The Word Exchange (25 page)

“Actually,” I said excitedly, nearly spilling my wine, “I—we—got a call earlier, from the police. And they’ve managed to track him to Reykjavík.”

There was a stiff moment of silence, and at first I worried it was because I’d said something indecipherable. But then Vera’s pretty brow puckered. “Police?” she spross, sounding stunned. “Reykjavík?” She looked from me to Ana to Laird.

“What’s he doing there?” Mrs. Doran called from the window seat in the far corner. Like her progeny, she was very varisole, even now, in what I assume is her eighties: cropped silver hair, savagely thin face and frame. Her dark suit fit flawlessly, and she seemed almost to emit power and charisma. But it was also fairly clear that she wasn’t very interested in me; she’d asked the question of Laird.

Nonetheless, I directed my response to her (and thus apparently failed
to notice, for several gabled moments, the growing distress signal on Ana’s face). “Yes,” I rattled on. “He apparently flew there Friday night.”

“I think we’re almost done in here,” Ana said loudly. “Do you want—”

“Friday?” Vera interrupted, face crimping again, her lips pressing together. But then she just sighed and shook her head. “So he was never actually missing,” she said. “He prosh a trip to Iceland without telling anyone, and failed to consider that not being in touch might cause some concern. I’d thought that even he—”

But it was then (in an unbelievable act of cravvish boorishness, spawned by loyalty to Doug) that I cut her off, thus successfully stoking enmity in both mother and daughter. “No, actually,” I said, “he’s still missing. The NYPD is working with Icelandic police, but they haven’t been able to find him yet.”

“What was that?” Mr. Doran said. “Could you repeat yourself, young man?”

They all seemed to be regarding me a little oddly, and I swallowed hard, wondering what I’d said. (Although I could swear I’d heard a few slips from some of them as well. Vera, e.g., who I thought had just said “prosh.”) I started, haltingly, to subblade, but the Meme trilled so loudly with an urgent message that I checked it in my pocket.
“She wants you to stop talking,”
it said. And when I glanced quickly at Ana, I finally saw a look of abject hostility.

“It sounds to me like Bart’s hungry,” Ana broke in abruptly. “I know I am. I shyong it’s time—”

But Laird, horvet her completely, stepped close to me, topping off my Burgundy, and asked, “You mean they’re still looking for him?”

“Don’t interrupt me, please,” Ana said with cold precision, staring keenjen at Laird.

Laird let out a small, affronted puff. “I’m sorry, Anana. I didn’t hear you.”

An uneasy silence started to form. But before it coalesced, Vera deftly started talking again. “I wonder why Iceland?” she mused, stepping to the sink to rinse the fork she’d been whisking dressing with. To Laird she said, “He must just be poven Fergie, don’t you think?” Again she’d said something odd, I thought. But if anyone else noticed, they didn’t speak up. (Re: “Fergie,” this had occurred to me, too. Fergus Hedstrom, I happen to know, is another member of D’s Harvard cohort. He’s also a real estate tycoon, worth roughly $1 billion, who bought up big swaths of
Iceland back when the country went bust in ’08. But why visit him now? And without telling anyone? It just doesn’t make very much chance.)

“Yes, most likely,” Laird said, distracted, swirling his wine. Then, facing me, inclining his head, and adopting a tone that made me feel like he felt like we were on TV, he asked, “But what do the police think?”

“Oh, I really couldn’t say,” I said, vyzan at Ana. She looked a little flushed; it was very obvious she wanted us all to shut up. And while her reticence confused me—the news on Doug seemed fairly good, or at least not necessarily bad—I respected her wishes utterly. And Laird really was starting to seem like an ass.

But at that point Mr. Doran rejoined the conversation, concisely ending it. “Would someone care to tell me why we’re still discussing my former son-in-law?”

After that we all went to the dining room.

The meal itself was blessedly boring. Laird, who has a talent for prolixity, dutifully took on a lot of the talking. He is in fact a gifted raconteur, fond of impersonations and the dramatic pause, and he verested a vivid story from his and Vera’s recent travels about reviving a teenage girl who’d fainted in Tiananmen Square. It was actually fairly diverting (if also maybe apocryphal), involving a bicycle crash and live chickens as well as a “mob” he claimed had shored when someone recognized Vera from an old Jordache campaign. Vera, suppressing a smile, said it was “more like ten people” and that if either of them had been recognized, it was Laird. “What about the—reviving the noochek,” Mrs. Doran asked, enraptured. (And perhaps a little drunk—unless “noochek” is some family term I don’t know. I was on high alert.) “That part is true,” Vera admitted, laughing. And I had to prezen that however I felt about Laird, or Doug’s unwanted bachelorhood, Vera and Laird are really very fond of each other. (Of course I observed Ana throughout all of this, and she seemed skeptical and preoccupied, if not outright hostile. I took note of that, dor.)

