The Word Exchange

by Alena Graedon

  “I feel fine,” I said, voice warbling a little, like an untuned violin. “Why?”

  “No headache?” he asked, squinting. “Or fever?”

  I shook my head. Not this morning, I thought.

  “And she sounds all right,” he mumbled to himself.

  A tall, disheveled neighbor leaned from his doorway down the hall. “Everything okay out here?” he called, sounding groggy and annoyed.

  “Yes, fine,” Dr. Thwaite replied curtly. Then he turned his distrustful eyes back to me. “Where’s your Meme?” he asked, wary.

  I considered a sin of omission but instead tugged the small silver machine from my purse. Nested it in its Crown. Turned it off and placed it, without a word, on the ground.

  “All right, Alice,” said Dr. Thwaite, officiously nodding, and I shuffled inside. Watched him click four heavy bolts. I couldn’t remember if he’d done that before. He looked frailer than I recalled. White hair thin and wild. Face latticed with broken capillaries. His blue-and-white-striped nightclothes nearly translucent, displaying the outline of an undershirt and briefs. A tangy, metallic scent wafted off him. Sweat.

  But a blue velour robe dripped from a nearby chair, and when he put it on, tightly looping the belt, he seemed instantly taller and more staid. “I’ve not yet had my coffee,” he said, a little imperiously, and I felt relieved. “Sit,” he commanded, indicating the table as he shambled into the kitchen, but I stayed standing in my coat. Bent to stroke Canon, who’d clattered in from the hall smiling, brown runnels under his mismatched eyes.

  Dr. Thwaite came back with coffees. Silently appraised my small coup. “All right,” he said, bemused. Placed a mug for me on the edge of the table. Carefully cantilevered himself into a chair. “Now,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

  I set the wrinkled pages I’d received at his elbow. Kept a few fingers on their hem. “This letter is pretty strange,” I began, feigning neutrality, hoping I was still making sense. I flipped from the second page back to the first, indicating the type. “Different. See?” I said, speaking sparsely. “It’s bigger here. And it looks like Garamond, not Times New Roman.”

  “Let me see.” He tilted his glasses. Licked a thumb. Flipped through, disingenuous.

  “What I think,” I continued, gathering confidence, “is that someone attached a new first page. The tone is different—light—and with this list, it’s inconsistent. It looks like he might have torn off the last page, too”—I pointed out the jagged line—“then made a copy.”

  But here Dr. Thwaite interrupted. “Could you speak up?” he said a little irritably. “I didn’t quite catch what you just said.”

  With a shiver of anxiety, I said it all again, trying to rush to the end. “See this slightly whiter part?” I said, pointing to a phantom space just after “trust Phineas implicitly.” “Something’s been erased. The period’s drawn in, not typed. Then there’s this—”

  “I believe,” said Dr. Thwaite, “that I see what you’re driving at.” He was looking at me very fixedly, in a way I didn’t like.

  But I made myself keep talking with measure and resolve. “Do you?” I said. With effort, I let a pause bubble past. “Then I have a question.”

  He raised his brows.

  “Do you own a fax?” I asked.

  “Pardon me?” he said. But not, I thought, because he didn’t understand; he looked taken aback.

  “I’m pretty sure I saw one in your office,” I bluffed, a slight tightness in my chest. I’d never seen a fax, but when I’d held my Meme over the wrinkled letter, it had brought up an image of a boxy beige machine and heat-crimped pages like these. “What I’d like to know,” I said, gaining assurance, “is why you left this for me—and what’s been left out. And why you, or Doug, or someone else, issued me this list of warnings. I want to know what ‘friends’ he’s with. And why you’ve been telling me not to use my Meme. I’d like to hear more about the ‘word flu’ you mentioned. And I also want to know why you’ve … changed, in your attitude toward—”

  But Dr. Thwaite had sternly raised a hand and placed a finger to his wan lips. Pushed away from the table and stalked off. That unnerved me. And when he was gone longer than I thought he should be—more than a minute; stretching to two—I started to worry that he was placing a call, maybe to a doctor, maybe to cops. But I made myself wait it out. You can handle whatever happens, I thought. Wood and glue. The longer the silence stretched, though, the shallower my breath became. When the soaring peaks of Bach’s cello suites filled the room, I jumped. But by the time Dr. Thwaite shuffled back to the kitchen a few moments later, I’d pulled myself together.

