She takes coffee from a carafe on a hotplate and adjourns to her studio to work on an autumn line for a small boutique. Elisa is not in charge of the entire collection, only the evening wear. As she begins to scribble over the template of the perfect woman, a figure that strangely reflects the artist who was clothing it, her guilty assistant enters with the announcement she has a visitor. Close behind Miss Hanley (Hanley Financial Services) is Graham, his coat over his arm and with a focused stare on his face.
“Good morning, Elisa,” he said as he entered, throwing his coat onto a nearby lounge chair and coming up to her drafting table.
“Well, Graham, what an unpleasant surprise. What brings you to the country?”
“I haven’t seen you lately, you haven’t been to mother’s for Sunday brunch for the last few weeks. I thought, as big brother, I’d come see if everything was all right.”
“Oh, come now. The only way you’ll ever warm up to me is if we’re cremated together.”
“Elisa, don’t talk like that. I care about you, you know that, that’s why I’m here.”
“I’d tell you I want to be alone, but you’re the kind of person whose presence doesn’t really affect that.”
“Is everything okay? You seem more boorish than normal,” Graham said.
“Graham, this conversation’s about as necessary as a fence around a cemetery. Why don’t you tell me what you want so that I can get back to my work?”
“I told you, I’m worried about you. I know we don’t talk all that much, but I want you to know that I’m here for you.”
“I don’t know what to say, that’s so sweet. I do have some things I need to talk about. You know, as a woman, I can’t take care of myself and I’m just so worried that I’ll never find anyone who will want me. I’m as lonesome as a bachelor’s toilet brush. I’m so unhappily unmarried, Graham. You know, I try, I do try. When I’m asked things that are out of the question, I always have the right answer. I know how to say ‘yes’ in six languages, just in case. When I meet a man and he asks me if I might be free a particular night, I always tell him ‘no, but I’m willing to negotiate’.”
“Elisa, I’m serious.”
“When my boss chases me around the office, I walk.”
“Stop it, listen. I’m trying to be serious with you. We’ve all noticed it. We don’t know why you’re tormenting yourself; you seem to enjoy your own sadness. We want you to be happy. Are you taking your meds?”
“Yes, I am taking them. No one said in what order, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, Graham, why don’t you toddle off now. You’ve done your job, you’ve expressed your concern, you look courageous and caring, you can go now.”
“Why won’t you let yourself be happy?”
“Did it ever occur to you that I might be happy, that maybe I like my life just the way it is? Why do I need a husband and some meaningless hobbies to be happy? Why do you all think your way is the only way?” Elisa required Descartesly.
“So, you’re right and everyone else in the entire world is wrong.”
“Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination.”
“I don’t know what that means. Listen, we’re a very public family. People look to us for right and wrong. You need to remember that, you can’t be selfish about this, you have to think of what is good for the whole, not just for yourself.”
“I know, Graham, I know it so well every time I look at myself in the mirror I feel a sudden urge to bow.”
“Would you take this seriously, I’m here to tell you that people are talking about you and they’re not saying positive things.”
“I’ll give this topic the respect it deserves, I know happiness is no laughing matter. You people don’t believe everything you hear, but it doesn’t stop you from repeating it.”
“We’re not saying anything that isn’t true, Elisa. Your lifestyle, this whole career of yours, it doesn’t make sense to anyone. I mean, you live by yourself, you don’t have any friends, you don’t talk to anyone without saying something nasty, you don’t have a boyfriend. You used to be so popular; I always figured you’d be married before you were twenty. What is it exactly that you’re doing? I don’t understand it, no one does.”
“Graham, brother, you have a narrow mind and a wide mouth. One would expect very little things from a man like you and gratefully, you haven’t disappointed anyone.”
“Okay, fine. Go ahead and sit on your high horse, go ahead and offend the person who’s here to try and help you. But at least listen to one thing, if you don’t want to be happy, that’s fine, whatever. But think of mom, think of how your actions make her feel, how she has to deal with it. At least try and make her happy.”
“I’m not one to waste my time shooting arrows at the moon.”
“So you won’t even try for her sake? Why don’t you speak English, for god’s sake?”
“I pay attention to the words I use for one thing. Secondly, I don’t worship her like you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Graham, if you were any smarter we’d have to remove ‘savant’ from your title. Did you read any of those books you were assigned in college?”
“Don’t try to make me feel stupid, Elisa. I’m not one of your dutiful flunkies you run around with, I was world champion two years longer than you, and you were never even on Rob Them Blind.”
“Just because you can remember the date of the French Revolution doesn’t mean you understand what it meant, dear brother. I have no doubt you read all the books required of you, you’re problem is that you didn’t comprehend them.”
“What year was the French Revolution?”
“That’s my point, all that matters to you is that you know. I’ll answer your question if you’ll answer mine,” Elisa challenged.
“Fine. What is it?”
“Why does it matter when it occurred?” she Collingwoodly proposed.
“You don’t make sense. I realize that is the point, you’ve successfully changed the subject, but I’m not going to fall for it. We’re talking about you, nothing else.”
“I don’t send our parents a congratulations letter on my birthday like you but I do love to talk about myself.”
“All right, Elisa, enough with this. Here’s why I came. I will be moving into a new flat after I get married, the place I’m in now will be ready by the end of the month. We feel it would best for you to move into the city. So, I will give you my place. This house is going up for sale.”
“Why is it that I always feel like Jesus getting a kiss from one of his friends when you offer me something, Graham?”
“I don’t know. Probably because you’re incapable of accepting help.”
* * *
The machine swallows blues, pinks, all the whites, which there are hundreds of, purples, red and yellows, blue and whites, red and blue stripes, ovals, spheres, triangles, squares, rectangles, tubes, hexagons, pentagrams, tablets, capsules, pills, lacugens, gelatin caplets, ambules, and spews them out in their proper packages. This one will cure your heartburn, but you may experience nosebleeds, gastric discomfort, bloody urine, and cardiac murmurs. This small pill represses anti-social urges, this pill can knock out a heifer, this one’ll wake him back up instantly. These little blue one’s grow hair back from dead follicles, the red and whites induce blood flow to the brain and manage migraines. This one is called in the vernacular a calorie-eater, take one every two hours and eat whatever you want. You won’t gain a single pound.