Saturday, 2:25pm
Sally placed two tiles on the board. “Seven. I’m afraid that doesn’t open things up much,” she apologized, updating the tally.
“I’m no worse off than I was,” Victor grumbled, and kneaded his temples for a moment.
Victor contemplated the letters that luck had given him. His narrow lead was threatened by a Q and J that had no apparent use.
“The letter fairy is toying with me again,” Victor muttered.
Sally chewed on the end of her pencil, lost in thought, beset by vowels.
“We don’t have to finish the game,” Sally answered.
“No. At this point I consider it a challenge. I am past the point of caring whether I win or lose, but I feel compelled to find a way to get rid of this trash.”
“You were mentioning something about Leonid a moment ago. How do you like working with him in your lab?” Victor asked, to distract Sally from how long it was taking for him to make his move.
Sally inadvertently rolled her eyes. “Well… one of my grad students once told me that they think he’s an alien from a very advanced and enlightened civilization, and that he has been sent here to share some of their wisdom with us, and to guide us, to help us get past our backwards, primitive problems.”
Victor smiled. “What do you think about that theory?”
“Well, as a scientist, I’m forced to consider any theory that explains the facts. He is brilliant, there’s no question about that. But he’s brilliant in a weird way. I mean, we both know a lot of smart people at the University, of course. But he seems to just know things, almost off the top of his head, that the rest of us need days to figure out. If he was an alien, that might explain it.”
“I don’t think that theory would last long in a fight against someone armed with Occam’s Razor,” Victor laughed. “Why would an advanced civilization go to all the trouble to send a secret ambassador an enormous distance across the vast, lonely gulfs of interstellar space just to enlighten the human race in such a convoluted, roundabout way?”
“Ah, he had an explanation for that.” It was Sally’s turn to laugh, and then blush slightly. “They sent him across the vast, lonely gulfs of space because he’s an asshole and they don’t want to deal with him, and they convinced him to keep his identity a secret so that he wouldn’t embarrass their species. You know, just in case our civilizations cross paths again.”
“So he’s an asshole?”
“Well, maybe, sort of. He’s not mean-spirited, but he gets on peoples nerves. He lacks people skills.”
“I’m sorry. I thought he would fit in well with your group. I’ve known Leonid for a long time, and didn’t expect a problem.”
“Well, you know, we probably wouldn’t have hired him if it wasn’t for your recommendation.”
“I hope it hasn’t ruined my professional reputation.”
Victor rearranged his tiles, but no ideas came to him. They still looked hopeless. He scratched his head and popped one of his knuckles.
“You could exchange tiles,” Sally suggested.
“There’s no point. The bag is almost empty. I’d just get my own letters back. Or, even worse, I might get the K that is hiding somewhere. Unless you already have it.”
Sally stuck out her tongue at Victor. “A proper lady does not talk of such things.”
Sally cocked her head; she could hear the girls coming back up the path from the beach.
“Let’s just call it a game. I hear the girls coming.”
“Yes, let’s. I don’t want them to see a grown man in this condition.”
As Sally reached for the bag to put away the tiles, she could hear the girls running across the wooden floor of the deck behind the house. “You can’t catch me!” Magda yelled, followed by Judy’s answering giggle.
The screen door banged open and Magda burst into the family room. With a giggle, she dove behind the couch to hide as Sally and Victor watched. A moment later, Judy charged through the same door. As she crossed the sill, the toe of her flip-flop caught on the door sill. She staggered forward into the room, arms out, onto the floor. As she fell, the side of her head hit the corner of the coffee table with a dull thud. She looked dazed for a moment, and then her eyes lost focus and her body went limp. One of her legs twitched twice, and then she lay still, eyes open, staring at nothing.
The room was silent for a moment, until the screen door swung shut with a bang.
