Front Yard

by Norman Draper

  “Ah. Wonder what that was.”

  “You know darned well what it was,” said George.

  “Well, I’m certain we can settle all these issues to everyone’s satisfaction. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about, I’ve brought an acquaintance by I want you to meet. This is Dr. Lick. Dr. Ferdinand Lick. The noted archaeologist from the university.”

  Dr. Lick, who followed the exchange between Miss Price and the Fremonts with some trepidation, quickly shifted to charm-offensive mode. All smiles and dignified yet exuberant body language, he thrust out his hand. Both Nan and George shook it limply. Dr. Lick chuckled at the implied slight.

  “Dr. Lick, you have the floor,” Miss Price said.

  “Just so you know, Dr. Lick, because of your evident involvement with Miss Price here, we might not be able to talk to you,” George said.

  “I understand,” Dr. Lick said. “Let’s just give it a try and see what happens. Then, you can cut me off if I’m straying into your legal territory.”

  “Okay, Doc,” said George, who made a big show of looking at his watch. “But keep it short. You’re disrupting our cocktail hour.”

  Dr. Lick cleared his throat and smiled. He has a nice smile, thought Nan. Good-lookin’ fella, that’s for sure. Maybe we could talk to him after all. Who listens to lawyers anyway? Jeez, they’d tell you never to get out of bed in the morning ’cause you might die deadheading an iris. Screw the stupid lawyer and his efforts to muzzle us.

  He’s a scoundrel and probably a liar, thought George. Anyone brought here by Miss Price has got to have some kind of con he wants to put over on us. And look at the way he plays to Nan, bless her impressionable little heart.

  Clearly, Dr. Lick was poised to make a presentation on a matter of some importance, thought Nan. His hair was thinning, yet impeccably groomed, and his khaki slacks were smartly pressed. His light-pink oxford-cloth shirt made a nice match with a navy-blue JoS. A. Bank sport coat. All in all, pleasantly and professorially casual, tennis-club neat and sharp without forcing it, and without looking too official. Yet, he had obviously gone to the trouble to look good, which so few seemed to do these days. As Nan locked eyes with Dr. Lick and took in his craggy, lightly tanned features, she tried to stop herself from falling in love.

  You might think you look nice, thought George, but, guess what? I’ve got a Jethro Tull 2005 American tour T-shirt with its Broadsword and the Beast motif. Beat that, Mr. Professor!

  “I understand from Miss Price here that you might have a significant archaeological find beneath your feet. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “No!” said George, squirming in his chair. Nan dismissed him with a fluttering hand.

  “Oh, George is a little upset. We all are, after some of the things that have happened over the last couple of weeks.” She noticed that Dr. Lick seemed to be admiring her bare legs through the translucent tabletop, and crossed them demurely.

  “Please sit down, Dr. Lick,” she purred. “And would you like a glass of merlot?”

  “By all means,” said Dr. Lick brightly as he sat down next to Nan and nodded at George, who frowned at him. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, and Miss Price, you can sit down, too, if you want to,” Nan said perfunctorily.

  “I will have a glass of wine, too,” she said.

  “George,” said Nan, motioning toward the bottle. George picked up the bottle of Sagelands, inspected it, and emptied what was left of its contents into his glass.

  “Shoot,” he said. “All gone. Tough luck for you guys. Maybe you’d like some water straight out of the tap.”

  “Go get another bottle, please, dear,” Nan said. “Make that two bottles, actually.” George got up grumpily and disappeared behind the back door.

  “I really must compliment you and Mr. Fremont on your wonderful gardens,” gushed Dr. Lick. “They are truly exquisite.”

  “Thank you,” Nan said. “We try.”

  “I’ll have to tell my soon-to-be-ex-wife about these and bring her over here once we’ve settled our situation amicably. If that ever happens. We’re not really on speaking terms at this point.”

  His soon-to-be-ex-wife? Nan felt her pulse quicken.

  “You’re welcome to bring her by. That is, once you’re on good terms with her. Of course, with situations like these, you never know, do you? Is she a gardener?”

  Dr. Lick chuckled.

  “Very much so,” he said. “Being gardeners, you may have even heard of her. She’s a professor of floriculture at the university. Hilda Brockheimer. Dr. Hilda Brockheimer.”