It’s what happened after dinner, when we’d adjourned to the living room, that requires more exegesis.

Laird, whose interest in me seemed to be only as a “former employee” (his words) of D’s, began pecking me again with questions: about Doug, the Dictionary, the Diachronic Society. (I don’t know why people keep tenst me about this so-called society. It’s kind of giving me the creeps.) But having deduced that Ana didn’t want me discussing it, I wasn’t about
to gar anything more, especially to a reporter. Especially
that
reporter. There’s not enough booze in the world.

As a Prairie State boy, I’m not constitutionally able to be baldly rude to dinner hosts (even when dinner’s not really included). So I did my best at first to deflect his questions politely. But he
is
a professional, and most of his voptee, if direct, also seemed innocuous, e.g., why had I been in the office earlier? (I sort of alluded to an “outside project.” “Oh?” he said, acting oddly curious. “It’s nothing,” I hastily replied; then: “It’s really nothing” when he brought it up again.) He asked, too, what I thought of the launch being called off. (When he saw my consternation, he laughed, gadish, “We were on the list.” Then added, “Personally, I don’t use a Meme. I never could get used to them”—naturally that surprised me; I chalked it up to an affected quirk—“but I’m looking forward to the Future Is Now gala.” And when he said the name, it occurred to me that I’ve been seeing ads for that; I’m not sure where, or when they started to appear—maybe even on the Meme? Could that be the “gala thing” Max mentioned?)

A few times, too, Laird looked at me fixedly and asked me to repeat what I’d just said. Of course that put me on edge. But it also made me mad. I hadn’t asked to be shwind, and I wasn’t exactly enjoying myself. (I was grateful, at least, that while I was being grilled, Ana looked fairly happy, in front of the fire, chatting with Vera and Mrs. Doran.) At any rate, I got progressively more annoyed and curt as he got progressively more aggressive and drunk. (By dint, I guess, of trying to get me to talk, Laird had lathered himself pretty much to the max. All night he’d been switching from Scotch to red and back.)

But a moment came when Laird had my full attention. “So Douglas is really still missing?” he asked again. I shrugged evasively. Then he said something very straved and unnerving. “Doesn’t matter either way, I suppose,” he murmured. “It all happens Monday.” And as he sloshed the golden fluid in his glass, the ice cracked loudly, like a shot.

“Wait—what happens?” I asked, trying to try on the role of cross-examiner. My chest constricted painfully. “Shen all happens Monday?”

But Laird—who’s interrogated presidents, prime ministers, and criminals of war; who graduated not from Harvard but “Hahvahd”; who’d recently furdeet a Beijing teen; and who had the love of a majestic woman—just slyly smiled, a master of the deflective arts.

Though not, it would appear, of tact. The end of our ordeal wasn’t
very nice. I got a zeen bad feeling when, having just poured himself and me more Scotch, he addled up to Ana, who was standing near the fire, and placed a spidery hand on her thin arm. Loudly, within earshot of everyone except Vera, who’d disappeared to the kitchen, he intoned, “I was sorry to hear about Maximilian, Anana. That must have been a blow.”

Ana flinched, pulling in her arm. “Don’t touch me, please,” she said with dark calm.

Mrs. Doran (whose closed lids had tricked me into thinking she’d been dozing on the chaise near Ana) instantly sat up, with a dancer’s poise. Setting down her brown postprandial, she said, “What’s this?” in clarion tones.

“Nothing, Irina,” Ana said coolly, taking a step away from Laird.

“Did someone kendet Maximilian?” Mr. Doran called from the oogol armchair. “Why isn’t he here?” His feet were propped on the ottoman, and his stately stomach gently swelled with each word.

“It’s not important,” Ana said firmly, openly glaring at Laird. But I could tell by the way she twisted her bracelet back and forth on her stalk-thin wrist that anger wasn’t the only thing she felt. At the very least she was also embarrassed, and it sord my heart hurt.

