That day MissusMenu slept until a couple minutes before noon, which was fine with her because now she could say to everyone she met throughout the day, “When I got up this morning…” and she would not be lying. She hated having people perceive her as a worthless layabout. Even if she was.
She slipped into her favorite robe, the silk twill one adorned with ostrich and peacock feathers she bought on their last trip together to Pantaloon, and made her way to the kitchen. She paused for a moment in the doorway, again pleased by the kitchen’s appearance, the strict bareness of its counters, the antiseptic shine of its floor, the emptiness of its sink. Now that he was gone, she didn’t mind spending time in the kitchen, sitting quietly at the clean table with her hot coffee, letting her mind ramble on where it would without any interruption. It had become once again her kitchen.
That “morning” MissusMenu made the coffee the way she wanted, not the way he liked it. The routine was comforting, the result ethereal. She began by placing two tablespoons of magic sprucenut oil into her personal FOREVER DERVISH cup. Then she ground her freshly roasted high-elevation Majestica beans in her JavaMill conical burr grinder, put the resulting grounds into a filter, poured hot water slowly over grounds, watched the grounds bloom, finished the pour, added two tablespoons of grass-fed yak butter, combined everything in her Mushamatic DigitalBrain ProChef blender, waited thirty seconds, and savored the high-octane result. She was now ready to assault the day. A day she planned on bringing to the mat. She needed a victory because she needed this headache to go away. MissusMenu had a headache. She had a headache yesterday. She had a headache the day before that. And the day before that. And all the days in an unending chain back to who knew when? She now existed in a near-permanent headachy mode. And she was fresh out of her achy medicine. She would’ve sent Mix’N’Match to pick up a refill at DrugTemple but she’d fired that obnoxious tart in what seemed like another life now after discovering her using MisterMenu’s dangler as her personal lollipop. Since then she’d declared their residence a female-free zone, which had translated, distressingly, into a help-free zone. As in the enlightened life, the best men were already taken. After untold months she’d been utterly unable to find a single adequately trained male who’d lasted longer than a quarter of a year in her employ. Her best friend, ElongatedVowel, who’d also converted to all-male help for similar reasons, had recently suggested she contact the agency she swore by, GuysWhoDon’t, but MissusMenu had been so distracted lately by her impossible domestic situation and, of course, the headaches that she’d been unable to assemble the energy or the time to implement further changes, no matter how necessary, to her steadily deteriorating household.
Whenever she pictured her husband in her mind she saw him in midfuck, and the fuckee was not her. It was never her. It was never her in image or in fact. For a long time she didn’t believe she could bear the anger these images induced, but after a while the fantasies of murder deliquesced into scenes of extended torture and then into physical beatings. Lately her reveries had become preoccupied with elaborate schemes of financial revenge—any one of which would kick him in the nuts with greater force than any boot. She actually found herself sometimes quietly smiling to herself as she watched imaginary banknotes flying up the office flue. In fact, she actually found herself becoming physically aroused during such daydreams, more aroused than he had ever made her. Now, though—this very day, in fact—the first step was going to be undertaken that would result in him being permanently removed from her life and from as large a portion of his precious capital as possible. She had an appointment at Crotchet & Swole at two this afternoon with Mr. Crotchet himself—founder of the firm; adviser to presidents (except of course that ghastly MadeForYou); successful defender before the Supreme Court of the Personal Sequestration Act, in which any funds deposited on the eleventh of each month in confirmed Rainy Day accounts were, after a year and a half, exempt from all future federal, state, and local taxation; overseer of the tsunamically complex merger between LightningStrike Industries and AllTheMoneyInTheWorld, Ltd.; and, most important, LadderedStockings’s representative in her nasty marital breakup with the mega-everything MahoganyBreath, winning the largest settlement in the lengthy recorded history of divorce. Now, there was a record worth shooting for.
For her meeting today with Mr. Crotchet, the “initial strategy session,” as he called it, she was looking to make a midimpact impression, something suitably poised between what she’d wear to the Sticks and Shadows gala and an Emerald Noose Conservancy fund-raising. She elected to go with the black BabyVendetta open blazer with notched lapels over a burgundy faux sheath midi dress with statement sleeves and her knee-high CastleFlambeaux boots. She studied herself for longer than she should have in the full-length mirror on her bedroom closet door. She liked what she saw. No doubt Crotchet would, too. Probably he’d want to fuck her. That was fine, too. Every inch of erection length translated into God knew how many inches of fresh banknotes. The conversion rate was so variable. One way or another the man was going to get her money. Count on it.
She checked the digital read on the outdoor thermometer. Eleven degrees Fahrenheit. When was this damn global warming finally going to kick in? She’d been waiting forever. Now she was going to have to wear the Glamorama force-vector suede embellishment, too. Not the finest complement to her overall presentation, but it was deliciously warm.
She glanced at the Tri-Gem Elaboration (inscribed on the back: M&M) strapped to her left wrist. She had hoped she might be able to squeeze in a quick finger rub before she left, but there probably wasn’t adequate time. Her cell chimed. It was BurnishedBrass. Should she take it? Without thinking much at all she pressed the Talk button. BurnishedBrass was worth almost a billion and her life was a mess. Her youngest son was entangled in something involving the internoodle and douchy checks and shell companies and banks with funny names in countries no one had ever heard of, an infinite web of schemes his mother couldn’t begin or even care to understand. Her daughter had disappeared into the dark cultic labyrinth of the Order of the Happy Sun. The eldest son had devoted what remained of his life to completing the entire run of Convection & Isobar cloud jigsaw puzzles. The middle son, who lived in a giant gourd on the Great Plain of Quasiland, hadn’t been heard from in three years. BurnishedBrass had, of course, shifted to an all-male staff the instant it had become recognizably fashionable and then, shortly thereafter, discovered her husband in bed with the recently hired bearded napkin folder. Today she wanted to complain, of all things, about what she regarded as the sketchy jewelry selection in the tenants’ discount boutique. MissusMenu had no time for such nonsense. She hung up on BurnishedBrass in midsentence. Her cell chimed again. It was Roustabout. The car was out front. She slipped into her embellishment. Such a heavy coat. She entered the gold-trimmed elevator and plummeted smoothly, soundlessly, the fifty-two sublime stories to the central atrium. She said hello to Firmware and FinalNotice, who were manning the desk. She said hello to Rheostat, the smiley doorman. Outside the wind was blowing. Ordinaries scuttled past with their heads bowed, their hands in their pockets. Roustabout stood at attention by the open rear door of the MagnusMotivator. She said good afternoon to him. He said good afternoon to her. Then, just as she stooped down to enter the plush interior of the limo, she felt something quite light, quite delicate, fall onto her shoulder. She touched her shoulder with a gloved hand. She looked at the whitish goop now stuck to the tip of her pointer finger. It appeared to be a bird dropping. She glanced upward. The sky was blue. The sky was clear. There was nothing there.