Elephant Gerald asks leading questions, impersonating the talk show hosts. Why yes I did find a nickel and two pennies at the supermarket. Ada keeps her money pinned in the pocket of her daffodil print dress. She says you aren't the only lucky one, Mister Smarty. Elephant Gerald is Aristotle Onassis around here. On every birthday he receives a tape recorder and batteries. He spends his allowance on Memorex. Last night Elephant Gerald recorded his sleep and discovered he laughs like Mister Ed. You're a lucky lady, Ada--always been. At bingo I never lose. Lips pursed tight. You're just plain lucky, and I'm going home with my mother. Elephant Gerald changes the subject and Ada doesn't like it. I don't want to hear about your mother, Gerald. Shut up about her. You can't talk about your mother all the time. He pulls out the plug in his ear. Beatles played by tin fairies. You talked about your mother, Ada. I can talk about mine. I didn't. You did. I didn't. You did. Didn't. Did. Didn't. Did. Didn't. Did. Call Jimmy Carter.

Ariel Lightbody strolls and hums to herself, hands clasped around her bliss. Ada stops arguing long enough to notice that Ariel looks more like Humpty Dumpty than herself. It was Ada's curse to be beautiful like her mother, strong minded like her father. Ada asks what Ariel is humming. Ariel yanks to attention like electrocuted Jello, yet when she speaks the words melt in her mouth. Was I humming, dear? Beneath close-cropped hair Ariel's slumping face follows a massive chin onto her shoulders. A corpulent trunk perches precariously like funeral statuary in the National Museum in Athens--the ones with human torsos on bird legs. I thought you were a ventriloquist, Elephant Gerald says. Someone who can take off her skin and talk to it instead of herself. That would be real nice, Ariel answers from Elsewhere. All she can think about is her brain. She has spent the whole day digging out her memory. Like many of the guests, Ariel Lightbody knows very little about her past, but she confides that her father puts windshield wipers on submarines.



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