Pun Detectives and the Case of the Missing Music! (Part 12)

“Yeah,” I said. I stood up straight, sure of myself for once. “Yeah, you’re completely right.”

“I am? I mean, yeah, duh, of course I am.”

“Lily’s been nothing but a pain in my neck. Everything about her is the epitome of annoying. I don’t know how I never noticed it till now. You know, she shredded up my favorite cactus book this very morning without so much as a second thought. That thing was my bible. It’s basically priceless, and it’s out of print too. How am I ever supposed to find a new one? And how am I supposed to take care of my cacti now, huh?”

My blood was on the boil.

“And then basically she goes and tells me to my face how lame I am.” It was a bit of an exaggeration, sure. I mean, all she really did was finally let slip that she was aware how klutzy I usually get around girls. Actually, it was more just an insinuation or a suggestion. But it was the thought that counted, and Lily’s definitely weren’t in the right place. “I mean, I know I’m a loser, but she didn’t have to say it. Come on!”

It was heating up faster.

“And then there’s all of this. I’m talking about right here, right now. She could’ve been here to help me deal with you and your attitude if she wasn’t taking so stupidly long to get her work done. I mean, this is just ridiculous.”

By this point, I was boiled over. There was no stopping me now.

“Could you quit it? I don’t need to hear any of—”

“No. Cause finally. Finally I get it. Finally I understand my own feelings. Lily Lilac can take a rotten hike. ‘Everything about her’ and ‘Everything I can’t stand about her’ are the same exact categories. A single overlapping venn diagram. Her uncanny face and how it barely moves when she talks and how you can never tell what she’s thinking. How she always speaks in monotone and practically whispers all the time. Her expression. That’s right. ‘Expression.’ Singular. Because she only ever makes one. She practically can’t emote. And then there's her laugh. Sounds about as nice as cramming a buzz saw into a garbage disposal and turning both on. And who could forget how she keeps offering me popsicles even though it’s freezing outside? And everything else about her too. I can’t stand it. Not a single bit. Not any of it. But what I can’t stand more than anything else, more than everything else combined, what not even a single shred of me has any patience for anymore, is the way she just up and appears out of nowhere all the time, sneaking up behind you without so much as a sound, and when you turn around, there she is!”

I turned around.

There she was.

A silence that weighed a thousand pounds hung in the air.

She was gripping her apron tight with both hands, creasing deep folds into its usually smooth surface. She had her head dropped, just hanging there, so I couldn’t make out her face.

I didn’t say a word. Couldn’t say a word. If she had gotten mad, crossed her arms, raised her voice — done anything — well, then I could have doubled down, stood my ground, gotten as mad as mad could be and stoked the flames and told her off to her face. But the way she looked, dejected, defeated… there was nothing I could say to that.

I just stared at her for what felt like a lifetime, and the longer I did, the more her face curdled into an expression that I had never seen before. I don’t know how, but I could tell. I could just tell, even though I could barely see her for her hair and headdress covering her downturned face. It was like she couldn’t stand to look me in the eyes anymore. Light caught in the gleam of her downturned eyes. I could see that too. They shone like glass marbles. They were fake after all. All of her was. She was a robot.

“B-Boss…” It was like she had something stuck in her throat that she couldn’t swallow or spit back up, and so instead, that was all she could say, and she just kept saying it over and over again. “Boss… Boss… Boss…”

Everything was still. Time was frozen, unmoving, waiting forever for something that would never happen. The single lightbulb crackled and died. And then she was past me. I could feel it. Her shoulder just missing mine as she fled in the dark.

When the light hissed back to life, Lily was gone.

#

That I might have followed after her was completely out of the question.

That I might have called out to stop her was completely out of the question.

That I might have even turned around in time just to see the last flutter of her apron or the final footfalls of her black shoes was completely out of the question.

I was rooted where I stood, like a tree growing out of the floorboards. No, I was like the floorboards themselves. After all, I was Wallace Wade, BORED — just another board among the rest, unmoving. Like I had no legs with which to give chase and no voice with which to speak.

That being the case, I understood how things were. Everything was wrong and nothing would ever be right again. Was it my fault?

It was stupid. I was stupid. Why was I thinking that? I didn’t know. Didn’t I just finish going on and on about how much I couldn't stand Lily? Then why did I feel this way? I didn’t understand what any of my thoughts meant, but somehow I knew they were all totally stupid. Stupidest of all, I couldn’t help but think of what I had said to Lily before, back when I talked to her on the phone. She was questioning her half of the violin players as fast as she could. She apologized for not being faster. I told her not to sweat it. I had no idea whether robots even could sweat. Even now, I still didn’t know.

Her downturned eyes were shining.

I still didn’t know whether robots could sweat.

But that was the day I learned they could cry.

The end of Pun Detectives and the Case of the Missing Music (Part 12)!
To be continued in Part 13!