“Benji bought Peter conditioner and timed hisshowers,” Jacks said without looking up from his lime. “We think he wants his roomie to soften his ball hair.”
“JACKS!” My voice echoed throughout the bar.
So did Rod’s laughter.
“Oh, this is better than I hoped,” Mia said. “Give me a sec to start recording, then I want all the details.”
“I’m not telling you the conditioner story,” I said. “And no one is recording anything.”
“You don’t have to. I’ll get the highlights from Jacks later. Tell me about the extension instead.”
This, at least, was safe ground . . . sort of.
I told everyone about Terri’s call, about the subfloor damage, and about the revised ten-to-twelve-week timeline. I told them about Peter’s Post-it response, which had been characteristically measured and practical and which had included the line, “If you’d prefer to stay, that’s fine, too,” and which I was not going to analyze further because “fine” was a perfectly neutral word that did not require interpretation.
“He said it wasfine?” Mia asked.
“He said it was fine.”
“How did he write ‘fine’?” she asked, as though it mattered.
“How did hewriteit? What do you mean how didhe write it? He wrote it with a pen, Mia, on paper and in the manner of a human being communicating through written language.”
“Was there a period after it? Was it underlined? Was there anything else on the note?” she asked.
“Why does the punctuation matter?”
“Punctuation always matters, Benj. A man who writes, ‘That’s fine.’ with a period is a different man than one who writes, ‘That’s fine,’ without a period. Both are light-years from a man who writes, ‘That’s fine!’ with an exclamation point.”
“Fine! There was a period,” I said without specifically detailing my verbal punctuation.
“Okay.”
Reluctantly, I asked, “What does the period mean?”
“It means he thought about it before he wrote it. An exclamation point is impulsive, a period is deliberate, but he chose ‘fine’ and he chose the period. That means he sat at his kitchen island and considered his response and decided that ‘fine’ was the exact word he wanted, which means it’s not filler. It’s precise.”
“You’re reading an entire psychological profile into a punctuation mark.”
“I’m reading a man who uses Post-it notes as his primary emotional vocabulary. Every mark meanssomething. This is my area of expertise.”
“Your area of expertise isdental hygiene. Your patients’ words are unintelligible!”
“My area of expertise is communication. Teeth are simply one channel.”
I looked to Jacks for support. He was still focused on his lime and refused to acknowledge my presence.
Rod’s shoulders were still shaking behind the pass-through.
Finn had gone back to counting bottles, but he was smiling.
“I need new friends,” I said.
“You need to buy that man a moisturizer,” Mia said. “And then report back.”
I did, in fact, buy him a moisturizer.
I knew I should not have bought him a moisturizer, yet I did so anyway.
