The Broken Teaglass (13 page)

I circled the lot a few times, picking up speed again. I tried a little fishtailing, then did a wide, unsatisfying donut. Then I positioned myself at the very end of the lot, facing forward. I decided to see how much power this old Grand Am really had in it. And then I could see how well these brakes worked. I pressed my foot down on the accelerator, slammed the car forward, then hit the brakes hard. The jolt snapped me forward just a little. The short squeal of the brakes was about as gratifying as a single sip of beer, or a peck on the cheek from a flirty girl. Just enough to make you realize how much more it’s going to take to satiate you.

From this side of the lot, I could see that there was another full parking lot nearby, separated by not much more than a grassy little knoll. The building on the other side was
likely a high school. If I hit that knoll just right I could probably get some air under this car. I could jump the hill and land on the other side.

The same Beastie Boys song would be playing when I hit the pavement, but would it sound different on the other side? Would I feel lucky over there? Or brave? Would I drive home satisfied?

I stared at the hill. I could definitely do it. That little hill seemed made for it, almost.

I could do it.

If I had any excuse anymore.

But I didn’t.

Mona and I decided to devote
a few hours of the following week to
independent
(Mona’s emphasis) snooping for relevant 1950 cits. Since our Friday night meetings were proving distracted and unproductive affairs, we agreed to meet only once we’d completed checking all the words on the list.

As I started to tick words off my list, I found myself starting to look forward to that part of each afternoon when I’d go pawing through the cit files. My one little slice of deviance each day. My daily dose of unpredictability. But I didn’t feel I had the luxury of devoting more than a half hour a day to the search. I moved slowly through my list. One week turned into two. The first time I found another
Teaglass
cit, I resisted the temptation to run it over to Mona. I was complying with her suggestion that we simply compile everything and read it in one big
mind-blowing
(again, Mona’s wording, and Mona’s optimism) revelation session when the list was done.

For that couple of weeks, we didn’t have much reason to talk to each other. And my work, though still difficult, became so systematic and familiar that I hardly ever had reason
to consult with Dan or anyone else. Days would pass before I’d realize, while making dinner or watching evening television, that I hadn’t actually spoken to another human being all day. The pleasant cool of early autumn was quickly turning into a more biting cold, so Jimmy and Tom never sat outside on the porch anymore.

“How’ve you been, buddy?”

Why is it that fairly well-developed musculature and a sportsmanlike demeanor make you everybody’s buddy?

“Great, Mr. Phillips,” I lied to the old man.

“Made sure to get some more of those old-fashioned-style doughnuts for you.”

“You really shouldn’t go to any extra trouble for me, sir.”

“‘Sir,’” Mr. Phillips chuckled. “You kill me, Billy. No false reverence necessary for these white hairs. Really.”

“It’s not false,” I said.

“I’m not gonna have to beg you to take a doughnut this time, am I?”

“No, I’ll gladly eat one.”

“Take two,” Mr. Phillips insisted.

“Alrighty,” I said, piling three into my napkin.

He watched me delightedly.

“Ahaaa. Now you’re talkin’. Doughnuts are brain food. You’re learning fast, I see.”

He slapped me on the shoulder as I turned to walk away.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No coffee, Billy?”

“Naw. A strapping, growing boy like me? Maybe you should bring a quart of milk next time.”

Mr. Phillips started to laugh, but the laughter quickly turned into a coughing fit as I walked away. I could still hear
him hacking up doughnut crumbs when I stopped walking about halfway to my cubicle.

“Holy crap,” I said aloud.

One of the science editors, whose name I could never remember, looked up from his computer screen and cocked his head reprovingly. I thought of whispering “Sorry,” but decided against it. Then I hurried the rest of the way back to my little hovel.

As I sat chewing my doughnuts, I made no attempt to appear busy. I was too excited to pretend. Instead I stared into my blank computer screen and contemplated this windfall—this unexpected new evidence. Or was it evidence? Was it anything? Maybe I was being too much of a Hardy Boy about this whole thing.

Now you’re talkin’
.

Not a particularly rare or unusual turn of phrase. But was it just that phrase? Wasn’t there something vaguely familiar about Mr. Phillips’s manner, now that he’d caught my attention?
Now you’re talkin’
. The junk slang. The cit with the corpse.
When you saw what I was reading you said, Now you’re talking. You said that junk slang was your favorite…
.

