Finding Great Happiness

Earl of Plaid 2014

She wrote again today. Still no signature. This time it was on stationary from a fancy San Francisco hotel. I added it to the shoe box filled with other notes, postcards, messages written on airplane barf bags.

I don’t know if she had a sense of humor or was just resourceful.

Each message had the word “CLUE” and then anything from a one-worder to a couple of paragraphs. Judging from the “clues” I have no idea who this woman was.

I showed the first couple to my wife and she said, “Toss that crap out—it’s probably some crackpot, junkie, whore you hung out with before I came along. Maybe you ought to take another blood test,” she said.

Elaine has the world of empathy cornered and that’s why I stopped showing her these missives that come to my office.

Tuesday for the first time I got a text, it was a selphy of a nipple. It could’ve been a man or a woman’s but in either case I didn’t recognize it. The next day it was followed by a picture of a fortune from a cookie—“You will find great happiness when you right your Wongs.” I didn’t know if that was a joke or a truism.

An email: “My apologies. I’ve been sending these notes to the wrong person. Please meet me at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station 2 pm next Thursday and I’ll explain. Wear a hat with some pine needles sticking up so I’ll recognize you.”

I added it to the rest of the mail and went to Grand Central fifteen minutes early but without a hat or pine needles. I took a seat at the counter with a good view of the whole restaurant and ate oysters until three and then left. I didn’t see any woman looking around.

When I got back to the office I had a voicemail: I recognized the sound of the Oyster Bar in the background but not the voice. “I’ve been waiting here since a quarter till two and it’s almost three and I can’t eat any more oysters so I’m leaving. You lost your opportunity to find great happiness. Don’t attempt to contact me again.”