The Most Important Person in Bluff-by-Sea

When Mellene Whump was 12 years old, she told a teacher how the town of Bluff-by-Sea could improve access to its harbor. She had noticed ships often had to do rather complicated maneuvers to successfully dock, and she had puzzled out why. "It would be so simple to fix," she said. "They just need to remove some of that spit of land that sticks out to the northeast, then the boats could sail in more easily given the prevailing easterly winds."

The teacher had looked at her a long while without speaking. Mell thought she had the look grown-ups have when they see or hear something that is totally outside their experience. She remembered seeing the look on this very teacher's face, when her classmate Clim Fenly came to school wearing a hat he'd made out of fish heads. The teacher finally muttered, "given the prevailing easterly winds. Good Gluff."

Mell had a knack for understanding systems. She had worked out that if any part of a system failed, the whole system failed; if any part didn't work well, the system suffered. She saw lots of things, like the spit of land by the harbor, that should be fixed; it was how her mind worked, and she let it work that way whether grown-ups gave her fish-head-hat looks or not.

When she finished school, she took a job in the Town Department for Recording Things. The town seemed to have two enduring traits she'd more-or-less gotten used to: clumsy, almost childish names for things, and a haphazard approach to almost everything. Recording Things (as she called it) was supposed to keep track of official records such as property deeds, business licenses, and so on. The documents turned out to be in complete disarray; in short order, she had developed a filing system and had everything in its place, mostly. Certain agreements, she found, had been written on napkins from a variety of taverns. The signature was some Town official or other. Over time, she learned the other party to agreement was most often a relative or close friend of the official. Her favorite such "document" read, "Umbyl Zaggit is authorized to operate a stall to sell baked sweet taters near the docks, long as he doesn't sell them more than a little cheaper than the any other sweet tater sellers nearby." It was signed by one Emgyn Zaggit. She kept the napkins in a drawer by themselves.

Her skill and dedication soon earned her a move from the Records department to the Department for Getting Money for the Town. Among other inefficiencies, oversights, and general mayhem, she discovered the Annual Property Fee documents for some town officials had inexplicably ended up not at the bottom of a drawer, but stapled to the back of a drawer. She retrieved them, filed them correctly, and sent bills for the amounts owed. She pointedly mentioned that she was, for the time, waiving penalty fees and interest for late payments.

She enjoyed her work, but wished for a more interesting role. Her Big Picture mind could only be kept so busy shuffling tax documents.

One day, as she was sorting another batch of Property Tax papers into piles ("OK", "Past Due", "WAY Past Due", and "GOOD GLUFF!"), no less a person than Amster Clag, the Manager of Town Business, burst through the door in his energetic way. A man she didn't recognize trailed along behind him, peering curiously at the stacks of papers.

Amster introduced the stranger as Mr. Timult Lexin, a wealthy mine owner who wanted to move to Bluff and start some businesses. "Mr. Lexin is a VIT," Amster told Mell. She wasn't sure what that was, but guessed (correctly, she later learned) it meant Very Important Towner. "Mell, you know more about our regulations and licensing and so forth than anyone, and I'd like you to personally help Mr. Lexin with whatever he needs. Licensing and so forth. Town business. Deeds and so on." He added a few more redundant phrases and finished, "and he will have special dispensation from paying any fees related to his businesses for one year beginning today." With a flourish he produced a tavern napkin from his pocket and placed it on the counter in front of Mell.

Oh boy, thought Mell. This could be interesting. What she said aloud was, "I'll be happy to help Mr. Lexin with whatever he needs."

"Call me Timult," said Timult.

As she worked with Timult, she realized he had a good grasp of what she thought of as "The Big Picture": he could see, at a high level, what was needed to improve both the town's prospects and his own. His first project was to be a large warehouse--larger than any yet in the town--because it occurred to him, he explained, that "having a big warehouse in a busy port was like having a big, whatsit, hole with gold in it in a place where there's gold." She thought this was an oddly clunky way to say "gold mine", especially since he'd told her he owned a gold mine near the town from which he came. Mineville, she thought he'd called it.

What he lacked, Mell soon realized, was any sort of interest in, or head for, details. She began to wonder if there might be a way to help him while also making her own life more interesting and, sure, why not, more enjoyable.

