The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman

by Meg Wolitzer

  He opened his hand and looked, and he was flooded with relief. Duncan had drawn:

  S

  S

  N

  A

  P

  Along with the O and the I that were already on their rack, it seemed likely that there was a bingo lurking. Together the letters looked like:

  ISNAPOS

  Carl gave him a pleased look, and a little nod. Duncan nodded back. Together they hunched over the rack. Carl chewed his lip and moved the letters around.

  SIONASP

  No.

  ONSASPI

  No.

  Suddenly Duncan saw it. There it was, laughably right in front of him—a word he’d heard throughout his life, and which had always had great importance to him.

  It was the name of the disease that his father had died of before Duncan was born:

  PANOSIS

  He knew that if he played this word, he and Carl would take a strong lead. Duncan thought about Nate’s father, and how desperate he was for Nate to win and go to the finals. But just because Duncan felt sorry for Nate, he knew he shouldn’t let the Big Apple Duo win. It wouldn’t have been any more honest than using his fingertips.

  Without checking with Carl first, Duncan picked up all the letters on his rack and laid them down on the board. He was sure of this bingo. So sure that he even hit the clock right away, just as Carl had done yesterday, to Duncan’s irritation. Carl looked irritated now, too, but then he was pleased. PANOSIS was worth 78 points, after all.

  “Challenge,” Nate Saviano said.

  “What?” said Duncan, looking up.

  “Challenge,” Nate repeated.

  Carl seemed a little nervous about this, but Duncan stayed calm. He was positive that this word was good. After all, it was one of the most significant words of his entire life. Nate and Maxie would lose the challenge, Duncan knew. He and Nate and Carl and Maxie now stood up from the table and walked toward one of the word-judge machines.

  PANOSIS, Duncan typed, and Nate pressed ENTER.

  A new screen popped up, its border bright red, its message seeming to scream at Duncan Dorfman, mocking him and everything he had ever known:

  NO, THIS PLAY IS NO GOOD

  “That’s wrong,” said Duncan. “It is too a word.”

  “Sorry, Duncan,” Nate said softly. “The computer says it isn’t.”

  Duncan looked at Nate, who showed no triumph; Nate even seemed concerned that Duncan was upset.

  “PANOSIS is no good?” Carl asked, astonished. “But you acted like you knew it was good, Dorfman. You were so completely sure of yourself. And you’re never sure of yourself!”

  They all returned to the table. “It is good, Carl,” Duncan insisted in a whisper. “I just don’t understand. Maybe . . . it’s like SPORK. Everyone knows it’s a real thing, but the people who make the rules say it isn’t.”

  “No coffeehousing!” a girl warned from the next table, and Duncan and Carl went silent.

  Nate pried the tiles up from the board, and now Nate and Maxie were given a free turn. They played MAYO for 26 points, putting them in the lead. Duncan churned in his chair, not understanding what had happened. It was crazy that the computer hadn’t accepted PANOSIS! Of course it was a real word. Panosis was a rare but fatal disease, and it had taken Duncan’s father away from him and his mother over twelve years earlier. But you weren’t allowed to argue with the computer during a tournament; it had the final word on all challenges.

  Just when Duncan thought that there wouldn’t be a way to use his fingertips to save the game at this late stage even if he wanted to, Carl smiled slyly.

  “Watch this,” Carl mouthed, and then he picked up the letters in PANOSIS from the rack and placed them on the board, hooking off the O in MAYO in a different order. They now spelled:

  PASSION

  “Whoa,” said Duncan, and the tension between them broke for now.

  At the end of the game, Duncan and Carl surged ahead to beat the team from New York City by 56 points. Even after the Big Apple Duo’s late comeback—their dramatic return to the ballroom, and the way they had managed their tiles with no time to spare—they still hadn’t been able to pull it out. Nate and Maxie weren’t going to the finals.

  But Duncan and Carl were. Duncan had helped his team come this far without once using the power in his fingertips. He lingered at the board for an extra moment now, thinking anxiously about how, during the final round against either the giggling, feverish World Gurrrls or the Oregonzos, the tension with Carl would definitely return, cranked up as high as it could humanly go.