  He stepped uncomfortably close—I could smell his sour sweat again, and the coffee on his breath—and said softly in my ear, “Now let me ask you something. Are you or are you not involved with Hermes King, of Synchronic, Inc.?”

  Stunned, I said, “What? How is that—”

  “Answer the question, please.”

  “All right,” I said, swallowing, warm pink splots rising, unwelcome, on my neck. “No,” I said. “We’re … not anymore.”

  “Careful,” Dr. Thwaite said sharply. “Are you lying now? Or the other day?”

  I turned my gaze to the scratched blond wood of the table. Looked at the tiny white chip nicked from the lip of my blue mug. Small, gleaming beads of fat floating on the surface of my coffee. Not at Dr. Thwaite. Clattering one of the chairs away from the table, I took a seat. But then I made myself look up, straight into his eyes. “I’m telling the truth now,” I affirmed. “I don’t know why I said that before.” Then, my voice still strong, I said, “Max moved out more than a month ago. I haven’t seen or spoken with him since.” The words brought on no sadness, and that gave me a lift of fortitude and hope.

  Dr. Thwaite sat, too. Sort of startled me by sliding a twisted hand across the table. For a moment I thought he might take my fingers. But he didn’t. He just said gently, “Yes. Well, as I said, love can haunt us, and make us do strange things.” I saw him cast the glimmer of a glance at a small photo beside his archaic kitchen clock. It was of the naked woman from his study, but clothed: in white.

  I gave him a little moment of silence. Sipped my burned coffee. Then said, “I have a lot of questions.”

  He sighed. “And I’m afraid,” he said, “I can’t be much help.”

  Bristling, I asked, “Why not?,” irritation furring my words.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s out of my hands.” Raised them, as if in proof.

  “Doug’s not really with friends, is he?” I asked, frustrated, moving my chair back.

  “Well, in a sense … I don’t know exactly where he is, in fact. But you have my word”—here he pressed a hand to his fragile chest—“that he’s all right.”

  “Your word?” I said, biting off the phrase. I stood, tucking the letter back in my coat. “If it’s really true that he’s okay”—my voice was getting louder—“why did you wait this long to tell me?”

  Dr. Thwaite lifted his brows and softly shh-ed. Pressed his palms down toward the floor.

  But I didn’t care. “I’ve been worried sick,” I nearly yelled.

  Dr. Thwaite grew still. “You were sick?” he asked, eyes narrowing. “When was this?”

  “It’s a figure of speech,” I replied, wondering if I’d misspoken. Naturally I thought again about the flu he’d referred to on my first visit. I’d already mentioned it once, though; I worried that if I seemed too insistent, he’d get suspicious. But I couldn’t stop my mind from following a frightening forking path: the letter’s warnings, the Creatorium, my illness, the blue pills I’d been taking in private.

  Trying to change the conversation’s trajectory—and the vector of my thoughts—I explained, “I haven’t been sleeping well, or eating. I’ve just been so scared.” All of which was true, of course. I’d dozed only in fits and starts. And while I normally cooked nearly every night—spaghetti Bolognese, pizza, shakshuka, torte—since Max
had moved out I’d made very few real meals, and in the past week my appetite had all but died.

  Dr. Thwaite sadly smiled, nests of lines appearing at the corners of his eyes. “Sorry about that,” he offered, sighing. “He—well, he or I—didn’t know you’d be so worried. I should have anticipated—I was worried, too, before. But perhaps because … I have no … At any rate. It’s unfortunate Mr. Tate called the police. The timing is very sensitive—but I suppose his absence would’ve been noticed soon enough. And truly, I’m not sure how much we can …” He trailed off. Abashed, he added, “But that wasn’t what you asked.”

  I was disappointed when he stopped; after that mild outburst, he more or less closed off. Trying to ignore the cello’s forlorn swellings, I assayed a string of questions as best I could. But he diverted them all. When I asked why my health had concerned him, he said, “Something’s going around.” I asked about the deal: if Synchronic was really buying us out. Glancing at the wall, he cagily answered, “I’m afraid I don’t know.” I asked if that was why he’d mentioned Max—if the deal involved Hermes. Leaning sideways to pet Canon, he croaked, “I really couldn’t say.” Why, I wondered, were we listening to Bach? Winching himself up again, he said, “I’m a fan.” I asked, point-blank, if he thought his apartment was being surveilled. “Can’t imagine anyone would be terribly interested,” he said. What else, I prodded, had been in the letter? Dr. Thwaite shrugged. “How should I know?”

