Jitterbug Perfume

At the Last Laugh Foundation, Wiggs Dannyboy and Priscilla make love, while Wiggs talks of his past and his work in immortality. He talks about Alobar, who is presently locked in the state prison in Concord, Massachusetts, where they met as fellow prisoners. Wiggs recounts Alobar’s story. It seems Alobar spent time with Albert Einstein and posed as a janitor to sabotage contemporary scientific efforts to prolong human life. Alobar entered prison as a 46-year-old man named Albert Barr, but in prison he became depressed and began to age. Wiggs says that Alobar told him all of his secrets but swore him to secrecy about just one—the recipe to K23. Priscilla has a difficult time believing the story, though she recognizes the bottle in the story as the one in her own possession. Wiggs has more to say on a vast variety of subjects, such as zippers, perfume, the ’60s, freedom, and happiness, though his main subject is immortality. He tells Priscilla, “The universe does not have laws. It has habits. And habits can be broken” (251).

In the morning, Priscilla wakes up in love with Wiggs. She attends the next meeting of the Daughters of the Daily Special only to find that Ricki, now estranged, has withdrawn her nomination for Priscilla’s grant. She also discovers that the bottle of K23 has gone missing, and she begins legal proceedings against Ricki, whom she assumes stole the bottle. Later, Priscilla is fired from her waitressing job. She spends more time with Wiggs Dannyboy and finds that his attachment to his daughter precludes him from spending significant time with her. She also discovers that Wiggs is the source of the beet deliveries, and that V’lu was in town the night of her bottle’s disappearance and is therefore the most likely culprit.

Priscilla travels to New Orleans to confront her adopted family, but Madame Devalier and V’lu have been sequestered as witnesses to Bingo Pajama’s murder in a nearby town and cannot be found. Priscilla takes up a new coffeehouse job and waits for V’lu to reappear. Throughout New Orleans, a swarm of coordinated bees attack officials involved in covering up Bingo Pajama’s murder. Priscilla, still in love, becomes estranged from Wiggs Dannyboy.

The Christmas holidays come and go. Wiggs Dannyboy and Marcel, now better acquainted, go to Massachusetts to meet a newly paroled Alobar. During this time a mob, supposedly inspired to riot by Pan, attacks The Last Laugh Foundation, killing Dr. Morgenstern and putting Huxley Anne into a coma. She miraculously awakes a few days later with the assistance of perfume, talking of “the other side.”

Months later, during Mardi Gras, several incidents occur. Madame Devalier and V’lu are released from witness protection and begin to consider recreating the contents of the bottle of K23. Alobar and Marcel LeFever are sent to stay with Priscilla in anticipation of Carnival. Wiggs gives each a beet costume to wear during the parade. Priscilla breaks into Parfumerie Devalier and steals the bottle of K23 with the intention of bringing it to Marcel, but she is tripped by an invisible foot and smashes the bottle. Nevertheless, Marcel gets a whiff and announces it to be “La parfume supreme!” (313). Alobar reveals the secret bottom note to K23, which is beet pollen. Marcel signs a deal providing everyone involved with a percentage of the significant profits on mass-produced K23.

Wiggs and Priscilla do not meet again, though Wiggs does send Priscilla a long note restating his philosophy, in which he predicts that “humankind is about to enter the floral stage of its evolutionary development” (320). Bingo Pajama’s bees adopt Huxley Anne, and together father and daughter go to Jamaica to cultivate the dead florist’s special jasmine.

Priscilla sees her former husband Effecto Partido on television. He declares his love for Priscilla, and so she travels to Argentina with Ricki to meet him.

Marcel, V’lu, and Alobar travel to Paris to begin production of K23, which they intend to call Kudra. When they arrive, they meet with Claude LeFever and a newly resurrected Kudra, who believes that she’s only been away for a couple of hours. In order to return, she says she had to walk through a door that said “ERLEICHDA,” or “Lighten up!” (340). This is the same message Alobar received soon after her disappearance.