“Hey, you two.” Harry giggled.
“Well, I’ll be late for my low-impact aerobics class. Have a good day.” BoomBoom lied about the good day part and left.
BoomBoom attracted men. This only convinced Harry that the two sexes did not look at women in the same way. Maybe men and women came from different planets—at least that’s what Harry thought on her bad days. BoomBoom had attractive features and the celebrated big tits but Harry also saw that she was a hypochondriac of the first water, managing to acquire some dread malady whenever she was in danger of performing any useful labor.
Susan Tucker used to growl that BoomBoom never fucked anyone poor. Well, she’d broken that pattern with Fair Haristeen, and Harry knew that sooner or later BoomBoom would weary of not getting earrings from Cartier’s, vacations out of the country, and a new car whenever the mood struck her. Of course she had plenty of her own money to burn but that wasn’t as much fun as burning a hole in someone else’s pocket. She’d wait until she had a rich fellow lined up in her sights and then she’d dump Fair with lightning speed. Harry wanted to be a good enough person not to gloat when that moment occurred. However, she knew she wasn’t.
This reverie of delayed revenge was interrupted when Mim Sanburne strode into the post office. Sporting one of those boiled Austrian jackets and a jaunty hunter-green hat with a pheasant feather on her head, she might have come from the Tyrol. A pleasant thought if it meant she might blow back to the Tyrol.
“Harry.” Mim’s greeting was imperious.
“Mrs. Sanburne.”
Mim had a box with a low number, another confirmation of her status, since it had been in the family since the time postal service was first offered to Crozet. Her arms full of mail and glossy magazines, she dumped them on the counter.“Hear you’ve got a handsome beau.”
“I do?” came the surprised reply.
Mrs. Murphy jumped around in the mail bin as Tucker snapped from underneath at the moving blob in the canvas.
“My son-in-law, Fitz-Gilbert, said he recognized him, this Blair Bainbridge fellow. He’s a model. Seen him inEsquire, GQ, that sort of thing. Mind you, those models are a little funny, you know what I mean?”
“No, Mrs. Sanburne, I really don’t.”
“Well, I’m trying to protect you, Harry. Those pretty boys marry women but they prefer men, if I have to be blunt.”
“First off, I’m not dating him.”
This genuinely disappointed Mim.“Oh.”
“Secondly, I have no idea as to his sexual preference but he seems nice enough and for now I will take him at face value. Thirdly, I’m taking a vacation from men.”
Mim airily circled her hand over her head, a dramatic gesture for her.“That’s what every woman says until she meets the next man, and thereis a next man. They’re like streetcars—there’s always one coming around the corner.”
“That’s an interesting thought.” Harry smiled.
Mim’s voice hit the “important information” register. “You know, dear, BoomBoom will tire of Fair. When he comes to his senses, take him back.”
As everyone had her nose in everyone else’s business, this unsolicited, intimate advice from the mayor’s wife didn’t offend Harry. “I couldn’t possibly do that.”
A knowing smile spread across the carefully made-up face.“Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” With that sage advice Mim started for the door, stopped, turned, grabbed her mail and magazines off the counter, and left for good.
Harry folded her arms across her chest, a respectable chest, too, and looked at her animals.“Girls, people say the damnedest things.”
Mrs. Murphy called out from the mail bin,“Mim’s a twit. Who cares? Gimme a push.”
“You look pretty comfortable in there.” Harry grabbed the corner of the mail bin and merrily rolled Mrs. Murphy across the post office as Tucker yapped with excitement.
Susan dashed through the back door, beheld the fun, and put Tucker in another mail bin.“Race you!”
[Êàðòèíêà: _2.jpg]
By the time they’d exhausted themselves they heard a scratching at the back door, opened it, and in strolled Pewter. So, with a grunt, Harry picked up the gray cat, placed her in Mrs. Murphy’s cart, and rolled the two cats at the same time. She crashed into Susan and Tucker.
Pewter, miffed, reached up and grabbed the edge of the mail bin with her paws. She was going to leap out when Mrs. Murphy yelled,“Stay in, wimp.”
Pewter complied by jumping onto the tiger cat, and the two rolled all over each other, meowing with delight as the mail bin races resumed.
“Wheee!” Susan added sound effects.
“Hey, let’s go out the back door and race up the alley,” Harry challenged.
“Yeah, yeah!” came the animals’ thrilled replies.
Harry opened the back door, she and Susan carefully lifted the mail bins over the steps, and soon they were ripping and tearing up and down the little alleyway. Market Shiflett saw them when he was taking out the garbage and encouraged them to run faster. Mrs. Hogendobber, shading her eyes, looked up from her pumpkins. Smiling, she shook her head and resumed her labors.
Finally, the humans pooped out. They slowly rolled the bins back to the post office.
“How come people forget stuff like this when they get older?” Susan asked.
“Who knows?” Harry laughed as she watched Mrs. Murphy and Pewter sitting together in the bin.
“Wonder why we still play?” Susan thought out loud.
“Because we discovered that the secret of youth is arrested development.” Harry punched Susan in the shoulder. “Ha.”
The entire day unfolded with laughter, sunshine, and high spirits. That afternoon, as Harry revved up the ancient tractor Blair Bainbridge drove up the driveway in his dually. Would she come over to his place and look at the old iron cemetery fence?
So Harry chugged down the road, Mrs. Murphy in her lap, and Tucker riding with Blair. Harry pulled up the fallen-down fence while Blair put concrete blocks around it to hold it until he could secure post corners. Working alongside Blair was fun. Harry felt closest to people when working with them or playing games. Blair wasn’t afraid to get dirty, which she found surprising for a city boy. Guess she surprised him too. She advised him on how to rehabilitate his stable, how to pack the stalls, and how to hang subzero fluorescent lights.
“Why not use incandescent lights?” Blair asked. “It’s prettier.”
“And a whole lot more expensive. Why spend money when you don’t have to?” She pushed her blue Giants cap back on her head.
“Well, I like things to look just so.”
“Hang the subzeros high up in the spine of your roof and then put regular lighting along the shed row, with metal guards over it. Otherwise you’ll be picking glass out of your horses’ heads. That’s if you have to have, just have to have, incandescent lights.”
Blair wiped his hands on his jeans.“Guess I look pretty stupid.”
“No, you need to learn about the country. I wouldn’t know what to do in New York City.” She paused. “Fitz-Gilbert Hamilton says you’re a model. Are you?”
“From time to time.”
“Out of work?”
Harry’s innocence about his field amused him and somehow made her endearing to him. “Not exactly. I can fly to a shoot. I just don’t want to live in New York anymore and, well, I don’t want to do that kind of work forever. The money is great but it’s not … fitting.”
Harry shrugged.“If a guy’s as handsome as you are he might as well make money off of it.”
Blair roared. He wasn’t used to women being so direct with him. They were too busy flirting and wanting to be his date at the latest social event. “Harry, are you always so, uh, forthright?”
“I guess.” Harry smiled. “But, hey, if you don’t like that kind of work I hope you find something you do like.”
“I’d like to breed horses.”
“Mr. Bainbridge, three words of advice.Don’t do it.” His face just fell. She hastened to add,“It’s a money suck. You’d do better buying yearlings or older horses and making them. Truly. Sometime we can sit down and talk this over. I’ve got to get back home before the light goes. I’ve got to run the manure spreader and pull out a fence post.”