“What?” said Imogene, studying the sketch she’d just drawn, trying to decide whether the good shepherd looked sufficiently hirsute.
33.
Still unsettled by the awards ceremony, Imogene quelled herself to sleep that night by counting the friends of hers for whom a failure, especially one of the heart, might really work wonders.
34.
Meanwhile, Wally got stoned.
35.
Imogene had thirteen voice mails but it was the last one that caught her ear. It was from Ron de Jean. Because of an emergency with the … oh, it is too tedious to go into (he says), but anyway, it would be easier (easier for him, she thought, but he does not say this) if they met at the theater instead of beforehand for a bite at Cherry Hill Fats.
The night that Ron de Jean was referring to was the Sunday night Imogene had plans to get together with Wally Yez. Imogene, it appears, had inadvertently double-booked. Again.
(People talk. Behind your back. “What does she see in him?” they say when a twosome walks by. Or else they say, “What does he see in her?” Did Imogene want to play the part of the philanthropist or the charity?)
36.
“Of course I’m disappointed,” said Ron when Imogene called him back. He was in fact delighted to have the night off. “But your mother has only two eyes,” he said, “so if she’s having surgery, then that’s that.”
“On both eyes,” hastened Imogene in case Ron was about to make some kind of spare-eye argument. Imo-gene felt only slightly bad that she had made up such a thing. Mrs. Gilfeather had never met Ron de Jean, but she probably wouldn’t think he was much of a bet and surely wouldn’t mind a good lie for a good cause.
Imogene made a point of insisting that she and Ron go out another time soon and Ron was A-OK with that idea. A rule of life, you may have observed, is that pretty much everyone wants to go out, just not right away.
“Can I call you later?” Imogene said because right then her hair needed immediate attention. That idea, too, was A-OK with Ron. The marmalade in his sandwich, he said, was about to leak out and get on his fingers. Not only that, he had to pick his wife up at the airport.
37.
Another rule of life is that everyone wants to get off the phone.
38.
Imogene’s mother, Erna Gilfeather, in town for her fortieth college reunion, has two fine eyes, and she was using them to scrutinize her daughter as they were having afternoon tea at the Plaza. “Honey,” she said, whisking a crumb off Imogene’s blouse, “are you still making underpants?”
“Lingerie,” said Imogene, idly sculpting the butter on her plate with a knife.
“Did I tell you that Norma—remember my college roommate?—her daughter is very high up in human rights?” said Mrs. Gilfeather. Imogene nodded. “So, Immolah, if you want a job doing something of value to society …”
“Mother,” said Imogene with sullen exasperation. “Featherware is what I do.”
Mrs. Gilfeather seemed lost in thought. After a while she said, “Actually, I prefer you when you’re gaunt.”
39.
When Imogene was in kindergarten, she told the teacher she could not take part in Show and Share because her mother was tired. A short time later, little Imogene was dispatched to talk to the school psychologist, who gave her puzzles and let her sit in any chair. “Imsy,” he said, “are you afraid your mother is going to die?” That was the first Imogene had ever heard mention of a mommy dying. The psychologist looked expectantly at Imogene, who shrugged. The psychologist marched Imogene back to her classroom and announced that Imogene never had to take part in Show and Share again. The next week, Imogene was excused from naptime when she said her mother had a bunion. That summer, Imogene was permitted to skip the Nature Walk at day camp after she claimed that her mother had broken hair syndrome.
Despite what Imogene may say, her mother is a healthy old soul. Imogene’s father? He is acutely unhealthy. He is dead.
A Word About Imogene’s Hair
“My hair is my child,” Imogene said on more than one occasion. What did she mean? Let’s take a look: Money spent (cumulatively) on crème rinse = tuition to an elite junior college or fairly decent state school plus hefty book allowance. Additional money spent (cumulatively) on cuts and coloring, not to mention round contouring brushes, hair dryers, flatirons, deep-conditioning treatments, detangling serums, styling mousse, sculpting gel, thermal protector, texture spray, damage-control lotion, pH fixer, finishing gloss, barrettes, those elasticky things and miscellaneous items = a four-year Ivy, one year of postgrad, and maybe even a wedding. Also to be considered was the quality time Imogene had spent over the years with her tresses.
