Page 26 of In a Word, Yes

“Have you not been outside, Dot? It’s seriously thirty-one degrees. Why?” Okay, so we aren’t exactly experiencing a polar vortex, and it’s a faux complaint. Fall is my favorite, and this is how autumn sidles into the Pacific Northwest every year, like an improv jazz piece, impossible to sync with.

Besides, I hardly noticed the chill as I crossed town. Beneath a sky that rearranges itself daily, I gathered slices of the beauty around me like lines of a poem. A private heart ode to October’s imminent arrival.

Ruddy soil. Stone-gray mountains. Sun-bleached fields.In fact,I can imagine those words flowing across a crisp sheet of white paper in classic Smith Corona typeface. So maybe it’s meant tobean actual poem.

“Ugh, I know,” Dot says. “These weather changes are giving me whiplash. If you don’t like the weather in central Oregon...”

“Wait fifteen minutes,” I supply.

“But you do look like an elf, and—”

“No. I don’t.” I search for a distraction. “What’s that weird smell?”

“Yeah. You do. A Christmas elf. In fact, you totally look like that actress. How have I never seen it before?” Dot juts her bottom lip and switches to baby talk. “And we can’t have your cute little elf ears getting cold, now, can we?”

I pretend to glare. Remove my beanie and use it to give her a playful whack. “See, it’s sage.Sage, Dot. A fall color. Have you been nippin’ at the Christmas punch? Already drunk on holiday movies? It’s still September.”

“Sing for me, Jovie!”

I should know better than to attempt to swallow a beverage when my favorite coworker is in such fine form. A jolt of laughter sends electrolyte water up my nasal passages. In spite of my quick gyrations, neon-pink liquid dribbles onto my white tee. At least it didn’t target my favorite Fair Isle cardigan.

“Oh dear!” Dot pats my back as if I’m choking, which I am not. “Anyway, this is where you say, ‘I can sing, but I just choose not to sing. Especially in front of other people.’ And then I say—”

No. This is where I play the straight man. “You are a strange one,” I say, shaking my head. “But please don’t ever change. Seriously, though, what am I smelling? Something is definitely wafting that should never, ever waft.”

“Oh ... that. You’ll be pleased to know I took your advice and I’m steering my culinary zeal in a new direction! Working my way through a Thai cookbook. It’s calledHot, Sour, Salty, Sweet. That,my friend, islon dao jiao. Although, something went amiss when I was adding the tamarind, and—”

From inside Sam’s office, his voice bellows. “That you, Montgomery? Got that interview lined up?”

Reality check.Good morning to you, too, Sam.

Dot shoots me a parting wink and vanishes.

“I’m on it, Sam.”

But first I’ve got a hot-pink wardrobe mishap to deal with.

***

After lunch, I check my inbox for what must be the twenty-third time. Still empty. Not one single classified ad to enter, nothing to proofread, file, or dust. I give our drama queen of a copy machine the stink eye.Since when have you ever been cooperative?At this point I’ll welcome a prickly paper jam if it requires my attention.

“When was the last time Bertha had a good day?” I say out loud to no one.

It’s growing harder to overlook a certain business card with a gold embossed sheriff’s emblem and an ill-fitting challenge attached.

Dot appears at my elbow. “Hey, I’ve got an extra Zebra Cake. I could feed it into the paper tray, make it look like an accident.”

“Little Debbie’s?” My mouth salivates. “Too wasteful. I’ll take it off your hands.”

Tragically, after washing down the cake-of-many-artificial-ingredients with tepid coffee, there’s nothing else keeping me from calling the stinking number. I mean, it’s unlikely the man’s going to pick up anyway. He’s bound to be out and about doing sheriffy things, ensuring public safety and eating powdered donuts and whatever else. Although he hadn’t particularly struck me as the donut-gorging type, unless it’s some kind of special Keto protein donut.

It’s no big stinking deal,Montgomery. Just leave a stinking message.

Luckily, it occurs to me that I haven’t yet created an event in my Google calendar titled “Schedule Wyatt Hayes Interview,” so this eats up another thirty seconds, followed by thirty seconds dusting cobwebs off a filmy memory of a guy named Wyatt who attended my middle school. Nerdy little dude, as I recall.

Enough stalling.

Only, as it turns out, my interviewee is not off doing important sheriffy things or bench-pressing twice his weight in apple fritters. He’s taking my call on the second ring.