  Duncan had sworn to Carl that he would use his fingertips when he absolutely had to. If the finals of the Youth Scrabble Tournament didn’t count as an “absolutely have to” situation, then what did? But Duncan couldn’t cope with that thought yet.

  Right now, he stood to shake hands with Nate and Maxie across the table, and in the background there was a buzz of interest, because everyone saw that there had been an outcome at one of the semifinalists’ tables. The first team of finalists had been chosen. Maxie looked fierce, as she always did, and proud. After the New York team congratulated Drilling Falls, Maxie said to Nate, “I can’t believe we made it this far. I mean, like, it’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?”

  But Nate, who had almost quit the tournament, looked surprisingly upset. “My dad is going to flip out,” he said. “He’s just not going to be able to stand it. He’s going to make me start preparing for next year’s tournament, and my life will remain a living hell.”

  “You want me to come tell him with you?” Duncan asked.

  Nate shook his head. “Nah, thanks anyway.”

  “I could come,” said Maxie. “I’m your partner.”

  “Thanks, you guys,” said Nate. “But I think I should do this alone.”

  Nate Saviano tucked his skateboard under his arm and walked out of the ballroom. His father was somewhere out there, and Nate would have to find him and tell him it was over.

  On the other side of the ballroom, the game between the Evangelical Scrabblers and a team from Maryland was reaching its climax. The two teams had played seriously and tensely, but in the end Maryland won. Hands were shaken. Kaylie and Josh both looked a little shocked at their loss, but they still forced themselves to say “Good job,” and “Congratulations.”

  Then the Evangelical Scrabblers stood and held hands, looking upward and becoming very still.

  “We didn’t embarrass ourselves at all this weekend,” Kaylie whispered. “We won some games, and we played hard. And we really had an awesome time.”

  “Plus, I’d like to add that we got room service late last night,” whispered Josh. “And that was really cool. I had chicken fingers with honey-mustard dipping sauce. But I guess you already know that.”

  “Thank you,” Kaylie said firmly, and Josh echoed, “Thank you,” too. Then they ran off to see their family.

  The atrium was now crowded with players being hugged by mothers, fathers, siblings, and coaches. When Duncan saw his own mother, she approached him cautiously, uncertain of how to read the expression on his face.

  “Duncan, I’m not sure if this is good or bad,” she said, coming closer.

  He waited until she was right in front of him, and then he smiled and said, “We did it, Mom. We made it to the finals!”

  His mother let out a scream, then she threw her arms around him. “Oh, Duncan, that’s wonderful!” she cried. “I have to go call Aunt Djuna! And just think, when we first moved to Drilling Falls, you couldn’t play Scrabble at all!”

  Duncan and his mother hugged for a few seconds. After they were done, and had both agreed how exciting this was, and had talked about how there was only one hour until the final round was to begin, he mentioned the detail from the last game that still bothered him. “Here’s something weird: Carl and I,” he said, “lost a challenge on a word that was obviously good.”

  “What was it?” she asked.

  “PANOSIS.”<
br />
  Duncan’s mother’s expression immediately changed. She’d been so happy, but now she looked stiff and upset. “That’s odd,” she said.

  “I know,” said Duncan. “I think the word-judge program should update its dictionary. I mean, apparently they added ZA a bunch of years ago, and QI, and a few others. It’s time they added PANOSIS. And while they’re at it, SPORK. Yes, I will definitely write them a letter about SPORK.”

  “Duncan!” April called, running over along with Lucy, both of them flushed and excited. “We’ve been looking for you!”

  “We heard you guys won,” said Lucy, breathless. “Everyone’s talking about it. Well, guess what? We just beat the Word Gurrrls. Jessica and Tania. They giggled throughout the game, though maybe it was just a strategy to throw us off, but I doubt it. I think they just had the giggles. But the point is, it’s us against you in the finals! Can you believe it?”

  “That’s amazing,” said Duncan. He saw his mother turn away, still looking troubled. She always looks troubled, he reminded himself.

