As usual, the dope lubricated the creative cogs, and I went back inside to do some more work on the Kountry Pantree sketches. Rosencrantz was asleep on her favourite chair, curled up into a unbearably cute ball of fuzzy puppyness, her tail wrapped around her nose. I wanted to gather her up and nuzzle her, but it wouldn’t have been fair to wake her up unless I was willing to put in some dog-time. One must let sleeping puppies lie.
I am a firm believer in developing tactile relationships with companion animals. I regularly get close up and sniff the various composite parts of Lug-nut and Rosie to make sure they’re clean and healthy. (This is not as disgusting as you might imagine, folks.) They let me examine their teeth and ears, massage their fuzzy necks, bellies and paws, clip their nails and do all those rather intimate things that responsible dog owners must do for their pets from time to time, and I like to think that their tolerance of such behaviour is because they’re used to it. Mother/Alpha dog and all that. They like to lick my legs after I have a bath, too, but that’s probably way more information than you need. It grosses Becker out, which is not surprising. Not only do I avoid smoking dope around him, I also try to remember not to stick my schnozz into Luggy’s ears when he’s around. I don’t doubt I’ll end up one of those eccentric old hermits who leaves all her worldly possessions to her dogs.
I pulled the library books out of my “I Brake For Frogs” book bag and turned to the top-quality chapter on cows I’d found in Farm Animals Explained. Not that I really needed to know about the four stomachs of a bovine ruminant, but if you’re going to build a costume that looks like a cow, you have to have some idea of how the common cow is put together. Goats I knew back to front and sideways, but my experience with cows was limited.
An hour or so later, I had a fairly respectable sketch of Kountry Kow, complete with apron, udder and a cunning tail that, if the cow mascot made the final cut, would swish, thanks to a secret wire inside.
I slugged back a cup of elderly coffee, washed my face in a basin of rainwater and headed down to be grilled by Susan and her Social Justice League.
George’s driveway was crowded with vehicles, several of them bearing store logos. A purple mini-van announced that “Emma’s Posies (45 Main Street E.) are Bloomin’ Lovely.” A boxy, boat-shaped sedan had “Downtown Drugs: Your Family Drugstore” written on the door, and I guessed that the yellow Camry belonged to the owner of the Laingford photo shop, because it had a huge plastic camera mounted on its roof.
As soon as I arrived, I realized I’d neglected one of the first rules of etiquette which govern rural meetings at somebody’s home. You’re supposed to bring food. I came in the back door leading into the kitchen, to find Susan bustling around making coffee, surrounded by plastic-wrapped plates of goodies. There was a platter of small cakes, a mound of little triangular sandwiches, some miniature pizzas and a box of After Eight mints with a gift bow on the top.
“Somebody having a birthday party?” I said to hide my embarrassment. I should have whipped up a batch of granola bars or something, I thought to myself, except for the fact that it was too warm for me to have the woodstove going, which would have been the only way to bake them. Luggy, smelling food, threw himself to the floor and grovelled at Susan’s feet. Rosie, who generally copied everything he did, followed suit.
“I’d forgotten that people always come with offerings,” Susan said. “We’ll never get through this lot. You’ll have to take some back with you, Polly.” She halved one of the sandwiches, made the dogs sit, then handed the pieces over. I’d finally given up asking my aunt not to spoil them. I wasn’t about to give her grand-nieces or nephews, after all. The dogs knew better than to try the begging routine with me.
“Maybe I should have a meeting of my own,” I said. “I’d never have to buy groceries again.”
“If you want to live on sugar-laden squares and white-bread sandwiches, go for it,” she said. “You go in and introduce yourself. We’re still waiting for a couple of people. I’ll be there in a moment. Oh, wait. You can take this with you.” She handed me a tray of coffee-things, which I manoeuvred through the door into George’s living room. The dogs stayed in the kitchen with the goddess of food.
Sitting beside George on the sofa was Pete Somebody, who ran Pizza Madness, next door to the Gazette office. I’d bought a slice from him often enough to know who he was, though we didn’t exactly run in the same social circles. I’d seen him coming out of Kelso’s, Laingford’s West End girlie-bar, enough times to figure him for a regular. He nodded at me, then turned back to George, whose ear he was obviously bending. George puffed on his pipe and slipped me a sly wink.
Two men were having an intense conversation by the window, their backs to the room. One was pear-shaped, dressed in baggy jeans and a black T-shirt with “Shutterbug” printed on the back. The owner of the camera-car, I guessed. His hair was blonde, flat-topped in a crew cut, and he gestured wildly with a lit cigarette. The other guy just had to be the Downtown Drug guy—not hard to pick out, as he was wearing a white pharmacist’s coat. Either he had come to the meeting directly from work, or he wore his badge of office all the time. I had a sudden, goofy mental picture of Mr. Drugstore climbing on top of his wife in bed, buck-naked under his white coat. Must have been the dope I’d smoked. He could have been a bachelor for all I knew, and the image wasn’t the kind that you’d go looking for, if you know what I mean.
“Why, hello, Polly,” a woman said as I put the coffee tray down on a side table. I turned to see a vision in pink bearing down on me from the hallway leading to the bathroom. She was about Susan’s age, dressed in what appeared to be a frilly bathrobe—all flounces, set off by a rope of pearls the size of marbles. She hugged me.
“Umm . . . hi,” I said. “How are you?”
“Who am I, you mean,” the woman said and gave a whoop of laughter. “You don’t know me from Adam, do you, dear? Never mind. I remember you when you were just a little thing. Your mother and I were great friends, and you used to come to my shop and play with the dried flowers while we had tea.”
“Oh,” I said, still completely at a loss. I was ten when my parents died, and I’ve managed to do some pretty heavy-duty forgetting since then.
“I’m Emma Tempest,” the woman said, putting me out of my misery. “I run ‘Emma’s Posies.’ Your mother was my ‘Glad Lady’.”
Another image rushed in on me like a freight train, me and my Mom in her old Mazda crammed full of fresh gladiolas as tall as I was, pink and yellow and orange, an Eden on wheels. We’d deliver them to the flower place where a nice smelling lady gave me little sugar cakes and sweet, milky nursery tea while Mom conducted business. “Well, if it isn’t the Glad Lady and her little flower girl,” she’d say.
“You’re Miss Tempest,” I said. “I haven’t thought about that in a long time.”
“Call me Emma,” she said. “It’s nice to see you grown up, dear. Now I hope you’ll follow in your mother’s footsteps and help us nail these development rascals to the wall.” Follow in my mother’s footsteps and become a fanatical religious do-gooder who never talks to her daughter and ends up getting creamed by a drunk driver on a Kuskawa back road? Not likely.
Four
Free 8 x 10 colour print with every film developed at the Kountry Pantree state-of-the-art photo lab. Why settle for less?
—A flyer delivered to every mail box in Laingford
“Did you see the superstore article in this week’s Gazette?” said Stan Herman, wrinkling his