Walt liked going into the storage pod and standing among the objects in Susannah Fontaine-Williams’s purse. It felt cozy to him. And while he had a legitmate reason to go into her bag from time to time to check on capacity and to make sure that nothing too odd was going on as clearly stated in Item 141, Periodic Inspections,” he was aware that he needn’t really do more than poke his head in the door for a moment or two. He also knew that he might have personal issues he didn’t really understand as even someone who crammed as much into her bag as SFW would never come close to filling what amounted to a 12-foot cube. Walt particularly liked those moments the bag was open and he could peer through the ceiling at her world. It was like looking up from the bottom of a pond through the shimmering surface, everything a little bit distorted, especially at the edges. He theorized that the difference in the size of the portal on either side caused the distortion. On his side of the opening, the portal took up most of the ceiling, umbrella-shaped, about ten feet across. On her side, the opening stretched just the width of her bag. That he could have devised such a thing awed him to no end. The few times he’d peered through the opening to her side of bag, he’d seen the underside of a chandlier, or a plain white ceiling. But this last time, he could see SFW’s torso crossing back and forth, and the bottoms of clothes that must have been on hangers or draped on hooks. He thought he ran a small risk of course of getting clunked on the head by some object or other, and wondered what would happen if she reached in while he was there. Could she, he wondered, mistake him for something or other, grab him, and pluck him from the storage pod – her bag – into her world? I will install a transparent barrier, he told himself, and a chaise lounge beneath it to optimize my observations.
Tag: bag
After shoplifting
Following the taping of SFW that afternoon, Susannah Fontaine-Williams accepted the invitation of one of her guests, the British philosopher/astronomer Malcolm Norton-Hollings, for lunch and drinks at Fiorello’s. It was a gorgeous New York afternoon and they sat at a sidewalk table drinking something fizzy and critiquing the passersby. The bag lay at her feet and she checked it by rubbing her leg against it every few minutes. Still there. Norton-Hollings was her favorite (favourite) type of guest: intellectual, witty and tweedily good looking, there to talk up his latest book, generously dishing out the flirty banter. When Norton-Hollings excused himself to relieve himself of too much fizzy, she plopped the bag on her lap and reached inside to check on the contents. She had had no intention of taking more than one item, but once the Vera Wang had been gulped up into the bag’s void, there was the matter of the Dior, the so many things they brought her to try on that they couldn’t possibly keep count of what remained piled on the chairs and day lounge in the dressing room. The dresses were not there, nor were the shoes, nor anything else she had liberated from Neiman’s. She found, however, an envelope that she did not recall placing and pulled it out, did not look at it, and quickly tucked it back. Would it be, she wondered, better to discuss the bag’s properties with Norton-Hollings before or after their upcoming tryst? As the distinguished scholar returned to the table squinting in the bright reflected sunlight, she thought also that it might be worthwhile to read the license agreement she had so eagerly signed.
The need to know
It didn’t take long before Susannah Fontaine-Williams began to wonder “just what this baby can do.” Would the bag, for instance, block the signal of an alarm tag on a Vera Wang? She felt like that time her producers put her in a formula one car on a closed track. Her guest, international formula one racing sensation Tony Almondswerth gave her a quick lesson. Then they zipped her into racing togs, popped a helmet on her head, aimed a small camera at her face – she thought she looked adorable and so did the audience. “Take it nice and easy,” he advised. She thought, as did the audience, that he leered salaciously at her. No matter. She floored it, giggling all the while until she sideswiped the wall, emerging exhilarated and unscathed. “Yes,” she said out loud one morning while Antoine happily dozed next to her in bed. “I need to know what this bag can do for me.”
Item #37
Egberto leafed through the license agreement that Susannah Fontaine-Williams had left open on her nightstand. She was painting his toenails purple, not his favorite color, and he'd have to remind himself to pick up nail polish remover on the way home. He'd have to remind himself to remove the color before he went to the pool, not that anyone in New York pays attention to anyone's toenails. The chlorine would do the job if he forgot. Her polish application technique tickled so he wasn't really reading so much as trying to fend off the ticklishness. “Suze, listen to this,” he said. “Item 37: some objects not belonging to nor placed by licensee may periodically appear in bag from time to time.” SFW could not possibly take seriously a sentence with such a redundancy problem: periodically and from time to time. If an assistant brought her uneditd copy like that, she'd fire him on the spot. Or her. She concentrated on drawing a smooth edge on Egberto's big toe toenail while simultaneously tickling the bottom of his foot with the index finger of her left hand. “Hold still,” she said.
I am not having an affair with Susannah Fontaine-Williams
“Who is she, this Susannah?”
She isn’t anyone. She’s made up.
“You’ve based her on someone… who?”
She’s just a composite of every talk show host, game show-er, blond TV personality. Turn on the TV and you’ll see her on every channel.
“Why are you holding her hand in Chinatown?”
Well that’s not me – it’s just me writing in first person. I like to write first person; I can omit all of the details that omnisciency requires. It’s not me.
“Hmm.”
Look, if you want, we can just leave that story where it is. I haven’t figured everything out yet.
