Scrabble Philosophy

Dax’s fist clenches. Lorraine can’t tell what he’s about to do next. But I can. I’ve seen it play out so many times since Lorraine lost me up here years ago when the house was still new and the ceiling fan first went up. The first thing I noticed when I got lost was that I could see Dax and Lorraine from a different angle. Dax doesn’t look as tall from this point of view as he did from Lorraine’s ear.

Lorraine doesn’t notice the clenched fist. She never does. He’s never thrown it, so why would she? Dax’s fist clenches and unclenches, though, his jaw tightening then loosening. His eyes are feral but Lorraine doesn’t see this. She looks down. I look down. Dax looks away. Lorraine doesn’t see the phone light up in Dax’s front pocket. Dax doesn’t see the tear roll down Lorraine’s cheek. Instead, Dax storms into the washroom - his great retreat - and Lorraine shuffles out the door to work.

I wonder if they realize how often they do this.

By the time Dax comes back into the kitchen, he is freshly showered and smiling at his phone. I watch him press the voice-to-text button and speak into the machine, “Hey, Babe. House is free. See you soon.”

The phone buzzes. Dax smiles before putting it down on the kitchen table to do the small mountain of dishes he and Lorraine had been fighting about in the first place. Lorraine will be pleased. Especially since she won’t know he didn’t do the dishes for her.

I can barely make anything on the phone out from here but after years of this routine, I’ve gotten better at learning to pair the words Dax says into the microphone with the symbols that pop up on the screen. As a result, I read the text message reply before he does. Not that he needs to rush to see it. The response is always the same:

“Be there soon, handsome!”

In a way, I’m grateful Lorraine lost me up here when they first moved in. She was hanging this pesky ceiling fan I'm on. Her shoulder shifted up at just the right angle and nudged me out of her ear lobe. For the first few days, she searched for me frantically. But by the second week, Dax was telling her to forget about me and I could tell she was trying to, also.

Yes, I'm grateful to be lost.

Not because I don’t love Lorraine.

Because from the place she lost me, I can see the truth. In a way, I love her more from this angle. Yes, I miss the warmth of her ear, the smell of her shampoo… I miss the way her voice sounds from beside her mouth, like a lullaby, or the way she would tuck me into her jewelry box at night so carefully. I miss Lorraine. But from up here, I get to see her in a whole new light. I get to watch the twitch of her mouth when she’s frustrated or the tug of her now-naked ear when she’s nervous. I get to see her smile when she’s all alone.

The thing is, I know she misses me too. Even after all these years, she’s never replaced me.

When the door opens, I know it isn’t Lorraine who enters. A different shampoo wafts in. When I look down again Dax and a sleek auburn bob are on the kitchen table below me.

I close my eyes. I’ve seen this one before.

Instead, I inhale the dust of the ceiling fan. Humans don’t like dust. I’ve been waiting for Dax or Lorraine to come up here, but they never have. Lorraine tries but there’s just so much dust she never gets up here before she’s too exhausted to tackle the ladder.

I love Lorraine, but with Dax and the auburn bob making a mess all over the kitchen table, I can’t help but hate Lorraine a little right now.

I know she doesn’t see things from this point of view, but I wish she would. Surely it can’t be that hard. Maybe if she stood up taller, she would have a better vantage point. I don’t know how humans work, though. Maybe I just wish she would come up and get me. She would see what I do and we could leave. I would even be OK with staying on the ceiling fan, so long as she brought it with her.

Lorraine will never leave, though. I hear her talk about it on her phone to her best friend, Josie.

The auburn bob on the table.

Lorraine says that she’s too old to start over, that besides no one would love her for all her flaws like Dax did. “Hell,” she says, “I wouldn’t even put up with half of my shit.”

I don’t know what shit Lorraine is talking about. I just know that when she and Dax fight he yells about her being too sensitive or insecure.

Is that what shit means?

I don’t like Dax but I also wish Lorraine wasn’t so insecure most days too. If she was a little stronger, maybe she would have left by now. But then why is Josie still around when Dax tells her the same thing?

Even from up here, it’s hard to tell who exactly the problem is. Dax for saying these things, the girls for believing him, Lorraine for staying, Josie for betraying Lorraine…

I am happy to be an earring and not a human.

