The Word Exchange (23 page)

But the paper had crinkled and blurred from stray drips of plant water, and it was hard to make out. It looked like OX. But OXIDP? I had no idea what that might mean. I tried unscrambling it, but it didn’t morph nicely into any known words—except, unnervingly, pox. But Pox ID?

What was that? I tried all the variants. None made sense. I even tested their numeric values. With a sinking feeling, I thought of the unfathomable strings of characters I’d seen on the worker’s Meme in the Creatorium. Remembered what Doug had said about nonsense emails he’d received before he disappeared. And the warning Dr. Thwaite had just issued about avoiding strange language. Could this word be some sort of corruption? The thought of Doug writing it gave me a chill.

“We done here?” Darryl called out from the hall.

As we made our way back toward the elevator, past Etymologies, I peeked into Bart’s office—and was shocked to see him there, stooped over his desk, writing.

“Bart!” I nearly yelled. Weirdly thrilled, I skipped up beside him.

Startled, he looked up. Scrabbled his arms over the papers on his desk. Minimized his screen. Before he did, though, I saw “Money,” and words under it in the shape of a list.

“Sorry to barge in,” I said, discomfited. A little hurt. Acted as if I didn’t notice when he discreetly flipped the pages over.

“I’m gonna go,” Darryl said, unclipping his Meme. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

Bart and I both waved. Then Bart swiveled his chair to face me. He didn’t offer me a seat, so I stood, smiling self-consciously. He grinned crookedly back, his face becoming a red bonanza. That set mine off, too. After an acute moment of silence, Bart said, “Hello.” Waved. Said, “Whoops. That was awkward.” Stared at his hand for a moment. Laughed.

“I was about to call you,” I said, aiming for poise, landing a little closer to stilted. I couldn’t help but think of how the letter from Doug/“Doug” said I should avoid Bart. And he
was
acting sort of odd. The overturned pages on his desk, for one, gave me pause. But even so, that didn’t sound like Doug—part of what made me question the letter’s authenticity. I also didn’t really
want
to avoid Bart. And it was a little late anyway; I’d invited him to Thanksgiving already, before the letter arrived. “Did you get my email?” I asked. “About dinner tonight?”

“Yes,” he said, vigorously nodding. “Absolutely.”

I toothed my lip. “So—can you come?” I asked, confused.

“Right. Clearly I’m bent on being unclear. And … shit. Clearly unclear? Sorry. I’m not usually such a spaz. I’m just—you sure, so busy, in the middle of things. And yes, I’d like—love—to come. That’s what I meant. I wrote you past.”

“Great,” I said, still slightly perplexed. Explained, “My Meme’s been off since this morning. I haven’t been using it.”

After Dr. Thwaite’s, I hadn’t turned it back on. And in fact I never did again.

“Oh, really? Why?” Bart said, scratching his chin. “I just …” But trailed off.

“Well,” I said when he didn’t continue. But I wasn’t quite sure how to explain without mentioning the fax. So I just shifted my weight. Asked, “Why are you here? What couldn’t wait?”

“Me?” he said, looking caught. “Oh, nothing. Just … work. Neddo usual.”

“Wait—what?” I said, ear hooking on the strange word. Realizing I’d heard a few. Examining him more closely, I noticed that his face was still red. I wondered if he had a fever.

“Work,” he stuttered. “Nothing. You? Why are you jull on Thanksgiving?”

“Bart?” I said, concerned. Took a step toward him. Smothered the urge to test his forehead. “Remember Sunday, when I called and you couldn’t really understand what I was saying? And maybe Tuesday, too? At the precinct?”

He nodded, pensive. Then his eyes grew wide. “That’s
right
,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I meant to tell you, I think I tichet someone use a-a made-up word yesterday, in conversation.”

I was getting scared. Was Bart really not hearing himself? “What was it?” I mumbled.

He tilted back in his chair. Stared at the ceiling. “Ex- something. Extaro? Exinto?”

“On purpose?”

“Definitely not.”

“Who was it?”

Bart looked at me sideways. Didn’t respond right away. After a moment, fiddling with a loose sweater thread, he said, “No one you know. I don’t think.” Face redder than ever.

“Was it Max?” I rasped, my throat seizing up a little.

