14

"Look, Chad," Diane said, trying to be as blunt as possible. "I know you're Sam's grandson but you can't always be coming around bothering us. I heard you even went to the cafeteria last week and started going behind the counter and eating the different dishes with a silver ladle?"

"No," Chad said, "It was a gold ladle."

"Pfft," Diane said, "That's not the point! The point is I have had it up to here with you looking over my shoulder ,second-guessing every move I make. Take last week, for instance."

Diane remembered it as though it had happened five minutes ago instead of a week. At a mahogany table, several wonky but devoted members of the Sam Loyd Appreciation Society dealt with business in a typically dull meeting setting.

"Is there any old business?" Diane had asked. There was silence.

"Is there any new business?" More silence. "Then I move we adjourn to---"

"No, wait!" A girl of twenty stood up.

"State your name for the record," said Diane.

"Merry Conrad," Merry said. "We want to license the image of Sam Loyd for our homecoming dance."

Diane blinked. "Are you sure?" Her crisply ironed suit shone in the sunlight, with corrugated buttons glinting.

"Well, yes, I'm sure," said Merry. "Why, do you think only old people love Sam Loyd?"

Diane winced. In trying to get her goat, the girl had succeeded. "Um," said Diane, "Well, you're right, Merry. Young people love Loyd just as much as old people. But if you wouldn't mind satisfying my curiosity," she leaned forward, "How did you even hear about Loyd in the first place?"

"He's in this one Playstation game my brother plays all the time," Merry said. "There's a whole little room, the Sam Loyd room. It's not just the four-by-four grid puzzle either. I knew about that one anyway. I had a plastic four-by-four when I was ten years old. If you guys love Loyd so much you really need to check out this game, Exact Wizard Star Four."

"Herman, have you ever-"

An old man with a bolo tie and a spotty, shorn head made a lip expression. "Can't say as I have."

A slightly younger man slitted his eyes and leaned forward. "You know, Diane, these games writers, I don't suppose THEY ever talked to us about licensing?"

And Merry broke in. "Actually, "I'm a little confused about that. Isn't Loyd in the public domain by now? How long-"

"Would you like some coffee?" Diane interrupted, standing abruptly. "Time for a break, don't you think?"

Merry blinked. It was frustrating and weird, but she didn't fight, not now, because she knew by this point pretty much how they operated, how they behaved. In order to get a slot on the agenda to try to get licensing of Loyd for the dance, she had had to be present for the entire meeting which lasted four hours a day for three days.

In that time, a variety of strange people had passed through the board room doors for an audience with Diane, the president, Herman the advisor and Chip the attorney. When they took a break, there was no point trying to get them to talk about society business. Breaks were a big deal to them, and they were now drinking coffee and doing crossword puzzles, mazes, find-a-words, in fact any type of puzzle not invented by Sam Loyd. They toyed idly with physical constructions such as the Chinese finger puzzle and even certain Fisher-Price creations which could only nominally be considered puzzles in the first place.

Merry froze. She was afraid to leave her seat for fear that the president would go on to another action item in her absence and she would have missed her chance and would be obliged to wait the entire three days before it was her turn again. So she sat still as a board for the whole fifteen-minute break.

"Wham!"

Finally she heard Diane Doolittle bang her gavel. Finally!

"God!" said Merry out loud. "The way you people go about things is NUTS!"

Diane got a look of rage. "You're out of line, young lady!"

Merry smiled on the inside - she had obviously touched a nerve by calling Diane old.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Merry said. "Can I please ask my question now?"

"Yes," said Diane," You may."

"Isn't Loyd in the public domain by now? I really don't see why I have to pay-"

The boardroom door slammed open and a shambling wreck of a man came in. He had longer hair on one side of his head than the other and uneven strands of string as though he dwelt on the borders of Rasta youth culture, or didn't but wished he did. His clothes were green, red and black, and around his neck he wore a knitted bag of green, red and yellow.

"Sorry I'm late," he said.

