Where'd You Go, Bernadette

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16

From: Gwen Goodyear

To: Audrey Griffin

Good morning, Audrey. I checked with Kate Webb, and she does remember Bernadette and Elgin Branch requesting to be opted out of all Galer Street emails back when Bee first enrolled. I double-checked myself and indeed they are not on any of the lists we currently employ.

On another topic, I’m glad to see you’re settled and that your Internet connection is working. Per my last three unanswered emails, Mr. Levy feels it’s imperative that we sit down and have a talk about Kyle. I can work around your schedule.

Kindly,

Gwen

That morning in homeroom, we were doing vocabulary lightning round, where Mr. Levy throws out a word and points to someone and they have to use that word in a sentence. Mr. Levy said, “Sheathe,” and pointed at Kyle. And Kyle said, “Sheathe my dick.” We have never laughed so hard. That is so why Mr. Levy wanted to have a conference with Audrey Griffin. Because even though it was totally funny, I can also see why it’s kind of bad.

From: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal

To: Audrey Griffin

I have chosen to disregard the tone of your previous nasty-gram and chalk it up to the stress of your living conditions. Audrey, you have Elgie all wrong.

This morning, I got on the Connector at my usual stop and settled into a seat in the back. Elgie boarded a few stops later, looking like he hadn’t slept. He lit up when he saw me. (I think he’d forgotten I’d signed us up for the same Connector.)

Did you know he’s from a prominent family in Philadelphia? Not that he would come out and say such a thing. But as a boy, he spent all his summers in Europe. I was embarrassed to admit that I’d never left the United States.

“We’ll have to change that, won’t we?” he said.

Don’t jump to any conclusions, Audrey! He said that rhetorically. It’s not like he’s planning on taking me on a trip to Europe or anything.

He went to boarding school. (On that topic, it seems you and I were simply misinformed. People like me and you, who were born in Seattle and went to the UW, we lack the… I don’t want to use the word sophistication… but we lack the something to understand this broader worldview.)

When Elgie asked about me, I was flustered because I’ve led such a dull life. The only thing I could think of that is remotely interesting is how my father went blind when I was seven and that I had to take care of him.

“No kidding,” Elgie said. “So you communicated in sign language?”

“Only when I was feeling cruel,” I retorted. Elgie was confused. “He was blind,” I said, “not deaf.”

We both broke up laughing. Someone quipped, “What is this, the Belltown Connector?” It’s an inside joke — the Belltown Connector is notoriously raucous, much more so than the Queen Anne Connector. So it was a combination of Get-A-Room and a reference to what fun they have on the Belltown Connector. I’m not sure my explanation helps you get the humor. Maybe you had to be there.

We turned to the subject of work. Elgie was anxious about the amount of time he was taking off for Christmas.

“You keep calling it a month,” I said. “It’s twenty-seven days. Twelve of which are Christmas vacation, when Microsoft clears out anyway. Six days are weekends. You have five travel days, where you’ll be in hotels with Internet access, I checked. That leaves you out of touch for a total of nine. That’s like having a bad flu.”

“Wow,” he said. “I can actually breathe.”

“Your only mistake was telling the team you were leaving in the first place. I could have covered for you, and nobody would have known.”

“I told them before you came along,” he said.

“Then you’re forgiven.”

Most wonderful was that by the time we arrived, Elgie’s spirits were buoyed. Which made me happy, too.