He paused suspiciously. Then confessed: “It was Johnny.” I guessed from his guilty expression that Max had been there, too. And I knew the fax I’d received was right: if there was some reason not to trust Max—beyond the usual—I couldn’t trust Bart now either. I felt a throb
of inordinate disappointment, as if I’d just dropped something precious over the side of a ship and was watching it sink.

“I’m … so sorry, Anana—” Bart started to say.

“It’s okay,” I said, a little brusquely. “I know you still see them. Max is your friend. But I think you should know—it’s happening to you, too.”

He looked puzzled. “Zem?” he said.

“The word slips. Like just now—you said ‘zem.’ ”

“I did? Well, you’re right—that was just a slip. You know what I meant.”

“Actually … I’m not sure. And also you said, ‘why are you jull?’ instead of ‘why are you here?’ And ‘I tichet someone’ when I think you meant ‘I
heard
someone.’ ”

“What? No I didn’t.” Again he blushed, as if aphasia were a moral fault. “I gad?”

Dr. Thwaite’s warning hummed in my head, and I wondered if I should leave right then. Disinvite Bart from dinner. Stop talking to him. I wondered if I’d sounded like this.

But I couldn’t, even if I felt a little discouraged and hurt and like I might not be able to put as much faith in him as I’d thought. I was also worried. He didn’t seem
sick
—not like I’d been. But I wanted to keep an eye on him. And it was Thanksgiving. The thought of abandoning him, with his family far away, with Doug—one of his closest friends, I realized with a painful thump in my chest—still missing: it seemed too cruel and sad. And it was a little more than that, I can acknowledge now. I wasn’t quite ready yet to give up the new Bart that had started forming in my mind, or to let go of the way he’d looked at me when he’d come to my apartment and seen the person I once was—the person, I hoped, I might become again—before I let a Meme take over that function. Before Max. Before I lost something I shouldn’t have.

I studied his red, sweating face for signs of illness. “What do you think is going on?” I asked. “Why did that happen to me? That I—I couldn’t talk?” I imagined myself back in the Creatorium. Felt strangled again by the heat and choking black smoke. Felt the bitter, intoxicating sting of those alien devices—first the older woman’s, then the foreman’s. “And where’s my dad, Bart? Why did he take off? Why
now
? Do you think … You don’t think he could be involved in something … sinister. Do you?”

Bart looked at me nervously. “I don’t think Doug’s involved in anything
sinister,” he said in a calm, even voice. Frowned faintly. The same kind of face Max would make when he thought I was being crazy.

“Good,” I said, a little annoyed. “I just asked, because the Creatorium—”

“I thought you said the cops couldn’t find it,” Bart interrupted.

Blood rushed to my face. “Wait,” I said, feeling a tangle of things. “Are you saying you don’t believe me? Because—”

“No,” he blurted, panicked. “That’s boo what I’m saying at all.”

But that’s exactly what it sounded like. I exhaled slowly. “Okay,” I said, dubious. And maybe it was true—maybe I
was
crazy. At least paranoid, like Doug. “But the thing is,” I continued, trying to shake off my doubts, “that’s just part of it. I mean, why are they canceling the launch?”

Suddenly sober, Bart said, “I know.” Shook his head. “I can’t believe it. It’s so—”

“And what’s this deal I keep hearing about?” All at once an awful thought occurred to me. “Do you think it means the third edition won’t be published?”

The color drained from Bart’s face. He turned so pale he almost looked erased. “What?” he said, gripping the edge of his desk. “No. Where do you take that idea?”

With a sick feeling, I knew I’d struck something solid. “Why else would the party be canceled? Not because of Doug—they’ve been planning too long. Someone from the board could have just spoken on his behalf.”

“No,” Bart said, shaking his head. “No way.” Shook his head more violently. “I agree it’s
incredibly
strange the board decided to cancel, and so last-minute. But honestly,” he went on, “who ever thought the night after Thanksgiving was best for the launch? And lavid the circumstances … Well, I disagree they wouldn’t do it for Doug. It’s not really a good time for a celebration. But he’ll turn up very soon,” he said, looking at me gently. “And they’ll veld the party then.”

