“Kablooey?” whispered Melba.
“Kablooey!” It was obvious that Gigi Zuzzo wished she had a small paper lunch bag she could blow up and punch explosively into a wall. She looked longingly at the milk carton Melba held in her hand, but Melba shook it up and down to indicate that it was as yet too full of milk.
“Your father is lucky Officer Greg and I understand one another,” said Gigi Zuzzo, “or your father would very likely have been accused of vigilantism, or have had his name added to a registry of second-degree murderers and been forced to perform community services, landscaping, decorating paper plates for senior lunches, running the flu clinic, helping Dr. Buck check children for scoliosis and lice.” The conversation ended then, because Gigi Zuzzo, recalling Melba’s curvature, had forced her facedown onto a fitness ball, and spent the remainder of the evening pulling alternately on her left arm and right leg.
Now, in the bakery, Melba noticed her left shoulder and right hip listing in opposite directions, no doubt the result of her uncorrected S-curve, and she wished she had been more stoic regarding her mother’s ministrations. Her mother’s words ran dizzy laps in her head and she looked at Officer Greg with wonderment.
“Is it true you understand my mother?” asked Melba. Her question came almost too late. Officer Greg was leaving. She could tell by the way he’d drawn up the corner of his mouth, lifting the bag of pretzels to brace against his chest. Officer Greg spun toward her but, remembering that he did not intend to look at her full on, he overshot the mark, pivoting to present her with his other profile, this one jowly, not nearly as debonair. He blinked rapidly, staring out through the bakery window, squinting even, as though trying to read the backwards lettering frosted on the front of the glass.
“That case has been solved, Melba,” said Officer Greg in a light tone designed to counteract the intimacy of the disclosure. “I won’t reopen it. You should worry about yourself. There’s nothing secure about your position. I can’t think of a single person who would vouch for anything about you. You say Leslie Duck is your boss, but I don’t have any records of Leslie Duck’s being anyone’s boss. Leslie Duck is a bachelor. The last I heard of Leslie Duck he was moving to the coast to start a banana plantation.”
Melba’s mouth opened and closed. It had been quite some time since she’d laid eyes on Leslie Duck. And he had been talking about bananas!
“Let me tell you something about bananas,” Leslie Duck had said. “They’re blanks, Melba. Sterile! Isn’t that wonderful? There’s so much fecundity in fruit form. It disgusts me, all the juices and seeds. I spit them! Pah! The banana is different. There’s something self-contained about a banana. I don’t just mean the peel, which has a prophylactic quality. The banana itself is reserved, dry and continent, no leaks. You can really hold onto a banana. You can eat it or you can keep it by your side, in your pocket, or in a banana pouch slung from your belt.” He showed Melba his banana pouch.
“Is that rabbit fur?” she asked.
“Badger,” said Leslie Duck, thumbing the mussed hairs. What else had he said? Melba could not remember. Surely nothing about leaving Dan for good? She glanced around the bakery. Everything seemed in order, not at all as though the owner had abdicated, severing the employer-employee relation, transforming the bakery into an acephalous establishment, a chaotic zone of rogue interactions and escalating depravity. The rubberized maps were in place by the customer entrance; the refrigerator was stocked with bottles of chocolate milk and orange soda; the napkin dispenser on the counter bulged with napkins. Officer Greg had left a piece of tape on the brass drawer of the enormous cash register, but police officers left tape in all kinds of places; it meant nothing.
“Am I trespassing?” asked Melba in bewilderment. “I thought I was working.”
Officer Greg looked almost pitying. “I’ll get to the bottom of it,” he promised. “That’s what I do. I’m like a submersible. Just remain calm and go through your day as you would normally, as though you were Melba Zuzzo, daughter and bakery employee.”
“I’m a sister too!” Melba burst out.
Officer Greg shook his head. “Calm, Melba. No wild claims. No histrionics. I’m taking the evidence to the station.” He paused, shifting the paper bag in his arms.
“Hmmm,” he said, looking down at the bag with real fondness, stroking a crinkle with his fingertip. “Melba, you know, I do hope you work here. I’d hate to consider this bag contraband. Now, what about the Danish with the cheese?” Numbly, Melba plucked a cheese Danish from its tray with the metal tongs and thrust it toward Officer Greg. He opened the bag and Melba dropped the Danish inside.
“Thank you, Melba,” said Officer Greg, patting the bag, staring wistfully at a point on the wall above her head. Leslie Duck had allowed Melba to decorate that wall. Melba had taped up recipe cards, each showing a brightly colored image of a hot assembled food. Melba had unearthed the recipe cards while digging for pleasure in Hissy Mary’s famously unkempt lawn. The recipe cards were well-preserved, stacked inside a chafing dish enveloped in black plastic. Melba pulled off the plastic and lifted the lid. Expecting eggs, which she knew were occasionally interred, not by hens but by connoisseurs, sometimes for hundreds of years, she had been delighted to find the recipe cards instead. She had even knocked on Hissy Mary’s door to share news of her discovery. Luckily, Hissy Mary did not come quickly to the door. Standing there on the doorstep, Melba had time to reconsider. She reconsidered, turning and running from the door. She ran cradling the chafing dish, which bruised the insides of her arms, and she forgot the shovel and sweater in her haste. She had liked the sweater. It had nubs all over and looked casual on regular days and fancy on holidays. The shovel, though, she thought, was just as well abandoned. Twice in the night, sleepwalking from the house, she had woken behind the juniper bush to find Zeno Zuzzo using the shovel to beat things no longer moving. He swore on his honor that the things had, until the moment of Melba’s appearance, in fact been moving. They had been moving aggressively, and Zeno Zuzzo had been acting in self-defense. Or had he told her he had performed the deeds for hire? Melba could not remember. Either way, Zeno Zuzzo did not enjoy resorting to the shovel. She remembered he had said as much—“Melba, do you think I enjoy resorting to the shovel in this way? I do not. I do not enjoy this resorting”—and she supposed he would be grateful the shovel was gone.
Melba wished she wasn’t remembering the shovel, not with Officer Greg so close. She didn’t think she’d done anything wrong, but of course she wouldn’t know. She wasn’t an officer. She resisted the urge to look behind her. Officer Greg seemed to be studying the recipe cards, perhaps anticipating the criminal applications of either the cards themselves or the various ingredients they listed. At last, Officer Greg shook his head slightly, rocking the bag.
“Carry on,” he said to Melba. “Nothing’s been proven. How do you spell ‘dormouse’?”
“D-O-R-M-O-U-S-E,” said Melba.
“Interesting,” said Officer Greg. “Very interesting. Most civilians would get dormouse wrong.”
Melba considered explaining. I think a lot about vermin, she could say. Officer Greg’s jowl was quivering.