but not that big.
    “You must be at the other Springfield.”
    Johnson Company had recently acquired another company, located about five hundred miles away, in another town called Springfield. The name duplication was already causing problems. Mail had gotten lost, emails misdirected. There was a rumour that the CEO had tried to get the other Springfield, as we’d taken to calling it, to change its name.
    The actual town.
    Seriously.
    “That’s too bad,” I said.
    “How so?”
    “It’d be nice to have another golfer in the office.”
    “There must be tons of guys who play where you are. Isn’t it some golf mecca?”
    I rolled my eyes. “Three courses and counting.” I leaned towards her so I wouldn’t be heard. “They’re mostly a bunch of duffers, to be honest. But you, Christ, you really schooled that flagpole. You taught that flag a lesson.”
    I stopped, realizing I might be speaking through one too many glasses of wine.
    “That wasn’t my intention but … thanks.”
    “Did you play professionally?”
    “College.” She paused, considering. “Scholarship.”
    I spooned some stuffing onto my plate. She took a generous helping of cranberry sauce.
    “And after college? Sorry, I don’t normally ask this many questions.”
    “It’s