Margaret Prichard by any other name

I don’t wear stockings, or leggings, or hosiery and I’m not terribly fond of shaving my limbs either. Deodorant always seemed a novel idea for women who do too much or women who had abandoned their own bright scent for the duller regions of daisies and gardenias. Hair products are few, but necessary as I’d like to engender a sort of salt water dull in my slightly curly tussle of uncommon brown. I’m spare with the make-up as my face has yet begun to crack and when it does I’m fully prepared to have some surgeon down in Brazil or Beverly Hills take full advantage of 21st century technology. Even with that I’m about as fancy as the label in the shirt I’m about to throw to the floor which I know without looking at since I’ve had it since middle school and that episode with Cynthia’s older brother. The label, by the by, is Land’s End which makes me no more fancy than a girl who longed for the Cape Cod life depicted in those terrible catalogs that dad rolled up to bat after flies.
Plain is on his way down the 20 or so blocks from his white palace on foot, because I need a fellow who is just as mobile as I like to dream I am. If he’s walking his usual pace then there’s scarce more than 12 minutes of no pamper, no fluff before he’s down stairs yelling up one flight, “Maggie, your escort awaits.” It’s not always Maggie, the name he’s chosen for me, Marge and Margo will do, Margery is rare but not un heard of, M is a choice letter when he’s feeling less than conversational, and now and again he’ll throw in Peggy or Pegs like the night we met, our very first introduction somewhere out in the middle or muddle of an upstate country bar where nobody seemed to notice that just behind them, facing the highballs and low value liquor bottles lay a pristine and shining dance floor, a thirty degree bevel all around raising it an inch above the rest of the land and a sweet parquet pattern that spoke of no direction at all studded with four awkward columns, four obstacles to grace. There’s more than that that stands in the way of my grace but I stood at the edge, where everyone could see me, I stood right there as some tinny hick warbled away on the juke box.
“Dance?” I think is all he said and before I knew it I was right there in his arms, sliding past the booze-dull faces and the retro disco lighting. Quick, quick, slow, slow, quick, quick, slow, slow went the sound of my own thoughts projecting my feet. I’d been a good country girl but I’d never gotten used to dancing without thinking so here I was in the arms of “what’s your name?” I asked him.
“Jake. Plainsman.” He went right on dancing, quick, quick, slow, slow, quick, quick “Margaret,” I yelled “Prichard, if it interests you.”
“It’s nice to meet you Pegs.”
“It’s Margaret,” I said again.
“I know.”
I’m sure he didn’t know at that very moment I may have fallen in love with him, at that very moment he spun me round the dance floor and called me by some other woman’s name. Really how did it happy that Peggy became short for Margaret. How did it happen that I’ve spent half of the twelve minutes of his downtown trek ruminating over some odd piece of our history I don’t know but I have Pegs in boots to thank. “M, I hope your dressed!” came calling from the sidewalk. He’s an awfully fast walker and he must not be long for talk, just long for me.

Introducing Jake Plainsman, Plain for short

One would think a blanket of snow especially one come so late as the last week of February, this 102 degree fever that’s left my body protesting for more rest more rest more rest and my mind for a couple or a handful of sedatives, and a mean case of the winter blues which I’ve managed to shake only twice in the last three weeks would keep a lady cooped up indoors hiding beneath the sheets sweating out the solitude, but I can’t loose myself of the feeling that if I get ready, wash up the three day bedtime mess, kick off the flannel and toss on some…flannel, it is a frigid day after all, and Plain comes over that all this boredom and ick will be about as meaningful as campaign promises and a fashionable snowball fight will ensue in the middle of 5^th Avenue. And a fashionable snowball fight will ensue in the middle of 2^nd Avenue, because nothing fashionable happens on 5^th avenue anymore. That’s the hope anyhow. The couple instances of winter blueslessness come carefully to visit in the past weeks have been a direct result of Plain wrenching me from my self silly stupor and placing me in a seat at the opera, or a seat at the fried chicken place on 14^th street that makes a lady wonder how something so good could possibly be bad for you, or two seats at a bakery on 9^th avenue with three large slices of I can hardly remember what as the sugar from the lot has yet to wear off now two weeks past. I do know it was delicious, and I know it was Plain’s fault, the elevation of my mood, the sugar and Plain.

He’s not very tall, and I don’t think you’d spy him first out of a crowd because his dress is sometimes plain though never base falling between lumber jack and man of industry, except when he dresses, amazing when he does, as surely no one appreciates a 1940’s suit quite like him. His face is handsome and apparently unmarked by his years. I’ve heard many an envious cohort mumble that his surgeon must be found and tortured for doing such a good job or the painting in the attic must be destroyed. Silly gays and their envy, but it is to be envied, he seems not a day shy of his college days, of which I’m assuming much since my knowing him only began five years back. I met him and was caught up by his eyes. It’s really his eyes that make you stop, dead in your tracks, his eyes that make you strain out of bed, into the shower and down the stairs to hail a cab and rush to whatever he has in-store for you, his eyes that compel even the mildest man and woman to utter buffoonery.

It’s in his eyes that I’m about to be caught up today, because he sent me a not so subtle note that a pretty lady ought not stay in bed when the city is a powdered confection as it’s going to need a Technicolor sprinkle to make it worth tasting. I am his Technicolor sprinkle.