The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman

by Meg Wolitzer

  Duncan knew that Thriftee Mike often came to his superstore at night when no one was there but the security guards. He went through the books and took care of business, which he wasn’t comfortable doing during the day when his employees were around.

  “The chances are fairly high that you can see him tonight,” Aunt Djuna said as she drove.

  “But how will we get in?” Duncan asked. “It’s not like they’re going to open the front door just because I knock on it and say, ‘Let me in! I’m your son!’ ”

  Aunt Djuna turned to him and laughed, taking her eyes off the road a little too long. “That’s why I brought this with me,” she said, and she reached into the pocket of her green sweater and took out a card. It said EMPLOYEE ID, and on it was a picture of Duncan’s mother, staring red-pupiled at the camera. “I got this from your mother’s purse after she finally conked out.” Aunt Djuna pulled into the parking lot of Thriftee Mike’s, parked the car sideways across the handicapped spot, and killed the lights. “Here we go,” she said.

  Duncan swiped the card into the card-reader at the employees’ entrance just as easily as he had swiped the hotel key in the door lock of his room at the Grand Imperial. The door opened now, permitting entry. He realized that he didn’t feel nervous, just strange. He and his great-aunt walked down a short hallway until they were in the main part of the store, which appeared dim and ghostly in the nighttime. Duncan could make out the giant bins of items in the enormous space. He saw electric pencil sharpeners; he saw dental floss and containers of microwavable artificialshrimp-flavored ramen noodles. He and his great-aunt walked along the gleaming linoleum until they reached a door that read: ABSOLUTELY PRIVATE. DO NOT ENTER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

  Aunt Djuna nodded. Duncan paused, walked up to the door, and knocked.

  Within seconds, a security guard appeared. His name tag read I’M THRIFTEE TODD. When he saw Duncan, he said, “How the heck did you get in here?” He spoke a few words into his walkie-talkie, his other hand moving lightly onto the gun in his holster.

  “The child would like to see Mr. Scobee,” said Aunt Djuna. “We thought he might be here.”

  “He’s not,” said the security guard, looking back and forth between the boy and the woman, unsure of what to make of the situation.

  “Oh, come on, Todd,” she said, reading his name tag. “It’s late, and I’m old. Please don’t keep us waiting.”

  “Who are you?” asked the guard, looking straight at Duncan.

  Duncan paused, and then he said, “I’m Thriftee Duncan.”

  The security guard gave a little snort. “Clever. Just a minute,” he said, and he shut the door in their faces. Soon the door opened again, and the guard said, “He’ll see you. I have no idea why.”

  Duncan and his great-aunt walked through the messy business offices. The guard opened an inner door, motioning them inside, and they walked in. That led to a huge, deep office; in the midst of all the fluorescent light and plastic around it, the office was luxurious, paneled and dark. A fish tank bubbled quietly along the length of one wall. In the distance was a desk, and at the desk sat a man.

  Aunt Djuna and Duncan walked across the deep carpet until they stood right in front of the desk, and the man behind it stood up. He wasn’t very tall. He had a face similar to Duncan’s, though wider and more closed. His hair was wavy and a little wild, the same shade as Duncan’s hair. He was slightly thick-chested like Duncan, too, and he wore jeans and a mustard-yellow shirt.

  “You’re Caroline’s kid,” said Thriftee Mike.

  Duncan nodded.

  Thriftee Mike nodded, too. “I assumed we’d meet at some point. I just didn’t know it would be now, in the middle of the night, with no warning. Hello, Djuna. You’re looking well.”

  “Not really, but hello, Mike.”

  “I suppose,” Thriftee Mike said to Duncan, “your mother sent you? She’s been remarkably restrained up until now, living here so discreetly this fall. Insisting on not taking a penny from me, since she was your only ‘acknowledged’ parent. But I’ve always wanted to contribute from afar. It’s only fair. I don’t mind that she sent you.”

