“So did I,” I said. “But we’re talking about the eighties. Did people do that in the eighties?”
“Probably you’re right about that,” Mona sighed. “Probably not. Our generation is
sick
.”
“I think the important question in the ‘unscripted’ cit is, who is Scout? And why is she deceiving him?”
“But we know who Scout is,” Mona said.
“We do?”
“Well, yeah. At least, we know he’s her boyfriend.”
The waitress approached and plunked our orders in front of us. After Mona had inhaled all of her whipped cream and began scraping her spoon into the swirls of caramel and chocolate, she said, “We know Scout’s her boyfriend from ‘blow-dryer’ and ‘headshrinker.’”
I looked at both cits. “The ‘he’ in ‘blow-dryer’ isn’t necessarily the same person as the ‘he’ in ‘headshrinker.’”
“It’s a no-brainer,” Mona insisted. “It’s the same guy. One cit directly follows the other. Did you notice the numbers? Twenty-four and twenty-five? You know what those numbers are?”
“Page numbers,” I said, making a smiley face on my soup with oyster crackers.
“No,” Mona said. “They’re not page numbers because there’s no real book
The Broken Teaglass
. I believe the cits are numbered. Twenty-five follows twenty-four. Simple as that. It sure sounds like ‘headshrinker’ is the continuation of what’s happening in ‘blow-dryer.’ Nothing in between. They’re not
page
numbers. Someone wanted to make it possible to put the story back in order. With ease.”
“With
relative
ease,” I said. I drowned the oyster cracker smiley face with my spoon. “We’re at a dead end and it doesn’t look like we have even half of them.”
“Still. You get what I’m saying,” she said, before slipping a gob of chocolate sauce into her mouth. She squinted at the photocopy.
“‘His reserved and intellectual girlfriend,’” she read. “She thinks a lot of herself, doesn’t she?”
“I wouldn’t say that. She’s referring to
his
perspective. That’s what he thinks she is. Shy and smart.”
“And what’s the big story that’s hanging over them, anyway? In this and other cits, she keeps talking about
the story
. Why doesn’t she just tell it, already?”
“I think that’s what she’s trying to do here,” I said.
“Well, then she should quit pussyfooting around. We did all this work. I was hoping for a little instant gratification. What the hell happened to the corpse? Are we gonna get a little dead body action again soon?”
I dug in my soup, looking for pieces of clam.
“We know quite a bit, I think,” I pointed out. “We know she worked at Samuelson. We know she had a boyfriend, and it seems he worked there too. We know that she was trying to keep something from him. Something that might have had to do with a cut on her wrist. Maybe she tried to kill herself for some reason, but maybe not.”
Mona nodded, adding, “We also know that there’s some guy named Red involved. A boyfriend on the sly, maybe? Someone Scout doesn’t know about. Red sounds like a player. And she seems to be communicating directly with him about something.”
“Red likes flirting,” I said slowly, watching for her reaction to the character of Red. “And talking about heroin junkies.”
“And there’s a corpse,” Mona put in eagerly. “The proverbial corpse.”
“Proverbial?” I repeated.
She shrugged. “Usage is an art,” she said. “Language is fluid.”
“Any theories about the corpse?” I asked.
Mona dug into her sundae glass, and slurped up a few last spoonfuls before answering.
“Naturally,” she said, “we should entertain the possibility that the cut is related to the corpse. Maybe she battled someone in a switchblade fight and won. There you’ve got your corpse and your slashed wrist.”
“But is that theory realistic for a lexicographer? A
reserved, intellectual
lexicographer?”
“No,” Mona admitted. “I’m just saying we should entertain something of the kind. As it seems fairly obvious. But I stand by my suicidal theory. It’s not such a crazy theory, you know. Maybe she saw something terrifying. A dead body. A murder. Or she
knows
something about a fatal incident, or at least a crime. And maybe that’s what’s making her lose her head.”
I nodded, conceding that this wasn’t a half-bad theory.
“So what about Scout?” I asked.
“Scout’s not involved.” Mona waved her hand confidently “Scout’s a tool.
Red’s
involved. But of course, those two aren’t as important as the other guy. We can’t forget about the other guy.”
“Derek Brownlow.”
