“I don’t think you should walk on that foot —”
“But I have to find my cat!”
Moey shifts. “Look, I, uh, can carry you to my car and drive you to the hospital —”
“But my cat!”
“After I help find your cat.”
“Oh. That would be ... thank you.”
Unnoticed by them both, the white hart slips between the trees and disappears.
“Dillyillyilly,” Karen croons.
A tentative meow sounds from a bush in front of them, slightly to their left. Karen gestures in that direction. “Could you carry me over there?”
After a moment’s hesitation, the man nods and picks her up. Despite the agony in her foot, Karen is very aware of the strength in his arms and the muscles of his chest, which is pressed against her cheek. His knee joints pop like embers exploding in a fire as he straightens.
Moving with painstaking care, the man steps from rock to rock until he reaches the spongy forest floor. “Okay?” he grunts as he sets her down.
She closes her eyes briefly against the hot, throbbing pain in her ankle. “I’m fine.” Then, lightening her tone, she murmurs to the bush, “Come here, Dilly. Good kitty.”
But the bush remains immobile.
“She’s hiding,” the man says glumly.
“She’s scared. I’ll have to go in and get her. Could you help me kneel?”
He glances at her foot, opens his mouth to protest, then claps it shut again. With a nod he helps her kneel.
The pain in Karen’s ankle makes her head spin, and she bites her lip to keep from crying out and scaring Dilly away. Damp peat seeps through her skirt onto her kneecaps. Slowly, she crawls into the slimy bracken. A twig snags her hair. A slug elongates beneath her left palm. Something clammy plasters itself across her forehead. She jerks, stifles a curse, shakes off the slug under her hand, and brushes away the leaf on her forehead. A thorn stabs her right knee.
Dilly’s white form bobs into view a few feet ahead of her. “Dilly, good kitty, come to Mommy.” Karen reaches out gingerly, and Dilly tenses. Mentally ringing the cat’s neck, Karen continues to coo soothingly. Gradually, she is allowed to stroke a furry cheek, to slide her fingers around the scruff. She grabs hold tightly.
“Got you, you miserable beast,” she grunts, dragging Dilly towards her and shoving the struggling cat up inside her sweater. The cat’s furry head pops out alongside her neck. They stare at each other, cat and human, eye to eye. Dilly’s tail sweeps back and forth across Karen’s stomach. Claws extend into her bosom.
“Don’t even think about it,” Karen whispers.
The cat’s mouth opens in plaintive protest, but Karen pushes the head back down into her sweater. With one hand firmly hugging Dilly against herself, she backs up. Unfortunately, this reverse motion catches the rear hem of her skirt under her knees. Her skirt begins a jerky, steady migration down her buttocks. She stops, tries to lift one knee to free her skirt. The shift of weight causes an excruciating blast of pain up her injured leg.
“Oh, hell!” she cries, and Dilly writhes vigorously.
“Are you all right in there?”
“No, I’m not! Dilly! Stay still, you ungrateful wretch!” “Do you need a hand?”
“No!” Karen gasps, envisioning the man crawling headfirst into her partially exposed ass. “Stay there! I’m ... I’m fine. Coming out right now. Fine.”
He mutters something in a doubtful tone, but the bushes behind her don’t part.
Karen takes a deep, cleansing breath, then tries to move forward, as if the motion itself can reverse the downward migration of her skirt. No such luck. She attempts to pivot so she can at least come out of the bush headfirst and not preceded by her naked bum. But there’s no room among the thorns to pivot.
“To hell with it,” she sighs. Then, louder: “Could you close your eyes, please? I’ve...my skirt’s fallen down.”
A pause, a grunt from the bushes behind her, then the shuffle-squelch of feet moving in the mud. Gritting her teeth, Karen resumes crawling backwards.
Just as she comes out into the open, her skirt skies the rest of the way over the smooth moguls of her buttocks and rests around her thighs. A cool autumn breeze dances across her rump.
Now what to do? She can’t stand up by herself, not with her bad ankle. She doesn’t look up. The pair of black Nikes to the left of her, facing away, shift. An awkward pause.
Then the Nikes move and the man’s knee joints backfire as he swiftly kneels. Karen cringes as he gives an almighty heave on her skirt. He yards it up to her waist with such force that the fabric under her knees separates from the rest of the skirt with a sharp rip. Without missing a beat, the man stands again, lifting Karen onto her feet by her elbows. She almost swoons from the sudden elevation change and the furnace of pain in her ankle.
They avoid each other’s eyes as they try to regain their composures.
“Thank you,” Karen eventually mumbles. “I couldn’t ... I tried ... my hands weren’t free. Anyway, thank you.”
He studies a hemlock. “You’ve got your cat?”
“In my sweater.”
“Can you walk at all?”
“I ... can try.”
Silence.
“I’ll carry you,” he says, then scoops her off her feet with such dizzying speed that her tofu burger lurches into her throat.
Although Moey is a very strong man (as the thrice-defeated Todd “The Sledgehammer” Dupuis would be the first to admit), the woman is neither small nor slender. By the time he staggers into the parking lot with his burden, breathing like a bull facing down a matador, he feels certain he’s torn at least one ligament in his pectorals. He places the woman gently on the hood of his Plymouth and fumbles in his pockets for his car keys.
“You don’t have to drive me to the hospital.”
“Can’t...drive there...yourself,” he pants.
“Just find me a stick to lean on. Really. I’ll walk the rest of the way home and my husband can drive me.”
He stops digging in his jacket. “Home?”
“There.” She points.
His eyes swivel to the enormous ghostly white foot painted on the side of the nearest house.
“The Footstop,” she says. “That’s where I live.”
“Ah, yes. Well ...” He nods as if confirming something he already knows. “Yes.”
The woman sticks out her free hand. “Thank you very much for your assistance.”
“No problem. Any time.” His sweaty hand slowly crushes hers. “Any time.”
“My name’s Karen.”
“Moey. Moey Thorpe.”
They continue to shake hands, both bobbing their heads like woodpecker toys.
“If you’re in the neighbourhood one afternoon, drop by. I can massage your feet or something. To say thank you. You know.” She flushes.
“Yes. Well. I’ll do that.”
They release hands. Moey shrugs at her house. “Maybe I should carry you to the door.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
Taking