Part 48 (1/2)
”What way is that, if you don't mind my asking? And why do you want another version of this dress? I don't get it.”
”You are an inquisitive little thing.”
”You and I look enough alike as it is. Why do you want my dress?”
”That was the point, a minute ago. As you pointed out, it's Lenore's dress, not your dress.”
”All right, this is technically Lenore's dress, if you want to get technical. And this is the dress she wore the time you met her.”
And the time Andy met her.”
”Right.”
”Right.”
”So what?”
”I know what I know.”
”How about letting me know a little of what you know, then?”
”Look, I know all about Andy and Lenore Beadsman. I know you're her friend, and you can go ahead and tell her I know all about it.”
”What do you know?”
”Everything.”
”I mean what is there to know?”
”Listen, I know you two are friends, but if I'm going to be honest with you you can at least not insult my intelligence.”
”I'm not insulting anything, Mindy.”
”See, I can not only see what's going on, but I have the advantage that I can also see why it's going on.”
”Hey, Lenore doesn't even like Andy very much, to tell the truth.”
”Frankly Lenore does not interest me. My husband, he interests me. And I can see why he's doing what he's doing.”
”What's he doing?”
”Don't you see why? Yes we've had a bad period, but you know all relations.h.i.+ps go through bad periods. There are bad times in all relations.h.i.+ps. But yes this was a bad period. And now Andy sees your little friend Lenore, in the middle of this admittedly bad period, and suddenly he feels he's able to go back to a branch in the tree of his life, the branch nine years ago, when he met me and fell in love with me and started a relations.h.i.+p with me, but also, see, the exact same branch he met Lenore at, sitting in her little violet dress and being antisocial and throwing shoes at people, and so suddenly Andy feels as if maybe he can go back and just take a different path from the same branch, to-”
”She threw shoes?”
”Andy sees in this Lenore person a chance to change the past. Andy is always trying to change what he can't change. He's a silly. And remember there are two sides to every coin.”
”Always lots of branches in the same relations.h.i.+p-tree.”
”I don't think this branch stuff is right, Mindy.”
”You've made that perfectly clear.”
”Lenore is pretty heavily involved with Mr. Vigorous, is the thing.”
”Ah, Mr. Vigorous.”
”Who was really your neighbor, in New York City, when he was married?”
”In Scarsdale he was, yes.”
”This whole thing is making me feel a little eerie.”
”Branches and trees, darling.”
”But they're involved, Mindy. They have been for like a year and a half. Really involved.”
”Andy sometimes likes to hurt, too, when he's not himself.”
”But I mean they're really close. Lenore more or less lives over there with him a lot of the time. Mr. Vigorous is incredibly jealous.”
”Poor thing.”
”He even bought the bird for Lenore that's on 'The Partners With G.o.d Club' right now.”
” 'The Partners With G.o.d Club'? On the evangelist network?”
”Didn't you even see it when you went over to Gilligan's Isle to see Andy?”
”I only saw him. I was only there to say h.e.l.lo, it turned out. I was only there a moment or two.”
”What did he say?”
”He said, I remember this, he said, 'Guess how much s.h.i.+t I want out of you right now, Melinda-Sue.' He says that sometimes.”
”Sheesh.”
”He calls me Melinda Sue.”
”But you say her bird is on the show?”
”Her bird more or less is the show right now. The bird, Vlad the Impaler, except on the show he's got some weird Italian name that Reverend Sykes said Vlad the Impaler chose in a moment of ecstasy ...”
”Hart Lee Sykes?”