I want to tell Steve to stop coming over quite so regularly but I can't quite find the words. Please help or suggest a witty means of coping with a very ugly situation.
Thanks,
Kitty Pickle
* * * *
Dear Kitty Pickle,
The obvious solution is to throw over the boyfriend for the roommate. You have similar taste in people and he's getting a new place where the two of you can be blissfully alone. Your boyfriend can date the pesky friend; you can all get together occasionally for pie and Trivial Pursuit. Lovely.
If you're dead set on keeping the boyfriend around because you love him, or whatever, then he should at least make a good faith effort to procure a spine from a mail-order catalogue. As for the ixnay on the friend-ay, you're on your own till the spine arrives. You could just scream a blood-curdler whenever you open the door and see the pest standing there. Or you could tell him your doctor said that you can only be in the presence of one man's worth of hormones at a time, so he can't be around when you are. If all else fails, there's always the old “We've gone religious and unless you join us on Planet Zapstar Suicide Cult, we really can only hang one night a week on what our people call the Holy Day of Normalcy, i.e. Tuesday.” Or, as my grandmother did when she had problems with contrary members of the opposite sex as a child, you can hit him in the head with a book. I guarantee he'll come around less.
Sincerely,
Ms. Bond
* * * *
Dear Aunt Gwenda,
Karl and the rest of the boys done locked the red button away and won't tell me where it is. What should I do to these stinking horsethieves?
GWB, DC
* * * *
Aunt Gwenda says: The real question here is why you want to know where the red button is. Repeat after me: I will keep my stinking paws off the red button.
But seriously, you should also teach those horsethieves a lesson. You should fire all of them—every single individual in your direct chain of command, including the Veep—then you resign and go live the rest of your days dim and quiet on that big square plot of tumbleweeds in Texas you like so damn much. That'll show ‘em.
Next?
* * * *
Dear Aunt Gwenda,
My wife and I always spend our holidays in Western Maine—the part away from the water where all the bugs are. She says she loved going there as a child and doesn't see why she should go anywhere else. In college I used to love going to Florida for Spring Break (where I met my first wife) but my wife won't hear of going there. Do you think it's time for separate vacations?
* * * *
Aunt Gwenda says: I think it's time for a divorce, if you seriously want your wife to go on a Florida Spring Break vacation with you. (And while I've got your attention . . . You married someone you met in Florida on a college Spring Break?! Is the wedding video available in finer video stores with the word “Uncensored” emblazoned across the cover?)
What you need is a globe, a hat and several slips of paper. Choose some places that are not in Maine, or Florida, preferably where neither of you has ever been or met a future spouse, write their names on the slips, and then draw one out of a hat. Voila, compromise vacation somewhere cool. And yes, you let her do the drawing. Ahem.
* * * *
Dear Aunt Gwenda,
Some time ago my local coffeeshop started a discount club where, when you buy ten coffees, they give you one free. My boyfriend and I are arguing over whether it is fair to pay for ten small black coffees then get the shuper-tall-latte-grande-with-cream-and-chocolate-sprinkles. What do you think?
* * * *
Aunt Gwenda says: They made the rules. Trust me, they're still getting the better end of the deal. Do the math.
This is not an ethical dilemma, but a dire lack of perspective. Really, what the coffeeshop's doing is rewarding your customer loyalty. So, what kind of reward do you deserve? What kind of person are you, anyway? Grande with sprinkles or small with non-dairy creamer? Don't tell me, tell your reflection in the mirror tomorrow morning, Tiger.
* * * *
Dear Aunt Gwenda,
Did you just tell someone to do the math?
* * * *
Shut your filthy cakehole. (And if I did, I meant the kind of math where you use your fingers at best and a calculator at worst. What kind of girl do you take me for?)
If you have a moral dilemma or unanswerable math problem, we suspect the answer lies just a few drinks away at your local bar. However, if you'd rather hear it from Aunt Gwenda, email ([email protected]) or write to us and we'll send it on.