40.
Wouldn’t you know it? Imogene had not double-booked, after all. No. She had, in fact, triple-booked the Sunday night she was supposed to go out with Wally Yez. Chronologically speaking, the dinner invitation from the Sepkowitzes, old college buddies of Imogene’s, had the edge. “I’m not normally such a blunderhead about these things, truly I’m not,” Imogene said as contritely as she could, thinking that would get her off the hook with Wally.
“I love parties. What time?” said Wally, putting her right back on the hook and causing Imogene to wonder: Did she really want to go to a party with someone who loved parties?
41.
Wally was talking to the doorman in Imogene’s building, waiting for it to be the minute he’d told Imogene he would be arriving. Wally and the doorman chatted about the agony of the renovation in 3G, the ecstasy of polyurethane foam insulation, the pros and cons of parfait floors (that’s how the doorman put it, so, what, you don’t want Wally to be polite?), can benevolent dictatorships be so bad if they’re called benevolent, why they always make the mates of shoes look like each other, the folly of having a fork if you have a spoon, how to clean a mop, HVAC contractors, BTUs, and, well, life.
So as not to appear overeager, Wally rang Imogene’s doorbell 162 seconds after the appointed second. When Imogene opened the door, Wally thrust a package at her. “Just a little something,” he said. The package was wrapped in handmade mulberry paper from Thailand and topped with one of Wally’s origami paramecia. Wally was particularly proud of the way he had folded the gullet and the feeding groove, but he decided not to mention that. What if Imogene should consider it bragging?
While Imogene daintily unwrapped the package, setting aside the paramecium, presumably for saving purposes, Wally surveyed the apartment and liked what he saw. On a side table sat a pineapple made from crinkled potato chip bags. As soon as Wally saw that pineapple, he thought: Stop the presses! That’s it! Imogene Gilfeather, she is the one! He also thought: Nevertheless, why cancel my date for tomorrow night with what’s-her-name?
42.
A gift that looks this good on the outside must really be something special inside, or so reasoned Imogene as she, yes, set aside the paramecium for saving purposes. Featherware, in her opinion, was in need of a neat new design for its shopping bags and boxes, and Imogene wondered if bacteria, or whatever a paramecium was, might not prove a market-savvy motif. Imogene removed the lid and came upon a cloud of lime-colored tissue and iridescent crystal fibers. Beneath the fluff was … Imogene’s hopes were sky-high … a rock. To be fair, it was a splendid rock, a rock with glittery strands of turquoise, gold, emerald green, and magenta. And it was of a decent size—not one of those measly chips. Moreover, when Wally presented the gift to Imogene, he had said—make no mistake of it—that it was “a little something.” Egzzactly.
“It’s rainbow hematite from Brazil!” said Wally, snatching the thing out of the box to show Imogene. “They have it all over the place on Mars—not foliated specular hematite like this, but iron ore, which, of course, is what gives the planet its rusty red color.” Wally handed the rock to Imogene. “Hematite has a relatively high specific gravity,” he said, “but I don’t think that will be a problem for you.” Wally laughed. Was this at all humorous? Imogene decided—what th
e heck—to laugh, anyway.
“It’s very nice,” said Imogene, though between you and me, she felt a little disappointed and also felt a lot guilty about her disappointment, knowing as well as anyone: it’s supposed to be the thought that counts.
“I was going to get you zincobotryogen,” said Wally, “but I didn’t think you and I had come to a point where we were ready for that.”
43.
The reader will appreciate that Imogene, unlike Wally, was neither an animal nor a mineral person. Imogene was a vegetable person.
44.
