The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips

hard at her. There was an eerie focus in his eyes, as if he’d singled her out. Or he could have just been gazing vacantly out the window.
    Unnerved, Josephine hurried onward. As soon as she began to walk away, the man in the gray sweatshirt headed briskly toward the door of the restaurant. She sped up, running the final blocks, unwilling to look back to confirm that he was following her, worried that a backward glance might provoke him. Only once she had reached the dubious safety of the dark stairwell did she dare a glance. The sidewalk behind her was empty.
    She smiled a thin, scornful smile at her nervous little self. Still, it was a relief to stumble down the cellar steps, to throw her bag on the rickety chair and call out for Joseph.
    He wasn’t there. She almost enjoyed her slight buzz of impatience, of doubt; when he arrived, any moment now, she wouldn’t take him for granted; “041-74-3400!” she’d say.
    His phone went straight to voice mail. His voice mailbox was full. She had just hung up when a text message dinged. She seized her phone, but the text was from her mother: Apples in season went to orchard today you should be here. Pie!
    She sat at the kitchen table. The basement was all shadows and earth smells. At least there were no cockroaches in sight. She crept through the rooms. Even the most innocuous objects had taken on an undeniable malevolence—the rag rug, the plastic trash can, the butterfly quilt. She returned to the kitchen. She drank a glass of water. She felt unwell. She was just transitioning into fury when her phone began to buzz on the table.
    “Where are you?” she demanded.
    The brief reply was a blur of indecipherable noise.
    “Where are you?” she screamed.
    This time the response was a mangled mutter. Maybe a trio of gerunds ( doing gluing screwing ) or maybe not. Distorted syllables, and then, clear as anything, an exhausted sigh before his voice sank back into the muck of static.
    “I can’t hear you!” She could hear how savage she sounded.
    He launched into a bunch of words but she only caught fragments, blips and fuzz.
    “… sticksorhoe … portentgif … nessandheal … ed … oon…”
    “What?” she shrieked.
    He said something that seemed to end with an exclamation.
    “What?”
    “… so that—” Joseph’s voice emerged loud and perfectly distinct for two words, followed by the total silence of a lost connection.

TEN
    The Four-Star Diner was packed with its Mondaynight dinner crowd, but even so Hillary hustled over the second Josephine stepped through the doorway. Her orange ponytail was brighter than anything else in that bright place.
    “There you are!” Hillary bellowed. “Right this way, sugarplum.” She put an arm around Josephine and bustled her toward the row of red stools by the counter. She looked older than Josephine remembered. “What’ll it be? Tuna melt? Grilled cheese? Wait, no, breakfast for dinner—how about waffles? Pancakes? Strawberries, right? Bingo! Lady in need of strawberry pancakes! Listen, I’ll be right back, I’ve got a table of grannies that wants a million things.”
    Hillary delivered the food quickly, with a wink, and Josephine ate quickly, almost rudely, the way Joseph always ate. The instant the pancakes were gone, she once again had that feeling of not knowing what to do with herself; the long fast walk to the diner had been something to do, eating had been something to do, but now the grief was beating the frenzy, the fury. Hillary came by to wipe down the counter.
    “So, tell me,” she said to Josephine as if they were best friends. “Where’d he go?”
    Josephine focused on the saltshaker.
    “Oh honey,” Hillary said. “You look just terrible! I knew it the second you walked in the door. Actually, I knew it the second you kids spent the night here back whenever it was. I told you I’m a psychic, right? Hang around till things quiet down, okay?”
    Josephine rested her forehead against her fingertips,