“And that’s what you want me to do? Find you another giant, ugly plant? I wouldn’t know where to begin to look. I don’t think this is a realistic plan, Dougal.”
“Will you listen? I know where another Titan is.”
“Where? And what makes you think this other one is going to flower at the same time as yours? You said they can go years without …”
“I don’t know, not for sure. But the other Titan comes from the same mother plant. Our tubers are the same age, and there’s a chance the other one will be at the same stage of sexual development.” He took another pull on his unfiltered cigarette.
My ears started to burn. I had the same feeling before when I was about to do something stupid, like the day I got married. I ignored it that time, and look how my life turned out.
“So, Dougal. If I understand the situation correctly, you have a plant that may or may not flower. Someone else, as yet unnamed, has another plant that may or may not flower. You are willing to pay me a thousand dollars to ensure a successful pollination. Sorry, but I think buying a lottery ticket would give me better odds.”
“This is a win-win situation for you, Bliss. I will pay you in full if the other Titan is also about to blossom and you talk the owner into pollinating both plants. You’ll get the money even if the pollination doesn’t work.”
“Is there some reason you can’t contact the other owner and arrange this for yourself?”
“There’s a pretty good reason.”
“What is it?”
“I used to be married to her, and she hates my guts.”
“Glory? Glory has one of these hideous plants?”
He said reproachfully, “Don’t talk like that. They have names.”
“Dougal!”
“Okay. Before Glory and I were married, two tubers came into our possession, never mind how. When we split up, I took Thor and she took Sif. I moved into my own place and had a friend with a greenhouse keep Thor for me until I built the solarium here. There, that’s the whole story. Once the spathe unfurls completely, the male and female flowers will ripen within a day of each other.”
Dougal leaned back and stretched his lanky legs farther out on the chair. He was still smoking and looking unusually relaxed for an agoraphobic whose Titan Arum was about to embark on sexual maturity with no nubile mate in sight. Although he was a foot taller and had at least sixty pounds on me, I sometimes felt like Dougal’s mother. Not that I had any experience as a parent.
“What’s a Sif? I know Thor was some mythical god, but …”
“Thor is a Germanic god of war, and Sif is his wife. At the time, Glory and I thought it was romantic. Are there any other questions before I continue?”
“I guess not.” Although, considering what happened between Glory and Dougal, naming the plants after a war god and his wife had turned out to be more prophetic than romantic.
“Right. Since you clean Glory’s house, you have an excellent opportunity to find out if her Titan is ready to bloom. If it isn’t, well, no harm done, and no point even mentioning it to her.”
“Dougal, I clean Glory’s house on Wednesday mornings. This is only Saturday. I can’t go over there uninvited. We aren’t exactly social equals anymore.”
“You can’t wait until Wednesday — Thor might bloom before then! And Sif could be even farther along in development, or behind. I need to know so I can plan. You’ll have to find some excuse to go over there.”
“But I’ve never seen anything like your Titan in Glory’s house. You can’t miss something that resembles a gigantic …”
“Look in the greenhouse at the back of the house. That’s where we used to keep the pair.”
“Glory never leaves me alone in her house. I’ve never been in the backyard, not even when you two were married.”
“Damnations, Bliss! I’m trying to pay you a thousand dollars. Can’t you show a little initiative?”
I was about to tell him where he could stick my initiative. Then I stopped and sniffed. My olfactory sense was second to no one’s, at times to a fault. “Something smells funny in here. How old are those cigarettes?”
“Are you going to do it or not? Remember your Indict the Weasel Fund.”
As of today, an emergency root canal would wipe out the Fund. “Okay, I’ll try. I guess.”
“Your enthusiasm is inspirational. No time like the present, so go now, my little minion.”
“I can’t. Tonight’s the only night I have free to do my laundry. And don’t call me a minion.”
“You can use my washer and dryer later tonight, after you see Glory.”
“I’m really tired. I’ve been working at the cemetery all day.”
“Then go tomorrow, but that’s leaving it a little late.”
“Can’t. I have a real estate client tomorrow. I’m showing the Barrister house in the afternoon. And you can’t expect me to visit Glory on Sunday morning.”
Before he could say anything, I continued, “And I’ll be working at the library Monday and Tuesday, and teaching yoga Tuesday night, so I really can’t get to Glory’s until Wednesday morning.”
“Wednesday might be too late. If you want the money, you’ll have to get over there right away.”
I stopped listening. Something had been niggling at the back of my mind for the past half-hour. The straggly plants in the solarium, the smelly cigarettes without filters …
I pictured the fern-like plants in their plastic pots, the separate little branches and the clusters of buds …
“Damn it, Dougal!” I shoved his legs off the chair and kicked him on the ankle, hard. “You’re growing marijuana!”
Chapter
THREE
An hour later, I felt my way through the woods that surrounded three sides of Glory’s property. It was silent as a cathedral except for the burbling sound of a small stream. I slapped at the black flies swarming my head and wondered, not for the first time, why the hell I just didn’t give up hope of suing the Weasel for my half of our marital property. I could live with my sister in Toronto and work on my master’s degree in library science. Blyth even had a job waiting for me as a co-op student at one of the University of Toronto libraries, where she was head librarian. And I wouldn’t be crawling around in a bug-infested forest, trying to find a greenhouse. In my opinion, raw nature is greatly overrated.
“Mike will never surrender a dime,” Blyth repeatedly told me. “How are you going to beat him on his own turf — the courtroom?” I didn’t know how, but I wasn’t going to give up everything I helped acquire during the eight years of our marriage.
I finally resorted to inching along on hands and knees. My ex-cousin-in-law, Glory Yates, owned the most expensive real estate on Arlington Mews, a neighbourhood where Donald Trump would feel at home. The pine trees that separated her from her neighbours grew so densely, I soon lost all sense of direction and staggered from tree to tree as the black flies insinuated themselves under my hairline and up my sleeves.
It was ink-black in the woods, and a menacing shadow lurked behind every tree. This was no place for an established coward with a vivid imagination. I chastised myself for not bringing the flashlight from the saddlebag of my bike. It would have been