Seconds And Irregulars : 3

A Fit-4-U Tale
By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

Unfortunately for himself and Camille, Ozzie couldn't let go of the argument. He could see – quite acutely – that he'd somehow offended Camille, though he couldn't understand how. He was right about the jacket: so what was her problem?

When he entered the kitchen from the garage, he was ready to return to the charge, but Camille was already more than halfway up the stairs. He quickly gulped down a glass of water, nearly choking on it in his haste, then ran up the stairs after her, following Camille into their bedroom. Camille was there, silently changing her clothes, getting ready for bed. She walked into their bathroom and began wiping the makeup off her face and eyes.

The green jacket lay on the bed next to Camille's other clothes. Ozzie touched it; he ran his fingertips lightly over its length. Even he could sense that the material was unusual. It felt... nice. It was a positive pleasure to touch, which surprised Ozzie. It surprised him more than a little. He was a man! He wasn't used to having feelings about clothes.

Ozzie walked to the door of the bathroom and leaned against its frame, lolling his head into the little room so he could talk more intimately with Camille. He licked his lips, a little uncertain how to begin, or rather, how to restart the topic. Best to start off with a compliment.

"You know, honey, that jacket really suits you."

She paused for a moment in cleaning her face. She didn't look at him or respond. After a few seconds she went back to cleaning her eyelids.

"You ought to keep it," he suggested once again. "Teach Mark a lesson."

She shot him a quick glance, but again didn't respond.

"The guy is such a prick. I mean, really. To pull a prank like that "

Camille had completed her toilette. She noisily and abruptly closed and replaced all the bottles and jars, shutting the medicine cabinet and her vanity drawers with a bang. She turned to Ozzie and informed him, "Mark isn't a prick, and it wasn't a prank."

"But, honey " he protested.

"Look," she said, cutting him off. She picked up the jacket and held its shoulders against hers. "Can you see? The shoulders   they're narrower than mine. This would exactly fit Laura. This is her shoulder width. Do you see? But *I* just took it off, and you saw yourself that it fit me as though it was made for me."

"It's obviously some sort of optical illusion," he lamely protested.

"Bullshit," she responded testily, and held the jacket out towards him. "You try it on, Ozzie. You try it on and see."

"What!?" he recoiled as if she'd offered him a rattlesnake. "I'm not going to put that damn thing on!"

"Why not? It would settle the argument for good, wouldn't it?"

"Hell no! No   I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to wear women's clothes, for gosh sake! Forget it!"

Camille huffed in exasperation. "Are you serious? You're not going to try on the jacket? Even if that would prove this thing, one way or the other? It's either going to fit you, or it's not!"

"It's not going to happen!" he exclaimed, his face reddening. "I'm not going to wear women's clothes!"

"Oh my God," Camille muttered. "Sometimes you are such an idiot!"

Ozzie felt that he'd somehow lost ground, but there was a principle at stake here: there was no way he could possibly wear on a woman's jacket. No. Camille wouldn't be able to resist telling her friends, and her friends would tell their husbands... Ozzie would never be able to live it down. He'd be teased for the rest of his life. A man, a real man, would never do such a thing. So he returned to a more logical route:

"Guaranteed-2-Fit" he read on the label. "So how does it work? Do they have some super-accurate measuring app that you load in your phone? Do they give you unlimited returns until you get the right fit?" He shook his head. "That's not a sustainable business model. Suppose EVERYBODY returns everything, over and over. What if you keep sending the clothes back, every time you receive them? Just for a joke. Pretty soon the company would go broke, paying for all that shipping."

"That's not how it works," Camille muttered as she hung up her clothes, including the jacket.

Unaware that he'd already lost the battle, Ozzie pressed on. "What if you're built like an offensive tackle: six-six, four hundred pounds, and you order clothes that would fit me? Or vice versa? How does the guaranteed fit work then?"

If Ozzie only had eyes to see, he'd understand that Camille was like a volcano, dangerously close to erupting, already smoking, flashing fire, giving off low rumbles of underground thunder. The poor man was oblivious.

Camille, without looking up, told him, "It's some kind of advanced technology. That's all. The clothes adjust when you put them on."

Camille was used to giving Ozzie the benefit of the doubt. She was used to making excuses for his hyper-masculine comments and behavior. In the present moment she put the blame on his having one too many drinks. Also, Ozzie hadn't had the experience of putting on the too-small jacket and seeing it fit to a T. She had. She knew it seemed impossible, but at the same time she couldn't deny her own experience. She understood Ozzie's objections, and felt them herself to some extent. Unfortunately, Ozzie's harrassing, condescending, scoffing skepticism drove her into a defensive position. Ozzie's pressure made it impossible for her to give in, or to admit that he had a point.

By now, Camille was finished with the discussion, and she was ready for bed. Ozzie was still half-dressed, his shirt unbuttoned, his belt hanging loose, one shoe off, one shoe on.

He reached into the closet and grabbed the jacket and its hanger. "Here," he said to Camille, reaching across the bed to her. "Put it on. I want to see this self-adjusting thing for myself. I need to see it happen. Go on."

He shook the jacket at her, insistently, but Camille didn't take it. Instead, she picked up her pillow.

"I don't want to argue about this anymore "

"Who says we're arguing?" he cried. "We're just talking! Just having an intelligent discussion! A little give-and-take!"

"Fine. I don't have the energy for this intelligent discussion. I'm tired. I've had enough. I'm going to bed."

"Wait, wait!" he called, as she turned toward the bedroom door. "Where are you going? You're not sleeping with me? Come on! You're not mad at me about this stupid Fit-4-U crap, are you? Seriously?"

In a calm, placating tone, but one that barely hid her exasperation, she told him, "Ozzie, you've been drinking tonight, which is fine. I have no problem with that: I want you to enjoy yourself with our friends. But you know and I know that when you drink, you snore, and when you snore, I can't sleep. I need to get a good sleep tonight. Okay? That's all."

"Okay," he agreed, tentatively, losing all his bluster. "If you're sure you're not mad at me."

Camille walked over to him, kissed him on his cheek, hugged him, and assured him (lying, naturally) that she wasn't angry AT ALL. She was only tired, okay? She trudged down the hall to their guest room, armed with a pair of battle-tested ear plugs and her own down-filled pillow.

As soon as she'd settled into bed, Ozzie opened the guest-room door. "Hey, just checking: you're only here because of the snoring, right? It's not because of the jacket?"

"It's not because of the jacket," she assured him, inwardly gritting her teeth.

"Okay, good," he said, with obvious relief. "Because it's impossible, right?"

She held her breath, her body rigid, until he shut the door and walked away.