Starting from Happy

by Patricia Marx

  “Let’s sleep in your old room,” said Wally, exuberantly throwing his arms around his beloved.

  “No touching me in front of her,” said Imogene, recoiling. “Or looking at me.”

  The door opened. “Happy Thanksgiving,” said Mrs. Gilfeather, kissing her daughter on the earlobe. “How was the traffic, Doug?” Mrs. Gilfeather asked Wally. He thought it best not to correct her.

  176.

  After warning Wally about how irksome her mother could be, Imogene was disappointed that the visit, exploding turkey aside, had not been a fiasco.

  “Your mother’s not so bad,” said Wally on the drive back to New York.

  “Why do you have to be so generous?” thought Imogene.

  177.

  Hold everything. You, who have so valiantly struggled to follow the story of Wally and Imogene,* which has often been told willy-nilly and heedless of caution, may have forgotten this detail, which we would like to recollect.

  The time is one hundred forty-seven chaplettes ago. The place is the First Annual International Silhouette Lingerie Awards. A model was found with the dissociative drug ketamine. On her person.

  Users of ketamine have reported conversations with Higher Powers and with halibut. More pertinently, the drug is illegal. More pertinently still, the drug was traced to the very lab from which Wally Yez had just resigned.

  Do you know who seems to find this information particularly pertinent? The two police officers who show up at Wally’s door.

  178.

  Sick and tired of insomnia, Imogene turned on the television and caught the predawn local news. Wally did not seem the type, she thought, listening to the crime reporter. But then she thought that it is always the type who does not seem the type who turns out to be the type. Also, wasn’t it premature of the local news to name names? Maybe even unconstitutional? Then again, Imogene has a habit of thinking that whatever it is that nonplusses her might be against the Constitution. Which she confuses with the Declaration of Independence. Which she confuses with the Bill of Rights. Don’t bring up the Articles of Confederation. Which may or may not be the same as the Federalist Papers.

  179.

  Imogene is not nonplussed about the word nonplus.

  180.

  One thing Imogene knows: you are innocent until proven guilty. But she also knows that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Plus, don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes. Let’s not forget better safe than sorry. C’est la vie.

  So once again, Imogene did not know (or care). If Imo-gene were to pick up the telephone right now, she could find out the truth, but there is no comfort in the truth. Here is what you get with truth: the remarks they made about you after you left the room, a rundown of the bacteria on your hotel pillow, the identity of your real father, the hard facts about that shadow missed by the doctor reading the MRI, what you look like from behind.

  If Imogene or Wally knew the truth, this little book would come to an abrupt end.

  181.

  The end. Period.

  182.

  No, no, no. It is just that ever since this project began, Patty has been weighted down by a foreboding sense that sooner or later the end must come. But now, with the anticipation of those words behind us, we can continue with composure. For there is plenty more to tell.

  Oh. One more thing has been a burden for Patty, if she may please interrupt again. Ever since chaplette 168, she has been worried that crucial facts have been forgotten or started to fade. So, herewith, is the recap.

  183.

  Imogene Gilfeather. Featherware Lingerie. Saks Fifth Avenue. Wally Yez. Trouble with Gwen. Ron de Jean. Married. Wally woos Imogene. Imogene busy. Assistant is Harriet. Inventory to pack. Undergarments to sell. Hair to dry (Imogene’s). Wally more in love. Elsie, hairdresser, heard it before. Stuffy, ex-tortoise, wins prize. (Go, Stuffy!) Imogene’s mother quote unquote sick again. Derek says, “Wally, meet Beenish Asif.” Beenish Asif and Wally have Courvoisier V.S.O.P. Wally and Imogene have hot dog. Wally and Imogene e-mail. They talk. Patty spells infinitesimally. Wally sleeps at Beenish Asif’s. Trouble in Ron de Jean’s sleep lab. Ron sleeps at Imogene’s. Gwen sleeps with Leonard. Is Ron de Jean’s wife sleeping with “Woodsman”? Wally sleeps at Imogene’s. Imogene tells Wally, “Nobody but you.” Wally does not sleep. Heat index high. Wally quits vestibulospinal reflexes lab. Imogene does not sleep. Uh-oh, ketamine.

  184.

  Patty is sorry to report that things have taken a turn for the better, making her job as a novelist even harder. The ketamine culprit was caught—a Yale sophomore who had broken into Wally’s lab, looking for a means to pay for her junior year abroad.

  185.

  Furthermore, Wally and Imogene are on Imogene’s divan.* (Seated.)

  Hours earlier: Imogene had mentioned over the phone that she was getting rid of her knives because they were irreparably dull. Seeing an opportunity, Wally brought over his sharpening kit right away.

  186.

  The migration of stuff from one abode to another signifies something, does it not?

  187.