  A mouthful of Sagelands spewed out of Nan’s mouth as if it were grapeshot fired from a cannon. Luckily, most of it wound up on the tabletop and Miss Price’s white ruffled blouse and cinnamon blazer.

  “Good grief!” Miss Price shouted as Nan sat there choking violently. “Look what you’ve done to my blouse and blazer. Damnation!”

  Dr. Lick recoiled at the eruption, then, regaining his composure, cast his concerned gaze upon Nan, whose spasm of coughing continued. He reached out a hand, ineffectually, to help.

  “Are you all right, Mrs. Fremont?” he said. “Heavens!”

  “Of course she’s all right!” Miss Price cried. “But I’m all splotched over with red wine. Can’t someone get me some wet napkins at least?”

  “Sorry,” said George, who had reappeared with a bottle of wine and two paper cups. “No damp napkins available. I do have some wine for you, however, Miss Price, and would be glad to pour you a cup. Sorry, we only have Dixie cups available.”

  Nan was flapping her hands around, still coughing.

  “Attend to your wife, please, Mr. Fremont,” said Dr. Lick, his hand still stretched out impotently toward Nan.

  “Right you are, sir,” said George. He poured some more wine into Nan’s empty glass. She grasped it eagerly and, perching her fingertips delicately on her sternum, downed half the glass in one big glug. Miss Price and Dr. Lick instinctively pulled back in anticipation of another eruption.

  “Ah,” went Nan, who was able to swallow the wine without feeling so much as a throat tickle. “Just what the doctor ordered. Thank you, dear.”

  “Now, who did you say your soon-to-be-ex-wife was, Dr. Lick?”

  “Dr. Brockheimer,” Dr. Lick said. “Dr. Hilda Brockheimer.”

  Nan frowned and gritted her teeth.

  “I have met your soon-to-be-ex-wife. Yes, we know each other. She has a student named Shirelle Eadkins, who works for me as an intern.” Nan’s view of Dr. Lick underwent an instant transformation. How could anyone marry that supercilious sack of emotional instability? But at least he was apparently divorcing her. That certainly showed a modicum of good taste.

  “Ah,” said Dr. Lick.

  “Yes,” said Nan. “She has already seen my gardens.”

  Dr. Lick nodded, then sat up, ramrod straight.

  “I think she wants to learn cross-cultural communication,” continued Nan.

  “Pardon?”

  “Talking to plants.”

  “Hmmm. Well, we’ll have to compare notes. I, as it turns out, would like to see what’s underneath your gardens.”

  “I thought that we had dispensed with this whole notion of a treasure, Miss Price,” said George, who placed half-full Dixie cups in front of her and Dr. Lick. “And this is getting perilously close to talking about things we’re not supposed to talk about.”

  “This has nothing to do with your pending legal action against Miss Price for whatever reason that has happened,” Dr. Lick said. “And the truth of the matter is I know nothing of your grievances. What I have learned from Miss Price is that there may be artifacts of huge significance under your backyard here, and we would like to see what they are. You will be paid for the use of your property, I can assure you.”

  “We don’t need your money, Dr. Lick,” George said. “And we don’t want anyone rooting around in our gardens. We’ve already gone over the spot where Miss Price here figured the tre
asure was buried. With a TreasureTrove XB 255.”

  “That’s a top-of-the line instrument!” cried Dr. Lick. “For amateurs, at least. There’s more sophisticated gear people such as myself can use. Still, sounds like you mean business.”

  “You already checked the stump hole?” blurted Miss Price. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “You didn’t ask,” Nan said. “You tried to get what you wanted by subterfuge and skullduggery. Which is what this whole lawsuit business is about. So, just for the record, there’s nothing there. Nada.”

  “Ah,” said Miss Price. “Maybe not what some were looking for, but there were skeletons there.”

  “There were what?”

  “Skeletons,” said Miss Price. “Two of them, tangled in the roots of your instantly dead white oak. We dug them out back at the Historical Society. And you know what they say: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. What we’re looking for might not have been under that tree, but I’d be willing to wager every penny I own that it’s close by.”