* * * *
[Back to Table of Contents]
The Poor Man's Wife
M. Thomas
Pinoy kept shop in an alley, and had a way with bits of string, soleless shoes, occasional pots, pigeon carcasses, broken glass, forgotten dolls, ravaged hope, and old regrets. He made them into things that came out new, though not necessarily bright. It could not be said Pinoy was a maker of nice things so much as needed things. That was how he came to make the poor man's wife.
Afterwards Rashi, his housekeeper, watched while Pinoy and the poor man ran their hands over the marzipan form, sticking their fingers in all her crevices to make certain the depth was just right, licking their fingers afterward to catch the sweetness that clung to them. While Rashi watched, Pinoy gave the poor man a long, guided tour of his new wife's confectionery morphology—"You see how the breasts, just so, and the thighs, so firm, and the chin, you said small, and the nose, you said pert,"—and the poor man nodded, his eyes bright.
"Her upkeep will be less expensive than a real wife,” Abram said to Pinoy. “That is where my plan lies. The butcher on Machester and his seven sons are delivering meat for free to their customers. I'm only one man. How can I be expected to do such a thing? Now she can run the shop, and I shall deliver meat. And when I've saved a few pennions you shall make me seven, no nine, no twelve fine sons. They will be made of iron perhaps, or something stronger than marzipan at least."
When they had gone, Rashi went and touched the new creation's smooth, golden brow and the delicate curve of her eyelids, under which lay pieces of blue glass that would be her eyes. She stroked the marzipan throat, touched the woman's shoulders, perfectly rounded, and put her arms around herself tightly. She looked for a while longer, then went back to the kitchen.
* * * *
"Have you seen her? The Marzi?"
"Marzi?"
"The Marzipan. Pinoy's Marzipan. He made her for poor Abram."
Within days the entire left bank of Ulmagon knew about the marzipan wife. The other side of the city, with its high, white houses, couldn't care less about the left side where things leaned and the wonderful tick-tock magic of their own clockwork sorcery was bastardized by the uncertain necromancy of men like Pinoy.
They came after Rashi with many “how did he's,” and “tell me about's,” but she shook her head. Don't know. Can't say. If she had, Pinoy would scold her, though she was too old for scoldings, really. Rashi knew her business, and it was none of theirs.
The next day, the rains of Omestas began. Pinoy ordered her out into the torrents to poor Abram's house, to see how the new wife was coming along. Rashi took off her light shift to put on her thick hose, her woolen socks, her boots, her undergarments and overthings, her gloves, her scarf, her hooded cloak, and her wide-brimmed hat. She traveled from Par Felling to the butchery on Melog where Abram lived, and knocked on the door.
He answered, looking disheveled and upset. “Oh good. Rashi. You must come in. Tell my Marzi about the rain, please."
The marzipan wife was in the kitchen, staring at a collection of pots and a hearth-fire.
"Why?” she said as Abram and Rashi entered, continuing a conversation from before.
"She doesn't understand about the cooking, and the pots,” Abram said. “Also, she doesn't understand about the rain."
"She understands the cooking and the pots,” Rashi told him, motioning to
where Marzi had put a pot of water on the hook over the fire. “She doesn't understand why. She has no need to eat. She doesn't understand why you do."
"Yes.” Marzi nodded. “Why?"
Rashi saw the finished product of Pinoy's working for the first time. The bits of blue glass had become round, wet, fragile blue eyes. The marzipan form had become a golden flesh unusual for rainy Ulmagon, where skin like Rashi's—pale and white—characterized the people who hurried to and fro between awnings and across the swollen river five months out of seven.
"It is because he must first cook the food, then put it in his body in order to live,” she told the woman.
"Why?"
"It's the way he works.” Rashi shrugged.
"Why?"
