Hey Harry, Hey Matilda

by Rachel Hulin

  Harry,

  That’s incredible! Both the quote and the “trio.” How ballsy—intellectuals flaunting their questionable sexual ethics.

  This seems appropriate now:

  Things I Shouldn’t Say Out Loud (New Addition)

  Once at camp an older counselor took a shine to me. I was always very proud of that. He called me graceful. He taught basketball and photography. He was thirty and I was fifteen. I had ill-conceived hair and braces.

  We held hands once. MAGIC. His hands were huge.

  .

  Matilda,

  That is super sketchy of that counselor. Funny you didn’t mention it at the time. You were generally such a braggart about your conquests.

  .

  Harry,

  You tell me about the trio and then you act like such a prude!

  .

  Matilda,

  I can’t help it, I’m a contradiction.

  .

  Harry,

  I’m really sad about the dog. I feel like I should commemorate him in some way.

  .

  Matilda,

  Me too.

  .

  Harry,

  I guess he had to go. He was a pivotal character in the screenplay, and it made for an exciting but heart-wrenching climax. That’s how I’m going to think of it.

  .

  Matilda,

  Do you keep any anxiety medication at Mom’s?

  .

  Harry!

  Are you turning into me? Try the maple tree in the forest behind the hot tub. It has a big knot with a hole in it. It’s like the honey pot from the Berenstain Bears. I’ll draw you a map.

  Harry, do I need to worry?

  .

  Matilda,

  It’s nothing, I’m sure it will be OK. I made lobsters last night with Vera. It felt wrong, boiling something in a pot after Freddy. I think I have a touch of PTSD.

  .

  Harry,

  It’s somehow very Jewish of Vera to cook lobsters with you. Maybe I was wrong about her. I mean, who am I to blow against the wind.

  Harry, did you know around the Civil War PTSD used to be called nostalgia? All the soldiers came home suffering from nostalgia. Maybe that’s what we have.

  .

  Matilda,

  I found out today that all the days are named for the planets. How did we not know this already?

  Monday—Moon

  Tuesday—Mars

  Wednesday—Mercury

  Thursday—Jupiter

  Friday—Venus

  Saturday—Saturn

  Sunday—Sun!

  .

  Harry,

  Oh my god, that is incredible.

  .

  Matilda,

  I’m glad Vera pointed it out.

  .

  Harry,

  You know that moment on a bus where you pass an imaginary line and stop looking back and start looking forward? It happened to me every summer as we were shipped off to camp, somewhere around Worcester.

  Anyway, I think staring down those oncoming cars was that moment for me. Or maybe when Nate came back. I feel slightly invincible. Still broke, but invincible.

  .

  Matilda,

  I’m doing a little research on “regret” for my class this week. What would you say are your biggest regrets?

  .

  Harry,

  Who, me? Why, what are YOUR biggest regrets? Are you regretting schtupping your student and risking the slammer yet?

  Well, Regrets, I’ve had a few. I was once offered a job at a start-up in California. Let’s call it Instatweet. The job came with a lot of stock options, but I decided against moving out there because it’s too pleasant in California and I might discover true happiness from so much sunshine.

  And then later the company went public for a record sum.

  .

  Matilda,

  I’m really stressed out. I think my tenure might really be in danger.

  .

  Harry,

  Well, my luck is really starting to turn—the universe is beginning to shift. I got a call yesterday that the wedding photographer I’m a backup for went into early labor, and I got a wedding out of thin air! A big situation at a Midtown hotel.

  .

  Matilda,

  Wedding photographers have backup photographers?

  .

  Harry,

  Of course! We’re as important as midwives, you can’t have your affair go undocumented!

  .

  Matilda,

  I suppose that is true.

  .

  Hey Harry,

  I hung out with my friend Anne yesterday. She came over and made me do a downward-facing dog. I did it a little drunk, though, since it was happy hour. Did you know there are a lot of people in New York who go to yoga class drunk? It’s a whole thing. I would be fucking ashamed to do that.

  Anne wants to break up with her boyfriend because she hates him, but first she wants to see if he’ll propose so they can get married.

  “Sometimes I look at men online just to envision an alternate future,” she told me. “Is that wrong?”

  “I do that, too! It’s only natural. I mean—I look at cashmere sweaters online all the time, too, but I would never act on it. I stick with merino wool, because I know that’s where I belong.”

  “Well, there’s this doctor on there,” she said. “I think he has braces because he smiles with his mouth closed, but I’m curious about him.”

  “Oh, yeah. The doctor with braces, I’ve seen him on there,” I said. “He’s doesn’t seem very smart. And he’s just a dermatologist.”

  “Oh, OK, you can have him, then.”

