Happiness Code

9780670031979

0670031976

1. The Jelly JarPinky wanted another baby. Not that she hadn't thoroughly enjoyed herself the first time around, but it had been like having her ship stormed and looted and set on fire in the night. Now that she knew what to expect, she wanted the chance to really drink it all in. She wanted to smell the smells slowly-the milky and the foul and the freshly shampooed. She wanted to lean over the cradle and savor the entire concert-the howls and the squawks and the neighs, the caroling vowels and the precise stuttering moment when the consonants made their entrance. She wanted to kiss, again, the buttery plump little belly. She wanted to watch with exacting adoration as the baby unfolded like one of those flowers in a speeded-up film, opening week by week from a helpless nobody in particular to someone upright and astonishing and unlike anyone else in the nearby universe. Just like Teddy had. Now, no one should imagine that she wasn't still mad for her firstborn, that she wasn't still dazzled by the curve of his sleeping cheek, the feel of his warm sticky hand in hers, or by the questions he asked her: "How long would it take you to die if you got locked in a refrigerator?" "If I stuck my finger under Niagara Falls, would it get ripped off?" "What do you think would happen if the fire on the sun went out for just two minutes and then came back on?" No, she loved his questions and everything else about him. She loved the things she found in his pockets, the pebbles and feathers, the unclaimed keys he collected for his key collection, the little carcasses of dead insects, the wine corks and the washers and the ball bearings, the discarded vitamin bottles he found in the trash and filled with his own perfumes and other potions, the lint-covered Chiclets and the adjustable rings with bright-colored stones. Once, the eyeball of a trout, given to him, as he explained, by the man in the fish store. She loved the way he undertook each new project or game with an expression of utmost seriousness, as if he were preparing to do heart surgery, or the way he sat at their eighteenth-floor window, scanning the skies with narrowed gaze, watching for fighter planes or hurricanes. She trembled with tenderness for him. He was as dear to her as air and light. But he was the second reason she wanted a second child. For, if there was anybody who needed a sidekick, it was surely Teddy. It had become clear to her in the last year or so that there was something too singular and sober about him. He needed somebody who would give him a different angle to see from, a youthful companion, ready to instruct and be instructed, who could lighten things up a little. Somebody on friendly terms with the absurd, who would blow spit bubbles and would think it was hilarious if you hid your face behind your hands and then showed up again. Somebody who would knock his towers down. Obviously, this wouldn't do Arthur any harm, either. The problem, of course, was Arthur himself. Arthur hadn't wanted children in the first place. In his opinion, earth was no longer a good place for bringing new people on board and probably never would be again. But popular sentiment, most especially Pinky's, had been against him. He had let his guard down and he had lost the first round. This did not mean, however, that he intended to agree to a second child. He had not only opinions on this score, but convictions. He took the responsibility of becoming a father for the grave matter that it was, and to his surprise he realized that, given the opportunity to undo the original mistake that had led him here, he wouldn't choose to undo it. But any idiot could see that if there was any hope to be salvaged for this planet at all, what was needed was fewer human beings, not more of them. For a couple to produce a single child was one thing; two children were unconscionable. For a year or more, Arthur had hel