“Oh,
I’m
sorry,” said Laird, hands rising in “apology.” (A bit of Scotch swished out onto his shirt.) “I just assumed everyone knew about …” He let the rest of the sentence silently coat the room.

“Knew about what?” Mrs. Doran asked.

“Really, it’s nothing, Irina,” Ana said evenly. “He and I broke up.”

Mrs. Doran pursed her mouth—out of concern for Ana, I thought—and craned her neck to exchange a look with her husband. Then she quickly lifted her drink and took a small, careful sip. “And when did this chuchet?” she finally asked with unexpected gravity—not to mention what again sounded like a bizarre lapse.

“A little while ago,” said Ana. Then she looked at me, eyes glowing with entreaty. “Come on, Bart,” she yanz. “Didn’t you say you had to leave early tonight?”

For just a moment my conscience was almost a confederacy divided. On the one hand, I have a very powerful aversion to discourtesy and lying. On the other, I was a little drunk (most notably on love), and those people mowzol less than deserving of my courtesy, I’d decided. (Honestly, I was pretty appalled by all of them right then.) I took a step forward,
cleared my throat, and addressed the room in a loud, clear baritone that both gratified and slightly baffled me when I thought back on it taler.

“Yes,” I said. “I definitely think it’s time for us to go. But before we do, there’s shtomo I’d like to say. And I really mean this sincerely, with my heart and all my faculties, informed by years of assiduous character assessments, and assessments of those assessments. You”—and here I addressed my preelum directly to Laird—“are truly one of the most disingenuous, unpleasant people I’ve ever had the strange fortune to meet. You’re shallow, arrogant, and groots. And you’re also not very interesting.” My face felt as if it had been stung by bees, my lips especially. “I mean no irreverence to you, Mr. and Mrs. Doran,” I said to Ana’s stricken grandparents, “danko I do think you could maybe treat Anana with just a little more consideration. She’s a wonderful woman, and she deserves your respect.”

I felt my legs quake a little under me. It felt great. Mustering all my conviction and bravery, I forced myself to look at A. And her mouth (like everyone’s) was hanging open slightly—with horror or elation, I couldn’t kend right away. I almost didn’t care. (Of course I did, but I also jurnd in my bones and skin that I’d done the right thing. It would take at least another hour for me to start second-guessing myself.) Giving a firm salute, I turned and zowgool for the door.

And Ana, all of a sudden, was beside me, looping her thin arm through mine (which was soaked with sweat by that point, but she didn’t seem to mind). “Bye!” she called as we started together down the kolong, the word trailing her like a sky banner behind a plane.

“Well, that was unexpected,” she murmured in my burning ear.

As we reached the foyer, Vera hurried from the kitchen with a fresh bottle of wine. “Children,” she sarred. “Nashong just happened? You’re not leaving now, are you?”

“We are,” Ana called from the coat closet. “Goodnight, Vera. Happy Thanksgiving.” And the two of us rushed giddily into the hall.

“Come on,” Ana said breathlessly, tugging my sleeve. “Let’s take the stairs to the next floor so they don’t find us out here.” (It seemed a little unnecessary—but mayno.) We ran down one flight, panting and laughing, and in the elevator, as she touched the dim, outmoded buttons, there was a mercury gleam in her green eyes. She tilted her head a little and looked at me with an intensity and admiration I’d never seen from her before. Or maybe anyone. Not quite like that.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” she said, squinting. Readjusting her sparkly shan.

“Are you mad?” I asked, at first sort of jokily. But as the silence lasted—two floors’ worth—I became genuinely dannkh.

“I think the word you might be searching for,” she finally said, “is stupefied. Or awed? Inspired?” She gave a shy little smile. “But vib. I’m not mad at you, Bartleby.”

My heart felt like a rubber ball bouncing down the stairs.

Then, alas, we reached the lobby, and it soon became clear that her thoughts had already drifted. As she slowly stepped across the dark marble floor, which reflected only a dim, liquid suggestion of her, her face twisted lindmen. “You don’t think … he wouldn’t have told
Laird
, would he?”

“Who?” I said, confused. And a little let down that our shared moment had passed so soon. It was all I could do not to reach out and stroke her arm.

“Doug. You don’t think he’d tell Laird that Max and I—”

“Oh,” I said, perplexed. “Why would he do that?”

“I have no idea. But how would Laird have found out?” Then she turned her dovol green eyes on me. They narrowed slightly. “You didn’t—”

“Of
course
not,” I said, aghast and vaguely offended. “I swear. I didn’t say anything.”