Page 41 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
“Yeah, I guess.” I mean, I went to college, right?
“Good. Usually we suck.”
“That’s mainly because Bobbie always insisted on the wrong answer,” Patty said. “Not to speak ill of the dead.”
“She did though,” Brian agreed with her.
The guy with the laptop at the bar introduced himself as Ed, and said, “We’re going to have a good time tonight, as long as none of my ex-wives show up.”
Nailed that one.
He blathered on about the rules, which I didn’t really pay any attention to. Then he rattled off the teams. We were the Boomers. There were also the Boozers, the Boogiemen, theBookworms… I was sensing there was a theme the night this all began.
Emerald looked sleepy. Well, she was usually asleep at this time of night. I tried laying her on my shoulder the way Bev had. I probably wouldn’t be able to keep it up as long as she had, but I might as well give it a try.
“Okay, let’s start round one with science!”
My team groaned.
Ed read the question off the screen. “On the periodic table Pb is the symbol for: 1. Polonium, 2. Phosphorus, 3. Promethium or 4. Lead.”
My team leaned in, keeping and their voices low so the other teams wouldn’t hear us.
“Well, it’s not lead,” Zoey said.
Patty nodded her head in agreement, saying, “I don’t think promethium is actually a thing.”
Brian shrugged and said, “I have no idea.”
Then they all looked at me.
“It’s lead.”
Even though I’d had chemistry in high school, I didn’t remember what was and wasn’t on the periodic table. I did however remember how to take a multiple-choice test.
“Because it begins with L, they think you’re going to immediately reject it. It’s a trick. And…” I kind of remembered this and I kind of didn’t: “The original elements didn’t always have letters that corresponded to their names. Elements added later do. So, promethium is something like Pm.”
They looked at me suspiciously, then Zoey wrote down my answer, Lead, and took it over to Ed.
I looked around the room as we waited. The librarian, who I called Hanging Chad was there in a booth with three other players. I pegged them as the Bookworms. The only other person I recognized was the spooky girl who saw auras and saidstrange things. I couldn’t remember her name. She was with the Boogiemen.
Ed announced that there were ten seconds left to get the answers in, and the Boogiemen ran their answer up. Then Ed began teasing us with the answers.
“Okay, so it’s not promethium or polonium. And it is… lead.”
My team gave me a thumbs up. Well, Patty and Zoey did. Brian was kind of stoic. The Bookworms were cheering themselves, so they must have gotten it right as well. When Ed began to read the results, we were tied with them at ten points. The other teams had gotten it wrong.
The next question was, How many Grammys has Madonna won? I didn’t even have to wait for multiple-choice. Not that I was a superfan. I prefer Kylie, but I had been in enough conversations about Madonna to know the answer was five even before the choices were read out.
I took the opportunity to lean into Patty and ask, “You told me Bobbie killed a man. Can you tell me more about that?”
She blushed, full-on fire engine red. “Oh gosh. I was just being dramatic. I should never have said that.”
“But you did say it. What did you mean?”
“Nothing. I was being unkind.”
“Where were you Thursday night?”