She also learned, to her consternation, that Timult didn't much like seafood; he also got seasick if he so much as stood near a bobbing ship. These were drawbacks for someone who wanted to do business in a port town. All the more reason he could use my help, she thought.

Mell made her first move (that's how she framed it in her mind) one day, after finalizing a license for Timult to operate a seafood restaurant (good Gluff, WHY? she thought).

"Timult, I'd be happy to help you with whatever you need, even things that aren't official Town business," she said. She watched him carefully.

He seemed to have found something bothersome behind his ear. He scratched vigorously for a bit and said, "whatsit?"

She repeated herself, and added, "for instance, I could help make sure you keep your appointments." The week prior, she knew, he had missed a meeting with the company designing his new warehouse. He showed up a day later at the firm's office ("Industrial Design & Sons" their sign proclaimed, bewilderingly) demanding to know why they hadn't visited him in his office.

Timult stood very still for a moment, then cried, "yes, yes, that's just the thing, so it is. When would you start? Or have you already? I do need help with my schedule." He pulled a watch from his pocket and peered at it. "Has young Mell spoken to you about this?" He gave the watch a vigorous shake and tucked it back in his pocket. "Very organized is Mell. This seems the kind of, whatsit, arrangement she'd come up with."

Mell wondered what she was getting into, but decided it was too late to change course. She showed Timult to the door, found the Manager of Town Business, and resigned.

Within a week, Mell had mapped out every part of Tim's life, from the appointments he'd made to what he liked for breakfast to how much starch he wanted in his shirts.

She also began, in very small ways, to make suggestions. She was tentative at first, afraid of ruining what was, so far, a pleasant job. "If you moved your desk by the window, you'd have better light," she'd say; or "if you ate your lunch at a small side table, instead of your desk, you might spill mustard on fewer papers."

Timult seemed to like the suggestions. "Just the thing," he'd say, even going so far as to have his secretary, a small, elderly, slightly bent woman help Mell move the desk.

Mell took a bigger step during one of the many reviews of the plans for the warehouse: “If you put a door on the other side of it, with an aisle from one door to the other, you'd be able to move the goods in and out more quickly and easily." It was, in the scheme, not a difficult thing to spot, but Timult had missed it, likely due to his attention to other matters, such as lunch.

"Just the thing, just the thing," he said. "Set up a meeting with Design & Sons, Gluff, what an awkward name, and we'll make it so."

Soon enough, she suggested he might want to attend some of the meetings of the Council of Town Counselors, to hear what they were discussing and see if there thoughts he might want to offer. He couldn't tell them what to do, Mell explained; but he could explain taking certain actions would be good for the town. As it worked out, it was Mell giving the Counselors the thoughts, but always--she was very careful about this--always at Timult's direction, and with his explicit approval. Not surprisingly, many (though not all) of the Council's decisions seemed to be aligned with Timult's thinking.

That was when her life became much more interesting. She found herself attending lunches and dinners with her boss and one or another of the Counselors, eating fine meals, and learning many of the inside secrets of town business and government. She even developed a taste for something called "Spotch", a strong drink made somewhere a full week's good sailing away. Spotland, she remembered; that's where they made the Spotch. She made a mental note to visit some day.

Mellene was perfectly comfortable being Timult's behind-the-scenes person. She knew her strengths, and she knew her weaknesses, and addressing large groups of people was on the "weakness" list. Growing up, she mostly kept to herself, and her parents kept to themselves, so she didn't catch on to the everyday social skills so many others had.

And then there was the stage fright. Soon after she'd talked to her teacher about the "prevailing easterly winds", she decided she would be in the annual play honoring the history of the town. True to town tradition, the play bore a name that was both off-puttingly simple and utterly meaningless: "We Never Bluff About Our Bluff." It was a one-act, ten-minute play designed to capture the history of the town. Mell was to play a sailor in a group welcoming the first ship from far-away Vineyard Bay. She had no lines, but as the fictional Town Head welcomed the fictional captain of the fictional ship, she yelled “Oh Gluff!" and vomited prodigiously (and non-fictionally). The play was halted, and furious parents bullied the teacher in charge into making Mell mop the stage.

On the other end of the afraid-of-public-speaking, sick-with-stage-fright spectrum was Timult. He seemed at his best when talking to a large group; he didn't search around for words, he injected humor at just the right moment, and he never, ever vomited. He was affable, kind to all, exceedingly generous, and capable of telling a fine joke. People, Mell thought, seemed to like him almost automatically.

