Read The Broken Teaglass for Free Online Page B

little rusty.
And starting with “A” is just generally considered lexicographical hubris
, Dan informed me on my first official day of defining.
Not to mention bad luck
.
    Defining filled my solitary days. I flipped through citations for words like
bear
and
béarnaise sauce
and determined they needed no additional definitions. I looked through the cits for
beat one’s meat
and drafted a definition—a simple and elegant cross-reference to
masturbate
.
    I didn’t see much of Mona. She gave me barely discernible smiles when we glided past each other in the office, but that was all. My only significant social encounters were with pitying older editors: There was Grace, who liked to stop by my desk for small talk about the Red Sox and the new car her husband was thinking of buying and—after I mentioned that I liked to cook—recipes. Dan also offered a dry, hesitant friendliness during our training sessions in his office. And then there was Mr. Phillips.
    The first day I saw him, he was hunched over the coffee machine, humming a Sinatra tune and scribbling something on the back of an envelope with a red galley pencil. I waited silently behind him with my empty mug.
    I peered over the guy’s shoulder. He was shading in some block letters he had drawn on the envelope.
    “Do be do be do,” he muttered as he scribbled. Then, unexpectedly, he said, “You must be the new one.”
    “That’s me.”
    “Your name again?”
    “Billy.”
    “Billy. That’s right. Grace told me. Not Bill.
Billy
. I’m … uh … Mr. Phillips. John Phillips. Editor emeritus. Retired about three years back.”
    “Nice to meet you.”
    “You look like you could use a doughnut.”
    “I do?”
    Mr. Phillips jutted his skinny hip to one side, revealing a box of doughnuts on the table behind him.
    “Take one, Billy. There are a couple chocolate ones in there. And a jelly. I got it for Anna, actually, but she’ll eat a glazed if you really want jelly. She likes glazed too.”
    “You brought these doughnuts?”
    “Yeah. And the coffee. The
real
coffee. Jamaica Blue Mountain,” he said.
    “Impressive,” I said. My old girlfriend used to like Jamaica Blue Mountain. It cost something like thirty dollars a pound. Mr. Phillips finished his shading and propped the envelope next to the doughnut box. It said ENJOY! in thick block letters.
    “Well, it’s called Blue Mountain
blend,”
Mr. Phillips admitted. “But it’s still a pretty good brew. Better than what they’ve got here on a regular day.”
    “Breaking in the new blood, John?” someone asked from behind me. The voice was familiar. Clifford, who sat near me. He was short and a little overweight, with blond hair curling over his receding hairline. I’d never actually seen him before, only listened to him answer the phone.
    “Yep. How’ve you been, Cliff?” Mr. Phillips asked.
    “Same old, same old,” Clifford replied. But he looked like he wanted to say something else to Mr. Phillips.
    “Guess I’ll get back to work,” I said.
    “Take a doughnut,” urged Mr. Phillips. “Take two.”
    “No, thanks—”
    “C’mon, champ. What’s your pleasure? Chocolate? Cruller? Boston cream? I think I had them put a few of those in there too.”
    His rasping voice grew louder with each variety of doughnut that he named, and was now nearly a roar. I grabbed a cake doughnut and a napkin.
    “Now you’re talkin’. Old-fashioned plain doughnut. Heh-heh,” Mr. Phillips chuckled.
    “What’s so funny, John?” Clifford asked.
    “Where’d they find
you
, Billy?” Mr. Phillips asked. “Strapping young fellow. And with a name like
Billy
. Bet you’ll suck that doughnut down in no time flat.”
    Cliff shook his head without looking at me and then poured himself a cup of coffee.
    “Nice meeting you, Mr. Phillips,” I said, fleeing the coffee station. “Thanks for the doughnut.”
    “Any time, champ.”
    I didn’t sleep much that night . For the third night in a row, I lay awake past