“Did I leave anything out?”
Harry cleaned out the letters and numbers in her postage meter with the sharp end of a safety pin. They’d gotten clogged with maroon ink. “Your prize pumpkin?”
“Oh, I brought her in last night.” Mrs. Hogendobber grabbed the broom and started sweeping the dried mud out the front door.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to but I used to do this for George. Makes me feel useful.” The clods of earth soared out into the parking lot. “Weatherman says three more days of rain.”
“If the animals go two by two, you know we’re in trouble.”
“Harry, don’t make light of the Old Testament. The Lord doesn’t shine on blasphemers.”
“I’m not blaspheming.”
“I thought maybe I’d scare you into going to church.” A sly smile crossed Mrs. Hogendobber’s lips, colored a bronzed orange today.
Fair Haristeen came in, wiped off his boots, and answered Mrs. Hogendobber. “Harry goes to church for weddings, christenings, and funerals. Says Nature is her church.” He smiled at his former wife.
“Yes, it is.” Harry was glad he was okay. No storm damage.
“Bridge washed out at Little Marilyn’s and at BoomBoom’s, too. Hard to believe the old creek can do that much damage.”
“Guess they’ll have to stay on their side of the water,” Mrs. Hogendobber said.
“Guess so.” Fair smiled. “Unless Moses returns.”
“I know what I forgot to tell you,” Mrs. Hogendobber exclaimed, ignoring the biblical reference. “The cat ate all the communion wafers!”
“Cazenovia at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church?” Fair asked.
“Yes, do you know her?” Mrs. H. spoke as though the animal were a parishioner.
“Cleaned her teeth last year.”
“Has she gotten in the wine?” Harry laughed.
Mrs. Hogendobber struggled not to join in the mirth—after all, the bread and wine were the body and blood of our Lord Jesus—but there was something funny about a cat taking communion.
“Harry, want to have lunch with me?” Fair asked.
“When?” She absentmindedly picked up a ballpoint pen, which had been lying on the counter, and stuck it behind her ear.
“Now. It’s noon.”
“I barely noticed, it’s so dark outside.”
“Go on, Harry, I’ll hold down the fort,” Mrs. Hogendobber offered. Divorce troubled her and the Haristeen divorce especially, since both parties were decent people. She didn’t understand growing apart because she and George had stayed close throughout their long marriage. Of course it helped that if she said, “Jump,” George replied, “How high?”
“Want to bring the kids?” Fair nodded toward the animals.
“Do, Harry. Don’t you leave me with that hoyden of a cat. She gets in the mail bins and when I walk by she jumps out at me and grabs my skirt. Then the dog barks. Harry, you’ve got to discipline those two.”
“Oh, balls.” Tucker sneezed.
“Why do people say ‘balls’? Why don’t they say ‘ovaries’?” Mrs. Murphy asked out loud.
No one had an answer, so she allowed herself to be picked up and whisked to the deli.
The conversation between Fair and Harry proved desultory at best. Questions about his veterinary practice were dutifully answered. Harry spoke of the storm. They laughed about Fitz-Gilbert’s blond hair and then truly laughed about Mim’s pontoon boat taking a lick. Mim and that damned boat had caused more uproar over the years—from crashing into the neighbors’ docks to nearly drowning Mim and the occupants. To be invited onto her “little yacht,” as she mincingly called it, was surely a siren call to disaster. Yet to refuse meant banishment from the upper echelon of Crozet society.
As the laughter subsided, Fair, wearing his most earnest face, said, “I wish you and BoomBoom could be friends again. You all were friends once.”
“I don’t know as I’d say we were friends.” Harry warily put down her plastic fork. “We socialized together when Kelly was alive. We got along, I guess.”
“She understands why you wouldn’t want to be friends with her but it hurts her. She talks tough but she’s very sensitive.” He picked up the Styrofoam cup and swallowed some hot coffee.
Harry wanted to reply that she was very sensitive about herself and not others, and besides, what about her feelings? Maybe he should talk to BoomBoom about her sensitivities. She realized that Fair was snagged, hook, line, and sinker. BoomBoom was reeling him into her emotional demands, which, like her material demands, were endless. Maybe men needed women like BoomBoom to feel important. Until they dropped from exhaustion.
As Harry kept quiet, Fair haltingly continued: “I wish things had worked out differently and yet maybe I don’t. It was time for us.”
“Guess so.” Harry twiddled with her ballpoint pen.
“I don’t hold grudges. I hope you don’t.” His blond eyebrows shielded his blue eyes.
Harry’d been looking into those eyes since kindergarten. “Easier said than done. Whenever women want to discuss emotions men become more rational, or at least you do. I can’t just wipe out our marriage and say let’s be friends, and I’m not without ego. I wish we had parted differently, but done is done. I’d rather think good of you than ill.”
“Well, what about BoomBoom then?”
“Where is she?” Harry deflected the question for a moment.
“Bridge washed out.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Once the water goes down she’ll find a place to ford.”
“Least the phone lines are good. I spoke to her this morning. She has a terrible migraine. You know how low pressure affects her.”
“To say nothing of garlic.”
“Right.” Fair remembered when BoomBoom was rushed to the hospital once after ingesting the forbidden garlic.
“And then we can’t forget the rheumatism in her spine on these cold, dank days. Or her tendency to heat prostration, especially when any form of work befalls her.” Harry smiled broadly, the smile of victory.
“Don’t make fun of her. You know what a tough family life she had. I mean with that alcoholic father and her mother just having affair after affair.”
“Well, she comes by it honestly then.” Harry reached over with her ballpoint pen, jabbed a hole in the Styrofoam cup, and turned it around so the liquid dribbled onto Fair’s cords. She got up and walked out, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker hastily following.
Fair, fuming, sat there and wiped the coffee off his pants with his left hand while trying to stem the flow from the cup with his right.
9
The creek swirled around the larger rocks, small whirlpools forming, then dispersing. Tucker paced the bank, slick with mud deposits. The waters had subsided and were back within their boundaries but remained high with a fast current. A mist hung over the meadows and the trees, now bare, since the pounding rains had knocked off most of the brilliant fall foliage.
High in the hayloft Mrs. Murphy watched her friend through a crack in the boards. When she lost sight of Tucker she gave up her conversation with Simon to hurry backward down the ladder. Cursing under her breath, she surrendered hope of keeping dry and ran across the fields. Water splashed up on her creamy beige belly, exacerbating her bad mood. Tucker could do the dumbest things. By the time Mrs. Murphy reached the creek the corgi was right in the middle of it, teetering on the tip of a huge rock.
“Get back here,” Mrs. Murphy demanded.
“No,” Tucker refused. “Sniff.”