It was Sam Loyd III, the hanger-on and pest. He went by the name Chad, which Merry thought was pretty strange because he was seemingly obsessed with Sam Loyd Sr. and actually had the opportunity to cement that obsession by being Loyd's grandson - yet he chose not to belabor that connection even further by using his grandfather's name.

"I got caught in traffic," he said, and to Merry he was a pathetic figure. He wore a tie and a black jacket, but it was asymmetrical, borne open and his dirty T-shirt for "Anime Fest 1996" was visible in all its disgusting glory. He didn't have a seat on the board, he just seemed to show up whether or not he was welcome. He carried a messy, overflowing red plastic binder, pages of which almost fluttered to the ground, some of which were printed on blueprint-stock and bore his own architectural drawings for a proposed Loyd museum.

"Just sit down, Chad," said Diane. "We're in the middle of something."

Chad sat, and Merry cleared her throat.

"You know, I'm just going to come right out and say- I'm getting frustrated," Merry said.

Diane nodded her head and seemed at the very least to genuinely understand the sick humor in the situation.

"I know, dear. I'm sorry. Go ahead and tell us anything you want and I promise no more interruptions."

Merry stood and walked around the table handing out a flier with a sketch showing teenagers dancing in a gymnasium devoted to the life of Sam Loyd. All around on the walls were posters of Sam Loyd.

"So," Merry said, "Here is what I have in mind. We want to have a Loyd ballroom. The theme of the dance will be, 'The memories and the magic.'"

"How original," said Chip, the lawyer.

Merry looked at him, unsure how to take his remark. "'The memories' is in reference to the many newspapers we remember for carrying Loyd's syndicated puzzles during the years of 1897 to 1913."

Diane nodded.

"The magic refer to Loyd's own Magic Box, one of the most breathtaking puzzles ever created. There are only six magic boxes in existence. But," Merry smiled, "I'm sure I don't have to tell you that."

"You don't have to tell ME that," piped up Chad Loyd unbidden. "You know that when I was a little boy we would go over to my grandparents' house for a visit and my grandpa showed me an original magic box? I actually got to touch a magic box!"

Gee, thought Merry, it must not be true what they say about the magic box improving the life of anyone who comes in contact with one. She blew air and decided what the hell, she wasn't afraid of Chad, so she would just say what she was thinking.

"Gee, Chad," she said, "Is it true, what they say, anyone who gets ahold of one of those boxes, their dreams come true and they're happy and successful from then on?"

If there was one thing that bound together Diane, Herman and Chip: they knew their Loyd. They burst out laughing at the top of their lungs. Chip looked mortally wounded and fell silent for the remainder of the meeting.

How can you be like that, Chad asked Merry silently.

"Over the public address system," Merry continued, "Sam Loyd's composition Cobra. One of his game pieces."

Herman, the advisor, who actually had a master's degree in Sam Loyd, raised his eyebrows. He gave a respectful whistle. "What in the world kind of high school IS this, miss Conrad?"

"A darn special one, by the sound of it," added Chip the attorney with an ingratiating smile right into Merry's bubble of personal space. Merry smiled back but she frowned on the inside.

"Oh!" she said. "God, I knew I was forgetting--- you just reminded me. Licensing. Can you please tell me once and for all, isn't Sam Loyd in the public domain by now?"

The attorney stood to speak.

Pompous, Merry thought.

"Well, if I may, I'll address that. Now you see, Sam Loyd -"

The attorney was interrupted by the doorbell. Did the conference room even HAVE a doorbell?

"Just, um, let me see who that is," said Diane. She stood up and turned the gold doorknob and damned if it wasn't Wolfgang Puck, the chef, in his pith helmet and the light blue shirt of the U.S.P.S.

"Wolfie!" said Diane. "Why... why... I can hardly believe my own eyes! After all these years!"

"Can't stay long," Puck said, "But I need someone to sign for a package please."

"Are you delivering mail now?" Diane asked.

"Yeah," said Puck, "just, you know, anything to make a little extra money. Anselma just had another baby and ---"

"Gee," Diane said, "I didn't know you were married to someone called Anselma."

Puck looked embarrassed. "Shhhh ... don't tell my wife."