Japanese

SEMI-DISPOSABLE SWEDISH FURNITURE

ARCHITECTURAL INDIGESTION: The almost obsessive need to live in a 'cool' architectural environment. Frequently related objects of fetish include framed black-and-white art photography [Diane Arbus a favorite); simplistic pine furniture; matte black high-tech items such as TVs, stereos, and telephones; low-wattage ambient lighting; a lamp, chair, or table that alludes to the 1950s; cut flowers with complex names.

MINIMALISM: The most frequently offered interior design aesthetic used by rootless career-hopping young people.

"Well, Dag," I ask, reaching for his paper bags, "What did you get me?"

"Hands off the merchandise, please!" Dag snaps, adding quickly, "Patience. Please." He then reaches into the bag and then hands me something quickly before I can see what it is. "Un cadeau pour toi."

It's a coiled-up antique bead belt with GRAND CANYON written on it in bead-ese.

"Dag! This is perfect! Total 1940s."

"Thought you'd like it. And now for mademoiselle —" Dag pivots and hands Claire something: a de-labeled Miracle Whip mayonnaise jar filled with something green. "Possibly the most charmed object in my collection."

"Mille tendresses, Dag," Claire says, looking into what looks like olive-colored instant coffee crystals, "But what is it? Green sand?" She shows the jar to me, then shakes it a bit. "I am perplexed. Is it jade?"

"Not jade at all."

A sick shiver marimbas down my spine. "Dag, you didn't get it in New Mexico, did you?"

"Good guess, Andy. Then you know what it is?"

"I have a hunch."

"You kittenish thing, you."

"Will you two stop being so male, and just tell me what this stuff is?" demands Claire. "My cheeks are hurting from smiling."

I ask Claire if I can see her present for a second, and she hands me the jar, but Dag tries to grab it from me. I guess his cocktail is starting to kick in. "It's not really radioactive, is it Dag?" I ask.

"Radioactive!" Claire shrieks. This scares Dag. He drops the jar and it shatters. Within moments, countless green glass beads explode like a cluster of angry hornets, shooting everywhere, rattling down the floor, rolling into cracks, into the couch fabric, into the ficus soil— everywhere.

"Dag, what is this shit? Clean it up! Get it out of my house!"

"It's Trinitite," mumbles Dag, more crestfallen than upset, "It's from Alamogordo, where they had the first N-test. The heat was so intense it melted the sand into a new substance altogether. I bought a bottle at a ladies auxiliary clothing store."

"Oh my god. It's plutonium! You brought plutonium into my house. You are such an asshole. This place is a waste dump now." She gathers breath. "I can't live here anymore! I have to move! My perfect little house—I live in a toxic waste dump—" Claire starts dancing the chicken in her wedgies, her pale face red with hysteria, yet making no guilt inroads on a rapidly fading Dag.

Stupidly I try to be the voice of reason: "Claire, come on. The explosion was almost fifty years ago. The stuff is harmless now—"

"Then you can harmless it all right into the trash for me, Mr. Know

Everything. You don't actually believe all of that harmless talk, do you? You are such a victim, you pea-brained dimwit—no ones believes the government. This stuffs death for the next four and a half billion years."

Dag mumbles a phrase from the couch, where he's almost asleep. "You're overreacting, Claire. The beads are half-lived out. They're clean."

"Don't even speak to me, you hell-bound P.R. Frankenstein mon­ster, until you've decontaminated this entire house. Until then, I'll be staying at Andy's. Good night."

She roars out the door like a runaway train car, leaving Dag near comatose on the couch, condemned to a sleep of febrile pale green nightmares. Claire may or may not have nightmares, but should she ever come back to this bungalow, she'll never be able to sleep there quite perfectly ever again.

Tobias arrives to visit Claire tomorrow. And Christmas with the family in Portland soon. Why is it so impossible to de-complicate my life?

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23