The Dream Before the Dream: Henry's Journals and Correspondence, 2016-20

February 2017. Rugby man

February 5
Pez has colored his hair pink. It's daring and fun and the topper on the cake that is him. I couldn't do it, and for that reason I'm chuffed he has done it. Now that I've seen it, it's a shock to think that his hair wasn't always some color not often found in nature. 

I'm proud to have this brave little peacock as my friend. I'm even happier about it because he came for Sunday lunch, where he and Bea got on as famously as ever. Martha was there too, dressed like a fashion doll. Maybe she thought Gran would be at the lunch.

I was confused about why Martha was there until Philip entered the room to give her a pre-Valentine's Day surprise. She acted every bit the part of the delighted girl whose boyfriend—what a strange word to apply to Philip, who acts old before his time—has given her a gift the culture has told her she should value.

"Oh Philip," she exclaimed. I could swear her voice was half an octave higher than it normally is, and performatively so.

"I'm absolutely shocked to see you here. I thought I was just going to have lunch with your gran and—" she cast a look in the direction of me and Bea, then looked over at Pez, beaming beatifically at her.

"—family and friends," she continued. "I didn't know you would be...here and—oh, I am glad to see you!"

Apparently whoever writes Martha's dialogue also worked on prewar animated Disney films.

The happy couple tried to disguise their sidelong glances at Pez and his outfit, which made him look like an electric flower garden. I hope he ruined their Valentine's Day surprise, honestly.

Pez joked about how his hair would take the heat off me because it would make him look like the gay one between the two of us. He's not wrong. I asked him what his family thought about it. He simply laughed and said they have too much money to worry about that sort of thing.

True luxury. Enough money + privacy = freedom. Pez may not have total privacy, but he has more freedom than I do, and he knows how to use it.

From: Percy Okonjo
To: Henry
How much do you want to bet that Martha thought Philip was going to propose? And how disappointed do you think she is that he didn't?

From: Henry
To: Percy Okonjo
And how convinced is she that our being there was why he didn't propose? Though I assure you, Philip would absolutely have proposed in front of whomever if he's put his mind to it. A man of action, that one. I think I may have actually heard him use "action" as a verb. "It's time to action this initiative."

From: Percy Okonjo
To: Henry
You know, everything about Philip's existence reassures me that his circumstances would not change significantly if the revolution came. He would run off to New York—what with the City being off-limits to him post-revolution and all—and talk himself into a job at Goldman Sachs or similar. Maybe work in wealth management. Martha would lunch and go to many cycling classes. The global Gini coefficient would remain largely unchanged.

From: Henry
To: Percy Okonjo
That is a nice fantasy. Do me. I imagine that I could get work teaching at a Swiss boarding school. One of the ghastly American ones in Connecticut, perhaps, if circumstances were dire or if Philip hooked me there with the promise of moral support and proximity to blood relations.

Bea would be happy to become an itinerant musician for a few years. She has friends all over the world. I could see her popping up here and there until she's suddenly settled on an organic farm in—I don't know, Croatia—rehabilitating female felons through the magic of farming and music.
It's a nice thought.

From: Percy Okonjo
To: Henry
I love it when you talk dirty.

February 9
UN AIDS program meeting. I always feel like I'm about to be caught when attending those meetings, even though the fastest-growing cases are among women who have sex with men, particularly in subsaharan Africa.