"It was a bit thick," she said and I realized that she was still not fully comfortable with what my biographers will probably call, The Crystal Coast Affair.
But hold on, you may not be in possession of the details. You're aware, I hope, that Ms Wonder and I spent a long weekend on the coast. Well, the first afternoon in our room on Atlantic Beach, I donned the knee-length footer bags and held two shirts in front of me, reflected in the mirror, first the one, then the other.
"Well, Wonder, you haven't told me what you think," I said.
"The blue one," she said.
I turned around to give her a sustained look and I meant it to sting. She knew I wasn't talking about shirts. During the walk through the sand dunes from the beach, I'd presented the facts concerning my Aunt Maggie's freshly laid bombshell. I did so hoping that she, Ms Wonder that is, would find the formula to prevent Hell's foundations cracking.
"I'm not talking about shirts, Wonder! It's bigger things--things of a life altering scale. Things like those dark storm clouds that have been stirred up by the latest goings-on."
The reference was to my aunt's recent disclosure of tigers living the lives of goats. You remember that episode. If not, then be aware that it apparently isn't good for tiger kittens to live like goats. Causes confusion and anxiety, and it really gives adult tigers a case of the hips!
"Not my problem," she said.
I groaned a hollow one and climbed into the shirt with difficulty, as though the limbs had been left overnight in the vegetable bin. Even though my guiding motto is "live life on life's terms," I wasn't ready to give up on Ms Wonder's practical magic.
"Poopsie."
"Still here."
"It could be that you don't have enough detail. I provided only the merest outline earlier, as we strolled through those remnants of Atlantis, and you were no doubt preoccupied with thoughts of sea oats or morning glory blossoms."
Suddenly, as it sometimes happens, I was struck by a brilliant idea. "I know what," I said, "let's try the Hercule Peirot method of marshaling all the motives, opportunities and whatnot.
"Sure," she said.
"Number one," I began, "I've adopted the life style of Fierce Qigong and adopted it forcefully. Don't you agree?"
"Sure."
"And I've given up the food stuffs that promote the cortical steroids, and fan the flames of inflammation. Not that I'm complaining about the food I eat. But now this! As if it isn't enough to ask a lover of baseball to give up hot dogs--now I'm faced with this tiger and goat scenario. Truly, Wonder, don't you see that I'm neck deep in the soup?"
"Disturbing," she said.
I stared at her. After all these years dealing with the inhabitants of that looney bin that I call the ancestral home in Deep River Village, did she not see the peril that loomed? Was it possible, I wondered, that this particular species of Lucille, was in fact, only the spectral body of Ms Wonder and not the real thing?
"Disturbing? You'd go that far would you?" I said.
She pushed out the lips, rolled the eyes toward the upper right hand corner, raised the eyebrows half an inch and shrugged. It wasn't a lot but I was prepared to take what I could get. My advisors tell me that when you have things going your way, it's best not to get greedy but let momentum build on its own. I waited to see what more she might say.
"That's an evening shirt," she said.
"Well, it is 4:00 in the afternoon," I pointed out, "and it will be evening when we get back to the room."
"But it's only 4:00 in the afternoon," she said, "and it will barely be evening when we get back."
I mused on this and had to admit she had a talking point. I shrugged off the shirt and slid into the blue one. Somehow the thoughts of having to change my life to measure up to duty, responsibility and whatnot began to fade in the background.
"Sometimes I wonder if shirts really matter, Poopsie."
"It's a temporary feeling," she said, "It will pass," she said.
"Don't they all," I said.