I was sitting on the couch trying to answer a message on my phone when Pandora started playing with Mr. Whiskers. She was making ridiculous faces, talking to him in that cheerful voice people instinctively reserve for cats, and Mr. Whiskers was responding as though he’d been rehearsing for this performance his entire life. Every few seconds she’d laugh, and every few seconds he’d roll onto his back, bat at her hand or launch himself sideways across the cushions with complete confidence that gravity would continue honoring its end of the agreement. It was honestly entertaining enough that I kept looking up from my phone despite repeatedly telling myself not to. Across the room, John Mercer wandered in looking half awake, dropped onto the other end of the couch, pulled out his phone and immediately disappeared into it. No greeting. No comment. No acknowledgment that anyone else occupied the room. Just scroll… pause… scroll. I looked at him for a moment, waiting for at least a nod. Nothing. I looked back toward Pandora. She was still completely absorbed in Mr. Whiskers. I shifted slightly on the couch, partly to get comfortable and partly because I was curious whether anyone would notice. Nobody did.
I looked back down at my phone. Karen had texted earlier to say she was running late for work again. That wasn’t unusual. Karen running late had become almost as dependable as my morning coffee. I intended to reply, but before I could type anything the refrigerator hummed loudly from the kitchen. Mrs. Jenkins had mentioned a few days earlier that her refrigerator had started making a similar noise, claiming appliances always seemed to wait until you finally relaxed before reminding you they contained moving parts. Now I was thinking about refrigerators instead of Karen’s message. I caught myself drifting, shook my head and tried to focus again. Phone. Message. Reply. Simple. Then Pandora laughed again as Mr. Whiskers dramatically flopped across her lap with all the grace of a sack of potatoes that believed in itself. I looked up automatically. There went my concentration for the third time in less than a minute.
That was when I began noticing something that probably hadn’t been happening until I noticed it. Pandora hadn’t looked at me once since I’d sat down. John hadn’t either. They weren’t being rude. They were simply occupied with whatever had their attention. Still, after another minute passed, my imagination quietly started filling in the blanks. I cleared my throat. Nothing. I stretched my legs. Nothing. I set my phone on the coffee table with just enough noise that someone might glance over. Still nothing. Pandora continued scratching Mr. Whiskers behind the ears while he purred loudly enough to qualify as household background noise. John remained completely absorbed in whatever was on his screen. The longer it continued, the more convinced I became that I was slowly disappearing from the room.
Then John’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen, silenced the call and immediately returned to scrolling. A few minutes later it rang again. Same routine. Look. Silence. Continue reading. By the third ignored call I found myself paying more attention to John than my own phone. That seemed unusual. Karen was somewhere running late. Mrs. Jenkins had seemed a little quieter during our last conversation in the hallway. John was ignoring repeated calls. Pandora was entirely focused on the cat. None of those observations meant anything by themselves, but my brain has an unfortunate habit of collecting unrelated facts until they begin resembling a pattern. Before long I’d quietly convinced myself everyone else was participating in some shared understanding that I alone had somehow missed.
The theory became more convincing the longer I sat there. Pandora wasn’t ignoring me because of Mr. Whiskers; she was ignoring me because she already knew something. John wasn’t screening calls because he didn’t feel like answering them; he was avoiding saying the wrong thing. Karen’s delayed arrival suddenly seemed less like traffic and more like suspicious timing. Even Mrs. Jenkins’ shorter conversations in the hallway started looking meaningful. I wasn’t imagining a conspiracy exactly, but I was beginning to suspect I was the only person who hadn’t received whatever memo everyone else seemed to have read. I even caught myself wondering whether John had intentionally positioned himself where he could watch both Pandora and me without making it obvious. It was an impressive theory, especially considering it was built almost entirely out of ordinary people having an ordinary morning.
Then Pandora finally looked up. “Hal,” she said. “I’ve asked you twice if you want more coffee.” I blinked. “You did?” She laughed. “You’ve been staring at the ceiling for the last thirty seconds.” John looked over for the first time all morning. “I thought you were trying to remember where you parked.” “I thought you two were ignoring me,” I admitted. Pandora smiled and shook her head. “No. You disappeared into one of your thinking sessions again.” John nodded. “It happens a lot more than you realize.” I looked down at my phone and discovered Karen’s text was still sitting there unanswered exactly where I’d left it. I’d been so busy watching everyone else that I’d completely stopped participating in the room myself. Mr. Whiskers chose that exact moment to jump into my lap, circle twice and settle in with the satisfied expression of someone convinced he’d just solved the mystery before the humans did. Looking back, nobody had been ignoring me at all. They’d simply been going about their morning while I quietly constructed an elaborate explanation for something that had never actually happened in the first place.