by Gail Bowen
“Not ideal at all,” Zack said. “But she really did sound like herself today, so let’s follow the old adage, ‘Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.’ Cross our fingers, and hope for the best.”
Chapter Four
When we awoke Sunday morning, it was clear that Mother Nature had cut the organizers of a Real Prairie Picnic a break. The day was picnic perfect.
The event was being held on farmland forty kilometres north of Regina. Madeleine and Lena were coming with us, and when they asked Zack if we could put down the top of his convertible, they didn’t have to ask twice. It was definitely a top-down kind of day.
The big prairie sky was brilliantly blue; the temperature had dropped to a balmy 23 degrees Celsius and the breeze was gentle. Fields with crops that in late May were the colour of a new fern and by harvest had turned to beaten gold were now stripped bare, ready for spring seeding when the cycle would begin again.
Not far outside the city the acrid smell of smoke drifted towards us. When we spotted a fire that appeared to be out of control in a field west of the highway, Madeleine was anxious. “Mimi, should we call 911?”
“No. This year the grain crops were heavy, so a lot of straw was left behind. That farmer’s burning off the straw to get the fields ready for next year. I’m sure he’s keeping a close eye on it.”
“You grew up in Toronto,” Lena said. “How do you know stuff like that?”
“Because when your Uncle Howard was premier of the province, I spent a lot of time in areas like this asking people to vote for us. I always hated knocking on doors, but I liked talking to people and listening to what they had to say.”
“I like talking to people too,” Lena said. “But I’m not really good at listening.”
“Next time someone is talking to Granddad, watch how he listens,” I said, glancing at Zack. “He’s one of the best listeners I know.”
Lena chortled. “Mimi, listening is just sitting there, doing nothing. Nobody can be good at that.”
“Your grandfather is. He gives people a chance to say what they need to say, and because he doesn’t interrupt, people tell him things that really matter to them.”
“Maybe I’ll try that,” Lena said.
This time it was Madeleine’s turn to chortle.
The storm that hit Regina the night before had not travelled north, and the grid road that led to the farm where the picnic was taking place was dry as the proverbial bone. During our half-hour drive, I had checked both my phone and Zack’s several times. When we turned into the farmyard, I handed Zack’s phone to him. “No word from Ellen,” I said.
He frowned. “It’s been almost forty-eight hours.”
“She may just be lying low,” I said. “On Friday afternoon, Ellen was executive producer of a successful radio show, a goal she’d been working towards for eleven years, and now her dream job has been taken from her. She may be just taking time to process what happened and figure out her next move.”
“Do you really believe that?” Zack said.
I touched his hand. “We live in hope.”
The fields of summer fallow the owner of the farm had designated for parking were already almost filled, and the line of cars coming down the hill for the picnic showed no sign of abating. Zack was adamant about not using his disabled parking permit, but when I reminded him that if Mieka went into labour, we’d want to get back to the city ASAP, he grumbled and pulled into one of the three remaining parking spaces for the disabled.
The homespun charm of the event advertised as a Real Prairie Picnic sanded the rough edges off one of the underlying goals of the event. After eight years of witnessing the rudderless incompetence, dirty deals and scandals of the government in power, the public was ready for a change.
Our party’s chances of winning the next election were good, and the fight for the leadership had been intense. Many of our sitting members of the Legislature (MLAs) believed their turn to lead the party had come and that Alison Janvier was an outsider. She had announced her candidacy early, and by the time her rivals started taking her seriously, Alison had already gained traction among potential supporters.
The grassroots organization behind Alison’s candidacy had been determined and energetic, and she proved herself to be a tough, tireless and engaging campaigner. It had taken three ballots, but Alison had won decisively. Now it was time to soothe the men and women she’d defeated and bring them onside.
I’d been to a hundred political picnics like the one we walked into that day, but the folksy appeal of softball games, horseshoe pits, booths selling corn on the cob, pie by the slice and lemonade made from scratch never failed to seduce me. With the unerring radar of preteens, two of Madeleine and Lena’s friends from school appeared and asked the girls to join a selfie scavenger hunt — a scavenger hunt for our times where kids took pictures of themselves with the objects they had to find.
Lena’s eyes were huge and her tone, plaintive. “Can we? Maddy and I were sure this picnic was going to be dorky, but a selfie scavenger hunt will be cool.”
“And we can get a really good start,” Maddy said. “Alison Janvier’s over there, and she’s on our list. Please, Mimi.”
“Here’s my phone,” I said. “Have fun and meet us in an hour at the barbecue chicken place.”
Madeleine gave the area a quick once-over. “Where’s the chicken place?”
“Sniff the air, and follow your nose,” I said.
Zack watched as the girls zeroed in on Alison. “Let’s go over and get a photo of the ladies with our next premier,” he said.
“The girls are already taking a selfie with our next premier,” I said.
“Then let’s take a selfie with our next premier,” he said.
“You win,” I said. “But I get to delete the photo if it’s terrible.”
