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Most daunting of all, I discovered there were six puzzles to complete over the course of Saturday, with a seventh to solve at the ungodly hour of nine o’clock Sunday morning.

This was supposed to be fun? I hadn’t been forced to use my brain cells that early since I’d taken the SATs. Maybe I didn’t need to match wits against hundreds of other contestants.

Or maybe I was scared. Maybe I didn’t want to compete and discover how bad I was at one of the things I did best.

Or maybe I was scared for a different reason. I’d sent an email to Billy, asking if people went into training for this sort of thing.

“Some do,” he’d replied. “I know one guy who solves a hundred puzzles a day for the two months leading up to this weekend.”

Swell,
I thought, dispatching the message to the junk folder before I was tempted to respond. Not only were my brain cells going to be put to the test this weekend—so were my morals.

Then Hank made an announcement that further complicated my situation.

“Spoke to my daughter this morning. Looks like I finally convinced her to come up to the city and visit her old man.”

“That’s great. I’ve been looking forward to meeting her. When are you expecting her?”

“She’s driving up with her new husband for the weekend.”

“This weekend?”

“There some kind of a problem?”

“No… Well, there’s this crossword tournament they hold every year out in Brooklyn. I was thinking about competing in it.”

“No kidding? You got to go, Dana. I never seen anybody do crosswords as fast as you. You’ll win the grand prize!”

I laughed. “I seriously doubt that. Some of the contestants sound awfully… driven. What day are they coming?”

“She reckons they’ll leave Mullica Hill right after work on Friday and get in around seven o’clock.”

Maybe my situation wasn’t as complicated as I’d feared. According to the schedule posted on the tournament’s Web site, that evening was given over to game night, which was optional, and registration, which I could put off until Saturday morning. “That’s a relief. At least I’ll get a chance to meet her.”

But as it turned out, the meeting was anything but a relief, and if I’d thought my situation was complicated before, it was nothing compared to how complicated it would become once I encountered Mrs. Jolene Calhoun Butz.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

“W
hat could possibly have been so terrible that you had to run out of there?” Elinor Ann wanted to know as I hustled down Houston Street on my way to Second Avenue and the F train stop. All of a sudden I couldn’t wait to participate in game night.

“Oh my god. You would not believe—”

But nobody would believe how much could go so dreadfully wrong in just under twenty minutes.

As soon as Jolene entered the brownstone, she fixed her eyes on my newly completed baluster set and grimaced. “I hope that’s the next thing you’re going to renovate, Daddy.” She hugged him, and he looked over her shoulder at me, visibly mortified.

“Actually, that’s… here to stay,” he told her. “This here’s my girl—Dana, Jolene.”

“Real nice to meet you, ma’am.”

I shouldn’t condemn her based on her taste. She’d grown up differently than I—in the land of be-jeweled and be-riveted denim, as her outfit made clear.

And I had grown up in Snobville, as my hideously judgmental
attitude made clear. What did it matter if our sensibilities were misaligned? We both cared for Hank, didn’t we? She seemed pretty, with her father’s dark hair and blue eyes, but it was hard to tell through makeup nearly as thick as the coats of paint on the crown moldings above our heads.

But enough of that. “Welcome to New York City.” I smiled and shook her hand. Everything would work out fine, if I could just behave myself—for once.

The front door swung open, and Jolene’s husband tromped in with two duffel bags. He dropped them with a thud and pointed at the staircase. “Who’s movin’ into this place? Some fag?”

My potential stepdaughter dissolved into giggles as Hank introduced me to Gordon “Call Me Gordo” Butz.

“Well, I can hardly see how Hank’s responsible,” Elinor Ann said. “It’s not like he raised the girl. Didn’t his ex-wife get custody? And didn’t you tell me he only met this husband of hers at the wedding?”

“I did. And I know this isn’t his fault. But I just couldn’t stand to be in that house another second.”

We showed them through the corridor and into the kitchen, where I’d made tea. I opened the refrigerator and added a six-pack to the table, thinking it might come in handy.

“So. Mullica Hill, New Jersey,” I said. “I think I drove through it on my way to the shore once. What do you guys do down there?”

“I guess you could call us farmers.” Jolene pointed to her husband. “His family’s owned a complex of greenhouses for near about a hundred years. They grow herbs for the food industry.”

An herb farm. How bucolic. This was more like it.

“Won’t be much longer, though,” Gordo said, popping open a beer. “Developers have been putting up condos like crazy round there. We’re
just holding out for a sweet price.” He let out a whoop. “Then it’s off to NASCAR Nation, baby!”

Surely there was
some
way to find common ground.

“So, now that you’re in town, what would you like to see?” I asked.

Jolene frowned. “I can’t think of anything.…”

“The Empire State Building? The Metropolitan Museum?” I prompted.

At last her face lit up. “I know! Trump Tower!”

Hank was avoiding eye contact with me. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or insulted. He was obviously delighted to see his daughter, and what father wouldn’t be? It was only right, as was my intention to accommodate our guests with as much hospitality as I could muster. “Anybody hungry?” I said.

“You bet.” Gordo reached for a second beer.