The conversation is happening last night. We had just seen the movie Her and were sitting in the lounge at the Stone Barn hoping for a seat at the bar. Our first time there – an extraordinary place – I was drinking a scotch concoction that included something almond and cinnamon and wheat grass and a few other things that you couldn’t imagine would taste so good. I think there was triple sec in there. The fire was going and people waiting for tables were dressed very well. Except me in jeans and a sweater – we hadn’t planned on popping in but here we were. A fire warmed the room.
My wife has the most delicious and irrational jealousies because everyone knows I married up. I’m the lucky one in this relationship. My blog isn’t a confessional, although wouldn’t that be something?
“No. I want to know if you’re going to sleep with her.”
Well, it isn’t me, and we can assume that the two characters are intimate.
“I knew it!”
If you want, I’ll just write about something else. I have something like three readers…
“Well, no… Why is the bag so expensive?”
You’d pay that much for a bag like that wouldn’t you? Maybe more, right?
She nods and I can see she’d really like a bag like that. SFW’s carrying needs are based on hers of course.
“Where does everything go and why can’t you put electronics in there? Is it a black hole or some kind of a portal?”
I haven’t worked it all out. However she’s impressed me with the sci-fi terminology (she doesn’t think much of the genre).
About this time I’m thinking we should give up on getting seated at the bar and go eat somewhere else when a polite man in a suit tells us that it will just be a few more minutes.
Soon they transport our drinks to the bar and put little menu booklets in front of us. The couple to our left enthusiastically explain how things work – they’re on the foraging menu and have been there three hours already. I am salivating and my wife is smiling. We have for the evening left Susannah Fontaine-Williams in Chinatown holding the extra-dimensional bag. There’s no way I’d ever bring her to a place like this anyway…
Susannah Fontaine-Williams and the Extra-dimensional Bag, Pt. 1
It’s Feb. 1 and the garden is still beneath a coat of snow criss-crossed with footprints and pocked by various tree droppings. Even the roof, bathed in sunlight, still has snow and ice on it. In the summer, there were tremendous spiderwebs spanning the eaves with huge, voracious spiders and these webs have been replaced by lengthening icicles. Winter’s lock remains and the heating system creaks and groans.
A thing to look forward to today: my new phone arrived at the destination sort facility at 6:28 AM this morning and a man in a blue uniform will deliver it to me by noon. It says so on the tracking page and I believe it.
Let me tell you something I don’t believe: Susannah Fontaine-Williams does not love me although she says she does. She’s too practical for love and I’m just someone who can knock down 18 year old Scotch Whisky with her dram by dram and throw her pithy phrases that sometimes ends up on her show, the fourth most-watched afternoon talk show in the land.
She has the most amazing extra-dimensional bag and it’s gotten her into several kinds of trouble. It all started when we were on Canal Street looking for knockoffs and a man led her into a narrow shop with bags hanging from the walls and ceilings like cave bats and piled everywhere on the floor. You waded more than walked through this place.
“I need a bag that will hold a lot,” she told the man. “But isn’t very big.”
He pointed to the knockoffs and SFW held them, appraised them, hoisted them onto her spaghetti-strapped shoulder and shook her head no. No. “Too big. Too heavy.”
“Fifty dollars.”
“No.”
“OK, forty.”
She took my hand and we looked at each other and laughed and walked out of the store.
The man said, “Wait. Come with me. I show you something special.”
He led us to the back of the cave to a door covered with dusty bags and found the knob beneath the faux leather. We walked onto a creaky, wooden stairway. Bare fluorescent bulbs hung every few feet so where we hoped for and expected a puddle of dark, we were instead treated to blue-white light. After 27 steps, one of which had an nail sticking straight up (“nail, watch out), we landed in the basement, a big, neat, mostly empty space.
“My workshop,” he said.
At the far end was a metal desk under exposed fluorescent tubes. On it sat a single bag.
“That doesn’t look like it would hold very much,” SFW said.
The man smiled and handed her the bag. SFW dutifully put it on her shoulder.
”The straps are too short.”
“Put your hands on strap and lightly pull,” and as she did the straps lengthened.
“Oh… how?”
“Now, put something in the bag, your wallet…”
SFW pulled out her wallet, a bulky thing weighted down and fattened with credit cards, slips of paper, loose change and lots of cash. She always carried too much cash.
“It will take up the entire bag,” she said.
“Put in everything else you have with you now. Except nothing electronic.”
She piled in a notebook, a few loose pens, a makeup kit, a toothbrush…”
“You carry a toothbrush?” I said.
It all fit. I looked in the bag and it was black inside, dark, although a bright light was shining directly over it. I reached in and felt around for her wallet and pulled it out. “Huh.”
“How much?”
“For you, $1500.”
“Too much for a knockoff.”
“Not a knockoff. This is one of a kind. A prototype.”
He gestured to his workbench with his neatly organized tools and implements and tubes.
”Tell you what. I like you. I watch your show. You take it with you, try it for a few days. If you still want it, buy it. If not, just give it back. No charge for trying it out.”
She looked over at me.
“Why not?” I said, not realizing that that question would be answered soon enough.
“Remember,” the shopkeeper said. “Nothing electronic.”
“Well, where do I put my phone?”
“Outside pocket. Always in the outside pocket.”
…to be continued.
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