FlabberGassed Read online

  It did indeed. Within a few moments, I was busy with a borrowed pen, sketching an idea on the back of the big envelope while Frumpkin prattled on about his plans.

  “As you may have guessed,” he said, “I’m gay.”

  No kiddin’.

  “It was a later-life awakening. My wife passed away long ago, but I didn’t dare act on my feelings till Sarah left the nest and started a family of her own. Looking back, it seems odd that I felt the need to ‘protect’ her—or anyone—from the truth. Amazing, isn’t it, how we can delude ourselves with mental games and kick our happiness down the road? But: better late than never.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Marson, raising his glass to the doctor. “My journey was similar. But it’s the ending that matters.” He winked at me.

  Sarah said, “Forgive the cliché, but Dad seems to have a new lease on life. He’s never been more energized.”

  With a low chortle, Frumpkin stretched his pinkie under the table to trace little circles on the side of my knee.

  I clenched my legs and focused on my sketch.

  Frumpkin told us, “Not many of us are given a second chance to start over, and that’s how I see my situation. My practice here is in good hands—Sarah has managed the Dumont office for the past ten years, and her husband, Jason, is a top-notch physician. I’ve been grooming him to take over from the start. Plus, there’s Dahr.”

  “Who?” asked Marson.

  Sarah explained, “Dahr Ahmadi is our certified nurse practitioner. He’s Iranian. Name’s Dariush, but he goes by Dahr.”

  Frumpkin sighed. “A lovely young man.”

  “He’s my age,” said Sarah.

  He’s my age, I thought.

  “In fact,” said Frumpkin, “he’s almost as gorgeous as Brody here. We’ve been ‘talking’ lately. So the time is right. I’m ready to make a move to Palm Springs, become a happy Californian—hopefully with Dahr—and begin promoting FlabberGas to the world.”

  “I hesitate to ask,” said Marson, “but what exactly is FlabberGas?”

  Frumpkin swirled the champagne in his glass. “It’s the most important discovery to hit the weight-loss industry in decades.”

  Sarah cleared her throat, drawing our attention. “It’s a weight-loss miracle.” With a grin, she added, “It’s oxygen.”

  “An oxygen treatment,” her father stressed. “When combined with a medically supervised diet-and-exercise program, FlabberGas is approved as safe and effective for loss of weight.”

  While doodling a few palm trees in the background of my sketch, I said, “Diet and exercise make sense. What does the oxygen do?”

  Frumpkin’s tone turned coy. “It contributes a glorious aura of well-being. Some of my patients describe it as bliss. The oxygen is administered in a hyperbaric chamber, which enhances the perceived efficacy of the weekly treatments.”

  Sarah said, “As noted earlier, my father has an acute sense of theater.”

  “Guilty,” he said with a laugh. “Medicine is largely science, but it’s also an art.”

  I looked up from my drawing. “The same might be said of architecture.”

  “Yes,” agreed Frumpkin, “but perhaps the proportions are inverted—the science takes a backseat to your art.”

  I handed him my sketch. “Very preliminary. Just brainstorming a concept. Is this at all what you had in mind?”

  He gasped. “Genius. Pure genius.” Passing the envelope to his daughter, he told me, “It’s whimsical, it’s space-age, it’s original—you’ve nailed it.”

  In truth, it wasn’t all that original. I’d combined one classic idiom of midcentury-modern design (the inverted butterfly roof) with another (slanted exterior walls), creating the appearance of a building with a cinched waist. A huge neon FLABBERGAS sign rose from the roof, with its letters angled upward to accentuate the tightening below. The overall effect was something of a cross between a Jetsons drive-in and a swank supper club. It would look right at home along the main drag in Palm Springs, where the weight-conscious gentry could stroll in for a gas treatment after brunch or before cocktails.

  With a hearty laugh, Marson passed the drawing from Sarah back to Frumpkin. “It looks like the building’s on a diet.”

  Nodding, Frumpkin repeated, “Pure genius.”

