Hubris showed me he was boss today.  I had hubris yesterday, and this morning the world set me straight.  I should have known better, of course, than to be proud the night before a dentist appointment with G.  It was the sort of dentist appointment most people like — no cavities, simple cleaning, an x-ray or two.  G., though, doesn’t appreciate that.  The staff passed a bottle of vodka around after we left. 

And I scheduled surgery for my neck and back and left leg, which were all sacrificed in awkward positions for one hour so I could hold G.’s hand and pat her head.   It’s raining outside, you might have guessed that.  I’ve got no hopes for anything to be better I’ll just try again tomorrow. 

Because I’ve got some data now where it should be and am somewhat back in the game, here’s this.  Something should be cut, feel free to suggest.

CLAIRE Byrne (formerly Jenks) was Howard’s only sibling. She was an enigma and she fixed onto Ellen immediately almost as if she’d been assigned.

Claire saw in Ellen the elaborately marked but fragile scales of lepideptora, and from the beginning she worried. Ellen saw in Claire her MacGuffen – Hitchcock’s famous prop device, the thing in the story that’s unessential but doesn’t seem to be and moves everything along nonetheless.

“Howard will only ever be happy,” Claire announced to Ellen over pasta pomodoro on their very first lunch. “He’s not self-aware, he won’t indulge you with conflict, he’s conflict-averse. You’ll have to give all that up.”

“Okay.  So I’ll give up conflict.”

Claire cracked a small indulgent smile.  “Really?  You’ll have to be simple.” 

Ellen considered Claire’s curious disclosure with wrinkled brows as she watched her mop up a pool of olive oil with their rosemary sourdough bread. 

Claire was Ellen and Howard’s third person; all successful mergers need one.  Father Keegan had implied as much when he married them.  Facing a mottled collection of family and friends just after he’d joined them as one he said, “Each of you is in your own way responsible for this.”  Or something to that effect.  Of course, the second he let them out there was a mad dash to the bar and most of what had happened inside was forgotten.

It’s a lot to ask of a packed and sweaty church, but there should be at least one other on the hook.  It’s that much easier with three, one can be in charge of the patch kit.  The third might be a therapist, a lover, or a close friend from way back, maybe Phil.  It should be someone who knows both parties, someone who can take either side in a pinch, someone who knew these people when they were young or at least younger.  Someone who can vouch, when they start to crash, that they have more promise than this.  Someone who had seen Howard and Ellen, for instance, when he still looked at her that certain way, and when she still clung to each of his words.  Someone who would know that beneath time’s tarnish there was something to salvage and would say so.  Someone to tell all their stories; Ellen and Howard required narration. 

Ellen first spoke to Claire on the phone the night Howard proposed.  “Congratulations,” Claire had said, because that’s what you say.  Then she was all business – “You’ll have to get married in May because I’m going away after that, and I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

Claire was a slight surreptitious woman who reeked of intrigue.  Ellen had heard others – Howard’s family, mostly — refer to her in various terms, all vague and uncertain.   She was a correspondent, or a spy, or involved with a special service.  She’d been a Liaison to the Chief or Minister or Prince or the Sultan of Malawi, or maybe Tibet.  She was a stringer, a fixer, a Mideast bureau chief, an ambassador to Gamay, a person of interest.  She had jumped out of cargo planes and manned the helicopter of an Arabian King.  She’d been a waitress in Dubai and starred in more than one salacious roman a clef.  She slipped in and out of war zones the way certain drivers – you know the type — change lanes.  Whenever Ellen asked Howard, or Howard’s mother, anything about Claire, they both answered with a headshake and wave of the hand and that was that.  She was wed briefly to a prince from a small country, no one could seem to remember which one, who was killed in a tragic art accident; a Giacometti fell on his head.  He left Claire a title and bags of wadded-up money in outmoded currencies.

Claire’s New York apartment was cluttered with dusty gold trophies — Emmys and Edgars, and awards for courage and bravery and humanitarian acts named for presidents.  An Oscar, even, but she’d flipped her hand dismissively when Ellen, visiting once, had asked –“Oh, that’s Peter O’Toole’s”. 

Claire routinely and nonchalantly took calls in front of Ellen from foreign embassies.  She had a leather satchel of phone numbers where you could find, should you need them, home numbers for Madonna, the Dalai Lama, and the two living Beatles.  She had King Hussein’s name crossed out four times.  “He loses his phone a lot,” she explained.   Claire kept a flat in Baden Baden, she knew the good maitre’d in Katmandu, she bought her t-shirts at The Gap in Beirut because she swore they were softer.  Claire had smoked pot once with Castro; though Ellen had only read about that.  Claire, herself, had never confirmed. 

Once when Ellen was in New York for a conference, Claire took her to lunch.  They went to a greek restaurant near Claire’s apartment, it was small, and Salman Rushdie joined them as the waitress came with the specials.  It made Ellen so nervous she ordered the goat. 

Claire was free, she came and went, she dropped in unexpectedly and left without warning.  She once flew Ellen to Arkansas on a Thursday to eat monte cristos with a President.  Claire was unpredictable like that.  I am telling you this because she’s an important piece of the story, this union of the Jenks.   Butch and Sundance had Etta, Chrissie and Janet had Jack, and Woody and Mia (somewhat unconventionally) had Soon-Yi.  Howard and Ellen then – well, mostly Ellen – had Claire. 

“Claire thinks we should get married in May,” Ellen told Howard. 

“Claire thinks a lot of things,” Howard replied. 

First, you’ll be happy to know I’ve fixed the heater and had Mark out to kill the ants along with 26 other types of household pest.  I’ve also retrieved the data from Fred the dead laptop and I’ve replaced Fred with Jim, I’ll call the new laptop Jim.  There’s a giant spider on the ceiling that failed to freak me out and Rosalinda the best person in the world is fixing everything else in my house.  That she discovered a giant hole in the wall where mice are eating through I won’t hold against her, that might have happened to anyone. 

I also did my library gig, read two books I’ve got to review, set up my new Jim … well, sort of I’m doing that now.  And returned a handful of calls, all with a fancy little lilt in my step. 

If you need inspiration, in other words, look no further.  I am woman or whatever it is they used to say, sing, what have you.

In other news, it’s raining and I’m in the market for a cat to kill the mice, do you have one?  The hamplets are still alive, poor Custard, though is out of her mind I can feel it.  It’s not easy with 11 and between you and me she may have eaten some.  I think she’s doing the best she can under the circumstances. 

I dodged the swine flu, I put gas in my car, and oh my Gosh you should see how big this spider is.  I’ll take a picture.

I wish I had a clip for you, a little excerpt, I think you’d enjoy that.  But my data’s not quite completely at hand and here’s something I did which I hope I don’t regret … I bought a tiny little laptop and the CD/DVD drive is external.  Do you think that’s going to bother me?  Who cares, I took a chance.  Live large or sometimes small or just get by, I think they’re all admirable.

Comment away, tricksters.  Make me laugh.