“Right. This seems like our best piece of information. A full name. And a full name that’s apparently been in the papers. This gives us another place to look.”
“Maybe. But Red and Scout seem like nicknames.”
“But that doesn’t mean that Derek Brownlow is too.”
“So you’re thinking we should—”
“Hit the library, yes.”
“Hit the microfiches.”
“Well, yeah. I guess. I’m kind of hoping I’ll be able to do a keyword search, but I guess it all depends on how far back this thing goes, and what kind of files they keep on the local papers.”
“This is really turning out to be delightful, Mona. A microfiche search, of all things. We’re like the Bloodhound Gang.”
“Didn’t I tell you you’d be thanking me? Why don’t you let me take care of the library stuff for now? I’ll make the first library run. You keep looking in the citations.”
“But we’re at a dead end,” I protested. “Where am I supposed to look?”
“That’s true,” she said. “But let’s think about this. Nineteen fifty is smack in the middle of the century. What could that be? Maybe somebody’s doing every decade? Or every fifty years? I mean, should we look up 1900 words next?”
“It could be anything. It could be the year of her Chinese animal. Like, maybe she’s doing every monkey year, or every dragon year, or whatever 1950 is.”
“If that’s what it turns out to be, Billy, I’ll buy you a box of Cuban cigars. But I suppose Chinese zodiac years are as good an avenue as any.”
“Maybe every five years?” I suggested. “Multiples of five might be important, since there’s 1985 there on all the cits.”
“I say we try 1940 and 1960,” Mona decided. “It just seems the most promising. New decade years. We try those first.”
“It’ll be a lot of work just to determine if we’re completely off base,” I said, still reluctant. “Even in 1950, we only found a few cits in all those, what, 250 words?”
“What are you suggesting? That we go with the Chinese zodiac first, then try 1940 and 1960?”
“No,” I mumbled. “1940 and 1960 it is.”
“I’ll do my share, plus I’ll see what I can find in some library searches of Derek Brownlow. We’ll print out the lists on Monday,” Mona said. “Which year do you want?”
On my way home, I thought
about this Red guy. If Mona had noticed that there was something familiar about him, she hadn’t mentioned it. For Mona, all the blood in this story was literal, and all the slashes deep. So a version of the story that included doughnut man was likely to disappoint. But for me, it made the story more intriguing. Even if it was all real—the corpse and the dead prom queen and the bloodied hands—a version with the Sinatra-humming old Phillips might at least have some redemption in it.
I liked that idea. I decided I’d pursue it on my own for a little while.
It was all a matter of
approach. Grace liked to talk. And she liked to talk about her fellow dictionary people. But she did so in such a soft-spoken, matter-of-fact way that it hardly seemed like gossip. Getting her to talk would simply require a similar finesse.
I waited a couple of days to make my move, mulling over various opening lines, avenues of conversation, sideways turns that would lead to Mr. Phillips. Still, as I stood near the water cooler on the decided day and hour of my approach, I wondered if it was unwise to go on this mission alone. I stepped a few feet away from the cooler so I could watch Grace at her desk.
She was absently stroking the curls over her ear with her left hand, and holding a citation in her right. She scrutinized it for a moment, then picked up another. There was a silver watch on her wrist that seemed to keep catching on her hair, but she didn’t seem to notice. Something about her reminded me of Mona. Maybe it was her size—although she didn’t seem so deviously tiny as Mona. She seemed a little healthier, perhaps, and less elfin. Maybe it was the similar ease with which she seemed to work. Grace’s ease, however,
came with a calm that Mona definitely didn’t possess. But Mona might very well be this woman someday.
Fancying her just an old Mona made it easier to take a final deep breath, step up to her cubicle, and start shooting the shit.
“Hi, Grace,” I said as I approached.
“Good morning,” she said, smiling pleasantly as she put down the cit she’d been holding. “How’ve you been?”
“Pretty good. I got to go through the cits for ‘damaged goods’ this morning.”
“You defined it?”
“No. Unfortunately, it’s already been defined.”
