"Humor me for a second," Jessie said as she perched herself on the corner of my desk. "Tell me everything you know about the people on the fifth floor." That's what's burned into my head, that moment. She was wearing this fuzzy sweater, a bubblegum-pink eyesore that should have looked terrible but somehow came across as almost classy on her. It was no wonder most of the guys in the office had asked her out - which was probably why she hung out with me all the time. I was safe. I had a serious girlfriend (now my wife) and wouldn't have hit on a coworker anyway. My girlfriend never met Jessie, but always referred to her as my "work wife". She kinda was, it was platonic but also just... very familiar. I miss it a lot. Now I just have that moment that replays itself in my head, Jessie asking me to humor her and reflexively brushing a hand past her ear as if to tuck back the long brown hair that she had cut short a week before. Smiling, happy and a little excited, wanting to know about the fifth floor.
And I didn't know anything. Fifth floor was marketing overflow on the northeast corner, but the rest was behind a badge reader. I leaned back, trying to think, and Jessie's smile got bigger - it was clear this was the entertainment for the day (actually doing our jobs required a fraction of our attention). I knew I could ask someone higher up in the company, but that would ruin the game so I pulled up an org chart instead. One by one I went through the departments - HR on sixth, treasury on third - checking them off. Nobody - other than the aforementioned corner with a few undesirables from Marketing - was on the fifth floor. "Maybe it's leased out like that suite on the first floor, or maybe it's vacant?"
"It's not leased out," she said as she leaned back and looked around to see if anyone was listening, "because it's past the outer doors which means you have to be an employee here to get in. And it's not vacant. There are desks in there."
I hadn't even considered that she had already been inside, but it turned out she had come into the office just after four in the morning that day ("long story involving my engine catching on fire, I'll tell you about it later" she said - though of course she never did) and she got off the elevator at the wrong floor. The cleaning people were just leaving that area, and being a bit impulsive she had ducked in. Jessie hadn't looked around long, not wanting to get in trouble, but on her way out she had left a ball of paper in the stairwell door so it wouldn't latch.
So that was what we did with ourselves to avoid work. We waited until the stairwell was clear, pulled the door open, and pocketed the ball of paper as it fell out of the doorframe. I remember that I held the door open and gestured for her to go in first, making an exaggerated sweeping motion with my arm. She nodded and even mimed a curtsy before heading in. We thought we were so fucking cute. We were partially hidden by a fake plant and the desk closest to the stairwell was completely empty, no computer or anything, so we felt safe taking a look around. We could see down an aisle of cubicles - they were the same kind that had been on the third floor before the big remodel, beige fabric walls and grey desktops with little whiteboards and rolling file cabinets. There wasn't anyone sitting at any of the desks, but we could hear voices somewhere nearby.
Jessie looked nervous and wanted to head right for the main exit, just looking at whatever she could spot on her way by, but I felt confident we wouldn't get caught and wouldn't be in much trouble if we were so I wanted to snoop some. We compromised, making a wide loop around the main block of cubicles. I could still hear voices, the usual background murmurs of an office. Talking, typing, the occasional laugh. A phone ringing. But it was all at the other end of the office, with the cubes near us abandoned - not like the empty one by the stairwell, they had personal items and plants and things - but the computers were a bit outdated, with the big chunky monitors, and the calendars I spotted were from 1997 even though at this point it was May of 2004. It was like a corporate archaeological site, a preserved snapshot of the past. Nothing was so old that it was crazy to see it there - other than the calendars - but it was all just old enough to be strange.
By the time our loop reached the far side of the office, over near a tiny break room, something was bothering me. We stopped, silent for a moment, and then we realized what the problem was and I got goosebumps down my arms. I don't remember if one of us actually asked the other out loud, but we both knew the question - where were the people we could hear talking? All those little noises were coming from somewhere, but we had circled the area without seeing anyone and now all those sounds seemed to be in the direction we had come from. I cut across the middle of the room, not waiting for Jessie, and mid-way there I could hear talking on all sides of me. Like before it was muffled, just too far away to make out words. I turned, looking in all directions. "Hello?" I called, "Is anyone here? Hello?" There was no response.
I turned to call to Jessie, but I didn't see her. Jessie wasn't tall and the older style cubicles had higher walls than the new ones, but I still should have been able to see her head over the tops. I called out to her, walked along looking down every aisle, looked into the break room. I thought she might have gone out through the main door, but decided that she had done it to mess with me and so I went to leave by the stairwell instead - I pictured her lurking out front, laughing because she knew I was spooked, and I didn't want to give her the satisfaction. When I got to the stairwell door I took one last look over the mysterious department - I hadn't actually figured out which department it was supposed to be - and noticed something.
That desk, the one that I was certain was empty just minutes earlier when we arrived, had a computer and personal items on it. And a pink sweater draped over the chair. I looked closer and there was a picture pinned to the cubicle wall of Jessie holding a slice of birthday cake, surrounded by smiling people. It was clearly taken right there on the 5th floor and I didn't recognize any of the people as working at our company - I almost didn't recognize Jessie either, since her hair was longer than it had been even before her recent haircut. There were some other items, similar but not quite the same as the ones on her real desk. The calendar (October 1997) had her handwriting on it, as did a notepad sitting next to the keyboard. I felt like I should be laughing. It seemed so absurd, that she would somehow go to all that trouble to play a prank on me. But it didn't feel like a prank, and I couldn't bring myself to laugh. Instead I just stood there, straining to hear her voice in that distant murmur.
I left after a moment, went back to my desk and stared at my inbox for the rest of the day. I wiggled the mouse just often enough to keep the computer from going to sleep but otherwise I did nothing. I went home in a trance, told my girlfriend not to come over because I wasn't feeling well (which almost backfired, since she wanted to come and make me soup and pamper me) and crashed in my bed almost immediately. The next morning it all felt like a dream. When I got to work Jessie's desk was cleaned out, and my boss said he was told she had to transfer to another location due to "family issues". I couldn't get any more information about it, and despite how close we were at work I didn't know any of her friends or family to follow up on it. I quit a few months later, without having gone back to the fifth floor. Every few years I try to look her up, on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever. I never have found her, but on the other hand I've never seen a missing person story pop up either.
So I tell myself it's fine, that it was an elaborate prank. I picture her, from that morning, sliding onto my desk and saying "Humor me for a second" and ask myself if she could have planned it, if she could have somehow gotten the help she would have needed to pull that off. I remember her in that terrible sweater, smiling, asking me about the fifth floor like this was all a great game - and I hope to god that that's what it was. I just don't believe it.
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