Rashi turned to Abram. “This is your own fault,” she said. “You remembered well enough about the breasts and thighs and nose, but you didn't tell Pinoy to put any thought into her."
Abram blinked. “Thought? In her head?"
"That's right. Do you want to know what Pinoy put there instead? Rose petals. Oh yes, they're very pretty, and she'll always love you because she's got them in her heart as well, but she'll never be able to think with them. She'll always be simple."
Abram watched his new wife wander over to the side-board, pick up a chicken thigh, a roll of uncooked dough, and a carrot. She put them in the cooking pot together.
"But can she learn?"
"Little pieces. Cooking, probably. Cleaning. Dressing herself. But never anything substantial."
Abram watched his wife. “Well. If she can learn, she will. And what man never wanted a wife without any thought in her?” He smiled at his joke.
"She's so lovely. But you must teach her about the rain, Rashi.” He turned to Pinoy's shop-girl urgently. “Please. Of all things, she must know about the rain. I love her."
So Rashi tightened her gloves, and went to Marzi. She took the woman by the hand, and led her to the door. Together, they stared at the rivulets coming down from the roof, and beyond that, the leaning drizzle blown in from the west.
"You mustn't go into the rain,” Rashi told her. “Nor ever get wet. Do you understand?"
"Why?” Marzi asked.
Rashi took her hand, and thrust it out into the runoff from the roof. Where the water fell on Marzi's flesh, her smooth, real flesh, it reminded her element of what it truly was. She sagged in ripples where the marzipan ran off.
Rashi brought her back into the house, and smoothed her finger over the damaged places until they were flesh again.
"You'll go away,” she said. “You'll go away, and never come back."
Marzi stared at her. “Why?"
"Because that is what happens,” Rashi said. “You're only marzipan, after all. Do you want to dissolve away?"
The marzipan woman shook her head.
"Then you must not get wet. Wear gloves. Don't leave the house. Watch out for the fire as well. Be careful."
Rashi stayed the evening, taught Marzi how to cook, and took home a nice cut of beef for Pinoy from Abram's shop for her troubles. She watched him while he ate, eyeing the familiar pale brow, the disheveled beard and slight paunch that might have been endearing to some. Then, while she gathered up his dishes and put them in the empty washing tub, she stiffened at his touch lingering in the small of her back. His questioning finger ran along the length of her shoulder and arm.
"No, Pinoy,” she said.
"You're about as much use to me as a doll made of straw.” He dropped his hand.
"Maybe you should make one of those,” she replied. She waited until he got to the door, then said, “Why would you make a woman out of marzipan, in a city where it rains five months out of seven?"
"May as well ask me why I would make one out of salt,” he said.
"Well?"
"It was all he could afford. Sugar and salt are much easier than cloth or metal. And sugar . . . well, I thought it might work better this time."
"Maybe it will,” she said.
"Mmm.” He retreated to his study, and she prepared herself for the washing of dishes.
* * * *
For the first three months, Rashi visited Abram and his wife when she could, braving the rain to teach Marzi about small things—sewing and buttons and combs and petticoats and cooking and cleaning. She always received something nice for Pinoy from Abram—sausage or a slice of pork—because the man might be poor, but he was thankful.
Day after day she cared for Pinoy. Night after night, she rejected his advances, watching him walk slowly back to his study, miserable and confused, in a way she could not comfort. He was a kind man. He had tried for a long time to endear her to him, with small gifts and caresses. She read his books, studied his texts, learned and formed and expanded her thoughts until she knew of parody and romance and dynamism and longing. Still, neither he nor his books managed to touch her meaningfully, and never had.
Meanwhile, Abram became discontent.
Rashi heard about it from the neighbors.
"Oh, a row last night in the poor man's house! Some yelling, and I swear he hit her, though it sounded like a man punching a sandbag!"
"What did they say?” Rashi asked.