  It was only when I pointed to Doug’s forged signature that I got a tiny—and seemingly futile—opening. “You really think that’s my lunatic writing?” Dr. Thwaite asked.

  “It isn’t?”

  “Certainly not,” he said. He slipped a blue pen from his robe, ripped an envelope flap from a bill on the table,1 and in a slightly watery but elegant hand wrote “Dear Alice, whose name is not Alice,” and passed it over. It was true—the script was different.

  “You can keep it,” he said, sardonic.

  “Thanks,” I said, matching his tone. But absently I slipped it in my coat pocket. Felt something woolly in there and winced, until I realized it was Bart’s rosebud, which buoyed me. For a moment his Buster Keaton face appeared, and my own face was hijacked by a fleeting smile.

  Then I asked Dr. Thwaite about Memes. But he only repeated that I should avoid them—“all models.” Suggested using “landline” phones or, if I absolutely had to, a cell. Sending things by fax and postal system. I pointed out that mail was delivered just twice a week. Mentioned that the last letters I’d tried sending—postcards, actually, on the trip Max and I took to Dominica—had gotten lost. I didn’t know where to start looking for a fax. “There’s a place in Queens,” Dr. Thwaite said uncertainly. “And maybe Chelsea.”

  “What about pneumatic tube?” I joked. But his response was dead serious. “Not for the time being,” he said, frowning. “The system’s down.” That caught me off-guard. I remembered the OUT OF ORDER sign dangling from a tube in the subbasement’s message terminal the day before. Delivery cylinders sparkling on the floor. I almost told him I’d been down there, and what I’d seen. But I decided against it. He was acting very erratic. I also worried I wouldn’t be able to describe it. I did mention, though, that I was having dinner with Vera and Laird, and I asked him why the letter referred to them.

  Dr. Thwaite lowered his brows. Fussily readjusted his robe. “Maybe you should skip the dinner,” he said.

  “Skip it?” I balked. “I can’t.” When he didn’t react, I added, “It’s Thanksgiving.”

  “Oh,” said Dr. Thwaite. “Right.” Twisted his mouth to the side. And my heart deflated a little, like a tire. Wondered how much Vera would mind if I invited him.

  He seemed to read my thoughts. “Don’t worry about me,” he said, smiling. “A friend is coming to collect me later.” I didn’t believe him. But I wasn’t sure I’d be doing him a favor by asking him along. I wanted to see my mom, but I wasn’t really looking forward to the night. And he really did seem fine. He suggested, steepling his fingers, that I keep dinner conversation light. Then he added another cryptic bit of advice: that if I heard anyone speaking strangely, they should be assiduously avoided.

  My scalp tingled. “Strangely how?”

  “Just strangely,” he said, looking at me strangely. I could almost see him reviewing our conversation, listening back for any slips I might have made. Maybe I was imagining it. It was hard to say. (Later, though, I felt fairly sure.) Abruptly he looked at his clock. Looped his fingers through my empty mug and clacked it against his. “All right,” he said, perhaps a little gruffly. Braced to stand.

  “Okay,” I said, getting up myself. Then, carefully managing my voice, I added, “Oh, I almost forgot—I saw you last night at the Merc. I meant to ask what was going on.”

  And oddly, at that Dr. Thwaite seemed to cringe. The mugs clattered a little in his grip. He looked up at me with a new aspect—curiosity or esteem, or maybe hostility. “What were you doing there?” he asked. Then he quickly added, “What makes you think it was me?”

  I hadn’t expected him to deny it. Remembering the red hat I’d seen, I peered around the room, hoping to catch its bright wedge on a counter-top or ornamenting a hook. No such luck. But Dr. Thwaite was watching my survey with an intensity that nearly glowed. An invisible arrow tipped down toward him.

  “It was you,” I said, shrugging. “I called out to you.”

  He seemed to tense, and the arrow blinked, unseen. Canon shifted on the floor and sighed in his sleep. Then Dr. Thwaite sighed, too. “All right,” he admitted. “It was me.” I don’t know why he gave in so easily; he was a mystery to me. Maybe he was interrogation-weary and impatient for me to leave. Or maybe, I thought, he simply wanted to tell me. After a long pause, he added, “I was at a meeting.”

  I was surprised later that he’d made this confession, given his evident ambivalence toward me. Afterward he seemed to regret it. At the time, though, a giddy thought occurred to me. “You weren’t meeting with my father, were you?”