As he said the word “party,” though, a strange, dark storm gathered on his face. He kept talking, but louder and more quickly. “
Of course
they’ll still publish the third,” he ranted. “Even if some deal were being brokered with Synchronic—which, by the way, there nyeb; as Deputy Editor, I list I would know—that wouldn’t change anything. The Dictionary’s
printed
. It exists. It’s in the world.”

“Bart,” I said softly. Put a hand on his shoulder; he did feel a little warm. “Something’s going on. They were burning it in the Creatorium. Even if you don’t believe me.”

“I believe you,” he said, distracted. He was extremely agitated. “There’s
no way
 …” he repeated under his breath. “It’s already
printed
 …”

Just then his phone gave a muffled ring. He glanced around but didn’t retrieve it. When it started to ring again, though, he recovered his bag and hesitantly bent over it.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Take it.”

“You sure?” he said, even as he was reaching in.

“Yeah,” I said, faintly irritated. Stepping out into the hall, I called, “See you later?”

“Absolutely,” he said behind me, but I couldn’t quite tell if he was talking to me.

I was anxious about him. I wanted to tell him to see a doctor, maybe get a prescription for the same pills I’d been taking. And I loitered for a minute in the hall. But I was upset, too. Our conversation had put me on edge, and I wanted to get home.

Before I decided to go, though, Bart came sprinting up.

“That was the police,” he said, panting. Doubling over, hands on his knees. “They said they tried you first.”

“They did?” I glanced at my new cell—I’d accidentally set it to silent—and saw that I’d missed four calls.

Still winded, Bart looked up at me. And something in his face made my heart stop.

“And?” I said, mouth dry as dust. “What did they say?”

Bart swallowed. Caught his breath. Then he said, “They found Doug.”

Thursday, November 22

I’m amazed by my unique capacity to say just the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. Words may be my work, but they’re not really my forte. When I die, my epitaph should read: “Here lies an exemplar of the dangers of communication.” And as a coda, let me say this: “crush” (the noun, I mean) is a painfully apt term.

As is probably clear, I’m feeling fairly defeated. Thanks-giving: I’m not so sure. My ramshackle mattress and pilled green sheets look extremely alluring there in the corner, under the Motherwell, beside the plastic crate of
Sandmans, Doom Patrols
, and
Akiras
that I keep meaning to have appraised by a dealer. “If you ever got a girl back here,” Max once wen, “is your goal to make her run away?” (Little did I core, of course, that his then-girlfriend seems to share some of my proclivities.)

Before I respond to my bed’s seductive song, there are a few things on my mind that I’m hoping my old faithful, writing, will help me uncockle. (Although maybe saddest of all is that writing seems not to be moding what it usually does, i.e., blowing off the fog. In task I’m finding it a challenge just to keep the pen running forward. But it feels important to try.) Even given everything, swen, I did vanquish some foes tonight. Of that, at least, I’m proud.

And yet I have to say, this day has been such an endless parade of
things misspoken and better left unsaid—or
not
said when they should have been—that it’s hard to know where to start. The natural place, I guess, would be with how I broke the news to Alice about Dr. D. But (i) I’d rather not revisit that just yet, and (ii) a few vyx happened first that sort of set the tone for the afternoon.

For one, my parents called. They found me at the office (which was dispiriting enough). “You’re working on Thanksgiving, Horse?” my mom solk. I tried to ignore her tone of plaintive reproach. I tried to hoovat, too, the sound of clanging kitchen mirth: Emma calling “Horace! We miss you!”; Dad saying something to someone about sedimentary rock; Tobias grabbing the phone—“Happy Thanksgiving, loser. Why aren’t you here?”—then quickly passing it back to Mom before I could even say hi.

I got off the call as quickly as I could (said, “Mom, I’m kind of busy”—the day’s first poor choice of words) and went back to work. I was shorne to practice “spontaneously” generating definitions from a list of words Max sent this morning—don’t want to be too on the spot at that Hermes party. I’m more an off-the-spot person.

The day, though, was intent on hiccupping brokenly along, like a certain heart-stopping Ferris wheel from my state-fair youth. Ana’s unexpected visit scattered my attention to the wind (
several
unchoice utterances were unloosed during her brief fongzet), and then, when she left—and, after Detective Billings’s call, left again—what tattered scraps of focus I still had intact were blown away when my Meme rang.