Silent Connection

“I can’t believe we have to do this,” Allie huffed, tossing her phone into a bin labeled with her name on it. She grabbed the required headphones–earmuffs really–and moved through the queue. “It’s too far. If I make it through this I might just quit anyway.”

Ginny, her coworker and best friend, rolled her eyes and she shuffled along, fidgeting with her headphones, trying to size them correctly. She tossed her phone into a bin as if it was on fire, smiling and sighing like she actually enjoyed keeping it distanced from her.

“I think it’s nice spending a whole day in silence,” she stated, and really, she would. As a mother of two toddlers, this was a vacation. A whole day at a silent retreat–mandated and paid for by work. “Now quick, get your talking out now before they shut it down!” She winked, and Allie huffed again. Ginny offered her a granola bar and Allie accepted it with angst, hating that her friend knew her so well.

She shoved the snack into her mouth in large bites as they grabbed the rest of their necessities for the day, which turned out to be a bag full of notepads, pens, and resources about meditation and taking time to listen through body language and facial cues.

“Noooooo,” she groaned, mouth full. “I don’t even have my phone to play Scrabble on the sly. What am I going to do all day?”

The queue led to a medium sized conference room with a stage and small two-chaired tables scattered throughout the floor. There were only about 30 people attending, all local HR departments torturing their reps with an exercise in patience.

“Let’s sit by each other and we can play tic tac toe the whole time,” Allie said, elbowing her friend and pointing to an empty table. She searched her bag for a bottle of water and couldn’t find one.

Ginny nodded, handing a water that she pulled from her bag like magic. “That’s what I’d do with my kids if they were here, she agreed.” Her tone wasn’t lost on Allie, but she didn’t care–games sounded much better than whatever this would likely entail.

The two sat down and waited for instructions. Allie had assumed a silent retreat meant yoga and yurts, not sitting in a stuffy brown room with a bunch of strangers with plastic smiles on their faces. She was sure no one wanted to be there, but honestly she couldn’t tell by looking at them. She glanced at the schedule, seeing yoga was in fact on the agenda at the end of the day. She nodded to herself, mindlessly smoothing her hair and pasting her own smile across her betrayingly expressive face.

After a few moments a small woman walked to the stage microphone, seeming to tiptoe or float, her heels making absolutely no sounds against the wood floors. Allie was so focused on that feat of magic, she barely heard the quiet voice through the speakers around the room. Snapping to attention, she tried to put the shoes out of her mind.

“Welcome, everyone. We’re going to get started on an exercise in just a few moments. It’ll challenge you, and hopefully educate you on the forms of communication that exist without words or sounds.” She mumbled on about the research, and Allie nodded to herself, thinking the shoes must have pads on the bottom of them. This woman went far in her quest for silence, that’s for sure.

“Pads on her shoes,” she whispered to Ginny. “I’m sure of it.” Ginny looked oddly at her, then raised a finger to her lips in a shushing manner. 

“Whatever,” she mumbled and turned back to the woman on stage, who had moved on from research and onto the rules of engagement for the day. 

“So when you’re ready, I need you all to rearrange yourselves to share a table with someone you’ve never met before. This works best with someone you don’t already have a shorthand knowledge of.”

Allie looked around the room in panic. There went her plan of sticking with the one person she knew. She felt like an HR imposter. Who worked with people without liking people? Ginny hit at her shoulder.

“Pay attention!” Allie nodded, not paying attention at all. She wondered if there would be a silent lunch after, and how would they even know if no one could tell them? The thought made her snort. Ginny nudged her again and pointed to her noise canceling headphones. Everyone was putting them over their ears. Shit, she missed something again.

She followed everyone else and slid the headphones over her head, huffing again when she had to adjust her ponytail to accommodate them. Suddenly she couldn’t hear anything, and everyone else seemed to know what they were doing. Panicking again, she stayed seated in her chair. Surely someone would notice and guide her to their task if she just sat there. Like when a child is lost, she thought. They always say to stay where you are and wait for a grownup to find you.

“Is that what they say?” she mumbled to herself. “Or do you go find someone?” She couldn’t even remember how to be a lost child, she thought, rolling her eyes. She looked down at her shoes, wondering how she would attach magic sound muffling pads to them.

Someone sat down in the chair across from her, startling her.

“I guess staying put was the right way to go,” she mumbled, raising her eyes to her guest. She started to wonder how she’d pretend to know what the frick was happening, but embarrassment reddened her cheeks.

The man across from her was gorgeous. His suit–SUIT–was fitted, and fit well, she thought, before cursing herself for objectifying him. The suit fit well but didn’t look overly expensive. He had a short hairstyle that allowed for his headphones to easily fit over his head. He was clean shaven, had an open and approachable face, and looked to be in his late 20s or early 30s, if she had to guess. Allie herself was only 25, just a few years out of college, the baby in the room, which looked to be mostly jaded 40 year olds trying desperately to get promoted out of the job they’d had for a decade and a half.

The man held out his hand and Allie offered hers in return. His handshake was firm, the way you’d expect from someone who worked with people all day. He smiled and she could see his white teeth. One tooth had a small chip in it, but why did it look so charming? She wondered how he’d chipped his tooth. Falling asleep and knocking his face on a table at a convention like this, probably. She sighed.

“I’m Allie,” she said loudly, and then slapped a hand on her mouth, feeling like an idiot. She stifled a laugh, and then because she tried so hard not to, she burst out into a snort. She was so glad at that moment the man couldn’t hear her. She mouthed sorry and he held back a laugh too, a dimple appearing in his left cheek. Then she grimaced. She still had no clue what they were doing, and she didn’t know how to find out.

Sighing again, she motioned to him and put her hands out in a “What do we do?” shrug. He motioned back to her in a “go ahead.” She narrowed her eyes at him and stared him down. There were brown specks in his green eyes. She narrowed hers more so he wouldn’t see that her brown eyes had green specks. It seemed like information he just didn’t deserve to have. Without breaking eye contact, she crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. She could do this all day, she thought.

Except really she couldn’t. The truth was, Allie was bored. She turned to look at what everyone else was doing, and honestly, it just looked like they were playing charades. Their arms and hands moved around and their faces held exaggerated emotions. She shrugged, and reached for her bag to grab the pen and paper.

“I give up,” she wrote. “I don’t know what we’re doing. Oh, and I’m Allie.” She grimaced and slid the paper toward her partner, shrugging and handing him the pen. She expected him to be angry or at least exasperated for wasting his precious time. She waited for him to write something scathing about wasting her time, but he just winked and wrote something down, using his hand to cover it so she couldn’t peek.

He looked left, then right, and then slid the paper across the table. It reminded her of when she was in school, passing notes to her friends in Study Hall. She mimicked the exaggerated looks to make sure no one was watching, and then looked at the page. She instantly laughed–snorted again–and glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” he’d written. “I was hoping for puppy yoga. I’m Daniel.” She looked at his hastily drawn lines, a big X in the center square. “Tic tac toe?”