  Dead serious, Marson said, “I agree. Brody is a man of many talents. Top of the list, he’s a first-class problem-solver. And that’s what design boils down to: problem-solving.”

  “Same with medicine,” said Frumpkin. “Same with all of life’s many mysteries: problem-solving.”

  During dinner, Sarah mentioned, “Our business plan is sound. The numbers, promising. Eventually, we’ll sell actual franchises; they’ll provide the main income stream. But first, we need to develop the prototype clinic and get it built. Dad plans to fund the bulk of that himself.”

  “To do it right,” said Frumpkin, “I’ll take on a few early investors as stakeholders in the entire enterprise. Mary Questman is interested.”

  Marson set down his fork. “Mary?” he said, sounding astonished. “Mary wants to put money in FlabberGas?”

  “She’s been a patient for years—regular skin checks, nothing major.”

  Mary Questman was the wealthy widow who had given Marson the greatest design opportunity of his career. She was not only our most important client, but one of the sweetest women I’d ever known.

  Frumpkin continued, “She came to me for a diet plan, so I asked her to try my new oxygen treatment. She was thrilled with it. So much so, she’s offered to host a reception at her home, where I can pitch FlabberGas to prospective backers.” Frumpkin turned to me. “The presentation is Friday. Any chance you could work up something by then?”

  “A conceptual presentation, maybe. Working drawings will take far longer.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Marson seemed unable to compute what he’d heard. “Mary’s been FlabberGassed?”

  “Several times,” Frumpkin assured him.

  Sarah said, “She was so grateful for the results, she invited us to dinner at her home. One thing led to another, and by the end of the meal, she was asking about investment opportunities.”

  “Really?” said Marson.

  With an exaggerated wink, Frumpkin told us, “Her cat had no objections.”

  Chapter 2

  Chicken casserole may not be the height of culinary sophistication, but as comfort food, it has a retro, homey appeal second to none (well, maybe pot pie). And it would be the perfect antidote to the prior evening’s porterhouse overload with Dr. Frumpkin. So Marson and I made a last-minute decision to spend Wednesday night at home.

  Although he had praised me as a first-class problem-solver a mere twenty-four hours earlier, the task of concocting a casserole from scratch now fell to him. A man of discipline and precision, he normally approached cooking with the exactitude of a chemist, but our sudden hankering to “eat in” that night not only allowed, but required, some improvising. For guidance, he turned not to Julia Child or Ruth Reichl, but to a tattered old Betty Crocker. He rummaged in the cupboards and the fridge. He opened a can-of-this and a jar-of-that.

  I, meanwhile, moiled at my computer. My problem-solving skills had been focused all day at the office—and now at home—on developing a pair of perspective drawings of the prototype FlabberGas clinic, needed for Friday’s pitch session. The ease and the whimsy of sketching my initial concept on the back of a manila envelope were now replaced with the nuts and bolts of engineering the shell of a space that would not only accommodate the various needs of the clinic, but also hold up the roof—and still look fabulous.

  “How’s it going, kiddo?” asked Marson from the open kitchen of our loft.

  “Getting there.” In fact, I was thrilled with how the renderings had shaped up, but I didn’t want to jinx my progress with any semblance bragging. I asked, “And the casserole?”

  “Hope you like peas.”

  “If they’re buried in chees
y goo.” With a swipe of the mouse, I dragged and dropped another palm tree into the mountainous background of the clinic.

  “Okay. More goo.” He clattered around the kitchen.

  Sitting back, I watched Marson at work in the sleek, spare surroundings of our temporary home.

  By Dumont standards, our First Avenue loft, which we converted from an old haberdashery, was cutting-edge—exactly the sort of space in which two architects might be expected to devise their living quarters. The ground floor of the loft included the kitchen along the rear wall, which opened to a dining area, separated by a couple of steps from the main living space in front, with its two-story wall of windows. The shop’s former mezzanine, over the kitchen, was now our sleeping area, accessible by a spiral metal staircase. The decorating scheme was largely black and white; the materials leaned toward leather, glass, and stone. In a word, the look was industrial.