When Alison Janvier spotted us, she waved, and after the girls took their photo and sprinted off in search of the next item on their list, Ali walked over to meet us. She was wearing green runners, white shorts and one of the new campaign T-shirts. Her blue-black hair was knotted in a chignon at the nape of her neck, and her eyes, black as obsidian, were bright. She was ebullient. “I love all this,” she said, extending her arms as if to embrace the entire picnic.
“A happy warrior,” Zack said. “The campaign must be going well.”
“It is,” she said. “There are at least a hundred and fifty selfies of scavenger hunters and supporters and me floating around here.”
“Better you than me,” I said. “I’ve always hated having my picture taken.”
“So have I,” Ali said. “But Peggy Kreviazuk says that selfies are manna from heaven for candidates. Supporters show them to their friends and families; the talk turns to politics, and if we’re lucky, the votes come to us.”
Zack chuckled. “Peggy Kreviazuk knows how to keep a campaign team on its toes.”
“We’re lucky to have her,” Ali said.
“We are,” I agreed. “Now you’d better get back to work. You have our votes, and I’m sure there are at least a hundred more people here today keen to have a selfie taken with you.”
Ali grinned. “Peggy says the first two rules of politics are never pass up a chance to make contact with a voter or visit the bathroom.”
“More wise words,” Zack said. He turned to me. “So, what’s your pleasure? Slo-pitch? Horseshoes? Looks like they’re getting together a game of ultimate Frisbee over there.”
“It does,” I agreed. “It also looks as if everyone signing up for the teams is under the age of thirty. Let’s get a glass of lemonade and do something dorky.”
Peggy Kreviazuk was on duty at the lemonade stand, and as always, she was a cheerful sight. Her dandelion fluff of white hair shot out like a halo around a face tanned by a summer of devoted gardening. She was wearing one of the T-shirts we’d ordered for Al
ison’s volunteers and supporters to sport during the upcoming election campaign.
“I love the shirt,” I said. “I saw the design, but this is the first time I’ve seen the real thing. It’s perfect.”
Peggy raised an eyebrow. “It took us long enough to decide on the design.”
“Reaching agreement in a coalition is always tricky,” Zack said. “Especially among groups who have a contentious history.”
“The people in Alison’s coalition certainly share a contentious history,” I said. “Plenty of battle scars in our group. Everybody at our first meeting self-identified as politically progressive, but our politics ranged from slightly left of centre to Marxist, and it wasn’t long before the recriminations started. We were headed for yet another donnybrook when Peggy saved the day.”
Zack turned his attention to Peggy. “So, what did you do?”
Peggy’s voice was still girlishly breathy. “Nothing of consequence,” she said. “I asked those who’d supported a cause or a candidate who’d been defeated to raise their hands. Of course, we had all lost most of our campaigns. Then I asked those who wanted Alison Janvier to be our next premier to raise their hands. When there was a sea of hands, I said it appeared that we were all on the same side, so we should get started.
“We decided to go back to the roots of the party when it was the CCF — the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation,” Peggy continued. “Our campaign’s colours would be those of the old CCF — green with a yellow maple leaf and a green banner bearing the motto you used for your mayoral campaign, Zack: ‘Enough for All.’ Hence the shirt design. Today’s the first day they’re available. There are stands selling them at the entrance, by the stage where the program will take place and at the exit.”
“We’ll make sure we get one for everybody,” I said. “Including Mieka and Charlie D’s baby, who’s due on Labour Day.”
Peggy’s smile was wide. “Perfect — the day that celebrates the worker. Now let me treat you and Zack to a glass of lemonade. I made it myself and it’s the real McCoy. I must have juiced two hundred lemons yesterday.”
“You’re a better woman than I am,” I said.
“Not true,” she said. “And I had company. Alison’s son came over to my house and squeezed along with me.”
“I’d forgotten Alison had a child,” I said.
“She does, and he’s a very interesting young man. We had a fine time. I told him about being jailed for joining the Mohawk protestors blocking access to the land that had been taken from them to expand a golf course, and Harper told me about a pilot program to deal with suicide among young Indigenous men that he and his grandparents have introduced in a community north of La Ronge.”
The name Harper piqued my curiosity. “Do you know if Harper is named after Elijah Harper?”
Peggy’s face lit with pleasure. “Good for you, Jo. Not many people would have picked up on that.
“I was teaching classes in Canadian politics when the to-ing and fro-ing about the Meech Lake Accord was going on,” I said. “It was a dramatic time.”
“And a tense one,” Peggy said. “I remember all the provinces had to ratify the accord by midnight on June 23. Among other omissions, the accord ignored Indigenous rights. When Elijah Harper stood in the Manitoba Legislature, raised his eagle feather and began speaking, the clock was ticking. Elijah spoke very softly and very slowly, and midnight came and went.”
“The accord was never ratified,” I said. “Elijah Harper became the face of all those who had opposed it. Alison chose a fine name for her son.”
“And Harper is already proving himself worthy of his name. He just finished his second year of political studies at the University of Saskatchewan, and he did brilliantly.”
I was taken aback. “How old is he?”
“Nineteen,” Peggy said. “And Alison is thirty-five, but that’s her story to tell or not tell.”
