Collymore Calls It

The knocking is persistent but Cordelia doesn’t want to see anyone just now, for beneath her flawless style of dress and coolness of one liners, Cordelia Collymore is beginning to come apart at the seams.

She and her so-called better half are going to the Black-and-White Hallowe’en Ball in a matter of hours. But Cordelia finds in her closet only gowns of aubergine, cyan, scarlet.

More knocking at the door. Then the doorbell - again. A rhythmic back and forth of grating sounds: urgent, yet ladylike - Cordelia knows who it must be and wishes she'd go away. She fingers her ball mask - black, speckled with pearls and laced with silver thread - but she has not located any appropriate togs, only frocks and pantsuits in aquamarine, turquoise, pink.

"I should have planned a costume days ago," she admonishes herself. "But then, I should've done many things days ago, months ago..." She trails off, thinking about the Earl, her husband. He left at noon to pick up his tux. It is now 4 o'clock and the dry-cleaners is a mere six blocks from the Collymore manse.

Cordelia knows that behind that knocking/ringing door, tapping her black-patent-leather toe on the marble stoop, is Janet Bickleby: insufferable twit, all round busybody and supreme stirrer of pots.

It’s happy hour and Janet has toddled over from next door to swill a glass of bubbly. Cordelia has hosted Janet to many a cocktail but now she is wise to her antics, and the prospects of letting her in are dwindling. She hopes Janet will go away, but the twit is too dense (or too determined) to have a Plan B in the event of unanswered doors or texts.

Cordelia takes a long pull from a freshly-popped bottle of champagne. With the fizz enlivening her insides, she gamely steps out of her angst like she’s shedding a satin sheath. She strides to the door to welcome her neighbour.

"I would love a flute-full, thank you, Cordy," Janet says, as she swishes into the living room. "And also, may I borrow your puce pantsuit?"

“Puce is not a problem, darling," Cordelia says, cooly, "but black or white seems impossible.”

“Oh no, Cordy, what will you wear to the ball?! If I couldn’t source the right ensemble I’d be crying my eyes out! You know me, I can’t help but wear my heart on my sleeve!”

"Cardiac on the cardigan, Janet? What an extremely unattractive prospect.”

“Oh, Cordelia, how can you be so serene about everything?!”

“Champagne, Bickleby, champagne,” Cordelia says, as she downs a flute of fizz. Her famous composure is returning, one bubble at a time. She is as collected as Madame Clicquot herself.

“Cordy, I heard today that the Earl was spotted on the A-Train to Mimico.” Janet glances over the rim of her shades, anxious to gauge her friend's reaction.

“I heard that too. And I haven’t a clue what he’d be doing on the A-Train, never mind to Mimico.” In truth she did have a clue.

“Oh!” Janet gushes, the drink rushing to her pea brain. “Isn’t that just like the Earl. So unpredictable! You know, he and I are alike in that respect.”

“What respect is that, Janet?”

“Our unleashed, unplugged, unbridled passion!”

“Don’t mince about with fancy verbiage, Janet. If you're trying to tell me something, spit it out.”

“Uh…it’s just that…I think we’re like two peas in a pod, the Earl and I.”

“Another unattractive prospect, if accurate,” Cordelia sneers. "You and the Earl as vegetables.”

"Honestly, Cordy," Janet begins, "if the Earl belonged to me..." She pauses to refill her glass of Clicquot, "anytime he disappeared like this, I’d throw something – and I don’t mean a party!” Janet guffaws but Cordelia is not amused. She continues: “You are my best friend, Cord! And I just think that... sometimes you should throw a sherry glass...or something...at the window. Dash that serenity to hell.”

Cordelia knows when she's being baited. “Darling,” she says, with a sweet smile, “don’t you know I was there before you, shattering the crystal and smashing Ming vases?”

“I’m trying to help…”

"Janet, allow me to remind you that I've dramatized my emotions in public with the best of them - and you are far from the best of them, Janet, I assure you. I've spilled my guts on well-manicured lawns and bled all over elegant piazzas...”

“Cordy…”

“Don’t tell me I’m too serene, Bickleby! I've earned it, after years of walking on eggshells and walking out altogether. The world could never have too much serenity. But it could have way too much of you. You’re all over the daytime talk shows.”

“Je protest…”

“Protest away, you little snipe. Don’t you know I’m more complex than your nutshell analyses, your quaint little guilt-ridden packages of explanation tied up neatly with strings of malignancy?”

Janet starts to cry.

"Stop it, Bickleby! And cease this pretence of helping me! Go hop on the A-Train to Mimico to meet your paramour, the Earl of Nowhere and Nothing.”

“But..."

"You're right, the Earl and you are like two peas in a pod. And I have never liked peas.”

“Can I still borrow your pantsuit?”Janet whimpers.

"But I do like my pantsuit. And you look terrible in puce. Now get out!”

As Bickleby skulks out the door, Cordelia marches to her auxillary closet and pulls out the most stunning ink-black dress, its hem dripping with snow-white pearls. Throwing it on, she grabs her mask, dashes to the ball, tosses back a coupe of bubbly, then catches the midnight express for Paris, never to be seen by the two peas again.