Maybe it wasn’t a
clue
. Nothing so dramatic as that. Maybe just a hunch. The question was how to follow the instinct—see if it could be turned into a certainty. Mr. Phillips had mentioned that he’d retired a few years ago—and I had the feeling he’d worked at Samuelson for quite a while before that. Being here in 1985 wouldn’t be a stretch for him. Hell—he could easily have been here in 1965, judging by his age. Mona had likely had many more encounters with the man than I had. I wondered what she’d think. We were both fast approaching the ends of our halves of the 1950 lists, but this new development was definitely grounds for an early huddle.

After my last bite of doughnut, I folded up the napkin carefully and went to her cubicle. She wasn’t there, but her computer was on, and she had citation piles of varying sizes scattered across her desk. She had apparently been sorting out the senses of some complex word when she got up in the middle of it, maybe to clear her head. I looked closer at the cits. They were all for
come
. Poor Mona. I’d thought only senior editors had to deal with words like that one, but it looked like she’d gotten unlucky.

I sat down on Mona’s chair, waiting for her to return. I discovered that her swivel chair was much looser and could swivel much more quickly than my own. I whirled around once, then eyed the ladies’ room door a few yards away. No one came out. Then I thought of the editors’ library downstairs. Mona had mentioned she liked to hide in there sometimes when she couldn’t stand her desk anymore. She’d go and look up random pieces of information—whatever came to mind, whatever could keep her looking like she was actually researching something.

As I approached the little room downstairs, I knew I’d been right. I could hear Mona’s voice coming from one of the back rows. This room reminded me of the consolidated stacks in my university library, where they stuck the dated theology texts nobody cared about anymore. It had a pungent smell of aging books. Rotting paper and near-limitless knowledge—simultaneously intriguing and foul.

“I never imagined there would be so many slang words for ‘snake,’” Mona was saying. “But I guess if you live in the desert, why not?”

“Especially if you sleep outside,” someone added. It was Dan.

There was a pause and the rustle of a page being turned. Then Mona gave a quick little laugh.

I moved past the first rows of shelves, toward the back of the room, where they were talking.

“Oh, that’s great,” Mona continued. “A
bone orchard
. For a cemetery?
Took poor ole Billy out to the bone orchard.”

She said the last part with a little twang, saying the name Billy like
Bill-AY
. I started a little at the use of my name.

When I got to the back row, they didn’t look up. Dan didn’t even see me at first. Mona’s face was buried in a book that had a drawing of a cactus on its tattered cover, with the title
Cowboy Words
. Dan was standing about a foot from Mona. He was really too far away from her to read what she was reading. In fact, he wasn’t looking at the book or at Mona. He was looking downward, it seemed. Smiling at the floor.

“Have you ever read
Lonesome Dove?”
Mona asked him. “I wonder if the author, what was his name? I wonder if he read this book? I always imagine cowboys talking like his characters do. But who knows if it’s accurate?”

It was when Dan opened his mouth to respond that he raised his eyes and saw me.

“Hello, Billy,” he said, and then Mona looked up too.

“Hi, guys,” I said. “I was just looking for a reference on different foods. Someone said there was something like that in here.”

“Second row, the side closer to the window, facing us,” said Dan. “Not back here. Back here are all the slang-related books we’ve collected over the years.”

I went where Dan had directed me and looked up
bittersweet chocolate
just to look busy.

“Excuse me, you two,” Dan said, and tiptoed out of the room.

Soon after, I heard Mona close her book and put it back on the shelf.

She approached me in my row.

“When I said ‘Billy,’ I think I was thinking of, like, Billy the Kid,” she whispered. “Not you.”

“Sure,” I replied.

“Think you’ll be done with your list by tomorrow?” she asked.

“Maybe. Maybe not for two or three days,” I said.

After she left, I wondered if she had any clue what I’d seen in her face while she was smiling up at Dan. It was an expression I’d never seen on her before. Like she was suppressing a fit of giggles. Like she had a wisecrack in mind but wasn’t sure if she should say it.