  “No, no, I don’t want him. Although can you imagine how Grandma would react if I brought home a doctor?”

  “I won’t date him, I’ll let you have him,” said Anne.

  See, that’s the kind of friend Anne is. She will give you a freaking dermatologist. Maybe I’ll call him up, what could it hurt? Dermatologists are the best doctors to marry because no one calls them in the middle of the night dying of itchy skin. Although that must happen sometimes, because this is New York.

  Anne is starting to have sleepless, scattered thirty-five-year-old hair, but without the baby. I’m slightly concerned. Next she’ll have the sensible squibble of the forty-fives. See?

  .

  Harry,

  I’m going to have a great year, I can feel it.

  .

  Matilda,

  I’m really, really happy to hear that.

  .

  Matilda,

  Vera’s being published in The New Yorker, except she’s not. I mean, she doesn’t know. I mean—we have to talk.

  .

  Harry,

  Wow, this Vera is full of surprises! Aren’t you jealous, though?

  I’ll call you later. Tonight I have a date with a doctor.

  Part Four: January

  Harry,

  I’m writing the story of our life. I’ve got a little bit already. Someone told me once that you start with where you come from, so I’ll do it that way. I’m having a green day today, Harry. Third one this week—unprecedented.

  Storrs, Connecticut, the home of University of Connecticut, has a population of 10,996.

  76% of the population are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four.

  UConn boasts one of the country’s premier agriculture programs. Its barns are home to over 200 Holstein and Jersey cows. The school owns a dairy bar, catchphrase: “Cow to cone.”

  Students have nicknamed the town “Snores.” After Hurricane Katrina, Storrs was named by Slate magazine as “America’s Best Place to Avoid Death Due to Natural Disaster.” Storrs has one of the highest rates of DUI arrests in the country. Its E. O. Smith High School is considered excellent. Notable residents of Storrs include the writer Wally Lamb, Weezer lead singer Rivers Cuomo, and Peter Tork, of the Monkees. The median income in Storrs is $76,000.


  Neighboring Storrs is the town of Willimantic, median income $30,155. Once a thriving mill town, it is kept on the National Register of Historic Places by its now-crumbling 800 Victorian homes.

  “Willimantic” is a Native American term, meaning “land of the swift running water.”

  The town has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state.

  Servicing Willimantic is Windham High School, which has an in-school nursery in an attempt to keep its many pregnant female students from dropping out to raise children.

  Harry A. Goodman grew up primarily in Storrs. Matilda Goodman grew up in Willimantic.

  Harry’s SAT scores were higher, but he ended up at UConn in the English honors program. Matilda went to Brown. She had less competition.

  If Harry was bitter about this, he had to blame himself. It was he who insisted on living with his mother when their parents divorced, dividing the twins. Matilda was always intensely attached to her father as a child and would not budge. The kids were kept quite separate as children, perhaps because of the parents’ deep enmity for one another. Their father was driven, a newly minted Hartford insurance executive, after years in nonprofits. He was a Little League coach on weekends. Harry played tennis.

  Dad kept their old Victorian because he liked winning, not because he liked Willimantic. It was the best Victorian on the hill. Taupe, tasteful, masculine enough.

  Matilda had a rich-girl reputation at school, as everything is relative.

  She took over the whole top floor and the turret at her dad’s house, which is where she and Harry would convene on the rare day their living arrangements overlapped—more common as they became teens.

  Harry had Latin at his school, and Matilda dyed her hair red for the first time after her Bat Mitzvah, though her mother was mad at her father for allowing it.

  Because their friends were so segmented, H&M sometimes delighted in pretending not to be related at all.

  Harry and Matilda would eat sugary foods on Wednesday afternoons. Matilda had a little fridge, which she adored. Dad would often disappear for days at a time, and Mother had a touch of cancer, but everything turned out fine in the end.

  .

  Matilda,

  Interesting, but I think it wraps up rather suddenly?

  .

  Harry,

  What do you mean? I did have a fridge. Remember? We put that juice called MangoMango in it that eventually was discontinued. The fridge was fake-wood paneled, like station wagons in the late ’70s with bucket seats in the way-way back that were for hurting bottoms on speed bumps.

  .

  Matilda,

  I wonder what it would have been like if we were separated at birth and then reunited as complete strangers. Would we recognize each other from our very cells? Would we project some similar aura or family smell into the air?

  .

  Harry,

  This has happened to people, and they like each other very much. There’s a name for it—the Westermarck effect. Familiarity with your own family means they become sexually repellent to you, but if you never become familiar—not repellent.

  Nature is always looking out for people, Harry. Trying to save them from themselves.

  .

  Matilda,

  But humans can overcome nature if they try hard enough, don’t you think? Question: If I weren’t an English professor, or a writer, what could I be?

