Skeleton Dance

Chapter 3

* * * *

'All right, then, how does this one sound?” Julie said, talking through a ballpoint pen clenched like a pirate's dagger between her teeth. “It's just a few miles from Piltdown.” She smoothed the copy of “Holiday Rentals in Southeast England” that lay open on her lap, took the pen from her mouth, circled an entry, and read aloud.

''Huffield Manor. Surrounded by flagstone terraces and overlooking its own six acres of wooded hillside near the handsome medieval village of Horsted Keynes, this beguiling eighteenth-century stone priory has been converted to a luxurious six-room manor house, completely renovated in 1997. Original beamed ceilings throughout. Large, marble-tiled entry hall with sweeping oak staircase and oak-balustraded minstrel gallery—’”

Gideon looked up from the fresh-from-the-printer sheets that were spread over his own lap. “Hey, hold it, I think you're getting confused. I get half-pay while I'm on sabbatical, not double-pay. What does this place rent for?'

'I haven't gotten to that yet. Ummm . . . . yikes, scratch that!” She went back to turning pages while Gideon returned to his own reading. “Okay, here's one. ‘Cozy stone cottage, a rustic, romantic little charmer . . .’”

'That sounds more like it,” Gideon said.

They had been sitting in their living room for an hour, unwinding over wine and cheese, listening to Mozart, and savoring the view that ran from Puget Sound and the pearly Seattle skyline a few miles to the east, to cozy Eagle Harbor closer at hand, where one of the big, green-and-white ferries from the city was amiably lumbering up to settle against the Bainbridge Island ferry dock, only two blocks away from where they sat and no more than a five-minute walk. The easy access to downtown Seattle—in effect, one could walk to it from semi-rural Bainbridge —was one of the big selling points of their recently purchased house, set higgledy-piggledy with its neighbors on the hillside above the dock.

The next ferry would be leaving at 5:10 and they planned to be on it for a Friday night dinner with friends and then a Mariner game at the new ballpark. In the meantime Gideon browsed through the day's output on the book he was working on and Julie fine-tuned their upcoming travel schedule—-a four-week jaunt to Germany's Neander Valley, to Oxford and Sussex in England, and to the Dordogne in France, in that order, scheduled to begin the following week. The itinerary had been determined by Gideon's research needs. Julie, a supervisory park ranger at Olympic National Park's administrative headquarters in Port Angeles, would be visiting one or two parks while they were overseas, but was basically going along, as she freely put it, for the ride, and to provide much-needed “logistical support” for the notoriously absent-minded Gideon.

'’ . . . situated in a small, rural village on the banks of the Ouse, within easy driving distance of Sheffield Park, Cuckfield, Pilt Down, etc. Sitting room with river view, one bedroom, one bath, small but modern kitchen with fridge . . .'” She stopped reading and waved the brochure at him. “Hello? Anybody there?'

'Hm? Oh, sorry. Sure, that sounds fine.'

'What sounds fine?'

He cleared his throat. “What you said.'

She put down the brochure. “What are you working on, anyway—the book?

The Book. Bones to Pick: Wrong Turns, Dead Ends, and Popular Misconceptions in the Study of Humankind. It had grown out of a public lecture he'd given a year earlier at the university, part of a survey-of-the-sciences extension series. His presentation, “Error, Gullibility, and Self-Deception in the Social Sciences,” had been attended by Lester Rizzo, the executive editor of Javelin Press, who had approached Gideon afterward to ask if he would be interested in expanding the subject and turning it into a book for publication under Javelin's “Frontiers of Science” imprint.

Gideon had agreed, partly because he was flattered at the idea of joining the roster of distinguished scientists who had already contributed to the series, partly because he was looking for something different to do on his upcoming sabbatical, and partly because almost anything that was still ten months away from doing was likely to seem like a pretty do-able idea, whatever it was. The $15,000 advance—ready money, up front; a startlingly original concept to anyone accustomed to writing for the academic presses—hadn't hurt either. Even Lester's first editorial suggestion—the first of many ('You're writing for the masses here. What do you say we dumb down the title a little?') —hadn't put him seriously off; surely Lester knew more about selling books than he did. So stifling his natural reservations, he'd gone along with it, although not as far as Lester would have liked (Bungles, Blunders, and Bloopers). Hence Bones to Pick, a reasonable compromise.

He nodded, filling their glasses from the bottle of Merlot. “Yeah, the book. I've been stuck on the same section for two days. I can't figure out how to get into it.'

'What section is it?'

'You want Lester's title or mine?'

'Yours.'

''The Case of the Neologistically Prolix Hyperboreans.'” He smiled. “What do you think?'

She made a face. “Well, to tell the truth . . .'

'Julie, it's meant to be amusing, for Christ's sake.'

'Oh. And Lester's version?'

''The Myth of the Eskimos’ Two Dozen Words for Snow,'” he said testily. “Something like that.” He cut a few more slices from the loaf of French bread, loading them with wedges of Gorgonzola, and arranging them on the plate.

'Well, don't get mad, but I have to admit that I like Lester's version better. “ Not,” she added quickly, “that it's as amusing as yours, of course, but—hey, wait a minute—the myth of the Eskimos’ two dozen words for snow? You mean they don't have them? Separate words for dry snow, and wet snow, and slushy snow—'

'Not two dozen, not fifty, not nine, not forty-eight, and not two hundred and two—each of which has been reported by ‘authorities,’ most of whom probably know as much Eskimo as I do.'