  But over the next hour, Duncan kept thinking about panosis, that fatal disease, that disturbing and mysterious word.

  Chapter Seventeen

  YOU ARE GETTING VERY SLEEPY

  As it turned out, Nate didn’t even have to tell his father he had lost. As soon as Larry Saviano and Wendell Bruno saw him coming toward them, they knew.

  “Our suffering will never end,” Wendell muttered to his former partner. Wendell had shown up at the tournament that morning and had asked Larry if he could hang around with him during the last games. Larry, out of nostalgia for old times, had reluctantly agreed.

  “Keep quiet, Wendell,” said Larry now. “This is my son we’re talking about. I don’t want him to feel worse than he probably already does.”

  Nate slowly came over to them in the atrium and said, “I guess you figured it out, Dad, right?”

  Larry nodded. “I guess I did. Unless this is some elaborate fake-out.”

  “No,” said Nate. “Not this time.”

  “Well, I’m proud of you, son,” Larry said stiffly. It was like an animatronic version of him talking. Nate knew his father was feeling many emotions right now, but pride probably wasn’t one of them. Still, it was nice of him to pretend.

  After a little while, Larry Saviano excused himself and walked away, followed by Wendell Bruno, who kept saying, “Larry, Larry, what are we going to do now?”

  “Will you please leave me alone, Wendell?” Larry said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do now. But it’s over, okay? We’ll have to find a way to move on.”

  “I can’t move on,” said Wendell, and he removed his dark glasses. Behind them, he had been crying.

  Nate was relieved when his mother and Dr. Steve and Eloise came over to say supportive things to him. “I am lucky to have you in the family,” said Dr. Steve. “You’re the best.”

  He and Nate’s mother both put their arms around him. Nate impulsively lifted Eloise onto his shoulders, and she pulled at his long hair and screamed with happiness. Duncan and April joined them, too; those two still had so much adrenaline from having both made it to the finals that they didn’t know what to do with themselves.

  “I thought we had a real shot at winning,” Nate explained to his mother and his stepfather. “Duncan here played PANOSIS, which was no good. But then, a turn later, Carl turned it into PASSION. It was amazing.”

  Dr. Steve wrinkled up his face. “Panosis?” he said. “That sounds like maybe you thought it was a disease of some kind, Duncan. You probably know that -osis—and -itis, too—is the suffix for certain diseases.”

  “It is a disease,” Duncan said. “I’m positive.”

  “How do you spell it?” Dr. Steve asked, and Duncan spelled it out for him.

  “No, Duncan, that’s not a real disease,” said Nate’s stepfather. “I’m a doctor. I’ve memorized every disease from beriberi to elephantiasis. Let me put it this way: diseases are my two-letter words. I need to know them all in order to be good at what I do.”

  So now it was confirmed by an expert that panosis was definitely not real. Duncan wanted to ask his mother if she was positive she’d gotten the name of his father’s disease right all these years, but he didn’t have a chance to, because Lucy Woolery grabbed his arm. “Emergency meeting on the beach in five minutes,” she said. “Be there.”

  “What do you mean?” Duncan asked. “A meeting about what?”

  “I’ll just say this: I saw how destroyed Nate’s dad was after Nate and Maxie lost,” Lucy said. “And I figured out a way I might be able to help them.”

  “Okay, I’ll be there,” said Duncan, though he had no idea what Lucy was talking about. Everything was puzzling today; nothing added up.

  Five minutes later, when Duncan arrived at the beach, he took off his shoes and socks and walked in the sand. Soon his feet were coated, and they felt like breaded cutlets. But they felt good, too; they’d been sweating all day inside thick socks and sneakers. April waved to him, and Duncan walked over into the shade of a big striped beach umbrella, where several players had now gathered.

  “What’s this, an exorcism?” Carl Slater joked.

  Duncan looked down at the sand. A big beach blanket had been laid out, and on top of it, Nate’s father and his former Scrabble partner, Wendell Bruno, lay flat on their backs, side by side, both of them smiling self-consciously.