  Duncan stared at this man who dressed like a boy and was supposed to be his father. “I’m not here for money,” he said coldly. “My mother doesn’t even know I came. We have our own money.”

  Thriftee Mike looked surprised. “Your mother’s salary isn’t great,” he said. “But that was the only position available at the store right now—”

  “I won five thousand dollars in a Scrabble tournament,” Duncan interrupted. “I plan on giving it all to her—most of it to her,” he corrected himself, thinking of the skateboard—“though she says she won’t take it. But I’m going to make sure she does.”

  Thriftee Mike kept gazing at him. His expression shifted very slightly. “I did know about that tournament,” he said.

  “You did?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It was on the news. ‘Drilling Falls Boys Win Big.’ When I saw it was you, I was . . . well, I was . . . startled.” He put his hand to his face, covering his eyes, and now this boyish-looking, deeply uncomfortable man seemed upset. Duncan couldn’t understand it.

  “Why were you startled?” Duncan asked.

  “We have something in common,” Thriftee Mike said after a moment. He smiled faintly, crookedly, embarrassed. “I play a little.”

  “You do?” Duncan’s mother hadn’t said this, and surely she would have, had she known. Maybe she didn’t know; maybe he had taken up the game after he had left her and Duncan over twelve years earlier.

  Michael Scobee nodded. “I’m not all that good. I could be a lot better. I used to play sometimes with your mother,” he said. “We were so young then. She had one of those classic sets, the old-fashioned kind. It was in a maroon box. We’d play downtown at Slice’s.”

  Duncan remembered the old score sheet that he had shown his mother. She had been the one to keep score in that long-ago game. She had written “Caroline,” versus “Ms.,” and she’d told Duncan that “Ms.” had been her teacher, Ms. Thorp.

  Duncan understood that once again, while trying to protect him, his mother hadn’t told him the whole truth. “Ms.” hadn’t stood for “Ms. Thorp.” It had been a set of initials, “MS.”

  Michael Scobee.

  His mother had played Scrabble with his father long ago, getting a little oil from their pizza on the score sheet, before Duncan Dorfman was even born. She didn’t want him to know any of this now, because she was still so angry at Michael Scobee for walking away forever, and she didn’t want Duncan to think he had anything in common with this man. This man who was his father.

  “I’d say we should sit down right now and play a game,” his father said, drily. “But I have a feeling you don’t want to do that.”

  “No,” said Duncan. “I don’t.” Playing a game with this man was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

  “I can understand that. Perhaps sometime, anyway, you can give me some tips,” said Michael Scobee. Then, bizarrely, he added, “I hate you.”

  “What did you say?” said Duncan. He knew his father hadn’t wanted to be a father, but . . . hate? How could he say such a hostile thing to his son?

  “I said I hate U,” his father repeated, and this time Duncan heard it right. “I hate V, too,” his father went on. “Those two letters always give you a lousy rack, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” said Duncan, his shoulders relaxing slightly. “I do.”

  They stood and looked at each other, continuing to size each other up. “I have to tell you,” said his father, “that I never wanted it to be like this. This isn’t me. Not me at all.” His voice sounded choked and faraway. “Your mother is a very proud person,” he went on. “After I told her I didn’t think I could . . . be in your lives . . . I offered to take care of the two of you financially. She said no. I believe you that she didn’t send you here tonight,” he said. “But I want you to know that years ago I made a f
ew provisions for you on my own. They’re here whenever you want them.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean, Mike?” Aunt Djuna said. “Duncan doesn’t know what it means, and neither do I.”

  Duncan had almost forgotten that his great-aunt was standing there. For the past few minutes it had just been him and his father. Michael Scobee reached into his top desk drawer and took something out. He stretched his arm over to Duncan and nodded. At first, Duncan kept his own arm by his side. Then, reluctantly, he put out his arm and opened his fingers and felt something fall into his palm. It was a key.

