Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin

Author:Laurie Colwin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497673755
Publisher: Open Road Media

In the weeks they had been back together, Holly had mentioned someone named Arnold Milgrim several times. She neither explained nor described him, which led Guido to suspect that he was an established fact of Holly’s life—for example, a current or former lover. But when Holly began to refer to him with a certain reverence in her voice, Guido imagined that Arnold Milgrim was someone universally known and respected, and not Holly’s lover after all.

One morning, he could endure it no longer. He looked menacingly at Holly and menacingly at the coffeepot.

“Pour me some of that Arnold Milgrim,” he said.

Holly then explained that Arnold Milgrim had been a student of her grandfather’s and that she had met him on her recent trip to France. He taught philosophy at Oxford on loan from Yale and was the author of The Decay of Language as Meaning, The Automatic Memory, and Fishing in the Waters of Time, which was about Marxist literature.

As the day progressed, it seemed to Guido that he was the sole citizen of New York who had not heard of Arnold Milgrim. Vincent had seen Arnold Milgrim on television in England. Stanley had once read The Automatic Memory. Finally, Guido broke down and called Misty, who said that she had read The Decay of Language as Meaning and found it provocative, but basically silly.

Then the subject was dropped. Guido persuaded Holly not to move, but to redecorate. The artifacts of stasis were to be dispelled by a series of painters, plasterers, and paperhangers who were scheduled to invade the apartment. In the evening, Guido was presented with large numbers of paint, fabric, and wallpaper samples. He and Holly sat at the dining room table planning, making sketches, and matching one color with another, or else they repaired to whichever room was the subject at hand and shoved furniture around.

After this collaborative effort, they lived under drop cloths for several weeks. Holly directed her attention to the workmen whom she bullied, cajoled, flattered, and flirted with. She made them pots of coffee and Italian sandwiches. As a result, not so much as a spot of paint marred the floors. The paperhangers were put into a state of awe and terror at the sight of her. The plasterer vacuumed up at the end of each day’s work. Guido realized that his wife would have made an extremely efficient dictator.

Soft coats of unnecessary white paint were spread on the walls, except for the dining room, which at Guido’s suggestion was pale apple green with white trim. Four Peruvians appeared to scrape, stain, and wax the floors. The Persian rugs came back from the cleaners. Two boys who looked a little like Stanley showed up and fixed the kitchen by building an ingenious counter and putting up some chic and useful shelves.

Finally, the last drop cloth was taken up. The rooms no longer smelled of paint and the curtains swung immaculately in the cold breeze.

One Saturday morning, the mail contained a heavy, cream-colored envelope addressed to Holly.

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