Japanese billionaire. Thinking that this particular prospect nicely combines his underutilized background in Japanese studies with his beat as celebrity chronicler, he tries to interest Jillian Crowe in an essay on this subject. Shades on top of her head, she asks, “Collin, darling, honestly, do I look like the editor of The New York Review of Books to you?”
The Parents Come to Town, but First …
Just leaving the apartment to meet my makers when I hear Philomena's voice on the machine: “Me. You there? Guess not.” Sounding none too eager to find otherwise.
As rapidly as any gunfighter ever unholstered a Colt Peacemaker, I snatch the receiver from its cradle. “Where are you?”
The silence lasts long enough for me to fear I have lost her. “That doesn't really matter.”
“Please come home.”
“I need some time to think.”
“You've already taken the better part of a week. Phil, what are you doing? Where are you?” God, my voice sounds pathetic, tremulous, quavering between tenor and falsetto.
“Things haven't been so great with us lately.”
“I'll be better. I'll be so good you'll think I'm someone else. I'll be so sensitive you'll think I'm a girl. Shit. I mean woman.”
“Look, I've got to go.”
“Who are you with?” I demand, desperately changing modes.
“I'm not with anybody.” The rhythm and tone of this response are all wrong. I don't need a polygraph to confirm my suspicions.
“Why did you take your diaphragm?” I ask. “Who are you fucking while you're taking all this contemplative Virginia Woolf A Room of One's Own time to think?”
“Good-bye, Collin. I'll call in a few days.”
“My parents are coming to town,” I say lamely. As a logical fallacy this, I believe, is called appeal to false authority.
“Say hi for me.”
And she's gone. It's impossible to present your best self—attractive, assured and desirable—when you are insane.
Deus Ex Machina
Not to be fooled twice, I go to the Spy store on Second Avenue to purchase one of those handy devices that tell you the phone numbers of incoming calls—something I have been meaning to acquire for a long time. Back at the apartment, I plug the little black box into my phone as per instructions and stare at it hopefully but discover that I still have yet to figure out how to will Philomena to call me.
Thanksgiving Cheer
Recently, in the Times, Frank Prial wrestled with that perennial question: What wine to match with your Thanksgiving turkey and traditional fixings? Some say Champagne, some chardonnay. Frank leans toward zinfandel, and there's even a case to be made for a young cabernet sauvignon. Be advised that my father recommends Johnnie Walker Black.
We're having Thanksgiving dinner in the restaurant at the St. Regis. Traditionalists that we are, Mom and I are working on a bottle of Champagne. My sister's current would-be consort, Doug Hawkin, M.D., is already throwing back the Diet Cokes like there's no tomorrow. He arrived before us, straight from the emergency room at New York Hospital. Mad Dog Doug is a trauma surgeon whose acquaintance Brooke made after she tumbled down a set of stairs at Rockefeller University. Brooke is stoned and sipping mint tea, like the hippie she once was, glaring at her food.
“I find it difficult to give thanks,” she mutters, “when so many people in the world are suffering tonight.”
“Give thanks you're not one of them,” says Dad, tucking into a fresh scotch.
“In Ethiopia a family of four doesn't see this much protein in a month.”
“You must see a great deal of suffering,” Mom says to Doug. I still don't understand why he had to come. Doesn't he have his own fucked-up family to annoy?
Trauma Theory and Practice
“Is there a special season,” Mom continues, “or month or anything when you get more traumas than other times?”
Dad snuffles at this question—the nasal declaration of a man who never ceases to be amazed by the eccentricity of his wife.
“No, actually, that's a good question,” says Doug, answering both Mom and the snort. “The full moon is the worst. Emergency rooms are always extremely frenetic the night of a full moon. I don't know how to explain it scientifically, but the empirical evidence is fairly convincing. What's easier to account for is that sick children, particularly from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, tend to be brought to the emergency room after eleven p.m.”
Mom looks happily perplexed. “And why is that?”
“Because that's when prime-time television ends.”
“The children wait until after prime time to get sick?”
“I believe,” Dad says, “Brooke's, uh, friend means that the parents wait until after their favorite shows