“There’s a real good restaurant we like just around the corner,” Hank said.

“Restaurant?” Gordo’s tone made it clear he was opposed to the suggestion.
Oh god,
I thought.
Please don’t expect me to cook.

Jolene smiled indulgently at her husband. “He just hates tipping them waitresses.”

“I don’t believe in gratuities. Besides, it’s Friday night. For me, that’s two Big Macs, large fries, and a hot apple pie. You got a McDonald’s round here?”

“I think there’s one over on Second Avenue,” I said.

Gordo got to his feet. “Let’s me and you go over there, Hank. This neighborhood’s no place for any wife of mine to be walking around.”

“This area seems kind of… ethnic,” Jolene explained. “He don’t believe in the mixing of the races.”

Oh no no no
.

“I always say that’s why the track’s got two sides—a white one and a wrong one!” Gordo roared at his own joke, and I reached for my jacket.

“I’m terribly sorry I won’t be able to stay for dinner,” I said. “But I’m already late—I’m supposed to be out in Brooklyn at a crossword tournament.” Finally Hank met my gaze. He nodded, as if to say,
Vaya con Dios
.

Gordo let out a grunt. “Crosswords. Talk about a waste of time.”

“So the guy doesn’t solve crossword puzzles,” Elinor Ann said. “Not everyone does, you know.”

“I know.” I sighed. “Hank doesn’t.” And he used double modifiers, and his daughter had married a redneck, and Hank wasn’t even his real name, I thought, sinking into despair. All of a sudden I couldn’t fathom how we’d managed to get along for the past three months.

“Dana, calm down. I’m sure you guys can work this out.”

“I’m not. That meeting was a disaster—I hope I never have to see those two again as long as I live. And the last thing I want is for Hank to feel that he has to choose between his daughter and me.”

“Oh, Dana. I really, really wish you were on your way back to Ninth Street right now.”

I should have known Elinor Ann would try to talk me out of going to Brooklyn this evening, I thought after boarding a southbound train. And maybe she was right. Maybe this foray was a bad idea. But I couldn’t stay at Hank’s. Nor did I want to go home, where memories of that disastrous encounter would crowd out all other thoughts for the duration of the evening.

Hank understood. “I’m sorry,” he said after he’d walked me to the front door. “I don’t blame you for wanting to get out of here.”

I hugged him. “No, I’m sorry. But—”

“No need to be.” He laughed. “Wish I was going to Brooklyn with you.”

“Just enjoy your visit with Jolene. She seems very sweet. I’ll call you when I get home tonight.”

“Good luck—even though I think I’m gonna need it more than you.”

Twenty-five minutes later I walked into an alternate universe—one where most of the natives wore glasses and had scant concern for their personal appearance.

The hotel lobby was packed with animated geniuses. Some of them had helped themselves to puzzles stacked on a center table, then plopped down right there on the floor to begin the solving process.

Immediate panic set in. These people were driven. These people were hard-core. As I made my way toward a rear hallway with a sign reading
REGISTRATION
, I overheard snippets of conversation:

“It was gorgeous. Three rows of stacked fifteens at the top and bottom of the grid.”

“So after I bingoed, I played ‘azalea’ on a triple-word score—with the
Z
on a double letter.”

My people.

I joined the end of the line in front of a box labeled
H
THROUGH
M
. My fellow contestants seemed almost preternaturally friendly, smiling and chatting and patiently waiting their turn. After I’d reached the front, where I was handed a name tag and a yellow folder, I turned around and found myself face-to-face with Billy.

“There you are. Wasn’t sure you’d show tonight.”

“Neither was I.”

“Listen—all the judges have to help out with game night, but stick around. At least we could have a nightcap and share a cab home.” He smiled and trailed his fingers down my arm while I struggled to maintain my composure.

“We’ll see.” I joined the throng streaming toward the grand ballroom, but Billy called after me. “Dana?”

I turned and raised my eyebrows.

“You look really cute tonight.”

So much for composure,
I thought, grinning like an idiot all the way to my destination.

Inside, hundreds of eager participants sat at mile-long tables running the length of the enormous room. I took a seat near the back and listened as a guy who bore a strong resemblance to Phil Rizzuto explained the rules.

“We’re going to be presenting a series of thirty word games.…”

Thirty?

Surely such a prolonged mental challenge would deplete brain cells best conserved for the actual competition. I slipped out a side door and headed directly to the bar.

It was nearly empty, except for a table full of boisterous drinkers who looked as though they were having way more fun than the crowd in the ballroom, and a gay couple seated at the corner of the square-shaped bar. I slid onto a stool perpendicular to theirs and discreetly observed the revelers, just as a girl wearing a purple coat with marabou trim around the collar erupted with a high-pitched peal of laughter.

“They call themselves the Brain Cell Killers,” the shorter, blonder of the two men said. “I don’t know how they manage to make it through Saturday.”

“Let alone Sunday,” the taller, balder one added.

I shot them a look of pure gratitude. “Thank you for talking to me and saving my life.”

The shorter one reached his arm across the corner of the bar. “I’m Kevin. He’s Patrick. And don’t worry—we’ll look after you. We decided we adored you the minute you walked in.”