"Skeeve, old boy!" he said. "Certainly. As a matter of fact, I've been expecting you."
"Really?" I said, stepping into his room and looking around for somewhere to sit.
"Yes. I ran into Guido this morning, and he explained the situation to me. He said you were going to be calling on me for a bit of work. I was just killing time waiting for the official word, is all."
I wondered if the briefing my bodyguard had given Chumley was any more detailed than what he had told me.
"It's all right with you, then?" I said. "You don't mind?"
"Tish tosh. Think nothing of it," the troll said. "Truth to tell, I'll be glad to have a specific assignment again. I've been feeling a bit at loose ends lately. In fact, I was starting to wonder why I was staying around at all."
That touched a nerve in me. It had been some time since I had even stopped by to say 'Hello' to Chumley.
"Sorry if I've been a bit distant," I said guiltily. "I've been ... busy ... and ..."
"Quite right," Chumley said with a grin and a wink. "Caught a glimpse of your workload when you rolled in the other night. Bit of all right, that."
I think I actually blushed.
"No really," I stammered. "I've been ..."
"Relax, old boy," the troll waved. "I was just pulling your leg a bit. I know you've been up against it, what with the Queen after you and all. By the by, I've got a few thoughts on that, but I figured it would be rude to offer advice when none had been asked for."
"You do? That's terrific," I said, and meant it. "I've been meaning to ask your opinion, but wasn't sure how to bring it up."
"I believe you just have, actually," Chumley grinned. "Pull up a chair."
I followed his instructions as he continued.
"Advice on marriage, particularly when it comes to the selection of the partner to be, is usually best kept to oneself. The recipients usually already have their minds made up, and voicing any opinion contradictory to their decision can be hazardous to one's health. Since you've actually gotten around to asking, however, I think you might find my thoughts on the matter to be a tad surprising."
"How's that?"
"Well, most blokes who know me ... the real me, that is, rather than Big Crunch ... think of me as a bit of a romantic."
I blinked, but kept a straight face.
While I have the utmost respect for Chumley, I had never thought of him as a romantic figure ... possibly something to do with his green matted hair and huge eyes of different sizes. While I suppose that trolls have love lives (otherwise, how does one get little trolls?) I'd have to rate their attractiveness in relation to dwellers of other dimensions to be way down near the bottom. Their female counterparts, the trollops, such as his sister Tananda, were a whole different story, of course, but for the trolls themselves ... on a scale of one to ten, I'd generously score them around negative eighteen.
This particular troll, however, old friend though he might be, was currently sitting within an arm's length of me ... his arm, not mine ... and as that arm was substantially stronger than two arms of the strongest human ... which I'm not ... I decided not to argue the point with him. Heck, if he wanted to say he was the Queen of May I'd probably agree with him.
"For the most part, they'd be right," Chumley was continuing, "but on the subject of marriage, I can be as coldly analytical as the best of them."
"Terrific," I said. "That's what I was really hoping for. ... An unemotional, unbiased opinion."
"First, let me ask you a few questions," the troll said.
"All right."
"Do you love her?"
I paused to give the question an honest consideration.
"I don't think so," I said. "Of course, I really don't know all that much about love."
"Does she love you?"
"Again, I don't think so," I said.
I was actually enjoying this. Chumley was breaking things down to where even I could understand his logic.
"Well, has she said she loves you?"
That one I didn't even have to think about.
"No."
"You're sure?" the troll pressed.
"Positive," I said. "The closest she's come is to say she thinks we'd make a good pair. I think she meant it as a compliment."
"Good," my friend said, settling back in his chair.
"Excuse me?" I blinked. "For a moment there, I thought you said ..."
"I said 'Good and I meant it" the troll repeated.
"You lost me there," I said. "I thought marriages were supposed to be ..."
"... Based on love?" Chumley finished for me. "That's what most young people think. That's also why so many of their marriages fall apart."
Even though he had sort of warned me in advance, I found the troll's position to be a bit unsettling.
"Urn, Chumley? Are we differentiating between 'analytical' and 'cynical'?"
"It's not really as insensitive as it sounds, Skeeve," the troll said with a laugh, apparently unoffended by my comment. "You see, when you're young and full of hormones, and come in close contact for the first time with someone of the opposite sex who isn't related to you, you experience feelings and urges that you've never encountered before. Now since, despite their bragging to the contrary, most people are raised to think of themselves as good and decent folks, they automatically attach the socially correct label to these feelings: Love. Of course, there's also a socially correct response when two people feel that way about each other ... specifically, marriage."
"But isn't that ..." I began, but the troll held up a restraining hand.
"Hear me out," he said. "Now, continuing with our little saga, eventually passions cool, and the infatuation has run it's course. It might take years, but eventually they find that 'just being together' isn't enough. It's time to get on with life. Unfortunately, right about then they discover that they have little if anything in common. All too often they find that their goals in life are different, or, at the very least, their plans on how to achieve them don't coincide. Then they find, instead of the ideal partner to stand back to back with while taking on the world, they've actually opened a second front. That is, they have to spend as much or more time dealing with each other as they do the rest of the world."
Despite myself, I found I was being drawn in, almost mesmerized, by his oration.
"What happens then?" I said.
"If they are at all rational ... notice I said 'rational/ not 'intelligent' ... they go their separate ways. AH too often, however, they cling to the concept of 'love' and try to 'make it work.' When that happens, the result is an armed camp living an uneasy truce ... and nobody's happy ... or actually achieving their full potential."
I thought about the bickering I had recently witnessed between Kalvin and Daphnie, and about what Guido had told me about domestic disturbances and how they can explode into violence. In spite of myself, I shuddered involuntarily.
"That sounds grim," I said.
"Oh, it is," the troll nodded. "Trying to 'make it work' is the most frustrating, depressing pastime ever invented. The real problem is that they've each ended up with the wrong person, but rather than admit that, they try to gloss things over with cosmetics."
"Cosmetics?"
"Surface changes. Things that really don't matter."
"I don't get it."
"All right," the troll said. "I'll give you an example. The wife says she needs some new clothes, so her husband gives her some money to go out shopping. That's a rather simple and straight forward exchange, wouldn't you say?"
"Well ... yes."
"Only on the surface," Chumley explained. "Now look at it a little deeper ... at what's really going on. The husband has been getting caught up in his work ... that's a normal reaction for a man when he get's married and starts feeling 'responsible,' by the way ... and his wife is feeling unhappy and ignored. Her solution is that she needs some new clothes to make her more attractive so her husband will pay more attention to her. A surface solution to her unhappiness. Now, when she says she needs new clothes, the husband is annoyed because she seems to have a closet full of clothes that she never wears, but rather than argue with her, he gives her some money for shopping ... again, a surface solution. You'll notice that he simply gives her the money. He doesn't take her shopping and help her find some new outfits."