  We weren’t trying to be hip. To us, these choices had been more a default than a preference. Not quite two years ago, when our unexpected attraction led quickly to love and then commitment, when Marson’s life and his marriage of thirty-odd years were upended, we needed housing—our first home together—on short notice. And the downtown loft checked all the boxes. It was near our office. It was clean and comfortable, with neutral styling that would allow us to discover, over time, a shared sense of aesthetics. It was ours.

  Now we were married—since June, only a few months ago. But all along, it had seemed inevitable that, once we were feeling more settled, we would again contemplate new surroundings, a home reflecting a more defined expression of our evolved tastes as a couple. We referred to that next project not merely as our dream house, but with brazen immodesty as “the perfect house,” one we would build from the ground up. And in fact, construction had just begun.

  “Taste,” said Marson. He had ambled over to my computer with two glasses of wine, extending one.

  I sipped, swallowed, smiled. “Nice.”

  “I thought a dry rosé might work with the chicken—a little more substance than a white—just too predictable.”

  I got up from my chair and pulled him close for a kiss. “You chose well.”

  He touched his glass to mine. The chime of crystal drifted through the cavernous space of the loft—and vanished.

  “Take a look,” I said, offering the chair at my computer.

  He sat, peered at the screen, and grinned. Setting down his wine, he tapped the mouse to zoom the view. “Marvelous, Brody. I could never have come up with this. So fresh, so spirited. Frumpkin will love it—you had him sold with that first sketch.”

  I had already told Marson about Frumpkin’s fancy fingerwork beneath the tablecloth. Now I noted, “I think he was sold before the sketch.”

  Marson leaned back, looking up to study me. “You’re an attractive man—desired by many. The night we met, the memory of that, it still leaves me breathless.”

  The memory he invoked left me not only breathless, but suddenly needy. Our two years together had been a steady journey in building our shared trust, companionship, and dreams. But that adventure had begun with a spark of lust, pure and simple—an impulse driven by physical, mutual attraction, a craving that, to this day, has not withered in the least. I fixed him in my stare. “How much longer for that casserole?”

  His eyes widened. His voice turned dry and throaty: “Twenty minutes. Thirty?”

  “Plenty of time.”

  The casserole turned out crustier than planned, a tad crunchy around the edges, but the delightful rosé made the food’s shortcomings easy to dismiss. Marson had also made a simple salad and whisked a masterful vinaigrette that, combined with the rest, made a modest but elegant meal for a chilly autumn night at home.

  We hadn’t bothered getting dressed again, wearing cozy bathrobes at our dinner for two as we perched on stools at the kitchen island. Huddled with a few candles, we tippled as we ate and gabbed.

  “On the one hand,” said Marson, “he’s a showboat. On the other hand, he’s a successful, ambitious businessman thinking outside the box.”

  “He’s a doctor,” I said. We were speaking of Francis Frumpkin. “Somehow, I’ve never associated medicine with business savvy—or thinking outside the box. Doctors follow established protocols.”

  “X-rays, penicillin, DNA—those discoveries came from thinking outside the box.”

  “True.” I gave my wine a swirl, sliding the base of the glass in lazy circles on the granite countertop. “But Frumpkin’s not a researcher. He’s a practicing dermatologist and cosmetic surgeon.”

  Marson reminded me, “He’s on the verge of retirement. He wants to move to Palm Springs. He intends to try something different for his chapter two.”

  “I’ll say. He wants to start over with his nurse—what was his name?”

  “Dahr. I assume we’ll meet him at the doings on Friday. And if things work out for Frumpkin—with FlabberGas and with Dahr—he’ll be able to walk away from the daily grind of the practice, turning things over to Sarah and her husband. In short, Frumpkin has a plan.”

  I found Marson’s logic reassuring. At some level, I was tempted to dismiss Frumpkin as a flake, which gave me qualms about designing his FlabberGas clinic—did I really want my name tied to a project that sounded like a joke? But Marson was right. Frumpkin exuded an astute sense of marketing, so perhaps his silly branding concept would be just the ticket to drive throngs of the flabby to his door. And along the way, I’d landed a commission that was potentially lucrative and uncommonly fun.

