“Like the alphabet,” Bone suggested.
“Yes,” Limongello said. “Like the alphabet. Sometimes A’s a letter and sometimes a blood type. Might be a grade on a paper or stand for ‘adultery.’ So we got to be careful before sticking any new messages in the brain. Even a harmless-looking message, if it winds up in the wrong part of the brain—well, blooey.” Limongello’s hands opened and spread, simulating a cloud of smoke and debris. “The brain’s an intricate mechanism. There are some tests I want to do.” He put away the rubber brain and produced a pad and pen. “I need your address and phone number so I can visit you at home. We can dispense with office visits from now on.”
Bone began writing and asked if Limongello couldn’t get this information from the receptionist, but the doctor said this way was simpler. Bone asked about insurance, but Limongello said, “Don’t worry about it. Like I said, your case really interests me. This may be the key to something major. Say I’m doing it pro bono. It won’t cost you a thing. Besides, you already bought me lunch. And the fish sandwich was delicious.”
“What do we do if it happens again?” Mary wanted to know. “The doorway thing.”
“He might try dancing.”
“What?”
“Music messages travel entirely different pathways in the brain. There’s been plenty of research to show this. For example, chronic stutterers can communicate clearly when they sing. If this happens again, let’s see if we can’t throw your ol’ brain a curveball. Try dancing through the door instead of walking.”
“Dancing.”
“Yes, Professor King. Do you dance?” Limongello struck a playful pose of doing the marimba. “Rumba? Charleston? Cha-cha-cha?”
“I can square dance,” Bone mumbled numbly.
“Well, there you go,” Limongello said, his attempt to lift Bone’s mood as effective as a knock-knock joke at a funeral.
“Anyway,” Bone said, “I don’t expect it will happen again.”
“Maybe not,” said Limongello. “We’ll hope. But next time you get stuck at a door—if there is a next time—see if you can’t just do-si-do on through.”
“Good Lord, what a quack!” Bone said in the musty dusk of the parking deck, shaking his head and fumbling his keys from his pocket. “Can you believe his prescription? Dance?”
Mary stood and considered, elbow resting on the hatchback roof, a cube of daylight pouring between the concrete pylons illuminating half her face and the downy hairs of her forearm like fiber optics. It was one of those times she was so heart-stoppingly beautiful, it made something catch in Bone’s throat.
“Well, I don’t know,” Mary said. “I think he made a lot of sense.”
“Really? I think he was a whack job.” Overstating it, but Bone would have said anything to keep her standing the way she was.
“Well, we can get a second opinion if you want.” An impatient look crossed Mary’s face. Bone beeped the unlock button, and she exited the cube of light into the passenger seat. Bone decided not to get a second opinion. After all, the condition was so bizarre, shouldn’t the diagnosis and treatment be equally bizarre?
E, e
From the flag-shaped Semitic he (e), “praise” or “jubilation.” (See hallelujah. Haleil, “praise,” and ya, “Yahweh.”) If the sequence of the Semitic alphabet reflects the progress of Bronze Age civilization, mankind domesticated animals (A), built shelter (B), obtained weapons (C), and then acquired a door for the shelter (D) before getting around to expressing gratitude to a higher power.
English: From anglisc, after the Angles, the Germanic tribe who invaded Britain in the fifth century, from Angeln, a fishhook-shaped peninsula on the Baltic Sea.
euphemism: From the Greek eu- “good,” a positive or socially acceptable synonym for a negative or socially unacceptable concept. No one, for example, asking directions to the restroom is looking for a place to rest, nor is the salient feature of a bathroom the bath. What a touching faith in language euphemism shows, as if reality is altered by calling it something soap-scented and white.
excruciating: Extreme agony. From the Latin ex, “out of,” and crux, “cross.” Literally, the pain of crucifixion.
The appointment with Dr. Limongello having hogged the morning and eaten up the bigger slice of afternoon, only a leftover scrap of time remained, so Bone went to work early. Miranda Richter, in the office next to his, looked up to say hello when he passed, then cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “Is something the matter?”
Of course, something was the matter. Any number of things were very much the matter. And also of course, Bone lied. “No, I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound like yourself.” Miranda’s girlish face frowned: Shirley Temple playing an oncologist. “Is it, Mary?” A half-beat pause in the banal question, an unexpected comma falling before the nominative “Mary,” a silence so brief only the sharpest sharpened razor could have sliced between, but packed with icy implication. Bone stopped short as if someone had jerked an unseen leash tied to his collar.
“No, no.” Another lie. “What makes you ask?”
“Oh, nothing. Just came into my head.” Her voice resumed its accustomed melody, steering clear of the precipice of consequential topics. “You want some Red Zinger?”
Bone took an armchair catty-corner from her desk His perceptions came in disconnected blots—tea bag plopping in a white mug, steam gurgling from a teapot, Miranda passing a clean spoon—“Well, almost clean,” she amended, retrieving it and picking at a speck of annealed organic matter—a fat, tummy-shaped bowl of sugar packets shoved in his direction. “I ought to use honey or something, but I can’t help it. I just love the taste of sugar!” Giggling the way she did every time she confessed this weakness.
“What made you ask if it was Mary?” Bone persisted.
“Why?” Absorbed in examining her sugar-packet inventory. “Is anything wrong?”
“No, nothing. I’m just curious why you mentioned her.”
“Well, you know people. How people talk.” Miranda put the mug in his hand, taking the opportunity to search his eyes. Her long, graceful fingers briefly touched his.
“What people?”
“Oh, people here. You know.” She waved, indicating unseen tongues swarming overhead. “The truth is, I’ve been worried about you two since the start.” Her voice dropped, and her hand was on his again. “I don’t know if you ever knew this, but the rumor back when you got engaged was that Gordon was seeing Mary—” before Bone could interrupt to say he already knew this, Miranda finished with, “—up until the wedding.” Bone did not know that. “Oh, dear! Oh, my goodness!” With a fat wad of white paper