"Why?” quoted the gossiper. “Why? I'll tell you why. Because I say so is why. But why, my love? Don't ask why. Just because I say so, just because—"
Rashi walked away then, having heard enough.
* * * *
As they moved into the fourth month, the month where dogs often went mad at the unending rain and ran howling through the streets, the month where the gutters spilled over and flooded the streets with excrement, the month where men would murder one another over a card-game or nothing at all, Marzi still failed to understand money. Abram begged Rashi every day to come and teach his wife, and every day she sat across the kitchen table, pushing pennions around in front of Marzi—"Seven pennions is a quorot. Five quorots is a slathe. Now, if I bought twelve pennions worth of beef, and gave you a slathe, how much would you give me back?"
Inevitably, driven by her generous rose-petal spirit, no doubt, Marzi would try to return all the money, and even some of her own. At first Abram would stomp from the room, muttering under his breath. Then he refused to come in the room at all, preferring to yell from the hallway, “Three quorots and two pennions! By the bleeding river, I told you that yesterday! You cannot run the shop if you give away every pennion we make!"
Though Marzi could not cry, her lips would tremble. “Th-three quorots and two pennions,” she would stutter miserably, and push a handful of coins back at Rashi. But it was useless. The coins and their values made no more sense to her than food.
The tales of shouting and abuse continued. No one much bothered with it. It was useful gossip fodder for a while, but in the end the Marzi wasn't a real thing, and she belonged to Abram, so who were they to interfere? Besides, bruises never showed on her marzipan skin. She could be hurt, but never show the damage.
Rashi would tell Pinoy of this as she watched him eat. If he blamed himself for not putting any thought into the woman, he never admitted it
"Rose petals,” he said once, and only once. “He wanted rose petals. I gave him exactly what he asked for."
"Perhaps it just isn't meant to work at all,” she replied, picking up his dishes. “It has never seemed like a good idea to me, Pinoy, this idolatry of confections, this making of needed things out of odds and ends and cast-off garbage. Real need can't be salved by these liniments of pretend."
He chuckled. “Liniments of pretend,” he said. “How you talk, Rashi. That, at least, entertains me for a while."
* * * *
The end came in the fifth month of rain, and Rashi couldn't help but wonder afterward whether things might have gone better if Abram had managed to make it through the rainy months.
A neighbor came to the door of Pinoy's shop one afternoon, and when they let him in he gasped, “It's Abram. He's taken her to the river."
Pinoy rushed out before Ra
shi could get all her overthings on. When she at last got to the river, her scarf wrapped tight around her mouth and chin, her gloved hand raised to ward off the rain against the upper portion of her face, she found Pinoy struggling to sit up, his hand pressed against a darkening bruise on his face.
"Please, Abram. There may still be something we can do—"
"I told you to stay away!” The rain made dark thorns of the hair plastered to Abram's cheeks and forehead. He had something in his hands.
It was his wife.
Marzi had been stripped of her clothing, and dangled in the water like a sack, held fast by the wrists. Her legs were gone, leaving stumps. The rain and the splash of river water had dragged down on her, here and here and here, so that her face sagged; one of her blue glass eyes was gone, and her shoulder was a chunk, like some child's neglected treat, half-devoured.
"I love you,” she cried, struggling in his grasp. “Why? Why?"
"Don't ask why!” Abram said. “Don't ask why!"
"But I'll go away in the water,” she said, just before a small wave rose up and took her chin. Little by little she became a torso, a breast-less clump, and finally Abram let go of her hands. The rest of her sank into the river, dissipated in thick brown swirls, and was gone. Further down the river she became so much sludge, bound for the sea.
Abram sank down on the bank of the river and wept. His tears made no difference to the rain.
Rashi went to help Pinoy stand, and walked him home. As she bathed his bruised cheek in cool water, cleaning the small cut that had opened up, he stared at her.
"You didn't try to stop him."
"What could I do? She was never real to him. And she was broken."
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 13 Page 5