  Marson concluded, “Enjoy the ride with Frumpkin. What could possibly go wrong?”

  Lacking foresight of the magnitude of what would indeed go wrong, I ignored his question and responded with another: “How’s the museum coming along?”

  Marson brightened. He set down his fork. “I wish you could have gone to the site with me today.”

  “Sorry.” Lamely, I added, “FlabberGassed.”

  “Understood, kiddo.” He patted my hand. “Anyway, they’ll have the museum closed-in before winter. All the visual massing is in place now. And the juxtaposition with Questman Center is stunning—as planned.”

  A few years earlier, when Mary Questman had chosen Marson to design the performing-arts center, many were skeptical of her decision to award such a significant job to small-town talent. But when the design was unveiled, critics were won over by Marson’s flawless integration of the theater complex into the rocky ravines of an old city park, donated by the county as the building site. Later, when Questman Center opened, it was acclaimed an instant landmark—not only in sleepy little Dumont, but among the larger world of the architectural cognoscenti.

  Then, last year, when the board of the Dumont County Museum decided to phase out their cramped old building and construct a larger, more modern facility, the county donated additional land near Questman Center, which would now serve as anchor to an expanding cultural campus that would eventually include a new main library as well. The theater complex had been such a hit, there was no question that Marson would be tapped to design the new museum, now under construction. That was shortly after I had entered Marson’s life—living with him as well as working with him. And one night, as I was lying in Marson’s arms, he turned to tell me, “When they get around to the library, that one’s yours, Brody. That will be your masterpiece.”

  Awesome. But first things first. I had a FlabberGas clinic in the works.

  There in the kitchen, Marson poured more wine for me, then sloshed the remaining inch or two into his own glass. “Any news about the house?”

  Aha. The perfect house. I answered, “Yes, in fact. After you went out to the museum, Carter called the office.” Clem Carter was the owner of Carter Construction, our general contractor. “They finished the grading today. He asked me to take a look.”

  “Great,” said Marson. “The first hard freeze can’t be far off.”

  “I’ll check it out tomorrow.”

  “Have enough time
?” He reminded me, “FlabberGas.”

  “I’m in good shape. Today was productive. No problem getting everything to Frumpkin on Friday.”

  “You are one driven young man. I’m impressed.” Marson got up, kissed the top of my head, and carried a few dishes to the sink.

  I followed him with the flatware and empty glasses. “Actually, I was already planning to drive out there tomorrow. I’m taking Glee. She’s dying to get a look.”

  “Not much to see. Nothing’s built yet.”

  “That’s the point. She wants some ‘before’ shots.”

  “I’ll just bet she does.” Marson started rinsing things. It creeped him out to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher.

  We were talking about Glee Savage, a good friend who worked for the Dumont Daily Register. A year earlier, she’d run a story about our “repurposing” of the loft (a first in Dumont), and now she was intent on documenting the building of our house, which she deemed all the more newsworthy.

  “But a word of warning,” said Marson. “Watch out for Glee.”

  “Why?”

  His tone was facetious: “She’s a killer.”

  Glee Savage was not a killer. Or at least, no one had proved it. There’d been talk, many years before my arrival in Dumont, that she was responsible for the untimely death of an old foe, Gillian Reece. A shrew of a businesswoman, Reece had no shortage of enemies—any one of whom might have been motivated to shove her over a balcony in her magnificent new home and send her plummeting to the limestone floor two stories below. The fall proved fatal, denying Reece the payback of naming her assailant, so the mystery death was never solved. But Marson had maintained all along that it was preposterous even to consider Glee Savage a killer. And that was good enough for me.

  Glee Savage did, however, have a killer sense of style. Well into her sixties now, closer to seventy, never married, she had worked at the local paper for more than forty years, weathering the digital tsunami that still redefined the delivery of news. Whether by shrewd planning or by lucky happenstance, Glee had managed to carve out a niche.