advantaged
How did I get here? Even the stories I’ve asked you to tell, Red, were only another way for me to ask that question. Now I suppose the question might mean something else? If here means this office, this very physical place, well, my story’s not so different from that of others who work here. I was a good student. I like books. Languages aren’t difficult for me. I graduated with the highest honors, but had no serious grad school plans. My advantaged background and education led me here somehow, and I was dropped rather unwittingly into this most bizarre job.
Dolores Beekmim
The Broken Teaglass
Robinson Press
14 October 1985
1
I considered whether I should wake up Mona and show the cit to her. She’d probably be pretty excited when she saw it. It confirmed her theory that someone was messing around on purpose—that someone wanted editors to notice his or her work. Probably her work. Someone in the office. I thought again of the maven cit and felt my pulse quicken. The little surprising bit about the corpse in the previous cit didn’t seem so amusing anymore. Now that I was alone with Mona in this quiet, creepy apartment, listening to her murmuring softly in her sleep, the whole affair struck me as eerie. Not just the corpse, but the way this newest cit seemed to be addressing someone so intimately. Somebody named Red? We were either terrible voyeurs or we’d fallen for some colossal joke.
Suddenly I remembered Tom, on that first day, when I met him on our front porch. What had he said? I’ve heard some bizarre shit goes down at that place. Since when had the voice of the downstairs freak become a part of my conscience? The last thing I needed was to have this floating, wiry-haired head of Tom directing my way in this world. The Black Labels were probably starting to affect me in deep and unhealthy ways.
I decided it was time to leave. I went to the kitchen to look for something to write on. There was a stack of papers and other junk on one corner of the table: bills, a Chinese take-out menu, TV Guide, a few napkins. I took a napkin to the living room and scribbled on it: Mona, Look what I found! I guess that means I can take off now. We’ll talk Monday. Pleasant dreams. B.
I looked around for something with which to anchor the note and the cit to the table, where she’d see them. It was then that I noticed there was no television in the room. Then why the subscription to TV Guide? Was Mona doing a little research-reading at home? I used The Hindenburg as a paperweight.
Mona smiled in her sleep, stretched her legs onto my spot on the couch, and twisted away from me. Still a little spooked by the advantaged cit and the creaky, abandoned feel of the apartment building, I wondered if it was unwise of me to leave her alone and unconscious, with the door unlocked and a bunch of incriminating dictionary material scattered around her. Maybe, I thought, I should at least wake her up before I go. But that seemed a little too intimate an act—shaking her awake, whispering goodbye, speaking to her while she was still half in dreams.
On my way out, I peered into her bedroom. It was just as spare and neat as her living room. There was a narrow bed with a fluffy white comforter. A bookshelf full of paperbacks. An antique-looking dresser. No TV. Strange bird, that Mona Minot.
“Huh,” I said aloud. On my way out, as I passed the kitchen table again, I picked up the TV Guide and looked at the address sticker.
Mona Rasmussen, it said, and then Mona’s address.
I put the TV Guide down.
Bizarre shit! cried the floating head of Tom in my brain, this time with a cigarette hanging from his lips. But far more bizarre than Mona’s two last names—which shouldn’t have been all that surprising, considering what Mona had just told me about her family—was my own unexpected impulse to snoop, and my own jumpy mood. I slipped out the door and tried not to squeak the old floorboards too much as I crept down the stairs.