The Indigo Room by Stephen Graham Jones

Author:Stephen Graham Jones [Jones, Stephen Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2025-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

“Where’s Robert?” Sharon asked outside the client space.

R. Lewis, Jennifer translated. Because of course Sharon wasn’t beholden to any stupid insistence on initials.

“Family thing, I believe,” Ted muttered, covering for his gender.

“Good, good, people should have families,” Sharon said, and that was almost comical, coming from her.

Jennifer was in danger of laughing, she realized.

“Shall we?” Ted, ever gallant, asked, holding the heavy door open for all, his right hand solid and real for that task.

The client space—technically, the Blue Room, everything on this floor color-coded so as to escape the “tyranny of enumeration”—was so thoroughly windowed that Jennifer felt the impulse to put sunglasses on. No blackout shades in here. No blinds at all, just transparency, which fosters trust, and signed contracts.

“I like these,” Anna said, bouncing in her chair.

Jennifer was watching her a bit too closely, she knew, but she had to be sure her head wasn’t going to tilt off, roll across the floor. She hadn’t realized that the earlier meeting was now part of her own personal trauma chorus, to be triggered again for . . . for forever, now?

Great. Wonderful.

“Is this everyone, then?” Sharon asked from the middle of the table.

“Gracie,” Jennifer realized out loud.

“Yeah, it is a little bright in here,” Charles said with a mischievous glint to his eyes.

“The rest of her report should be first,” Sharon said evenly, and, in response, everyone in the room made to stand, fulfill this implied order.

Ted, the most obedient, the best team player, was of course first to the door.

Jennifer settled back into her seat, and, moving on automatic, went to silence her phone then felt a moment of terror when she didn’t have it: What if Cole needed her?

But of course he was the one who still had it. And he was safe and good in some hidden part of the thirteenth floor.

She hoped this internal roller coaster wasn’t playing on her face.

“Well then,” Sharon said, looking around, waiting for one of her more socially capable employees to start a pleasant conversation—this was the client space, after all, and everyone needed to polish those skills. You never knew when a key player was going to be late for a signing and you had to keep the pitter-patter up.

“Plans for the weekend?” Jennifer said, addressing the table, putting no one on the spot, blah blah blah, they’d all clicked through the online training module.

“Weekend, what’s that?” Charles, the only one who could get away with something like this, said.

Sharon pursed her lips and dipped her chin to her chest.

“Oh, oh! There she is!” Anna squealed, jack-in-the-boxing up from her oh-so-bouncy seat.

They all turned and it was Gracie, zoetroping past slit window after slit window of the only somewhat solid interior wall of the client space, her pace brisk, her chin tucked into her chest as if she were telling herself to just keep putting one foot after the other, then repeat, repeat.

She was making her way toward the reception desk, after which: escape.

“I’ll get her!” Anna said, and was already doing it.

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