Besides Wally and Imogene, here’s who was at the Sepkowitzes’ that night: a photographer who just had a show at the Whitney Museum (nudes), a photographer dying to have a show at the Whitney Museum (old people wearing clothes), a journalist writing a piece for a journalism review about journalism (brought a bag of “authentic glacier water” ice cubes to the dinner), a woman who quit her high-rolling corporate lawyer job to become a teacher in the slums, a man who quit his teaching job in the slums to go to law school, a lawyer-turned-senator currently working on a bill to make wagons, toboggans, and other means of alternative transportation tax-deductible, a clothes designer from Bhutan who’d just been hired to create a new look for the Rockettes, a woman poet writing a novel about a woman writing a poem-within-a-poem, a man who said he did nothing but think all day, a man who was studying the evolution of disgust, the producer of the hit sketch comedy television show Taped but Proud, and his wife, a shoe designer intent on making the “retractable high heel” a household word, a woman who wrote a syndicated golf column in which she interviewed notable golfers and cut them down to size, a woman who said she believed in Santa Claus until she was fourteen, a married couple who’d written the definitive cookbook about organ meats, a man who claimed he came up with the idea of putting fruit in yogurt (but unfortunately never patented it), and, of course, the Sepkowitzes, who were both accountants.
Meg Sepkowitz telephoned Imogene the next day. “Richard and I really like Wally,” said Meg, “and we were wondering: How are you going to fuck it up?”
45.
“I have my ways,” thought Imogene.
46.
That day in Wallyland, Wally and Derek were trying to build a rack for Derek’s atomic clock. (For those readers who bought the discount version of this book that does not include the Who’s Who or the letter Q, Derek is Wally’s best friend.)
“See anything?” Wally’s friend Derek said, putting on a pair of safety goggles.
“I wasn’t looking. I was thinking,” Wally said.
“You were out with a professional underwear specialist,” said Derek. “And didn’t sneak a peek?”
“No, but I still had maybe, let’s see, the fifth-best time of my life,” said Wally.
Derek fired up the oxyacetylene torch. “You know what the only thing she said to me at the party was?” Wally said, but Derek couldn’t hear. “She said, ‘I think I’m going to leave now, but you should feel free to stay.’” Was Derek muttering something to himself? Wally thought he might be, but it was hard to know. Derek turned off the torch and adjusted his goggles.
“I’m not a complete troglodyte,” Wally said. “Of course, I didn’t let her leave alone, but outside, when I asked her if she wanted to have a drink, she said she had work to do and wanted to go home.”
47.
“What was the third-best time?” Derek said.
48.
“To tell you the truth, the entire night, I don’t think I made eye contact with the guy once,” said Imogene to her assistant. They were packing up boxes of sample panty hose to send to the National Hosiery Convention in Houston.
“What does he do?” said Harriet, rummaging through a carton. “Fishnets with or without a seam?”
“What does who do?” said Imogene. “Forget the fishnets. Fishnets are not Houston. Fishnets are maybe Dallas.”
“Willy or Walter or whatever,” said Harriet.
“How do I know?” said Imogene. “It’s too awkward to talk to a stranger at a party. Or, for that matter, anywhere.” Imogene sealed up a carton of dove-gray sheers and slate-gray ultrasheers, fastidiously applying the packing tape, even though straight lines would not matter to anyone but herself. “He seemed to spend a lot of time doing magic tricks for the Sepkowitz twins,” Imogene said. She worried: Could Wally be a magician?
“I love magic,” said Harriet.
“Too much abracadabra,” said Imogene, placing a stack of steel-gray control tops in a carton. “Cross your fingers, but I really think the Saks thing will happen.”
“Wow,” said Harriet.
“Let’s put it this way,” Imogene said. “I spent the better part of the party on the phone with the buyer, who said they definitely have a hole in their mid-range lingerie department.”
“Do you think the guy will call again?” said Harriet.
“Donald Charm? He all but promised,” said Imogene.
