I always felt a borderline depression when thinking about Eben—I mean, really thinking. He doesn't seem to comprehend the simple fashion of matching clothes, or the idea of updating a wardrobe. Not that I was notably adroit at either; I relied on Elyssa to periodically purge my wardrobe, either by visiting my closet with a trash bag one rainy Sunday, or having the decency to tell me when I wasn't looking my sharpest. Eben probably had no such woman to help him; I also doubted that any lifestyle change could mask a face that was, on several occasions, something I'd describe as slightly retarded.

I was thinking that it must be hard to be Eben, because I was about to ask him to let me leave early for lunch. This task entailed, as Mark demonstrated effectively on a continual basis, simply telling him you were going. But Eben always tried to talk me into a hole, about this, about that, and I have the hardest time finding the spot to break the conversation. Yet I found the morning unproductive with the prospect of seeing Myron for lunch, and so I decided I might as well go for it.

"Eben," I said with my head titled in a slightly submissive posture, "I'm going to lunch a little early today."

"What? Why would you do that?"

"Well," I said, and then thought about it. I needed something that wouldn't be entirely untrue, so I said, "Well, I can't start and stop, because you know how I like to get it all done in one sitting, and it wont get done before lunch."

"You could take a late lunch," Eben said, emphasizing the 'late,' trying to make me feel incompetent.

"There's this article you should read — " he began, but I started moving faintly backwards, keeping my neck just barely scrunched.

"I should really beat the lunch rush to get back earlier . . . ."

"—about cubicle ambiance and hunger—"

"I'll stay a little later today," I said as I kept back up, standing ever so slightly more erect.

"—top notch writer from downtown—"

"Promise it'll all get done; great; see you after lunch; bye."

And I left. It worked! All I had to do was be a jerk, be like Mark, and I accomplished my goal! Though I did now need to stay late, I would be getting out to lunch early, seeing Myron now, seeing the letter now. I let out an inner grunt as I left the office building with clenched a fist. I was a MAN. That's what I was. M-A-N.

Rounding the corner I saw Myron uncharacteristically without a tie, and uncharacteristically seated on a grimy concrete ledge, eyes just barely closed with a calm, near smile on his face. Thinking "Myron" and "uncharacteristic" together brought back an incident from last year, when I had seen him put hot sauce on corn and think nothing of it—"lots of people do it," he said with what I thought was an uncharacteristic response. Myron was my only real friend, and I started to think, "Just how well do I know him, know anyone?"

In one hand he had the bigger coffee ; undoubtedly he would have to pay for such stimulus if Mara found out. His other hand moved over the ink of the envelope, fingering, I assume, the minimally different texture of fountain pen ink.

"I don't think you can guess what I just did," I told him. He let out a strange sort of sound, one I could only guess to be satisfaction.

"Charlie!" Myron said, jumping up and clapping my hand. "I can get used to this."

"Used to what?"

"Waking up without hours of work dragging, dragging, dragging from a thick metal chain hooked around my waist."

"Are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah, it's just all the coffee." But I don't think he had drunk more than half of it. He reminded me of the way he was at the Thanksgiving when he had a couple extra glasses of wine and plates of potatoes, potatoes without any sort of sauce.

He tossed the coffee and we went over to the Frank to get our regulars even though I wasn't close to hungry. As I ordered, Myron opened the letter again, and began nodding at it.

"Alexa," I said to Myron, getting back to the important matter. "a LEX a," I said again, emphasizing a different syllable. I found myself doing this occasionally without thinking. Sometimes I stretched a syllable or muted a vowel. Alexaa. Ahlexa. Lexa"

"Listen," Myron said. "I started looking into it. Moreso. There are four Ovets in the phonebook. One Ovechka. Two Ovins. Two Avets. A bunch of others. It's time to start."

It caught me off-guard. Would she just be some name in a phonebook? I couldn't imagine something so pedestrian, so concrete as a name in a directory. On the letter her name was so alone, so desolate, so reaching out to be helped, touched, saved.

"I wouldn't get too hopeful for that, Myron. I had just assumed she was something underground. Like an artist, or a waitress, or an au pair. Maybe even a courtesan." I was unsure what to think of the last possibility; it seemed unseemly, yet oddly erotic.

"Perhaps," he said, ordering his gyro sans hot sauce. "I also looked up one of the Ovets." He paused, and smirked. "A freelance photographer. Want to check it out?"

I sighed, and said, "I need to keep working today. I already got out early for lunch and promised to stay late. And in doing so," I added, "I put Eben in his place."

"Take a half day?"

"Can't," I said, slouching.

"I'm going to check out some of the other possibilities then. I'll make up a spreadsheet, and we'll start finding who's who. We can add it to the file"

"File?"

"Oh, you know, I just did a little bit of digging and found something on . . . DRAGON'S TEETH. You're not the only one kicking butt today."

"Oh man," I said. "You better not tell me or I'll never get all my work done. I'll call you when I finish and we'll get synchronized."

I took a bite as I was leaving, but I just wasn't in the mood. I considered saving it, but then I thought there wasn't enough time for such things. . . .