“Too bad. That would’ve been a fun one for you. The first words are memorable,” she said, pulling a single long hair out of one of the chunky metal links of her watch. “It all becomes unremarkable pretty fast, I have to tell you. For better or for worse. Just a part of the routine. You find yourself defining some sleaze word and you don’t bat an eye. Or you’ll be with friends and you’ll hear someone say a word you defined, and you don’t even think of mentioning it to them.”
“That’s when you know it’s lost its novelty?”
“Or just when you know everyone’s sick of hearing you talk about it.” Grace laughed.
“My family hasn’t reached that point yet,” I told her. “My mother’s still full of questions when she calls.”
“That’ll change. Trust me. Maybe even by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. You going to see your family for the holiday?”
“Yeah.”
“They live near here?”
“Yeah. Connecticut.”
“That’s nice,” she said. “Mona has to fly out to see hers. Says she’ll probably be taking that whole week. Flight’s cheaper that way.”
“Oh?” This was news to me. Odd that Mona had told Grace, and that Grace thought it interesting enough to mention to me.
“Last year we took the same flight out to Cleveland, would you believe that? Her family lives in the same area as my brother-in-law. My husband and I go out there every other year.”
“Wow,” I said, feigning interest.
“I don’t know who was the most nervous of the three of us. It wasn’t too long after September eleventh, see?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Mona doesn’t seem to care much for flying,” Grace continued.
Shit
, I thought. This conversation was definitely going in the wrong direction.
“So, Billy,” Grace said, maybe sensing my disinterest. “Are you enjoying living in Claxton?”
“It’s all right. I’ve got a nice cheap apartment. But it’s not exactly a happening city, though.”
“No, certainly not. What do you do for fun, then? Go to the mall?”
“It’s about come to that, sadly.”
“Aren’t any of your college friends still around?”
“Not really. An old buddy of mine’s up near Boston. I keep meaning to go up and see him there, but … anyway, Mona and I have hung out a couple of times.”
“It’s really a shame there aren’t more young editors here. They only hire one or two each year. And of course, not everybody stays.”
At this point, I was trying pretty desperately to think up a
good segue. Time was ticking away. Grace was hurling conversational curveballs at me, and I couldn’t seem to whack them away quickly and skillfully enough. Most cubicleside chats I’d observed lasted three or four minutes, max. A few more minutes at her desk and I’d be a work-shirking parasite.
“I don’t need young people around to keep me entertained,” I ventured.
Grace looked at me as one might look at a child who has just accidentally Super-Glued his nostril shut.
“Just take Mr. Phillips,” I said hurriedly, plowing recklessly forward. “What a blast that guy is.”
“That’s for sure,” Grace said. “It’s been a lot quieter around here since he retired. I miss him. But it’s nice that he comes around once in a while to keep our spirits up. Even if it’s just as much to keep
his
spirits up.”
“When did he retire?” I asked.
“Three or four years ago. He’d been here
almost forty
years.”
“Forty?”
Grace nodded.“Just imagine,” she said.
I preferred not to. But I paused for a reverential moment before saying, “Did he by any chance have a nickname around here?”
Grace looked quizzical. “Not that I know of … why?”
“I just thought I heard Mr. Needham call him Red the other day.”
“Hmm,” Grace murmured, gazing sideways into her cubicle, thinking. “He’s had gray hair for almost as long as I’ve known him. But early on, he did have some red hair. He was definitely a redhead, back in the day. So it’s definitely plausible. But … no one’s ever called him that that I know of, and …”
She touched her hair again thoughtfully, then lowered her
voice and said, “And Mr. Needham and Mr. Phillips have never exactly been on a, um, nickname basis.”
“Oh,” I whispered. Oops. As the eldest and crustiest member of the current staff, Mr. Needham had seemed to me the likeliest bud of the even older and crustier Mr. Phillips. “Well, I could be wrong,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Maybe I heard wrong. I’m just into nicknames.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“I dunno. No real reason. On my old football team, in high school, we always had nicknames for everybody.”
Not true. But believable, and somehow an appropriate thing to say, given my uniquely dopey image around the office.
Grace smiled politely. “And what was yours?” she asked.
“Homer,” I said. This part was true. I was the only member of the high school varsity team who actually read the books assigned to us in English classes. I usually summarized them in the locker room so the other guys could pass the pop quizzes. Selections of
The Iliad
were the first thing we had to read that year.