When Lorraine comes home from work, Josie is gone and Dax is asleep. I watch Lorraine as she wanders around the kitchen, walking slowly like she’s waiting for each step to hurt her. Her finger traces invisible images in the no-longer-existent dust in confusion. She begins to stack the dishes in the cupboard and put away the dish rack. I don’t hear her but I can see her back shaking and I wonder if Lorraine is crying again.

When Lorraine is alone she either cries a lot or smiles a lot. She doesn’t do either when Dax is around, though. Or if she does, she always tries to hide it away. I don’t know why she does that. Maybe Dax would wipe Lorraine’s tears or like Lorraine’s smile.

Thinking back to the days before I was lost, though, I can’t remember either of those things happening often. Maybe at the beginning, or on their wedding day, but Dax was never really the kind for sentimental things.

Most of the romance I learned about was through the romance movies Lorraine would watch in the middle of the night. Even those aren’t real romance, though. I know because Lorraine would say alone in the dark, over and over again like a mantra, “This is so stupid. These things don’t happen in real life. I’m never going to have this. This isn’t real. Stop doing this to yourself, Lorraine.”

Every few nights, though, she would slink into the living room and turn the TV on with the sound off. Bright faces with gooey eyes and soft smiles zoomed in and out on the screen, subtitles blinking in romantic gestures neither Lorraine nor I had ever seen in real life.

Tonight is one of those nights. After Lorraine puts the dishes away, she curls up into a ball on the couch. This time, she’s watching a romantic comedy about a dinner party. I can tell because even though there are no words, everyone on the screen is laughing and drinking in a warm kitchen. The fake people look happy. I watch Lorraine’s face soak it up before something breaks. She covers her face and this time, she can barely keep in the sobs.

Dax calls out, “Can you turn down your movie? I’m trying to sleep.”

Lorraine folds her cries back into herself. She falls asleep on the couch before the credits roll. All night, the living room is washed in the blue screen of an empty TV box.

By the time Dax rolls into the living room, the TV is off and Lorraine is brewing a pot of coffee. The house is flooded with the warm scent of roasted beans. Lorraine smiles like one of the women on the screen from the night before. She leans in to peck Dax on the cheek before fetching the cream from the fridge. Before he has a chance to rub his eyes fully open, Lorraine chirps up, “Do you like Scrabble?”

Dax looks at Lorraine, as confused as I am. He asks between yawns, “What? Scrabble?”

Dax stretches, “Sure, I like Scrabble. Who doesn’t?”

Lorraine smiles as she fashions his coffee for him. She beams, “Right? I used to love Scrabble in university. Josie and I used to get drunk and play it on our bedroom floor on Thursday nights. We were the Scrabble girls. We used to get real competitive too. We even kept a spreadsheet of scores over the years.”

Lorraine laughs, “Josie always said you can tell a lot about a person by the words they play in Scrabble.”

Dax sips his coffee and eyes Lorraine with suspicion, “Sure… what are you getting at Lorraine? It’s too early for this.”

Lorraine begins making her own mug of tea, “Well, I was watching this movie, and… I don’t know. I thought it’d be nice to invite Josie and Allan over for drinks and Scrabble. Like a grown-up version of the good old days. We could have a charcuterie board, wine, the whole bit. I’d put it together. You wouldn’t have to do anything but be there.”

Even I can hear the pleading in Lorraine’s voice. She’s smiling but it’s strained. As though every hope she has left is riding on this Scrabble night.

Dax puts his coffee down. He rolls his eyes, “OK.”

Lorraine stirs her tea one last time before abandoning it on the kitchen table for work.

It’s Josie who brings the old spreadsheet to the dinner party.

Lorraine barely looks at it. Josie keeps trying to laugh over how many times Lorraine’s name is highlighted in green. She leans on Lorraine, laughing, a glass of red wine swishing precariously close to the edge. Josie teases, “You were always such a nerd.”

Dax starts laughing. Lorraine rolls her eyes and sets the Scrabble board out. Allan moves the charcuterie board out of the way and kisses Josie's head. Josie pours more wine for everyone.

Lorraine goes to open a notes app on her phone to keep score. Josie puts a freshly printed, blank spreadsheet on the table. She smiles, "I thought we could start a new binder."

I wonder if Lorraine hears the sound of raising stakes, too.