  “Ah!” cried Nan. “The dead guy you told us about that day back in May at the Historical Society. Does he have anything to do with this?”

  Miss Price sighed.

  “Alas,” she said, wringing her hands in a show of mock contrition. “That, if I remember correctly, was a lie. A lie meant to confuse you and throw you off the track.”

  “Hmmm,” said Nan. “Just as I thought.”

  “Could I have some more wine, please?” Miss Price asked.

  George, whose indignation had been supplanted by anxiety on hearing this news of skeletons in the backyard, poured her some more wine, and waggled the bottle in front of Dr. Lick, who covered his cup with his hand and waved him off.

  “Still, we’ve got two dead people who got buried in our backyard,” said Nan with some alarm.

  “But it was very long ago, Mrs. Fremont. I don’t believe you have cause for concern.”

  Dr. Lick laughed.

  “This just gets juicier by the moment,” he said. “Miss Price, you told me nothing about these skeletons. My God! I must see them!”

  “Afraid that’s impossible,” Miss Price said.

  “Impossible? How so?”

  “I’ve already disposed of them.”

  “You what! How could you do that?”

  George quickly filled his and Nan’s wineglasses.

  “They scared me. I didn’t exactly want them hanging around the apartment waiting for you to figure out what you wanted to do with them.”

  Dr. Lick sighed. He slumped over and enfolded his face in his hands. Now that he looked more vulnerable, he wasn’t nearly as attractive, thought a half-sotted Nan. Hell with him! Betcha can’t pour wine like my guy. Naah, naah, naah.

  “Well, that’s a loss,” said Dr. Lick, disentangling his face from the clutches of his fingertips, which had left white marks on his semi-bronzed cheeks. “Oh, well, we move on. I want to make it perfectly clear that what’s buried under here, or at least what we have cause to believe is buried under here, is not a treasure in the usual sense of the word. It is an archaeological treasure of use to people such as myself and historians. It would have little monetary value in the conventional sense. I doubt that you’d be able to actually sell what we found for ready cash and without any familiarity with the museum and antiquities markets.”

  The Fremonts listened with feigned indifference, made easier by the effect of the wine.

  “On the other hand, we’re perfectly willing to purchase the rights to dig on your land. I don’t think, say, $10,000 would be out of line for such an arrangement. In return, you’d grant us the rights to do whatever exploratory and excavation work we needed to do, and grant us rights to whatever we’d dig up. Then, we’d fill up the holes, clean up our mess, and leave. And you’d have the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve contributed to filling in a very big hole—ha, if you don’t mind me saying it that way—in the recorded history of this country. Oh, yes, if we come up empty handed, you still get the money.”

  “Hmmm,” said Nan.

  “Hmmm,” said George. “And what if we say no, Dr. Lick? Seems to me like you’re lowballing us on that price.”

  Dr. Lick smiled.

  “The price I mentioned is negotiable. I think I can speak for the university in saying we’d probably jack that up to $15,000. Maybe even $20,000. But that’s the absolute limit. As a public institution, we are funded by the taxpayers, you know.”

  “What evidence do you have that there’s something here anyway?” said George, who loved the way the Sagelands made him feel like he was the one calling the shots. Dr. Lick and Miss Price looked at each other.

  “Now you have the floor, Miss Price.”

  “Well, there are the skeletons, for one thing, even though, I’ll admit, it was silly of me to have disposed of them. And, by the way, Dr. Lick, there’s no way to recover them; they emptied the Historical Society Dumpster Tuesday. For another, artifacts were found here when my great-grandfather dug his root cellar. Oh, gosh, that would have been back in the 1880s. They are very, very old. They are not Indian. They . . .”

  Dr. Lick turned to Miss Price and touched her hand. Then, he pressed his finger against his lips. He turned back toward the Fremonts, smiled wistfully, and shrugged.

  “Sorry, folks, this falls within the realm of unfinished research that is not yet ready for public consumption. We’ll have to leave it at that. I should say that there is plenty of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that has also lead us to this conclusion.”

  “And if we say no?” said George. Dr. Lick continued to smile as he glanced at his wristwatch.

