by Stephen Bly
“I wish we could just meet her and let her know we’re not trying to exploit her,” Price mused.
“Do you think she might change her mind?” Tony prodded. “It’s like Grandma is afraid of something. She’s been a recluse so long, she’s built up a fear of talking to strangers. Besides, she’s getting real forgetful and it embarrasses her.”
“What do you mean?” Price asked.
“Like last spring when Kim went with me to see Grandma Jessie. Remember I told you Kim’s into painting? Well, she was thrilled to be able to ask about some techniques that Grandma used on the ‘Two Girl’ paintings… and Grandma Jessie couldn’t even remember how she did them. That sort of thing really depresses her.”
“We certainly don’t want to depress her, but we’d really love to have her talk about the old days on the Island,” Price added. “A few quotes from Jessica Davenport would be invaluable.”
“Maybe you and Melody could just peek in the door and say ‘hello’ or something,” Tony suggested. “That wouldn’t be too threatening, would it, Melody?”
“Maybe. I could at least tell what kind of mood she’s in and perhaps introduce Dr. Shadowbrook. I was hoping she wouldn’t be this way, since I know you guys and all. Anyway, I’ll keep working at it. That interview is my summer goal, even if it doesn’t look too promising.” Melody scooped her fork into the rice and leaned over the plate to engulf the whole bite.
“Do you want to ride down to the community meeting with us?” Tony offered.
“Sure, we can take my car if you want,” Melody mumbled.
“Oh no,” Tony laughed, “if we show up in a VW bus they’ll expect us to carry a protest sign.”
“Really? Do you think a VW bus still makes a political statement? I wonder if I should buy a different car? Oh, man, I just remembered that pizza is still out there. I’ll see you later. Go ahead and have a quiet supper.”
Melody was out the door when Tony shoved his chair away from the table. “She’s never going to move into Kim’s cabin, is she?”
“Not until we make her.”
“It’s like having another daughter.”
“She’s sort of halfway in between Kit and Kathy, don’t you think?”
“I miss our girls,” Tony mused. “They both have their quirks, but at least we’re used to them.”
“Why don’t you call our quirky daughters? You haven’t talked to them in a week.”
Tony dialed the Scottsdale number. A male voice answered. “This is Anthony Shadowbrook. With whom am I speaking?”
“He ain’t here.”
“Who?”
“Anthony Shadowbrook. He’s gone to Alaska or someplace. You want to talk to his daughter?”
“Please.”
“Hello?”
“Kath? It’s Dad.”
“Oh, hi, Daddy. Hey, everyone, quiet down. It’s my father.”
“What’s going on?”
“The college and career Bible study needed a place to meet. I knew you and Mom wouldn’t care… right?”
“Yeah… well… I think so. Anyway, I’m just checking on you. Is everything going well?”
“Everything’s great, Daddy. Really. There’s this neat guy at work who sure is hanging around me a lot. He’s totally cute.”
“How about Kit? Did she get rid of the calf?”
“Not yet.”
“Can I speak to her?”
“She’s not home.”
“Where is she?”
“She… went down to Mesa to look for a job.”
“A job? She already has a job.”
“She got fired from the Speedy Squirt place.”
“Fired? When?”
“Who got fired?” Price interrupted.
Tony covered the receiver. “Kit.” He removed his hand. “What happened, Kathy?”
“She lubed the boss.”
“What?”
Price frowned at him.
Tony ignored her. “Kath, what exactly does that mean?”
“I’d better have her call you. Are you going to be at the house tonight?”
“We’ll be at a meeting until, oh, say, 9:00. Have her call right after that.”
“Okay, Daddy. Are you and Mom having a neat time all alone up there?”
“It’s a … we’re getting … yeah, it’s a nice location.”
“I told everyone about the possibility of Shotgun Creek being a movie. We’re all praying for you.”
“Thanks, kiddo. You make sure to have Kit give me a call.” Tony hung up and stared at Price. “I have no idea in the world what it means, but she lubed her boss. Not only that, but there are fifty college kids at a Bible study in our living room.”