Mell arrived in his office one morning in late summer to find Timult in a state of agitation. He was pacing the floor, fiddling with his pocket watch, and muttering what sounded like "how in Gluff's name do we get on without a head?"

When he saw Mell, he stopped his pacing and thundered, "Have you heard? The Town Head is leaving at the end of his term. And we were getting on so well, he and I. This is very much not the thing." He resumed his pacing. The watch received a truly savage shake from time to time.

Mell had not, in fact, heard this news. Had anyone asked (and no one did), she'd have said she was unsurprised. Just two days before, she had mentioned to the Town Head that there may be a mine for sale in Mineville--the town from which Timult had moved--and that Timult had told her he'd had a very profitable run from his mine. This was all true, assuming Timult had told her the truth.

The day before her conversation with the Head, she had gone over Timult's financial figures with him. Mell showed him he was making impressive sums of money from his ventures in Bluff. She also quite casually showed him his appointments for the next few days; most were on Bluff-related but some were regarding issues at his mine. "You've got your hand on too many tillers," she said and immediately regretted it, for she had to explain the metaphor to her land-lubber boss.

Timult began to pace, and the long-suffering watch appeared. Mell let him do a couple of back-and-forths before saying, "you could sell the mine, I suppose."

Timult had stood very still for a moment, then blasted out "just the thing!" while hopping straight up in the air. "Don't suppose you could help me find a, whatsit, buyer for the thing, the mine I mean, my mine."

Mell thought she probably could, and told him so.

A few days later--the day he'd panicked about the Head leaving--Mell talked Timult off the ledge, so to speak. She had no doubt, she said, someone very capable would take the reins of good old Bluff.

"But who, my dear Mell? Oh, those Counselors are solid enough fellows, but none of 'em has much of a head for, whatsit, The Big Picture."

Mell had been working hard to refine her timing; she waited a beat, then waited another, and said, "well, I suppose you could run, Timult."

Timult stopped cold. He stood motionless, except for his mouth, which opened and closed silently a few times. Even the fingers holding his pocket watch were perfectly still. When he did speak, his voice, always bordering on booming, practically shook the window panes. "JUST THE THING!" he cried, hopping straight up yet again.

Mell wrote his speeches for him; she picked where and when he would speak; she told him not to fiddle with his pocket watch when he talked to people, and absolutely not when speaking to a group. She carefully placed tidbits in front of business and civic leaders when they met; "I can't think of anyone who understands the fish fermenting business as well as Timult Lexin," she said quietly when they met with the Association of Fish Fermenters (bafflingly, there was only the one member). On another occasion, Mell averred, "Timult has always supported the Widows of Sailors Lost to Freak Storms." In this instance, the group was a bit larger, a half-dozen or so.

Timult won the election by a landslide, by Bluff standards. At the first Council meeting after Timult took office, as a first order of business, the Council unanimously voted to create the position of Assistant to the Village Head. The second order of business was to appoint Mell to the job. And so, in the space of a few minutes, Mell found herself the second-highest-ranking official in Bluff-on-Sea. She didn't give a moment's thought to whether the Council, the newly seated Head, or anyone else, for that matter, realized that in fact, if not on the org chart, she was quite clearly the Town's most important official.

A few months later, Mell found herself reminding Timult, she felt for the hundredth time, that the tasty bowl of diced clams and taters in a rich, creamy base which he was spooning up eagerly wasn't called "tater 'n clam soup". "Clam chowder," she said quietly so the other diners wouldn't hear. "It's called clam chowder, Timult." He still didn't generally like seafood but had acquired a taste for chowder.

She looked at the notes on the table before her—Timult's schedule—hoping the day's activities didn't involve any docks; he still got seasick if he was near a moving boat. They were clear in that regard, but she did note a meeting with Chandlers Guild, the group of merchants and craftspeople who supplied sails, rope, and other maritime essentials to the shipping companies. Mell frowned; he'd recently told the owner of a small fleet of ships that he liked "those white sheet things that make the boats go."

She made herself another note--"brief T. on vocabulary"-- and looked out over the harbor. She was pleased to see the work on paring back that pesky spit of land was coming along nicely, very nicely indeed.