“She listens to me—most of the time. She can be quite stubborn though. Selective hearing.”
“They’re all like that.” Paddy nodded gravely. “Hey, want to race across the front pasture, climb up the walnut by the creek, run across the limb, and then jump out to the other side? We can be at your back door in no time. Bet I get there first.”
“Deal!”
They ran like maniacs, arriving at the back porch door. Harry, coffeepot in hand and still sleepy, opened the back door. They both charged into the kitchen.
“Catting around?” She smiled and scratched Mrs. Murphy’s head, and Paddy’s too.
20
A crisp night dotted with bright stars like chunks of diamonds created the perfect Halloween. Each year the Harvest Fair was held at Crozet High. Before the high school was built in 1892, the fair was held in an open meadow across from the train station. The high school displayed the excesses of Victorian architecture. One either loved it or hated it. Since most everyone attending the Harvest Ball had graduated from Crozet High, they loved it.
Not Mim Sanburne, as she had graduated from Madeira, nor Little Marilyn, who had followed in her mother’s spiked-heel steps. No, Crozet High smacked of the vulgate, the hoi polloi, the herd. Jim Sanburne, mayor of Crozet, had graduated from CHS in 1939. He carefully walked up and down rows of tables placed on the football field. Corn, squash, potatoes, wheat sheaves, and enormous pumpkins crowded the tables.
The mayor and his son-in-law had been cataloguing contestant entries that morning. In order to be impartial, Fitz wrote down all the produce entries. Since Jim was judging that category, it wouldn’t do for him to see them early.
The crafts filled the halls inside the school. Mrs. Hogendobber would take a step or two, stop, study, rub her hand on her chin, remove her glasses, put them back on, and say, “Hmmn.” This process was repeated for each display. Miranda took judging the crafts to new levels of seriousness.
The gym, decorated as a witches’ lair, would welcome everyone after the awards. The dance attracted even the lame and the halt. If you breathed you showed up. Rick Shaw and Cynthia Cooper sat in the gym judging costumes. Children scampered about as Ninja Turtles, angels, devils, cowboys, and one little girl whose parents were dairy farmers came as a milk carton. The teenagers, also in costume, tended to stick together, but as the task of decorating for the Harvest Ball fell upon CHS’s students, they heaped glory upon themselves. Every senior class was determined to top the class preceding it. The freshman, sophomore, and junior classes were pledged to help, and on Halloween Day classes were suspended so the decorating could proceed.
As Harry, Susan, and Blair strolled through the displays they admired the little flying witches overhead. The electronics wizards at the school had built intricate systems of wires, operating the witches by remote control. Ghosts and goblins also flew. The excitement mounted because if this was the warm-up, what would the dance be like? That was always the payoff.
Harry and Susan, in charge of the Harvest Ball for their class of 1976, ruefully admitted that these were the best decorations they’d seen since their time. No crepe paper for these kids. The orange and black colors snaked along the walls and the outside tables with Art Deco severity and sensuality. Susan, bursting with pride, accepted congratulations from other parents. Her son Danny was the freshman representative to the decorations committee and it was his idea to make the demons fly. He was determined to outdo his mother and was already well on his way to a chairmanship as a senior. His younger sister had proved a help too. Brookie was already worried about what would happen two years from now when she had the opportunity to be a Harvest Ball class representative. Could she top this? Susan and Ned had sent the kids to private school in Charlottesville for a couple of years, the result being that both were turning into horrid snobs. They had yanked the kids out of the private school, to everyone’s eventual relief.
Blair observed it all in wonder and amusement. These young people displayed spirit and community involvement, something which had been missing at his prep school. He almost envied the students, although he knew he had been given the gift of a superb education as well as impeccable social contacts.
BoomBoom and Fair judged the livestock competition. BoomBoom was formally introduced to Blair by Harry. She took one look at this Apollo and audibly sucked in her breath. Fair, enraptured by a solid Holstein calf, elected not to notice. BoomBoom, far too intelligent to flirt openly, simply exuded radiance.
As they walked away Susan commented, “Well, she spared you the BoomBoom brush.”
“What’s that?” Blair smiled.
“In high school—on these very grounds, mind you—BoomBoom would slide by a boy and gently brush him with her torpedoes. Naturally, the boy would die of embarrassment and joy.”
“Yeah,” Harry laughed. “Then she’d say, ‘Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.’ BoomBoom can be very funny when she puts her mind, or boobs, to it.”
“You haven’t told me what your theme was when you two co-chaired the Harvest Ball.” Blair evidenced little curiosity about BoomBoom but plenty about Harry and Susan, which pleased them mightily.
“The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Susan’s voice lowered.
Harry’s eyes lit up. “You wouldn’t have believed it. I mean, we started working the day school started. The chair and co-chairs are elected the end of junior year. A really big deal—”
Susan interrupted. “Can you tell? I mean, we still remember everything. Sorry, Harry.”
“That’s okay. Well, Susan came up with the theme and we decorated the inside of the school like the inside of a Victorian mansion. Velvet drapes, old sofas—I mean, we hit up every junk shop in this state, I swear . . . that and what parents lent us. We took rolls and rolls of old butcher paper—Market Shiflett’s dad donated it—and the art kids turned it into stone and we made fake walls with that outside.”
“Don’t forget the light.”
“Oh, yeah, we had one of the boys up in the windows that are dark on the second floor going from room to room swinging a lantern. Boy, did that scare the little kids when they looked up. Painted his face too. We even got Mr. MacGregor—”
“My Mr. MacGregor?” Blair asked.
“The very one,” Susan said.
“We got him to lend us his bloodhound, Charles the First, who emitted the most sorrowful cry.”
“We walked him up and down the halls that were not in use and asked him to howl, which he did, dear dog. We really scared the poop out of them when we took him up on the second floor, opened a window, and his piercing howl floated over the grounds.” Susan shivered with delight.
“The senior class dressed like characters from the story. God, it was fun.”
By now they were outside. The Reverend Herbie and Carol Jones waved from among the wheat sheaves. A few people remarked that they’d miss Harry on Tomahawk this year. The local reporter roved around. Everyone was in a good mood. Naturally people talked about the grim discoveries but since it didn’t touch anyone personally—the victim wasn’t someone they knew—the talk soon dissolved into delicious personal gossip. Mim, Little Marilyn, and Fitz-Gilbert paraded around. Mim accepted everyone’s sympathy with a nod and then asked them not to mention it again. Her nerves were raw, she said.
One stalwart soul was missing this year: old Fats Domino, the huge feline who had played the Halloween cat every year for the last fifteen. Fats had finally succumbed to old age, and Pewter had been pressed into service. Her dark-gray coat could almost pass for black in the night and she hadn’t a speck of white on her. She gleefully padded over the tables, stopping to accept pats from her admirers.