“You should try it,” her sister told her. “You’ve always been a good speller.” The three of us were at a little cafe in Keene Valley, drinking Americanos.

At first Phyllis wanted nothing to do with it. “You know I hate games,” she said. “I hate card games. I hate crosswords. I hate ‘Jeopardy’ on TV because I can’t come up with the answers fast enough.”

“Hate is a strong word,” remarked her sister, whose name is Amelia.

“Well, there you go,” Phyllis said.

We sipped in silence. “There’s no time limit on solving the Spelling Bee,” Amelia said finally. “I scored Genius.”

Phyllis looked up, apparently startled. “You scored genius?” That was it.

A day or so later, Phyllis and I had planned to get together to make hats to give as Christmas presents, but she called to cancel.

“Maybe later,” she told me. “I’m only on Good.”

I learned that she was talking about the Spelling Bee. Every day seven letters are issued with which to make words. It’s a little like Scrabble. There are nine ranks: Beginner, Good Start, Moving Up, Good, Solid, Nice, Great, Amazing and the culmination, Genius.

It went on like that. Amelia called her to go shopping for a baby shower for one of their college friends.

“I can’t,” Phyllis said. “I’m only up to Solid.”

“It’s just a game,” Amelia pointed out.

“Why can’t they give me an E? Or an R?”

“Because then everyone could do it. Genius status wouldn’t mean anything.”

“Oh yeah.”

That evening I was out for a stroll and ran into Phyllis, who was walking her rescue poodle mix, an enthusiastic, friendly fellow.

“I did it!” she told me gleefully. “I reached Genius!”

Good, I thought, the danger has passed.

Phyllis and Amelia had been consulting a website to help find a name for the upcoming baby, but they thought that the mother-to-be had already settled on Eloise.

“Eloise means Famous Warrior,” Phyllis said. “Amelia means industrious. Guess what Phyllis means?”

I couldn’t guess.

“Love of leaves! How dumb. Can you believe it?” She looked around. “Well, I do like the fall color, although it’s definitely past peak now.”

Unfortunately, Phyllis soon afterward read an article about the New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle and discovered that the term Genius was perhaps an exaggeration; from 45 to 25% of the people who played the game reached Genius rank, some very speedily.

“Listen to this,” Phyllis said, reading from her laptop. “‘In less than an hour Ms. Koker has conquered the game … she has reached Queen Bee, an Easter egg level that is not part of the regular scoring of the game … meaning she had surpassed the Genius level and found all of the words on that day’s list.'”

According to the article, some devotees set their alarms for 3 a.m., the hour that the New York Times releases its Spelling Bee puzzle every day. Apparently these puzzle fanatics like to focus their full attention on the task before everyone else is up, without the interruptions and noise of normal life.

“Are you going to try for what do you call it — Easter egg level?” I asked.

“No way!” Phyllis said. “Too much stress. I don’t need the aggravation. Getting to Genius was hard enough.”

Next day I saw Phyllis and Amelia piling presents for the baby shower into Amelia’s car.

“You should see how cute these clothes are!” Amelia said. “I love baby things. Especially the little baby bootees.”

“Look what I wrote on the card,” Phyllis said. “To Awesome Warrior Eloise from Auntie Fond of Foliage Phyllis.”

I forgot all about the New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle and the strange addictive hold it had exerted on Phyllis until the next week when we were scheduled to meet again for our knitting session.

“Oh, no, sorry, I didn’t remember we were going to get together today!” Phyllis confessed when I called her. “I’m so tired. I got up way too early this morning and I just can’t seem to wake up.”

“How early?”

“Oh, about 3 o’clock,” Phyllis said.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the Spelling Bee, would it?” I asked.

“Why isn’t “marl” considered a word?” Phyllis asked, rhetorically. “I’ve gotta go.”

Have a good week.

(Martha Allen lives in Keene Valley. She has been writing for the Lake Placid News for more than 20 years.)