Everyone is silent, smiling, focused on the objective at hand. It's just like Lorraine's movie.

Each tile is slowly, strategically placed. Allan is last and plays silly words to try and lighten the mood. Words like, "dick," "balls," "gooch." Everyone is too focused to really laugh. They do, anyway, before squinting at their tiles again.

Dax is ahead of Allan but just barely. Some of Dax's words are decent but they're all over the board, always a letter short of a triple or double-word score. Josie teases, "Don't you have an 's' or a 'y' or something?"

"Wouldn't I play it if I did?"

Josie takes a sip of her drink. She's watching Lorraine watch her own set of tiles. Josie and Lorraine are neck and neck, Lorraine just 10 points ahead. That changes when Lorraine clears her board with the word, "suspects."

Josie's face turns bright red. Dax doesn't look up from his tiles but manages a "Good job, babe."

Allan toasts Lorraine's brilliance and she laughs. Dax scoffs. Josie passes the bag of tiles over to Lorraine to pick out 7 new letters. Lorraine updates the spreadsheet.

Allan plays, "boob."

When Josie's turn comes, there's something different about how she plays. No longer is she playing long, English degree-level words. Instead, she plays two-, three-letter words, each time covering up a double-word, triple-word, or double-letter square. By the end of the game, Josie had covered all the best spots up with words like, "cat," "its," "bed."

I could see Lorraine getting frustrated as she tried to play her tiles strategically according to the quality of the word, eyes scanning for an optimal place on the board right before Josie would take it with, "bad."

Josie wasn't trying to catch up, anymore. Lorraine was too ahead for that. Josie was just trying to stop Lorraine from having fun.

Could Lorraine tell?

I want to vault myself off the ceiling fan and whisper in Lorraine's ear. I want to tell her to run away, to find new friends, to find a new Dax. I want to tell her to stop trying to play honestly with dishonest people.

I watch Lorraine win. Allan toasts her again but it doesn't have the same verve. Lorraine sighs, smiles, laughs. I watch her mentally move on. She shrugs, "Well, Josie. What does Scrabble Philosophy reveal?"

Josie's face goes white.

Lorraine laughs, "You remembered the spreadsheet but not Scrabble Philosophy? What kind of Scrabble girl are you?"

Lorraine leans over the table to study the words. She lingers over one of the few substantial words on Josie's board, "shame."

Lorraine blinks and instead laughs at the word, "na."

Lorraine doesn't laugh when she looks over at Dax's words, though.

It's a collection, scattered across the board in plain sight: sex, hate, fuck, lie, red...

Lorraine stares at Josie's hair.

The last word stands out as though covered in radium.

Lorraine takes the time to say this one out loud. She mulls over the word slowly, as if resisting its full weight, "Affair."

No one speaks.

Allan chuckles nervously, "What a dirty bunch you are!"

Lorraine looks down at her own words. Only one stands out, though...

"Gone."

Later that night, Lorraine does something I've never seen her do before. She doesn't creep into the living room or turn on a movie. Lorraine pulls Dax's phone out of her bathrobe pocket and crouches by the couch as if bracing herself for impact.

When Lorraine leaves that night, she doesn't bring me with her.

But I'm OK with that.

The next time I see Lorraine, there's no longer snow outside. Josie doesn't come by anymore. There is always a mountain of dishes. I don't think Dax notices them, though.

There is no Dax there when Lorraine comes by to get the rest of her things. I watch her place every trinket from before we knew Dax in boxes and leave behind the rest. She only takes an hour.

Her arms are full of forgotten belongings, the bits of herself from before. She lingers at the door, anyway. For a moment I swear she recognizes me, but it's just the ceiling fan, "Oh!" Lorraine closes her eyes.

"My dad's wedding gift. Oh, what would he think of all this."

She puts the boxes down and grabs the ladder and toolbox from the hallway closet. Lorraine begins to unscrew the fan. The dust kicks up. I'm scared she might miss me.

"You!"

The light in Lorraine's voice is one I haven't heard in so long, I want to hop into the palm of her hand. I wait for her to pluck me up between her fingers. She blows the dust off me and rubs me in her soft, cotton shirt before tucking me snugly into her warm skin. I inhale her shampoo.

That night, we watch a romantic comedy together with the sound on. Lorraine smiles the whole time, right up until the very end of the rolling credits.