  “Safe-deposit box number eighty-five at the Drilling Falls Savings Bank,” said his father. “Eight-five.”

  “Eight-five,” said Duncan, thinking for a moment. “Like August fifth, my birthday.”

  “Exactly. When you’re ready, you can go down to the bank with your mother and open it. I understand she may not approve, but you’ll have to work that out with her. Maybe Djuna can help. At any rate, you are now the holder of the key.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Duncan. “You never once tried to see me all this time. You never even let me know that you still existed.”

  His father shook his head. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve got no excuse in the world. Twelve years ago I was given a big test, and I totally failed it. And I’ve been failing it ever since.” He paused. “But for what it’s worth, and I know it’s not worth much, every year on August fifth I’ve done a big display here in the store. All the employees prepare for weeks in advance. I have toy trains running through the place, and confetti, and a giant cake; the works. Kids love it. I’ve always pretended that it’s the store’s birthday, but that isn’t true. It’s yours.”

  For most of the drive back to the house, Duncan and his great-aunt didn’t say much. It was understood that they would keep this nighttime visit to themselves. Soon enough they would tell his mother what they had done; just not yet. As they neared the house, Aunt Djuna said, “I always thought your mother should let him share some of the financial burden. I still say she should. Maybe that can happen now. Unless that safe-deposit box is like one of those big bins in his store. Filled with—”

  “—flip-flops,” said Duncan.

  “Or spatulas,” said his great-aunt.

  “Or cans of jalapeño Cheezy Chips!” Duncan said, and they both laughed a little, then yawned in synchrony.

  “And while she’s at it,” Aunt Djuna continued, “your mother ought to let you pick out your own shirts by now. I bet you’d pick different ones if you had your way; am I right? I’ll bring up the subject with her, if you don’t feel you can do it yourself. Also,” she said, “I see that there’s a new migraine pill on the market. It’s called Throbbex. I saw a commercial for it while I was watching you on TV, Duncan. They say it works wonders. At least the actors on the commercial say that. Maybe your mother could try it. Again, just a thought.”

  The banging little car pulled into the driveway of the unlit house at just past two in the morning. Duncan thanked his great-aunt and said he didn’t know what he would have done without her. Once inside, he watched as she walked off to her room down the hall, moving very slowly, her shoulders stooped inside the green sweater that she had been wearing for more years than he had been alive.

  Duncan put the key his father had given him into the pencil holder on his desk. It dropped in with a metallic click. It would stay there until he decided it was time to tell his mother about it. He looked around his little room before getting into bed, and he saw the certificate from the YST on the wall. For just a moment, something made him close his eyes and place the fingers of his left hand carefully over the document. He willed his so-called power to life, and immediately his fingertips warmed up to a comfortable and then an uncomfortable temperature.

  Duncan read aloud, “THIS CERTIFIES THAT DUNCAN DORF . . .” Then the heat lowered and the words were muddied. He tried harder, but he was very sleepy, so it didn’t happen as fast as usual, but it did happen. “THIS CERTIFIES THAT DUNCAN DORFMAN HAS BEEN A PARTICIPANT IN THE YST . . .”

  The sensitivity in his fingertips was still in place. Who knew where it had come from originally—whether it had been inherited, or was a quirk that had come out of nowhere. Who knew whether he and his father had more in common than the love of a word game. Other kids had other talents, too. Duncan thought of the kids he’d gotten to know in Yakamee, and how they each probably had some secret little thing about them that none of the others had. Something that made them different, quietly powerful, even if no one else knew it.

  At school the following week, a girl named Emily Bean would show everyone that she could sing backward—“Any song, just try me!” she’d say—and the other kids would gather around her, the same way they had gathered around Duncan. “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” someone would call out. And she would agreeably sing, “Wor, Wor, Wor ruoy taob . . .”

  But even though Duncan’s skill, his strange and unusual power, was probably no longer of enormous interest to very many people, it was still his. Not that he had any plans ever to use it again, but, of course, you never knew.