  “Oh, my, I have a class in forty-five minutes, so we’ll have to be wrapping this up. If you decline our offer, then we might have to move for a condemnation, an eminent domain proceeding. In that case, we could take your entire property and you would have no choice.” He nodded at Miss Price and both stood up.

  “You know, Miss Price,” Nan said, “you’ve never told us exactly what this ‘treasure’ is you’re looking for. What is it you expect to find?” Miss Price and Dr. Lick exchanged furtive looks.

  “Ah-hem,” said Dr. Lick.

  “We’d rather not say at this point,” Miss Price said. “Let’s leave it as a surprise. You like surprises, don’t you? I don’t believe I’ve ever referred to it as a treasure, have I? In fact, I don’t believe I’ve referred to it as anything at all. I can say that it’s something of immense historical significance that will amaze and enrich you.”

  “Hmmm,” said George.

  “One last thing,” said Nan. “Do you have any identification, Dr. Lick?”

  Dr. Lick looked puzzled.

  “We had an odd situation a year ago where a Realtor purporting to represent an archaeologist tried to relieve us of our property.”

  “Under somewhat similar circumstances,” George said.

  “Yes, the situation was almost identical,” Nan said. “There was also the threat of an eminent domain proceeding. In that case, it was an alleged Indian burial ground under our property.”

  Dr. Lick laughed. Miss Price cackled. George and Nan smiled indulgently.

  “She turned out to be a fraud and a nutcase,” Nan said. “You wouldn’t happen to know her, would you? A Dr. Phyllis Sproot?”

  “No, never heard of her. But then I wouldn’t have if she was a fraud misrepresenting herself as an archaeologist.”

  With that, he retrieved a billfold out of his jacket pocket, plucked out a card, and handed it to Nan. “Here’s my card. But anyone can print up a card, eh? I suggest you look up the university directory on your own. You’ll find me listed in the archaeology department. I assure you I’m no fraud, though some of my competitors at other universities might beg to differ with that. Ha-ha! Good day to you both.”

  George and Nan nodded as Miss Price and Dr. Lick got up and, with a slow and stately dignity, walked down the steps. Nan watched closely to see if either one mussed up her pea gravel. />
  “That eminent domain threat is just a bluff,” George said gruffly. “And they don’t know anything’s buried here. Besides, haven’t we had enough of this mucking around on our property? Good Lord!”

  “I don’t know, George,” said Nan. “You’ve got a job now, sure, but $20,000 would be a nice cushion, and we could give the kids a little help with their college expenses instead of loading them down with so much debt.”

  “We should make more money from the lawsuit.”

  “That’ll be months away. It’s also assuming we win, or get a decent settlement. Then, the lawyers get their take, and what are we left with?”

  “I guess we could bring back Jim for another sweep,” George said. “Then dig it up ourselves. But he’s already swept the entire property, front and back. We’d have absolutely no idea where to look. That’s assuming, of course, there’s something to look for.”

  “I’m tired of all this, George,” Nan moaned. “I’m tired of skeletons, I’m tired of explosions, and I’m tired of people stomping around in our gardens in ways that are generally intended to screw us. Why can’t people just leave us alone?”

  George and Nan moved their chairs next to each other and Nan laid her head on George’s shoulder as he pulled her closer to him, then drifted off into a quick, turbulent dream about the hybrid tea roses sprouting stovepipe hats that she was busily spray painting red.

  A couple of male goldfinches, their feathers impossibly yellow, landed on the top perches of the tubular feeder. A red-bellied woodpecker landed on the suet feeder and began to peck violently at the rectangular suet-and-peanut-butter cake. George caught a whiff of something on the breeze. The subtle grape of the clematis? Or was it the wild honeysuckle that grew at the edge of the woods? A motion above the variegated dogwoods caught his attention. Another monarch butterfly!

  A car pulled up along the Payne Avenue curb, interrupting their brief reverie. A door slammed shut. Another car pulled up. Another door shut, this one less violently. George looked over to see Shirelle and an older woman scampering up the pea gravel steps. George soon recognized the older woman as Dr. Hilda Brockheimer.

  “You know what you just said about being left alone?” whispered George to the stirring Nan, who lifted her head off his shoulder and rubbed her eyes. “Maybe you’d better hold that thought.”