Thirsty people began appearing, so Zack turned his wheelchair. “Seems the reputation of your real McCoy lemonade has spread, Peggy. Time for Jo and me to make way for the paying customers.”
Peggy laughed and then extended her arms first to Zack and then to me. “The struggle continues, Joanne,” she said. It was her standard farewell to me, and I gave her my standard response. “And so do we,” I said.
As soon as Zack and I were out of earshot, he said, “That was enlightening. We learned that Alison has a nineteen-year-old son, and that Peggy was jailed during the Oka Crisis of 1990. She must have been at least sixty.”
“She was sixty-two,” I said. “But she felt strongly about the issue, so she went to Quebec and stayed at the blockade for over a month.”
Zack shook his head in amazement. “You prairie women are a hardy breed,” Zack said.
“We have to be,” I said.
* * *
I’m not a fan of crowds, but that afternoon, being surrounded by people enjoying a late summer day buoyed my spirits. Many of the faces I saw were familiar — I didn’t remember all their names, but for years we had been part of the same community. We’d attended the same party potlucks, rallies and fundraisers. We’d passed around the Colonel Sanders bucket for donations at the end of gatherings. We’d shared bad coffee and war stories in campaign offices. We were what Howard Dowhanuik called the “foot soldiers”: loyal, reliable and irreplaceable. We were the stalwarts, the ones who renewed our party memberships without being reminded, brought Tupperware containers of egg salad sandwiches to meetings without being asked, tore the party apart at conventions and defended it to the death over the back fence.
It was an intense life, and it had been mine for almost three decades. The reasons I had drifted from involvement in provincial politics could be summed up in three words: I’d had enough. But that day as Zack and I watched the smoke waft from the barbecues where a man from the poultry association was broiling quarter chickens, as he or another member of his family had at our party’s picnics for as long as I could remember, a sense of homecoming washed over me.
“Are you in the mood for chicken?” Zack said.
“Always,” I said. “And the lineup is still short.” We’d just started towards the picnic tables set out for the chicken man’s customers, when Mark and Lori Evanson approached us. Mark was pushing a baby in a stroller. The encounter was, as New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra famously remarked, “déjà vu all over again.” One of the last times I’d seen the Evansons, Mark had been pushing a stroller. He had been nineteen then, a solid good-looking young man with a solid good-looking three-year-old son squirming to get free of the stroller. The baby’s mother, Lori, had been at Mark’s side. At nineteen, she had the beauty of a teen magazine cover girl: shoulder-length dark blond hair, peaches-and-cream complexion, blue-green eyes, pert nose and perfect rosebud lips.
It was sixteen years since I’d seen the Evansons. They were now thirty-five, and yet they seemed not to have aged at all. When Lori recognized me, she clapped her hands together in delight. Her voice was sweet and lilting. “Oh, Mrs. Kilbourn, this is the best surprise. I’ve hoped and hoped that we would see you one day, and now, here you are.” She looked at Zack with frank curiosity. “And you’re?” Her brow furrowed in concentration as she worked through the possibilities of Zack’s relationship with me. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the furrows vanished. The problem was solved. “Why, you must be Mrs. Kilbourn’s friend,” Lori said, and her tone was triumphant.
Zack’s correction was gentle. “I’m Joanne’s husband, Zack Shreve,” he said.
Mark extended his hand to Zack. “Well, congratulations, Mr. Shreve. Mrs. Kilbourn has always been a very good friend to us.”
“I hope we can all be good friends now,” Zack said.
I crouched in front of the baby in the stroller and looked up at Lori. “Is this little guy yours?” I asked.
A shadow crossed Lori’s face. “No, Clay
is our only child.” She brightened. “But Andy is family.”
“Andy is my dad and stepmum’s baby,” Mark said. “They have three children together: Gabriela is sixteen, Craig Junior is fourteen and Andy is twenty-two months.”
The name evoked memories of another Andy — one who had been dear to me and to many in our party. “Is he named after Andy Boychuk?”
Mark nodded. “He is. My dad said Andy Boychuk was a decent man.”
“He was,” I said. “And he would have been very proud to have this handsome boy as his namesake.”
“This Andy was a surprise,” Lori whispered.
I stood. “My youngest was a surprise too,” I whispered, “but a nice one.” The sun was full on Lori’s face, but even in that unsparing light, she had the dewy freshness of a girl. As they had been sixteen years earlier, Lori’s wide, innocent eyes were carefully made up — peach eyeshadow blended into mauve and then a soft smudge of grey eyeliner beneath her lower lashes. Clearly she had found the look that worked for her and stuck with it.
“I’m so glad we ran into you today,” I said. “You both look great. Life is obviously treating you well.”
“It is,” Lori said. Her voice was as musical as a wind chime. “We don’t live in Wolf River anymore. We live in Lumsden. It’s thirty-three kilometres from Regina.”
When Lori didn’t elaborate, Mark provided the context. “Seven years ago, my stepmother, Manda, inherited her father’s house in Lumsden. It’s a big, beautiful house. Manda and my dad said the house was big enough for all of us, and it would be good for everybody if we moved in. So, we had a family meeting, and we moved in.”
“And it’s worked for your family and Craig and Manda’s,” I said.