  “I’m afraid not,” he replied, voice coated with a new crust of conviction. Then, creakily, he stood. Cleared his throat. “Happy Thanksgiving, Alice,” he said. “Now if you don’t mind, please don’t mention at your dinner that you dropped by.”

  It wasn’t until I reached the ground floor that I realized he’d given me not one possible lead but two. The first was simple: there were secret meetings at the Merc. But the second—the key that helped unlock several seemingly stalwart doors, the code that led me not only to more clues about the mystery of what had happened to Doug and thus to the Dictionary but that may even have saved my life—I nearly missed.

  I sleepwalked through the lobby. Standing beneath one of the wintry paintings, I reached into my coat pocket for my mittens. But I tried the wrong one: instead of fleece, I felt the rosebud from Bart, and something else—a scrap of paper. (And one of the chocolates done up like pineapples I’d taken from Doug’s office.) As I emptied my drossy pocket, the white bill flap inked with Dr. Thwaite’s writing spiraled quickly to the floor. I bent to lift it, planning to throw it in the nearest trash. But it was writing side up. Leaning in, I read those few blue Thwaitian letters again: Alice whose name is not Alice.

  And I felt a little click of recognition that’s hard to explain by intuition alone. I felt—I know it sounds absurd—the hand of the father, or, that is, my father, guiding me. Hunching there near the exit, small gold chocolate melting in my fist and blood pooling in my face, I felt some of that blood shoot down—i.e., up—to another spot, my heart, which surged. Suddenly I thought I knew where the next clue for finding Doug might be.

  Snow had started falling outside. At the end of the block, as I rounded the corner onto Fiftieth, a familiar-seeming woman in red glasses walked briskly by. Startled, I stopped. Turned and retraced a few steps. But when I looked back down the block, she was gone.

  Doug had always loved buried treasures and scavenger hunts. Most years my birthday fell near Easter, and wh
en I was young, he’d spend days secreting toys and candy in hidden nooks: the tea tin, my mother’s jewelry box, even the liquor cabinet. Every Christmas he’d conceal some presents, claiming that finding them was most of the fun. And on Thanksgiving he’d scatter through some of our books lines of a poem about what he was thankful for that year. I’d search for it after dinner while the adults sipped viscous liquids. Then, as we all ate rum raisin ice cream and bread pudding, he’d read the poem in a golden, old-timey voice. The last place I’d seen Doug was his office, a few hours before he disappeared. He’d left me the name Alice. Maybe, I thought, he’d hidden something else there.

  The building was officially closed for the holiday, but two guards loitered in the lobby, keeping each other company. One of them, Darryl, offered to go upstairs with me.

  Doug’s office door was open, a yellow piece of police tape strung loosely across like a party streamer. I got on all fours and crawled beneath it; Darryl pretended not to watch. The police had taken things—the computer, phone, Doug’s leather satchel—and the room looked bald. The drawer of photos, I knew, had also been combed through. Gray fingerprint dust flurried on the desk and shelves.

  There was a lot, though, that seemed untouched, like Doug’s books. I skimmed their titles. Wondered if he could have left me a note, as on those other Thanksgivings. He had hundreds of volumes. Going through them all might take hours. But I had an idea of where to start. And soon, beside a Samuel Johnson biography, I saw a slim blue spine modestly peeking from a snug blue box.2 It slid out with a hush: Alice’s Adventures Under Ground. And as I flipped gently through the pages, a tiny scrap of white fluttered out. Like one of the fat, wet flakes banking past Doug’s window.

  When I bent to pick it up, Darryl called, “Find what you’re looking for?”

  “Maybe,” I replied. But it wasn’t. At least not that I could tell. It said “IDP” and, scribbled in one corner, “2 of 2.” That meant, I hoped, there was another scrap somewhere. Because IDP meant nothing to me then. But twenty-seven years as Doug’s child, including more than four as his employee, had primed me to search the crannies of his mind. I pulled the chocolate foil from my pocket, along with Dr. Thwaite’s note. “Alice whose name is not Alice,” it read. If not Alice, I thought, unwrapping the chocolate, there was one other option, strewn in many places throughout the room. Chocolate melting on my tongue, I groped in the bowl of its green and gold friends. But I didn’t find anything. So I overturned the brass pineapple bookends. Rifled the pockets of a Hawaiian shirt hanging in the closet.