  Yes.

  188.

  Wally spent most of the night futilely honing the cleaver before he set aside his bench stone and placed his arm around Imogene. “I like to say my time is money,” Wally said, “but in reality it’s not.” And then they made their way back to the divan. (To sit?)

  “Be quiet for a moment,” Wally said, putting one hand on Imogene’s head, while the other hand roamed until it rested on Imogene’s chest, such as it was. “Do you want to know what I am feeling?” Wally said.

  189.

  Imogene hoped it was not stage four.

  “I am feeling that I don’t want to keep going without, you know,” Wally said.

  “Stage forever,” thought Imogene. “Do you know why it is I don’t have pierced ears?” she said.

  Wally did not know.

  “Because it’s too permanent,” said Imogene. Wally nodded his head. Neither of them spoke for a while.

  “You should be keeping a list of all the bad things about me,” said Imogene.

  “I am,” said Wally.

  Even so, it was quite a night on the divan.

  190.

  When Wally left the next morning, Imogene wondered if she could use the cleaver to cut tuna melts in two.

  191.

  From Imogene’s, Wally went straight to Derek’s so that he could kvell over his achievement and also help Derek set up a wireless webcam because Derek wanted to be able to check the progress of his tomato plants whenever he left home. “You had your hand on one of them and you didn’t look?” Derek said with incredulity.

  “It’s not something I pay attention to,” said Wally, assigning the webcam a static IP address on Derek’s household intranet.

  For those who are, like Derek, curious, but unlike him, too polite to ask, here is a description of the underwear Imogene had on—and off—the night on the divan: Ice-blue front-close Chantilly lace demi-bra with matching boy shorts, adorned with a dainty bow. This set was from the Boy Meets Girl collection.

  192.

  Style #65.

  193.

  Unsized sample.

  194.

  Derek, poor voyeur, will never learn any of this. But perhaps he will find solace in knowing exactly what’s doing in his vegetable kingdom.

  195.

  Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy. Saks Fifth Avenue.

  After Wally said goodbye that morning, Imogene’s phone rang. Chalk it up to wishful thinking, self- confidence, or a bad guess, but whatever, Imogene positively expected the caller to be Wally. Before even the exchange of hellos, Imo-gene said, with an affect that did not suggest nearly as much prurience she’d hoped would be suggested: “Looking for your boxers?”

  196.

  The caller tittered. “Actually,” he said, “I am looking for your boxers.”

  “Excuse me?” Imogene said.

  It was Donald Charm from Saks
Fifth Avenue. Mr. Charm had seen a pair of Featherware satin bloomers displayed on a blueberry bush in the window of the Blue Tree boutique on Madison Avenue.

  Could Imogene come to the office tomorrow to present her spring line?

  “Zippity doo-dah,” thought Imogene.

  197.

  “I don’t have a spring line,” remembered Imogene.

  198.

  On the topic of making things up:

  Imogene wished to spend the night getting her portfolio in tip-top shape. When Wally invited her to a fork-benders exhibition, Imogene said she was very sorry but she had plans.

  199.

  She was not lying about being sorry.

  200.

  “You should never make plans,” Wally said solemnly.

  “Why not?” said Imogene.

  “Because then you will always be free to make plans,” said Wally.

  Did it ever occur to Imogene to tell Wally the truth?

  201.

  No.

  202.

  Imogene worked through the night on her packet for Donald Charm. Imogene was most proud of her special-occasion lingerie, which included the Lacy Low Rise Easter panties, the Passover Let My People Go bra, and the April Fools Mesh Surprise.

  203.

  Imogene ironed every item, for she believed in a crisp presentation.

  204.

  Imogene always maintained her creaseless standards.

  205.

  Donald Charm’s assistant, a young flibbertigibbet who’d been trying to get chewing gum out of her hair when Imogene arrived, scrunched Imogene’s handiwork into a Fed- Ex box. “Sorry,” she said, “but something’s going on in swimwear and Mr. Charm had to take an emergency holiday in Corfu.”

  Imogene was disappointed, but it was beneath her to let an assistant know.

  “See you,” said the assistant. “I mean, don’t call. Mr. Charm will e-mail you.”

  206.

  Before anyone knew it, just like that, in a jiffy, Imogene Gilfeather and Wally Yez had set up housekeeping together. The kept house was Imogene’s one-and-a-half-bedroom with a wraparound terrace. Which goes to show you—and them, too—that everything is all at once unpredictable and predictable.

  207.

  Not every single one of Wally’s things suited the decor in Imogene’s apartment. Those that did not were moved to Wally’s pied-à-terre.

  208.

  Wally has a pied-à-terre?

  209.

  Not exactly. It was more like a storage space in Long Island City.

  210.

  No. More like a bin. But, like a pied-à-terre, Wally’s bin did have a lock on it.

