Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday. Debbie Graber

      Someone thought Gregg Fisher, as unlikely as it may sound, was having an affair with someone in upper management and that when the relationship went south, Gregg Fisher was paid off to leave the company quietly and without his ESOP shares. This scenario was quickly shot down. No one could picture anyone human touching Gregg Fisher, let alone anyone having a torrid affair with him. Someone else said, “Who said anything about upper management being human?” Everyone got a good chuckle out of that one.

      Someone stayed late one night and saged Gregg Fisher’s old desk. As that person went down to their car, they noticed Gregg Fisher’s Pontiac Vibe in the parking lot with the headlights off. Even though it was against this person’s better judgment, they looked at the Pontiac Vibe and noticed an item on the hood. Upon closer inspection, they realized that it was Gregg Fisher’s ponytail, cut off above the scrunchie, lying in a wet, straggling heap. The person was so freaked out that they couldn’t remember driving home. Everyone who heard the story the next day was scared. Someone thought that Gregg Fisher had most likely cut off his own ponytail in a self-destructive rage and then put it on the hood of his own car to scare the people who were working late. Most people walked around the hallways of the office somewhat tentatively that day, looking out of the corners of their eyes for the ponytail to show up again, perhaps in an unlikely place like the women’s restroom on the third floor or in the cleaners’ storage closet.

      Someone else who stayed late the next night thought that they saw Gregg Fisher’s Pontiac Vibe parked in the circular entranceway of the building. They thought they saw Gregg Fisher himself in the driver’s seat, his muddy brown eyes staring, unblinking, as though he were dead. For a long time, no one stayed too late at work, for fear that Gregg Fisher’s undead body and filthy Pontiac Vibe were stalking the parking lot. Then HR sent out an e-mail saying they were installing new lights in the parking lot. Someone said that it was due completely to Gregg Fisher’s undead body, while others disagreed.

      Several people said that Gregg Fisher had started to infiltrate their dreams, that he would show up in the strangest places—like in a meadow or a cityscape or a park bench—and that he would sit and stare at the person in an accusatory way. In some dreams, Gregg Fisher still had a ponytail. In others, he was bald. It made people uncomfortable to see Gregg Fisher in their dreams.

      Some of those people who dreamed about Gregg Fisher had to go out on stress leave. HR sent out a company-wide e-mail stating that if someone was out on stress leave, they were not allowed to attend the monthly departmental parties. Those parties were reserved for those employees still working. Many people thought that Gregg Fisher had tried to attend the monthly software barbecue and was turned away. It made people nervous to think about Gregg Fisher trying to attend the software barbecue, although most people believed that if Gregg Fisher wanted to rip out and eat the beating hearts of most of the employees in broad daylight, he would do it and no one would be able to stop him.

      Someone else said it still smelled funky in software, despite Gregg Fisher’s absence. But that person was not vested in the company’s ESOP plan and was ultimately forced to leave under strange circumstances. Most people know better than to discuss Gregg Fisher openly anymore. Most people recognize that Gregg Fisher’s powers were even greater than they could have imagined, and that they could risk certain death by talking about Gregg Fisher or even by thinking about him. Most people ignore the smell in software, or they have stopped going there altogether. Most people, when leaving the building after working late, band together in small groups by the elevators for safety. When they get to the parking lot, they walk quickly and with purpose to their cars. They do their best not to notice Gregg Fisher’s Pontiac Vibe, even dirtier than usual, parked in the employee lot, headlights off.

       Northanger Abbey

      HERE’S THE FIRST LINE OF MY NEW NOVEL:

      “Once upon a time, there was a boy who was born into a wealthy family.”

      But it is all a big ruse that the family was wealthy, a ruse that, if you continue reading, will evaporate right in front of your eyes. But for now, suffice it to say that the family was wealthy. At least, that’s what you, the reader, are led to believe thus far, as you’ve only read the first sentence. Do not worry: this is not to mislead you; it’s a source of dramatic tension later on in the story for the reader to think that the family was wealthy, when in fact they were just pretending to be wealthy for appearance’s sake.

      Appearances vs. reality is going to be a major theme in this novel, so major that it is going to be one of the book club discussion questions in the back of the book.

      So the family, let’s call them the Snooty-Richersons, pretended to be rich for a variety of reasons that will be discussed in detail later on in the novel, which is my latest, which is to say my most current novel or, more specifically, my first novel.

      I am writing my first novel!

      One reason the family pretended to have money was so that when they sent their son to the fancy private school, Northanger Abbey, the rich kids at the school wouldn’t make fun of him, calling him names like “scoundrel” or “fat ass.”

      It’s been duly noted by me, the author, that Northanger Abbey is the name of a novel by Jane Austen, but rest assured, the use of the name “Northanger Abbey” in my novel has nothing to do with Jane Austen. In fact, who’s even read Northanger Abbey in the last twenty-five years? Look at me—I’m writing a novel, and I’ve never read Northanger Abbey, even though I was supposed to in high school, or maybe that was To Kill a Mockingbird. Believe me, it hasn’t kept me from writing. One should always follow his dreams, or in lieu of dreams, take the free “Writing the First Novel” webinar offered by the Learning Annex. Don’t ever let naysayers keep you down, even if your family practically throws you out of the house for refusing to attend anger management classes.

      To clarify, this novel takes place in the 1980s because everyone loves the 1980s—that decade is simultaneously cool and retro for the millennials and yet nostalgic for Gen Xers like me. I was in the bank the other day when they started playing the song that was my high school graduation theme, “Dancing on the Ceiling.” I guess they figure that most people cashing checks will have fond memories of high school, but that song plunges me into despair.

      Upon looking over my work, I think that it may sound inauthentic for boys to call other boys “scoundrels.” Calling someone a “scoundrel” seems kind of hokey, even for the 1980s. Nowadays, you can get in trouble for using the word “scoundrel,” even in casual conversation. One example would be when you call your local bank teller Robert “a scoundrel” because he questions why you are trying to cash a check with your mother’s name on it.

      Here’s a book club question:

      “Is it fair to be banned from a bank just for taking action because one’s mother seems to no longer understand the concept of a weekly allowance?”

      So the kid’s parents, Fred and Delores, are pretending to be rich so that they can send the kid—his name is Franklyn, or no, better yet, Ralphie—to Northanger Abbey. They mortgage their middle-class home in suburban Chicago so that they can come up with the money for Ralphie to attend Northanger Abbey, which is located in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Fred works as an actuary for State Farm Insurance, which isn’t a bad job, mind you, but it’s a boring job, a job Fred got roped into years earlier when he knocked up Delores while they were both freshmen at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and had to get married. Fred is one of those guys who is genuinely smart, and if he had had better luck and was generally savvier about birth control, he might have invented the Internet or cell phones. But alas, no, he and Delores had to get married, courtesy of Delores getting pregnant and her churchy parents. This will all come out in the middle of the novel, which will be devoted to Fred and Delores’s relationship. There will be some killer sex scenes, so you might want to warn some of your churchier book club members before you all dive in.

      You might also want to warn some of the more softhearted