Invisible People

Invisible People: Prologue

Prologue

Jack walked into the break room and filled a cup of coffee.  Cecilia followed in after him.  “Hey, you’re back.  How did it go?”

“Same old, same old,” Jack replied vaguely, sipping his coffee.  “She got her man.  I stuck around long enough to see the wedding.  Then like always, two hours into the reception, she realized what a tool the guy is and ran off with the caterer.”  He snorted and Cecilia sighed.

“Why do they always do that?” she asked, grabbing a brownie from a plate on the counter.  “I swear...you’d think these people would have better judgement.”

 Jack shrugged, not really caring one way or the other.  “We do our job.  We don’t choose who they fall in love with.  The top floor takes care of that.”

Cecelia bit into her brownie and covered her mouth with one hand.  “Yeah, I know...Still irritates the crap out of me.  I think the cupids upstairs come to work drunk off their own potions.  By the way, Teri wants to see you in her office asap.”

 “I just got back,” Jack replied with a groan.  “Don’t I get even a little vacation?”

 “What can I say?  You’re the best at what you do, and the case files are piling up.  Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.”  Cecilia gave him a hip-bump and a smile as she left the break room to go file something.  That’s what she did.  Filed things.  Sometimes, Jack wished he had her job.

 He picked his way through the open office, stopping to chat for a few moments with co-workers and rummage through the messages on his desk.  Finally, he couldn’t put Teri off any longer.  Knocking on her door, he entered and slumped in a pink velvet chair.  Ugh...pink.  Females chose the oddest decor colors.

 Teri glanced up, adjusted her swirly pink glasses and smiled.  “I saw your notes on the latest case.  Very good work...too bad the chit turned out to be an ungrateful slut.”

 With a chuckle, Jack said, “You give me these women.  I do what I can.  I get the job done.”

 “Yes...yes, you do.  Which is why I’m sending you out again.”

 He kind of figured that already.  “Please tell me this one lives on the beach...or New York City...I’d take a well-to-do horse ranch, even.  Just not another small town in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do except watch daytime television.  I don’t know if I can stand that again.  Since I'm not getting a vacation, the least you could do is send me somewhere nice for a change.”

 Teri rolled her eyes.  “You’re breaking my heart here, Jack.  And no, none of those places apply to this one.”  She tossed him a pink file.  It landed in his lap, and he scowled at her.  “Amy Marie Laurel,” Teri said.  “Twenty-seven.  Works at a shopping mall.  In love with a optometrist...of all people.”

 “And where is this shopping mall?” he asked, flipping open the file.  A profile picture of Miss Laurel was clipped to the first page.  Oh, crutches on wheels!  He looked up at Teri.  “You’re kidding me, right?  You know I can't work miracles.”

 Teri flashed her teeth at him.  “She lives in the U.S.A...Arkansas, to be exact.  We don't do the international ones here.  You know that.  Too much red tape.  You’ll find all the info there.  Good luck.”

 Good luck?  Jack almost tossed the file back at her.  Luck was not his department.  That was fourth floor’s business.  He stared at Amy’s photo and tried not to grimace.  Okay...he could do this.  She was...um, kind of cute, he guessed.  Pictures never did justice to many women.  Amy was a mousy-haired woman with bug-eyed framed glasses, squinty green eyes, an off-balanced mouth, high cheekbones, and bushy eyebrows that bordered on a uni-brow.  A full-body picture underneath her headshot showed that she wore baggy pants, shapeless shirts, and orthopedic shoes.  Jack couldn’t tell what shape her actual body was in because of the shitty clothes.  But there was one good thing he noticed right away.  Her skin.  It was gorgeous.  Peachy-colored with a spatter of freckles across a perky nose.  

 He had worked with worse, he thought, trying to recall the worse.  Um...Margaret from Omaha.  She had been uuug-ly when he met her.  Now, she was married to an extremely wealthy man and posed for society magazines.

 Oh!  And Laura, from New Jersey.  Laura had been a forty-three year old schoolteacher in drab dresses, hoarding stray cats into her small apartment.  When he finished with her, she could pass for a starlet in Hollywood, and the man she was in love with never stood a chance.  Those two were still honeymooning off the coast of Italy...after three years since getting married.

 So, Amy should be a snap.  This was his job, turning unattractive mice into the most beautiful, confident women in the world.  And he was good at it.  (Which was probably why he got the women nobody looked twice at.)

 Maybe I should slack off a bit...the cases keep getting worse.

 "So...what's so special about Little Miss Mousey here?"

 Teri eyed him over her pink rims.  "It's all in the file, Jack."

 “Fine,” he said, standing up and tucking the folder under his arm.  “When do I leave?”

 “Tomorrow,” Teri said with a grin.  “Get some rest until then.  I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”

 “You’re giving me a raise when I’m done,” he said as he walked out.

 Teri laughed.  “What would you do with money?"”

 “I don't know,” he said over his shoulder.  “But I like saying it.  Makes me feel human.”

 “Yeah...well, don’t get too attached to humanity,” she shouted back.  “That’s not our world.”

 Jack hid his frown until he was back at his desk.  No...that wasn’t his world.  This is, he thought, looking around.  A group of leprechauns were hanging out at the water cooler, chattering in their high, squeaky voices and trying to create a rainbow by making the light refract through the water.  A silver-winged fairy drifted by, giving him a saucy smile, and a unicorn trotted down the aisles with a mail sack on its back, pitching out letters and parcels.  To a human, this was a page out of a storybook.  To Jack...it was normal.

 Just a normal, everyday scene from Imaginary...his home.