  211.

  There was not enough room in chaplette 210 to catalog the contents of Wally’s bin.

  How about here and now? Sorry, but this chaplette is chock-full of its own meshugas: namely, Patty is presently in litigation, trying to secure permission to inventory Mr. Yez’s property. Wally’s lawyer, who comes from the world of nonfiction, is arguing that her client should not be deprived of his constitutional right to privacy just because he, the plaintiff, does not quote unquote exist.*

  It is unclear what constitutional principle appertains here. To Patty’s attorney, anyway.

  212.

  At any rate, certain belongings of Wally’s were found near the bin, having evidently fallen out onto public premises. It is within the author’s prerogative to document them. They include lengths of coaxial cable, a turtle toy for Stuffy, a broken motor that Wally kept for heuristic reasons, a decorative flame-thrower, a copy of a movie made in 1920 called The Future of Pajamas, a carton labeled “Pieces of String Not Worth Saving,” and a big book entitled Will It Freeze?

  213.

  Newly together, Imogene and Wally did what newly togethers do. They marveled at the serendipity that their paths had ever crossed. What were the chances, they said, that both of them would have been at the same going-away party?! And both in the apple pie line?! “What if I had been allergic to pie!” Wally said. “What if Ron de Jean had insisted that he and I leave before dessert!” Imogene said. Wally skirted over this possibility—the mention of another person in his beloved’s life was horribly unsettling.

  “Immy, what if I had been born in Canada,” said Wally, “or the seventeen hundreds?”

  Again and again Wally and Imogene rehashed the efflorescing days of their romance. Detail upon detail (see chaplettes 1, 3, 7, 8, 10, 12, 16, 17, 20, 26, 27, 28, &c.). They asked each other how did you feel when I said that, what did you think was going to happen when that happened, had you ever imagined such a person as I.

  214.

  They offered commentary.

  215.

  They were pundits about themselves.

  216.

  Storytellers about their story.

  217.

  They tried to dream about each other. Wally was successful. They kept odd hours. Imogene’s were odder. They went to the movies and didn’t pay attention to the screen. They went grocery shopping and brought home the wrong bags. They left notes for each other inside the strangest places—medicine cabinets, mailboxes, butter dishes, ziplock-storage bags, socks. They tried out different terms of endearment. Nothing sounded natural enough. They said, give it time, the right names will come to us.

  218.

  They both liked broccoli.

  219.

  They both used mechanical pencils (not the same make, but still).

  220.

  They agreed about paper towels.

  221.

  Growing up, neither had had a dog nor mumps.

  222.

  Both had a mother who stayed up all hours, and a father who went to bed early.

  223.

  Neither had been to Istanbul.

  224.

  They were so alike, weren’t they? It was uncanny, they said.

  She loved to watch him listen to jazz. He adored the way she played with a particular strand of her hair. She now thought the half-moons on his thumbnails were the most beautiful half-moons she had ever seen. He was enamored with her habit of sitting cross-legged. He got a charge every time she pronounced the word strawberry. She was partial to his slight overbite.

  No, they never tired of each other. They had not heard all of each other’s anecdotes yet.

  And when they were with friends—not in the company of each other—they coaxed the conversation to a place where, for instance, they could interject, “Wally has an aunt who was a spy” or “That reminds me, Imogene once found a letter from Daniel Patrick Moynihan in a library book.”

  There was always something to celebrate! The five-month anniversary of the first time they touched each other on purpose, the three-month anniversary of the first time they took public transportation together, the two-day anniversary of the first time they saw each other with wet hair, the seven-month, three-week, two-day, four-hour anniversary of when Wally really knew.

  They liked to reminisce about the instant that just went by.

  225.

  The Happy Days. (Say no more.)

  226.

  They were so happy, friends stayed away.

  227.

  Who was the first to be unhappy (not counting Patty)?

  228.

  As usual, there is no clue in the haiku:

  The jonquil petals

  Cicada’s cry in moonlight.

  Sad strappy sandals?

  229.

  How about in the skywriting?

  230.

  In other boroughs, Mrs. Schine’s boy married the wrong girl, Mr. del Gaizo’s keys fell through a subway grate, Victoria R. Pepall did not get everything she’d hoped for in the will, Suzzy Hamblen’s fine sheets were destroyed by Taiwanese hot water bottles, fledgling actors in high school productions forgot their lines, waiters refused substitutions, subjects and verbs disagreed (to put it mildly), frogs were dying as were the bees, and life was no fucking bowl of cherries (for Patty either).

  2
31.

  Things improve.

  232.

  Sometimes.

  233.

  For others.

  234.

  “He asked me to marry him,” Imogene said to Harriet. Imogene and Harriet were working late, designing samples for the new Featherware-able line.