  .

  Harry,

  Why? Considering a career change now? You’d need a slow-paced job where you can be both brainy and in charge.

  1. A head librarian

  2. A bread baker in your own bakery

  3. An unemployed person who reads and runs a lot

  Maybe I should be a career counselor!

  .

  Matilda,

  Yeah, I figured my options were rather dismal.

  .

  Harry,

  I’ve changed recently, myself. I’ve dyed my hair dark, nearly black. I’m a new person, Harry. I’m like Anjelica Huston awesome. Perhaps I’ve reached that age where I can imagine myself more at forty than at twenty. In this case, I must make plans to look my best. Start collecting timeless clothing in good fabrics. Develop a signature red lip.

  I think it was those lights coming at me on the highway. They cleansed me, or scared away my demons, or made me brave finally.

  I have a new seriousness, a new purpose, a new hairstylist. Sharon lovingly made me this dark brunette. No more boxes for me, Harry.

  Why do all your hairstylists want to malign the stylist that came before? Are they just bitter by nature? Or do they all have flaws only their own kind can see?

  I’ve never been to the same hairstylist twice, but that may change with Sharon.

  I’M A MINX! I’M A WRITER WITH DARK BROWN ALMOST BLACK HAIR! I AM GOING TO BELIEVE MY OWN HYPE AS SOON AS I HAVE SOME!

  .

  Harry,

  Where the hell are you? I’m being amazing over here.

  .

  Matilda,

  Sorry, distracted by midterms this week, among other things. I’m listening, though.

  .

  Harry,

  Very hard to play to an empty room, friend.

  SO I have a tiny infection thing TMI TMI so I got a sitz bath. Basically you put warm water in it and put it on top of the toilet and then sit there for a long time (as long as you can) or until you are less infected. I’ve never met anything so pleasant as this sitz bath, it’s a revelation, to take this time for myself. I am going to do this every night and every morning for the rest of my life. It seems to serve the same purpose as a hot tub but without the chlorine and the guilt.

  See, Harry? You start ignoring me, and I start talking to you about vagina baths.

  .

  Matilda,

  Seriously, how about a new topic?

  .

  Harry,

  I read an article today that says people are happiest at twenty and seventy. So I guess seventy will blow my mind. I feel that it is going to. Grandma has seemed pretty stoked with herself for the past few decades.

  It’s odd how the first part of your life takes forever and then it just speeds up until you don’t notice time passing at all. I made a chart to illustrate it.

  Interestingly, I have had about twelve wedding photography inquiries so far this week, all since I decided to give up shooting weddings and start only making art. I suppose they can no longer smell my desperation.

  .

  Harry,

  Either I’m hitting my stride, or I have a slow-growing tumor blocking my brain’s failure area. Will the genetic test reveal this to me??

  Or I could just be ovulating.

  .

  Harry,

  Sorry! I bet you just raised your eyebrows at that last message. Because you are a man and you don’t understand anything. They should hand out a manual to adolescent girls. We are COMPLEX beings with lives highly influenced and run by hormones, and no one even knows what the hell is going on. I mean, I told you about the cat-in-heat thing, but it goes much, much deeper than that.

  TIMELINE OF A WOMAN’S MONTH

  It took me fourteen years of bleeding to figure this out, Harry. If men had menstrual cycles, we would all live our lives to the very particulars of it. And it is rather particular.

  I had to search the greatest depths of the internet to find out this information.

  Basically you’ve got to harness the moods and hormones, and learn what you can do, when. And then you can be a mood ninja, using progesterone for good and not evil.

  LIGHT SIDE OF THE MOON:

  Preovulation (ESTROGEN)/inward creative “yin” time. You can write here.

  Ovulation/cat in heat! Go to the bar and meet a man. Make all the artwork. Live large.

  DARK SIDE OF THE MOON:

  Postovulation (FUCKING PROGESTERONE)/this is your comedown from ovulating. You are sluggish and no one wants to have sex with you anymore. Don’t go to the bar, don’t attempt
to create art. Just nap and watch documentaries.

  Menstruation/Blood comes out of your vagina, which is unpleasant.

  Hormones can even tell you which vocation to have:

  When estrogen is in charge, be a writer.

  When progesterone is in charge, be a photographer.

  I think you’re supposed to change your diet, too, and not drink at certain times, but I haven’t reached that level of understanding yet.

  (A steak while you’re bleeding out of your vagina obviously makes sense.)

  You can also track all your fertilities, but that is not relevant for me.

  Being a creative person and being a hormonally sensitive female AND being an addictive personality is a triple fucking whammy. You have to navigate carefully. I hope one day I will have a daughter and I will be able to sketch this all out for her, so she’s not in the dark.