“No,” said Harriet. “Not the Saks guy. The other guy. He sounds dreamy—and such fun.”
“Fun,” said Imogene, “is not fun.” She held up a pair of synthetic leather leggings that resembled eggplant skin and furrowed her brow. “What do you think, is Texas a faux state or not?”
49.
Would Wally call again? Wasn’t Imogene even a smidgen curious? Of course, to question one. And the other question? To quote Imogene: “No.”
50.
Wally and Imogene made a second date.
51.
Again, Imogene had something else to do the night in question, except this time the “something else” was arranged afterward. Ron de Jean had invited her to the third game of the World Series and, though Imogene had limited interest in baseball, a hard-to-get ticket is a hard-to-get ticket. The hard-to-get ticket had become gettable when Ron’s wife, theoretically the world’s leading expert on Little Red Riding Hood, had to leave town unexpectedly for France after a colleague called with the news that there’d been a discovery about the Wolf in the Dordogne.
52.
There’s a connection, if you have not already figured it out, between Ron’s wife’s being away and Imogene’s being with Ron.
53.
Look for further evidence in twenty-five pages.
54.
On second thought, these things can be hard for Patty to keep track of. Would it be so terrible if we said give or take twenty-five pages? On third thought: forget the first thought.
55.
On fourth thought: about her affair with Ron, Imogene said, “It never ends, and it never starts.” This is the way Imogene felt about her life, too. She had no complaints with either.
56.
Imogene canceled Date #2.
“Boating accident,” said Imogene to Wally on the telephone because The Old Man and the Sea was on TV and she couldn’t think of anything else. Wally seemed very understanding, which made Imogene suffer all the more insufferably. He offered to drive her down to New Jersey to be with her mother in the hospital.
Out of guilt and perhaps another feeling, too, she suggested they make a plan then and there. “But this time, let’s wood-burn the date into our calendars,” she said, as if Wally had been the culprit in mucking up the schedule twice before. Then—she couldn’t help herself—she added gravely, “Assuming there aren’t, you know, complications.”
57.
That night, Imogene’s mother called, as she did most Sundays. And Tuesdays. And the rest of the week. Imogene was in the midst of rearranging the furniture in her living room. “Darling,” Erna Gilfeather said, “you still haven’t told me whether you’re coming home for Thanksgiving.”
“That’s one, two, three …”—she counted on her fingers—“five months from now,” said Imogene. “I just started shipping swimwear.” Imogene shoved the wing chair so that it was perpendicular to the coffee table. Don’t go overboard with diagonals, her mother had taught her long ago.
“If you do come home, are you
bringing anyone?” said Mrs. Gilfeather. “I need to know what size turkey to order.”
Maybe the coffee table needed to be over there, thought Imogene. If only she could move the fireplace a little that way, too.
“Bring someone,” said Erna Gilfeather. “It’ll make the dinner tolerable.”
58.
Does Wally have a mother?
59.
Everyone has a mother.
60.
It’s one of those things. Like soil erosion.
61.
Yes, the chaplettes are brief. The intention had been panoramic longness but, apparently, everything cannot be under anybody’s control. Even Patty’s.
62.
In the days since Imogene had canceled their date, Wally had been feeling low. How low? -1.04. Is that not low enough for you? Tonight was to have been the night. Instead, it was another night. Wally was skimming through a recent issue of Reptiles Plus Monthly, intrigued by a squib about how to tell if your turtle is fat, when he came across the results of the prestigious Southern States Tortoise Contest in Boca Raton. Wally could not believe his eyes! Without telling him, Gwen had entered Stuffy, their Mediterranean spur-thighed tortoise (Testudo graeca), in the competition. The creature had won an orange ribbon, placing First Runner-Up. It was true that Wally had begrudgingly given Gwen custody of Stuffy when Wally and Gwen had split up. But turning Stuffy into a professional without first asking Wally’s opinion about the matter … why, it is not done! To treat a man and a turtle like that! How dare she?
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