The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault

went into his office and said, ‘Do you
really
want me to answer some pervert’s letter about a word like “poontang”?’”
    “You said that to
Dan?”
    “Why not? It’s not exactly appropriate for me to be answering that sort of thing. Especially now that we’ve got you around. At least
you
might enjoy researching something like that.”
    “Maybe too much,” I admitted.
    “Anyway. Dan looks at me sort of funny and says—get this—‘I’m sorry, is it a slang term? I’m not familiar with it.’”
    I shook my head. “Whoa.”
    “I know. So I tell him what ‘poontang’ is—”
    “Hold on. How exactly did you say it?”
    “Well, I just said ‘female reproductive organ.’”
    “Nice.”
    “And he turns red and says, ‘Give me the letter. Sorry. I’ll handle this.’ Then he grabs the letter from me and goes back to his citations.”
    “Poor Dan,” I said. “Some aspects of this job are a little too sleazy for someone like him.”
    “Yeah. But what kind of guy goes his whole life without knowing what ‘poontang’ is?”
    “Maybe a guy who spends his whole life with his head in a bunch of dictionaries?”
    She smiled her sideways smile. “He is a gentleman, though. There’s just something old-fashioned and honorable about him.”
    “Yeah,” I agreed. “With the pale face, and the graying black hair, and the long, thin body … he kind of reminds me of an aging vampire who never really had any bite.”
    “A vampire? I wouldn’t say so. Vampires don’t have beards, for one.”
    “Well, that’s why I said an
aging
vampire. I mean, he has the look of a dapper old Dracula who never had the heart to suck anyone’s blood.”
    “You’ve given this a great deal of thought, I can see,” Mona said, yawning. “Have you ever actually read
Dracula?”
    “No,” I admitted. “You?”
    “About two thirds of it, then I stopped,” Mona said, looking bored. “It’s no
Frankenstein.”
    “Should we get back to work?” I asked.
    “Maybe,” Mona said, and sighed. She slumped in her chair and let her arms hang down at her sides.
    “Someone’s a little tipsy,” I teased.
    “Just like someone else wanted,” she retorted in a sing-song voice that mimicked mine.
    We dragged ourselves back onto the couch. Mona scrunched into a little ball and ruffled through her citations at a much slower pace than before.
    “You can’t leave,” she said firmly, “till we find something.”
    “But we don’t know for sure if there’s anything else.”
    “I’m just sayin’.” She was slurring just a bit.
    I looked through citations for
auxotroph, baby oil
, and
access time
. Nothing. When I looked up at Mona again, her eyes were closed.
    “Wake up, Mona,” I called to her. “It’s still early.”
    “I don’t know about you,” she said, without opening her eyes, “but this job takes a lot out of me somehow. By the end of the week, I just crash. I get so tired.”
    “I try to get some sleep at my desk.”
    “Mmm. I’ve noticed.”
    “Mona?”
    “Yes?”
    “Why is this
Teaglass
stuff so important to you? I mean, for real.”
    “Aw, shit, Billy,” she sighed. She nestled her head against the back of the couch.
    “C’mon,” I prodded. “I really want to know.”
    “I just want to be in on it, that’s all. I want to be a
real
member of this exclusive little dictionary club. Not just one of the
babies.”
    “I think everyone there already really respects you.”
    “Give me a break. You have no idea.”
    “No idea
what?”
    Mona snuggled her head deeper into the couch cushion.
    “These are hard questions,” she murmured. “Maybe you should ask me on Monday.”
    “Never mind,” I said.
    Mona dozed off and I kept flipping through the citations. Soon she was breathing loudly in her sleep, snoring almost, and the sound of it nearly put me to sleep as well. I almost missed it when a
Broken Teaglass
cit fluttered by in my fingers:

advantaged
    How did I get here? Even the stories