Lady in Black

We all have a strange coworker. I know I’ve had my share. There was that guy in my first job who used a backscratcher at work (basically a two foot long pole with a hand attached to the end, used to reach hard to access places on your back). But rather than use it occasionally, this dude would permanently be scratching his back, and he would therefore just leave the backscratcher inside his shirt, sticking out his neck while he worked. Then there was the guy on a project in New York who flossed his teeth obsessively, but was also ridiculously absentminded, so he’d walk around the office with pieces of floss string still hanging from his mouth. You think I’m being absurd, but I swear I’m telling the truth.

And now there’s the Lady in Black. I take the train in to work every day, and that’s where I see her. Dressed all in black (or, at best, varying shades of gray), head to toe. I’ve been taking the train to Abbott since August, and not one day have I seen her wear something of color. It’s all high-end clothing too – a fashionable jacket, a smart dress, shiny shoes, and a designer handbag. But everything is always in gray/black. She has straight, jet black hair, and wears large sunglasses every day. We live in Chicago, where it seems that we're currently getting only 3 hours of daylight, but still she wears these shades. Even her “accidental accessories” are all black. These are the random items in her possession that she should have no chromatic control over. Items such as shopping bags or newspapers or snacks – but these too are always black. She sucks color from everything around her.

The kicker is that I’ve never seen her smile either. As if looking like a female agent from the Matrix weren't enough, she's stern-faced to boot. Once the train deposits us near Abbott, we board company shuttles that take us to the corporate campus. Countless times I’ve held doors open for her, and countless times I’ve seen others do the same. But she won’t smile. It’s gotten to the point where I just want to sidle up to her and tell her a really good, funny story. Everyone laughs at my funny stories. But will she? I don’t know that, and it’s killing me. I mean, wouldn’t she be the greatest test of my ability to amuse others? But what if I failed? What if I told her my funniest story, and she just stared at me, unsmiling, my face reflecting back at me off her sunglasses?

I can’t do it. But I need to make her smile. I have to.