  First thing in the morning at school, Duncan Dorfman and Carl Slater were greeted like heroes. An assembly was held in the auditorium in their honor, and the a cappella group, The Drilltones, sang, and the orchestra played a piece with a squeaky-clarinet solo that seemed to go on forever. Principal Gloam said, “You boys have brought glory to Drilling Falls Middle School. And for this, we honor you.”

  “You’d think we were astronauts,” Carl whispered to Duncan out of the side of his mouth as they sat together on the stage.

  Duncan and Carl weren’t really friends, and they didn’t have much to say to each other. They could continue to discuss their triumph, of course, but that would get boring fast. At 10:45 A.M. on his first day back, Duncan entered the school cafeteria, where the lunch-lady giantess was screaming, like always.

  “PUT DOWN THAT KETCHUP RIGHT THIS MINUTE, OR I AM GOING TO CALL PRINCIPAL GLOAM!” she thundered at a girl who held a tiny ketchup packet, and who seemed bewildered that she was being screamed at because of it.

  The Scrabble Club was sitting where they always sat, and today they were much friendlier than usual. They immediately made a place for Duncan, a spot where his tray would fit. At the table across the way sat Andrew Tanizaki. He didn’t look at all miserable or lonely sitting by himself. He sat with his red tray in front of him, one hand pushing French fries into his mouth, the other hand holding up a new video-game booklet, which he seemed deeply absorbed in reading.

  “Hey,” said Duncan, walking over.

  Andrew Tanizaki looked up in surprise. “Hey,” he said.

  Duncan sat down across from him. “Listen, thanks for everything,” he said. “The good-luck drawing you gave me. And, of course, the way you covered my face up on that poster. That was amazing.”

  “Oh, you saw,” Tanizaki said, pleased. “Which one did you see? I did it on five of them. All over town.”

  “Five? You did? I only saw the one on the bus shelter at Oakdale and Main. And I just want to say that I really, really appreciate it,” Duncan said. “I mean, you have no idea how much I appreciate it.”

  “No problem,” said Andrew Tanizaki.

  Today Duncan had his backpack with him. He placed it on the bench, and then he pulled something out that had barely fit inside. It was the old maroon Scrabble set that had been in the closet. The set that his mother and father used to play on when they were very young, the set that now belonged to him.

  Duncan would need a new partner if he was going to go to the YST again next year. Since he’d gotten home the day before, he’d already received three e-mails from kids at the tournament, telling him he had to come back. But Duncan would also need a new partner just for casual games after school, or on weekends.

  “You play?” he asked.

  Andrew Tanizaki shook his head. “Only video games. Terra Firma and Avengicon III. Not Scrabble. Not yet.�
�

  Duncan Dorfman opened the box.

  Acknowledgments

  I owe a great deal to Cornelia Guest, who is known in Scrabble circles for her wisdom, kindness, and generosity. Cornelia has provided support and advice to many passionate Scrabble-playing kids and their parents, as well as to this writer, who is very grateful. My terrific older son, Gabriel, gallantly agreed to forego his beloved Clue in favor of many family games of Scrabble, and I thank him for that. (He’s also a strong Scrabble player, I might add.)

  My husband, Richard Panek, has frequently joined in, and he has also been a great Scrabble-tournament chaperone and all-around enthusiast of anything having to do with words. My editor, Julie Strauss-Gabel, has been astute and thoughtful at every stage, and has helped make Duncan, April, and Nate who they are today; it’s been a great pleasure to work with her. Don Weisberg at Penguin is an enormously encouraging and supportive presence to writers, and I am so glad to know him. My agent, Suzanne Gluck, expertly guided the way into the gratifying realm of children’s books, and I thank her for this, and so much else.

  Finally, I owe many thanks to my parents, Hilma and Morty Wolitzer, who gave me life. Oh, and a Scrabble set.