  “Okay, let’s get started,” Lucy said. “We don’t have a lot of time before the final round.” She stood at the foot of the blanket, holding an electric toothbrush with a spinning, buzzing head.

  Duncan turned to April to ask what was going on, but she shushed him. “Just watch,” April said.

  “Larry Saviano and Wendell Bruno,” said Lucy in a voice both serious and calm. “I want you to relax, and to keep your eyes on the spinning head of my toothbrush. Watch the bristles, watch the bristles. You are getting very sleepy . . .”

  Larry and Wendell watched the toothbrush, which just seemed to vibrate. Duncan noticed that their eyes grew heavy; both grown men began to blink like two babies being rocked in a cradle.

  Lucy was hypnotizing them.

  Duncan remembered Lucy mentioning that she was an amateur hypnotist, but he’d had no idea that he would see her skill in action this weekend.

  “Now you are both asleep,” Lucy said to the men in that same strangely calm voice. “And you will stay asleep until I say you can wake up. While you sleep, I am going to tell you a story. You will listen to it, and you will experience the story as though it really took place exactly the way I tell it. And when you wake up, you will think about my story, and it will fill you with happiness. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” murmured Wendell, though Larry said nothing.

  “Okay, then here we go,” said Lucy. “It’s the winter of seventh grade, twenty-six years ago. You are two very smart twelve-year-old boys, and you have come all the way across the country to attend the Scrabble tournament. You are both really good players, and you’re excited to be here. Aren’t you excited, boys?”

  “Yes,” said Wendell in a voice that sounded different and young. “I am so excited I could burst my butt!”

  “Yes, well, that wasn’t awkward at all,” Lucy said to the people watching. “How about you, Larry?” she asked. Nate’s father slowly sat up and opened his eyes.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s not working for me, Lucy. I tried, but I’m afraid I just couldn’t fall into a trance.”

  “Oh,” said Lucy, disappointed. “Too bad; I thought you were under. Just watch Wendell for now.” She turned back to Wendell Bruno. “As I was saying . . . the six rounds have gone really well,” she went on. “They’ve gone so well that you have made it all the way to the finals. The big game is thrilling. You are playing against two brainy girls, and you are beating them. The finals are almost over. You just need to hang on to your lead a little longer. The girls have picked the last tiles from the bag. Now they hav
e seven on their rack, and they start moving them around, but it’s your move. You make a nice play. You make . . . oh, let’s say . . . FRONT. The F is on a double-letter square, and the whole word is on a double-word square. It’s worth twenty-four points. The girls keep moving their tiles around, searching for a bingo, for that’s the only way they can win.”

  “Oh no,” murmured Wendell Bruno from his trance. “They’re going to make ZYGOTES.”

  “Let’s take a look at the letters on the other players’ rack, okay?” said Lucy.

  “Oh no, let’s not,” said Wendell. “I can’t bear to look.”

  “Come on, it’s okay,” Lucy insisted gently. She began to say the letters aloud:

  “G

  T

  Y

  O

  E

  S . . .”

  She paused here, and then she said the last letter:

  “ M.”

  “M?” said Wendell. “No, not M. It’s Z. The other team has a Z on their rack.”

  “No,” said Lucy in her hypnotist’s voice. “In my version of the story, they have an M. Now, what bingo could they possibly make with those letters?”

  “They can’t make a bingo,” said Wendell in childish wonder. “They don’t have the Z for ZYGOTES. They would have to make . . . MYGOTES. But everyone knows that MYGOTES isn’t a word.”

  Neither is PANOSIS, Duncan was reminded.

  “You’re right, they can’t make anything good,” Lucy continued. “So for their turn, they put down . . .” She paused dramatically. “MOSEY. For fourteen points.”

  “MOSEY?” said Wendell. “They only make MOSEY?”

  “Yes. And now the game is just about over,” said Lucy Woolery. “It doesn’t really matter where you place your tiles. So lay them down anywhere. Go on, lay them down.”

  Everyone watched as Wendell Bruno, a grown man lying on his back on a beach blanket, reached for invisible tiles and placed them on an invisible board in the air above him.