Mr. W and I were having a conversation at 9:30p last nite in which he’d used the word “enigma” or “enigmatic.” It stirred something in the back of my head. I once knew and loved another word that meant “enigmatic”, but I could not remember the word now. “It’s an SAT word,” I said hopefully to Mr. W.
He laughed at me. “Then I definitely wouldn’t know it,” he said.
“Yes you would! It’s not an uncommon word, but it’s not often used. The definition is ‘understood only to a select few’.” He threw a few words out there that weren’t it. I said I THOUGHT it started with the letter “C”. Conundrum? No. I jumped online and started running words for synonyms. “Puzzle.” No. “Mystery.” No. He finally kicked me off the laptop so he could work on our China photos. (There are THOUSANDS of those.) Now thoroughly obsessed, I grabbed 2 dictionaries and a thesaurus. Those gave me the same lame synonyms. Puzzle. Mystery. I started flipping through the Cs in the dictionary. C-E? C-H-E?

I started calling people. Childhood friend Vicky, her younger sister Karen, and Dwaine all went to my high school. I know it was a high school word. All three did not pick up their cell phones. I called James because hey, the guy did not get a free ride through college for being stupid. He didn’t pick up. I was now thoroughly perplexed. I called college roommie Diana. She actually picked up. I gave the criteria to her, then warned her it may not actually begin with C, but that my impression was that it had a C in it. She put the legal work she was doing aside and investigated, then called me back. “What’s the word???” I said eagerly upon picking up my cell.
“Now what’re you gonna give me for the word?” she asked.
“ARGH, I can’t believe you’re gonna do this to me!” I strained.
She laughed. “Well? What do I get?” Then, relenting at my tortured gurgle, she said, “It’s cipher.”
I sagged. “No. It’s not,” I said, almost near tears.
“It’s not?! It HAS to be!” she said in surprise. But it’s not. She called me back two more times, each time offering more C words, but none of them were it. I continued flipping through the dictionary page by page.

It was now midnight. I’m still reading C and E words in the dictionary. If Mr. W weren’t using the laptop I would’ve blogged a post begging for help from my readers. “This is gonna be like that 14.4 thing,” I grumbled.

Another half hour went by. I’d given up, thinking I’d simply ask my vocabulary-gifted judge come Tuesday after the long weekend, if I don’t blow my brains out first. And then, James called me back at 12:30am. “I missed your call, what’s up?” he asked.
“I’m looking for an SAT word,” I began.
“And you think I’d know it?” he said dubiously.
“Yes! It’s not an uncommon word, but it’s not used a lot. Its definition is ‘understood only by a select few.’ ”
There was about 4 seconds of silence as he thought. And then, “Esoteric?” he suggested nonchalantly.
“YES!@#$ THANK YOU!!! I’VE BEEN ON THIS FOR THE PAST THREE AND A HALF HOURS!! I CAN FINALLY GET SOME SLEEP NOW!!” I said way too loudly.
“Are you serious?!” he laughed at me.

James has redeemed all past wrongs against me now. Plus, I now know what his fated purpose for clawing back into my life is. And I will never again forget the word “esoteric.”