"Moonshinin'!" the installer said with a grin. "Then they opened a diner in the valley and did all right. They served split-brandy in teacupsthat's half brandy and half whiskey. The diner's torn down now, but lots of old people remember Lumpton's famous tea."
"Are you a Lumpton?" Qwilleran asked. He had counted forty-seven Goodwinters in the Moose County phone book but twice that many Lumptons in the Spuds-boro directory.
"On my mother's side. My cousins own Lumpton's Pizza. Sheriff Lumpton is my godfather. You know him? He was sheriff twenty-four years. Everybody called him Uncle Josh. He always played Santa for the kids at Christmas, and he sure had the belly for it! Still does. But now they have some skinny guy playin' Santa . . . Well, I better get to work. Where d'you want the extension?"
"Upstairs on the desk in the back bedroom," Qwilleran said from his bed of pain. "Can you find it all right?"
"Sure. If you hear it ring, it's just me checkin' it out."
The phone rang a couple of times, and eventually the young man came downstairs. "Okay, you're all set. I left a phone book on the desk. Your big cat's sure a nosey one! Watched everythin' I did. The little one is bitin' herself like she has fleas."
"Thanks for the prompt service," Qwilleran said.
"Take it easy now."
As soon as Qwilleran heard the van drive away, he went upstairs to find Yum Yum. He could now climb one step at a rime if he led with his right foot and leaned heavily on his staff. The telephone, he discovered, had been installed on the desk as requested, but in the wrong room. It was in the cats' bedroom, and Koko was being aggressively possessive about it. Yum Yum was on the bed, gnawing at her left flank, and there were small tufts of fur on die bedcover.
Qwilleran brushed Koko unceremoniously aside and called the Wickes Animal Clinic. Dr. John, according to the receptionist, was in surgery, but Dr. Inez had just finished a C-section and could come to the phone in a jiffy.
When Inez answered, he said, "This is Jim Qwilleran, your neighbor at Tiptop. Do you make house calls? Something's very wrong with my cat, and I'm grounded with a sprained ankle."
"What's wrong?" she asked, and when he described Yum Yum's behavior, she said, "I know it looks kinky, but it's not unusual for spayed females. We can give her a shot and dispense some pills. No need to worry. One of us will run up the hill with the little black bag around five o'clock. What happened to your ankle?"
"I slipped on some wet leaves," he explained.
"Will this rain ever stop?" she complained. "The waterfall under our house is running so high, it may wash out our sundeck. See you at five."
Qwilleran babied Yum Yum until she fell asleep and then went to work on copy for the Moose County Something: a thousand words on the feud between the environmentalists and the Spudsboro developers.
"What has happened," he asked his Moose County readers, "to give a negative connotation to a constructive word like 'develop'? It means, according to the dictionary, to perfect, to expand, to change from a lesser to a higher state, to mature, to ripen. Yet, a large segment of the population now uses it as a pejorative." He concluded the column by saying, "The civic leaders of Moose County who are campaigning for 'development' should take a hard look at the semantics of a word that sounds so commendable and can be so destructive."
"And now, old boy," he said to Koko, who had been sitting on the desk enjoying the vibrations of the typewriter, "I've got to figure out how to get this stuff faxed. May I use your phone?" He tottered into the cats' room and called the manager of the Five Points Market, saying, "This is Jim Qwilleran at Tiptop. Do you remember me?"
"Sure do!" said the energetic Bill Treacle. "Did you run out of lobster tails?"
"No, but I have a food-related problem. I sprained my ankle yesterday. Do you make deliveries?"
"Not as a rule. What do you need?"
"Some frozen dinners and half a pound of sliced turkey breast from the deli counter and four hot dogs."
"I'm off at six o'clock. I'll deliver them myself if you can wait that long," said Treacle. "I've never seen the inside of Tiptop."
"I can survive until then. If you wish, I'll show you around the premises and even offer you a drink."
"I'll take that! Make it a cold beer."
At that point some twinges in the left ankle reminded Qwilleran that he had been sitting at a desk too long. He sank into his lounge chair, propping both feet on the ottoman, and thought about Moose County . . . about the sunny June days up there . . . about the old doctor's suicide . . . and about Melinda Goodwinter's wicked green eyes and long lashes. Her return to Pickax after three years in Boston had crossed his mind oftener than he cared to admit. Her presence would definitely disturb his comfortable relationship with Polly, who was a loving woman of his own age. Melinda, for her part, had a youthful appeal that he had once found irresistible, and she had a way of asking for what she wanted. To be friends with both of them, to some degree or other, would be ideal, he reflected wistfully, but Pickax was a small town, and Polly was overpossessive. The whole problem would be tidily solved if he decided not to return to Moose County, and that was a distinct possibility, although he had not given it a moment's thought since arriving in the Potatoes.
Reaching for a pad of paper he jotted down some options, commenting on each to faithful Koko, who was loitering sociably. Yum Yum was on the bed, wretchedly nipping at her flanks and tearing out tufts of fur.
Move back to a large city. "Which one? And why? Pm beginning to prefer small towns. Must be getting old."
Buy a newspaper. "Now that I can afford one, I no longer want one. Too bad."
Travel. "Sounds good, but what would I do about you and Yum Yum?" he asked Koko, who blinked and scratched his ear.
Teach journalism. "That's what everyone says I should do, but I'd rather do it than teach it."
Try to get into acting. "I was pretty good when I was in college, and television has increased the opportunities since then."
Build a hotel in Pickax. "God knows it needs a new one! We could go six stories high and call it the Pickax Towers."
He had been so intent on planning the rest of his life that he failed to hear a car pulling into the parking lot, but Koko heard it and raced downstairs. Qwilleran followed, descending the stairs lamely. Through the glass of the French doors he could see the top of an umbrella, ploddingly ascending the twenty-five steps. It reached the veranda, and Qwilleransloppily attired, unshaven, and leaning on a canerecognized the last person in the world he wanted to see.
CHAPTER 13
Qwilleran recognized the hat waiting outside the front doora large one with a brim like a banking planeand wished he could slink back upstairs, but it was too late. She had caught sight of him through the glass panes.
"A thousand pardons!" she cried when he opened the door in his grubby condition. "I'm Vonda Dudley Wix. I'm calling at an inopportune time. I should have telephoned first. Do you remember me?"
"Of course." He remembered not only the hat but also the young-old face beneath it and the scarf tied in a perky bow under her chin. "Come in," he said, exaggerating his limp and his facial expressions of agony.
"I won't stay," she said. "Colin told me about your misfortune, and I brought you some of my Chocolate Whoppers to boost your morale." She was holding a paper plate covered with foil.
"Thank you. I need a boost," he said, brightening at the mention of something chocolate. "Will you come in for a cup of coffee?"
"I don't drink coffee," she said as she parked her umbrella on the veranda. "It goes to my head and makes me quite tipsy."
"I don't have tea. How about a glass of apple juice?"