Back at my desk, I tried to define it, this strange thing I’d seen in Mona. If I had to pare it down to a few words for a concise definition, what would I call it?
Playful interest?
No, that was an oversimplified characterization.
Flirtatious interest?
No, that was unfair. Mona never seemed flirtatious at work, and this was no exception.
Sardonic girlishness?
No. Absurd. And unfair again. I scribbled a few words onto a blank definition card, until I found the right combination:
Self-conscious delight
. I threw down my pencil.
Good luck with that, Mona
, I thought.

Clifford’s phone buzzed, and I heard him pick it up.

“Hey, Sheila,” he said, a little more quietly than usual. “Whadya got for me …? Brilliant. Sounds like fun.
Rare words?
Not rare citations …? Right. Of course not. What’s the name? Boyd? Line six? All right. Thanks. Wish me luck, Sheila.”

Clifford hit a couple of buttons.

“Hello, uh, Ms. Boyd? This is Clifford Engels. I’m one of the editors here. Our receptionist tells me you have some new words you want to … uh … share with us? … Oh. So
they’re not new? They’re not your own coinages? … Really.
Really?”

Clifford was silent for a longer stretch.

“Uh-huh. I see. Well, we don’t usually purchase words as a general rule…. I understand. I don’t doubt—You found them
where
…? Wow. That was lucky, wasn’t it? And they weren’t waterlogged …? Huh. Isn’t that something? Now, strictly out of curiosity, how much are you asking for these rare words …? Ouch. Yes, I’d say that’s pretty steep…. Well, Ms. Boyd, I’m really not in a position to bargain with you on behalf of Samuelson Company. I can take down your information, though, and pass it along to the company president. Okay. Okay. That last part was three-nine-five-four? Got it…. Right. But you shouldn’t get your hopes up; I don’t think he’ll bite on this…. Yeah, you know how it is. He’s old school. A little tight-fisted, yeah. Heh-heh … Sure, no problem … Yeah, you could try the OED. They might be interested. Who knows? Maybe they’re looking to make an investment. Our loss. Great. Good luck. Bye now.”

Clifford hung up, and all was silent for about a minute. Then he picked up his receiver again. He hit a few buttons.

“Sheila. It’s Cliff. Listen, if she calls again, could you put her through to Dan, maybe? Someone with a gentler touch. I think I baited her. I feel bad, baiting these delusional cases.

“… Yeah, yeah. It’s been one of those days.”

A couple of days later, I
forced myself to finish searching through my half of the 1950 words. I photocopied the few cits I had and dropped them wordlessly into Mona’s inbox. She came to my desk an hour later and plopped a copy of her photocopied cits in front of my nose. She was wearing
a weird filmy black top with loose flared sleeves that fluttered over my desk and swept a couple of citations out of place.

“Finally,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to rush you, but I’ve had mine done for a
week
.”

“Sorry.”

“No problem,” she said, still whispering. “So when do you want to have our citational orgy?”

I felt a little manipulated by the word
orgy
, under the circumstances.

“Just say a time.” She put both hands on her hips. The folds of her black sleeves hung down her sides and made her look like a bat. “Tomorrow night? My place?”

Her place
. What did this mean for Mona of the perpetual schoolgirl crush? Was hanging at our respective places as sweet and innocent for her as sipping on a lemonade?

I wasn’t angry at her. In fact, the whole Dan thing made her seem so much more human. And it wasn’t uncommon to have a crush on your boss, right? But my more cynical side kept thinking of her experimental college boyfriend—the one she dated to get her professor out of her head. And her ability to suck down champagne cocktails made me think of a T-shirt I’d seen on a sorority girl once:
Drink ’til he’s cute
. I just wasn’t sure where this was all supposed to go.

“I’ve kind of had a hankering for ice cream,” I told her. “How about Friendly’s again?”

Mona smiled and said, “Sounds perfect.”

Mona had done me the courtesy
of putting the citations she’d uncovered in order. Like most cits from books, they had page numbers recorded at the very bottom, along
with the other publication information. Mona had started with the earliest page cit and copied them in ascending order on a couple of sheets of paper. There were five of them. As I’d observed earlier, all the page numbers were low—under 100. I decided I’d make a grand final document by cutting up her photocopies, inserting my cits in the right places, and photocopying it again.