Fellow Travelers

by Thomas Mallon

They were both still afraid of this conversation, and knowing that Fuller could outlast her in any duel of silences, Mary got up to file a handful of Bricker clippings from the European press. “I suppose,” she said at last, “Tim was imagining how he’d like to sit at that desk every day, be at your beck and call.” She nodded to Miss Lightfoot’s empty station. “He’d be excellent,” replied Fuller. “Works very hard, and has his race’s gift of gab when he’s working on paper. The stammer disappears then, just as it does when he’s drunk or—I’m sure—angry, though that I’ve never seen. His handwriting is even neater than Miss Lightfoot’s.” “Oh, you’d see him angry if he worked at that desk.” Mary kept filing as she spoke. “How do you think he’d feel taking your calls, and hearing your conversations?” Fuller said nothing, but still would not go back inside his office. Mary knew that he wanted to make her work even harder at this, force her to stick the knife farther in, get her—where McLeod had failed—to make the needle jump. “Wouldn’t sooner rather than later hurt him less?” she asked. “Couldn’t you let him down easily? Give him up for Lent?” Fuller pushed his hair above his forehead, making his ashless, marble brow fully visible. He returned to his office, declaring curtly, “I’m not Catholic, Miss Johnson.”