The Unwritten King

1. Diary of a Starving Artist

Nicholas was not a naturally quiet person, but very few knew this, and he was not one of them.

"Say, Nick, have you always been so shy?" prodded Ava Dubois, editorial director at the Seattle branch of Will & Williamson Publications, betraying an interest in what he had to say that she only ever carried under a specific set of conditions.

Speak-EZ Bar and Lounge, five P.M., company of twelve. The bar bore none of the mystery or class its name implied, brimming with wrinkled white collars and the stale scent of dwindling deodorant and unfulfillment. Red pleather peeled from the seats, the dim lighting was more an effect of age than aesthetics, and the jukebox in the corner – entirely the wrong time period – only had one working song. Every ten or fifteen minutes, a new patron would rise with a quiet exerted groan to insert a coin, and "Sweet Georgia Brown" would whistle from the speakers.

There was a slight tilt to every table. The largest seated six, which gave rise to an inevitable divide on the third Friday of every month when Floor Seven gathered for happy hour. One table seated the employees with 401(k)s. The other, those they invited for politeness's sake, the way the older kids on the playground had allowed Nicholas to play a minor role in their games when he was young and loud enough to ask.

At his right sat the other editorial assistants, Conrad and Jane, leaning so close they looked like they were kissing from the right angle. Sometimes they were, and very noisily. To his left was Ken the intern, who did not seem to realize it was unusual to bring your best friend to an office outing as an intern, and said best friend, Connor. Nicholas had a feeling Connor knew but came anyway, because he was clearly in love with Ken. Then there was Ava, the only person at the table above the age of twenty-five. Nicholas couldn't place why she sat with them instead of pulling up a chair at the 401(k) table, except that she seemed to enjoy nosing into the lives of people young enough to be her children and looking down her long, narrow nose at their decisions. Probably because she didn't have any children of her own.

"Yes," Nicholas said, concise. She raised her beer and watched him over the misty glass, waiting for more. When she lowered it, there was pink all around the rim and a splotch of color missing from her pursed lips. Her brow took on a determined crease. He capitalized on her attention. "Do you remember that draft you told me you'd look over a while back? Do you have any notes for–"

Her focus shifted to Ken the intern with impressive speed. She said, like she'd been speaking with them all along, "And have you heard about the man from sales who got fired for disorderly conduct? Mary told me he faked partial paralysis so he could 'trip and fall' and peep under women's skirts several times a day. Surely there are better ways!"

Nicholas sighed.

"Legend," whispered Ken. Connor stepped on his foot. Ava didn't pick up on the interaction. Nicholas tended to catch things others did not; it came with the territory of being quiet, which came with the territory of being ignored.

He had lost his voice in much the same way he had lost his ability to walk for a short, blurry stretch when he was seven, after spending so many weeks halfway unconscious that his legs forgot their job. In a similar vein, and around the same time, those twin folds of tissue in his larynx had grown feeble. A voice had little use with no one around to listen. With help, his legs had remembered. Reticence, though, was a learned response, one he learned so well he assumed he'd always had it.

He devoted his memories of the first seven years of his life to his parents – their faces, their hands, their voices and how they lilted with inflections and accents – in a stubborn refusal to forget them. He didn't mind forgetting everything else. The version of him that spoke loudly and at length was as much a stranger to himself as to the coworkers at the table.