That’s what’s happened to me, in Seattle. Come at me, even in love, and I’ll scratch the hell out of you. ’Tis a piteous fate to have befallen a MacArthur genius, wouldn’t you say? Poof.
But I do love you,
Bernadette
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14
From Paul Jellinek
Bernadette,
Are you done? You can’t honestly believe any of this nonsense. People like you must create. If you don’t create, Bernadette, you will become a menace to society.
Paul
PART THREE
Menace to Society
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14
Griffin family Christmas letter
From: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal
To: Audrey Griffin
Audrey,
I’ve been a nervous wreck trying to track you down after I heard about the mudslide. But I just now received your fabulous Christmas letter. That’s why you’ve been so quiet. You were busy turning lemons into lemonade!
Who knew the Westin was so luxurious? They must have fixed it up since I was there. If you ever get bored, I insist you move in with us. After the divorce, I converted Barry’s office into a guest room and added a Murphy bed, where you and Warren can sleep, although it’s a smidge tight with my new treadmill. Kyle can bunk with Lincoln and Alexandra. But be warned, we’ll all have to share the one bathroom.
Samantha 2 ships in three months, so of course Elgin Branch decides now is the perfect time to go to Antarctica, the only place on the planet with no Internet. It’s my responsibility to make sure things run smoothly while he’s off-grid. I must admit, though, there’s something thrilling about remaining completely unruffled in the midst of his mercurial demands.
You should’ve seen him this morning. He chewed out some women from marketing. I’m no fan of those marketing gals myself, traipsing around the world staying at five-star hotels. Still, I took Elgin aside afterward.
“I’m sure you had your hands full at home this weekend,” I said. “But you must remember, we’re all working toward the same goal.” Boy, did that silence him. Score one for us, Audrey!
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15
From: Audrey Griffin
To: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal
Oh, Soo-Lin!
I must confess, the Westin is nothing like I described in my holiday verse. Where do I begin?
All night self-closing doors slam, the plumbing chugs whenever a toilet is flushed, and any time someone takes a shower, it sounds like a teakettle whistling in my ear. Families of foreign tourists save their conversations until they’re standing outside our door. The mini-fridge rattles and hums so much you think it’s about to spring to life. Garbage trucks screech and collect dumpsterfuls of clanging bottles at 1 AM. Then the bars let out, and the streets fill with people yelling at one another in gravelly, drunken voices. All the talk involves cars. “Get in the car.” “I’m not getting in the car.” “Shut up, or you’re not getting in the car.” “Nobody tells me I can’t get into my own car.”
That’s a lullaby compared to the alarm clock. The housekeeper must run her rag along the top of it when she cleans, so it’s been going off every night at a different wee hour. We finally unplugged the flippin’ thing.
Then, last night at 3:45, the smoke alarm started chirping. But the maintenance man was AWOL. Just as we were adjusting to this nerve-grating sound, the radio alarm in the next room went off! Full-blast, half-static, half-Mexican talk radio. If you ever wondered what the walls at the Westin are made of, I have your answer: tissue paper. Warren sleeps like a log, so he was useless.
I got dressed to go hunt for someone, anyone, to help. The elevator door opened. You wouldn’t believe the band of degenerates that tumbled out. They looked like those horrible runaways who gather across from the Westlake Center. There were a half-dozen of them, full of the most unspeakable piercings, neon-colored hair shaved in unflattering patches, blurry tattoos top-to-bottom. One fellow had a line across his neck imprinted with the words CUT HERE. One gal wore a leather jacket, on the back of which was safety-pinned a teddy bear with a bloody tampon string hanging out of it. I couldn’t make this up.
I finally tracked down the night manager and expressed my dissatisfaction with the unsavory element they allow into their establishment.
Poor Kyle, who’s two rooms over, is feeling the stress. His eyes are always bloodshot from the lack of sleep. I wish we owned stock in Visine!
On top of all this, Gwen Goodyear is trying to haul in Warren and me for yet another Kyle summit. Considering our circumstances, you’d think she’d give us a grace period before cranking up that boring old tune. I know Kyle’s not the most academically minded, but Gwen has had it in for him ever since Candy-machine-gate.
Oh, Soo-Lin, just writing this transports me to the halcyon days when we were happily collecting outrages about Bernadette! What simple times those were.
From: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal
To: Audrey Griffin
You want to be transported back? Well, Audrey, buckle your seat belt. I just had the most devastating conversation with Elgie Branch, and you’ll be shocked to learn what I just did.
I’d put Elgie in a conf. room for an 11 AM all-hands. I was running around fulfilling laptop requests, expediting furniture exchanges, authorizing battery orders. I even found a missing ball for the foosball game. All I can say about life at Mister Softy is: when it rains it pours. When I got to my office — did I mention, I finally have a window office! — no less than six coworkers told me Elgie had come by looking for me, in person. He’d written a note on my door for everyone to see, asking if we could have lunch. He signed it EB, but some joker had come by and changed it to “E-Dawg,” one of his many nicknames.
As I headed out, he appeared at my door, wearing shoes.
“I thought we could bicycle,” he said. It was such a nice day, we decided to get some sandwiches at the deli downstairs and bike to a nice spot off campus.
Because I’m new to Samantha 2, I didn’t realize we have a dedicated fleet of bicycles. Elgie is quite an acrobat. He put one foot on the pedal and skated along with the other, then swung it over the seat. I haven’t been on a bike in years, and I’m afraid it showed.
“Is something wrong?” Elgie said when I veered off the path and onto the lawn.
“I think the handlebars are loose.” It was the damndest thing. I couldn’t keep the bike pointing straight! As I got back on, Elgie stood on his bike with both feet on the pedals and jiggled so he didn’t fall over. You think that’s easy? Try it sometime.