“I, uh, I’m not quite finished,” I said. Bonnie, determined to torture the man, flicked the form around to her side so she could read it.
“Weird Art of Kuskawa, eh? I like that. Got any nude paintings? Maybe you could get Archie here to pose for you. That’d be weird.” She chuckled at her joke. I could feel Watson vibrating with frustration behind me. “Have a seat, Archie,” she said. “Cal’s on his way down.” But he didn’t have time to sit because the door marked “Editorial/Sales” opened, and a young man stepped into the reception area.
“Archie,” he said, striding towards the big man, who was one stage away from hyperventilation. “Good to see you.” The young man, Calvin Grigsby, I assumed, held out his hand in such a natural manner that Watson shook it automatically before thinking better of it and snatching his away.
“I have a bone to pick with you,” Watson growled.
“Of course you do. Everybody does, sooner or later,” Grigsby said. “Come on back, and we’ll talk about it.” Grigsby’s easy manner put Watson completely off his stride. I’ve never seen anyone turn the other cheek quite so effectively before. It was impressive. Watson followed the young newspaperman meekly and even turned to close the door behind him.
“Wow,” I said.
“Cal’s a people person,” Bonnie said with pride. “The sales people call him in if a client’s getting into a tizzy about a mistake or something. He’s like human Valium.”
“Useful trait in the business you’re in, I guess. What was that guy so upset about, anyway?”
“Oh, Archie’s hopping mad about that new store going in,” Bonnie said. “His family has run Watson’s General Store since the town was born, and he thinks he’s going to lose all his customers. Cal probably quoted something stupid he said.” Watson’s General Store was up at the top of Main Street, a handsome brick building with the original wood and glass counters in the front—a big tourist attraction. The front of the store featured hand-scooped ice cream and candy displayed in big glass jars. It also sold groceries, bread and fresh produce and had an excellent meat counter at the back.
I remembered where I’d seen him before, wearing a big white apron and smiling cheerfully as he handed over a slab of steak wrapped in butcher’s paper. Watson’s wasn’t cheap, but it was family-run, and the service was great. Remembering the array of cleavers and knives behind Archie’s counter, I thought privately that having him mad at you could be dangerous. Better Calvin Grigsby than me, I thought. Fortunately, the work I was doing for the Kountry Pantree was behind the scenes. Nobody ever looks at a person dressed as a cow and wonders who designed the costume. In the mind of the average Joe, store mascots just are; they’re a given, a fact of life, like those little plastic forks you get with Kentucky Fried Chicken. There was no point in worrying about Watson coming at me from behind his meat counter, waving a chopper and calling me a slimy little two-bit puppet maker.
I paid for the art show ad and grabbed a copy of the Gazette on my way out. If I was working for the Kountry Pantree people, it would probably be a good idea to keep abreast of the situation. I had a nasty feeling that this mascot-gig was going to turn out to be trouble.
Three
Why waste your money at a flower shop? Kountry Pantree’s prices won’t make you drop! Make our Bouquet Boutique your fresh flower stop!
—A full-colour ad in the Laingford Gazette summer supplement
The midsummer evening light had ripened into that particular golden colour which makes everything touched by it impossibly beautiful. From the top of the hill leading down into George’s valley, the big old brick farm house, weathered barn and outbuildings looked like they’d had warm honey poured over them. Curve after gentle curve of meadow, in diminishing shades of tender green and bronze, receded into a horizon wreathed in mist. Near the house, I could see the stooped figure of George, in a bright red shirt and straw hat, tending his vegetable garden, watched over by a scarecrow that looked more than a little like him. I’d made the scarecrow that spring, borrowing an old barn coat and hat from the mud room and using a mop head for the hair. Poe, George’s tame raven, perched on the scarecrow’s shoulder. (Nothing scared Poe except thunderstorms.)
Off in the distance, in the apple orchard, George’s goats were snacking on windfalls and grass, and could easily be mistaken for a herd of deer, if you didn’t know better. There was no sign of Susan or Eddie, but I figured they were probably in the barn, preparing for the evening milking.
I drove slowly down the driveway, savouring the scene. After the bustle of Laingford, this profound peace was reassuring. There really are some quiet places left in the world, I reminded myself, then wondered (as I often do) how on earth I had managed to live in Toronto for so long without going completely bonkers.
George straightened up and came over to greet me as I clambered out of the old Ford pickup. Luggy and Rosencrantz met him halfway, Luggy sniffing politely at his boots and Rosie trying as usual to climb up his body so she could lie like an infant in his arms.
“Off, Rosie,” I said in my best “I mean business” voice. She ignored me. George crouched to her level, gently squeezed her paws and placed them on the ground, then patted her head as she settled down.
“She is learning,” he said in his soft Finnish voice.
“Huh. Faster than a speeding pile of frozen molasses. How’s the veggie garden?”
“It has been a good growing season,” George said. “Too good. There is too much, almost. Tomatoes, zucchini—the zucchini is taking over. I should not have planted it so close to the onions.”
“The zucchini was Susan’s idea, wasn’t it?”
George looked at me a bit sadly. “Yes, it was her idea. A good one, Polly. I just put in too many seeds, that’s all.” What he meant was “stop being so critical of your aunt,” and he was right, but somehow I couldn’t help it. Once you start down the blame road, it’s hard to stop.
“Well, you’ll have lots of zucchini bread and frozen zucchini for the winter, anyway,” I said.
“Do you need any tomatoes? Let me give you some.”
“That would be great,” I said, and we spent a pleasant few minutes wandering in the jungle of George’s garden, filling a basket with warm tomatoes, ripe almost a month before their usual time, a couple of fat ears of corn and some green beans. I had spent a few frustrating seasons trying to make a vegetable garden of my own up at the cabin, but finally gave up after the deer, rabbits and groundhogs made it clear that anything planted so close to the forest belonged to them, not me.
“I’ll come down on the weekend and do a little weeding in here,” I said. Wild vines, the bane of every Kuskawa garden, were starting to get a stranglehold on the corn and beans.
“No need,” George said. “Eddie and his girlfriend are going to do that on Sunday.”
“Oh.” I should have been glad that Eddie was making such an effort to be useful, what with doing the barn chores and all, but I couldn’t help feeling redundant. The veggie basket on my arm grew a little heavier—yet another favour I wouldn’t be allowed to return.
I borrowed George’s little red wagon to haul my beer, a few other purchases and the veggies up to the cabin. I had a couple of hours to kill before Susan’s Social Justice meeting, and I didn’t want to stick around at the farm long enough to be invited for dinner. I wanted to sulk, and that’s best done alone.
When I got home, I cracked a Kuskawa Cream and rolled a small joint, smoking it on the porch and watching the tendrils of blue smoke curl up in a spiral overhead. I’m not a heavy dope-smoker, you understand. Just the occasional puff for recreational purposes. The previous year,