“The house will be a mess.”
“Kath will clean up. You know how addicted to neatness she is.”
“Maybe we ought to go home,” Price suggested.
“Are you kidding? The book isn’t half done.”
“For a few days, to settle things down, then come back.”
“We’ve got to turn them loose, Mama.”
“In our living room?”
“Yep.”
Price ate the last bit of green beans dunked in garlic butter sauce. “I feel very anxious and insecure being here when the girls need me at home.”
“They didn’t say they needed you,” Tony reminded her.
“Well, they do, and you know it.”
“Kit will have a good reason.”
“For lubing the boss?”
“Yep.”
“Well, we’ll have to get home from that community meeting by nine.”
“Sure.” Tony speared another piece of chicken. “How long could it take to decide on a petting zoo?”
At 11:15 P.M., Price and Melody crashed through the front door of the house. Tony had just hung up the receiver.
“How long have you been on the phone?”
“Oh, Kit didn’t call until ten minutes ago. How did the meeting go after I left?”
“Pretty wild. You missed the best part. What’s the deal with Kit?”
“I learned what ‘lubing the boss’ means. What about the meeting?”
“Harvey Peterson showed up with a chain saw. Now, explain Kit.”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Melody broke in. “This is worse than trying to watch a tennis match. How about one conversation at a time?”
“Okay,” Tony said, “tell me about the meeting.”
“No, that can wait. Tell me about our daughter.”
“What did Harvey do with the chain saw?”
“What did Kit do to her boss?”
“That’s it, I’m out of here,” Melody asserted. “I’ve heard of plots and subplots in novels, but not in conversations. After that meeting and the hairy ride home, I need a little peace and quiet. Sorry to leave you without a moderator, but I’m going to bed.” They heard the front door click shut. Price put a pot of water on the stove’s back burner.
“What did she mean a ‘hairy ride home’? I thought you said there would be no problem catching a lift after I had to leave early?”
“There was no problem. Kenny Mallard brought us home.”
“On his Harley?”
“Yeah.”
“Both of you?”
“Yes.”
“At the same time?”
Price laughed and ran her fingers through her hair. She noticed once again how long it was getting and determined to ask Melody to recommend a beauty shop. “It was quite an adventure.”
“I don’t want to hear about it.”
She smiled and stuck a bag of Stash Licorice tea into her newly acquired Fox Island mug, the one encircled with Clay Babies. “Good. Tell me all about Kit, then I’ll tell you about the meeting.”
“No, I’ll tell you about Kit. Then I’ll tell you about Kathy. And then you can tell me about the meeting. Get your hot tea and come relax. We both need to sit down.”
“Oh, joy. Kathy, too, huh?” Price slunk into the navy stuffed
chair and inhaled the licorice scent.
Tony stretched out on the carpet after folding scattered pages of The Peninsula Gateway and tossing them next to the fireplace. “Well, here goes. Mr. Conesco, Kit’s boss, came back to work today after lunch and showed Kit the new uniform he wanted her to wear … hot pink shorts and halter. He told Kit he was giving her a raise and wanted her to work out front lining up the paperwork on the cars as they drove in.”
Price plopped her tea next to the seashell lamp. “Wearing hot pink shorts and halter?”
“You got it.”
“But that’s … that’s sexual harassment or something, isn’t it?”
“Well, Kit wasn’t about to wear those clothes or give up any job that had to do with working on cars.”
“So, she quit?”
Tony waved his hand. “Wait now. Kit was ticked off. She said she’d be happy to wear the shorts and halter as soon as all the men who worked there agreed to wear the skimpy hot pink outfits.”
Price snickered. “Well, I guess she would say something like that.”
“Conesco went into a tirade about how he was the boss and she would do what he said or get fired.”
“Nice guy. So what did Kit do?”
Tony began to laugh. It started with a fit of chuckles and expanded to a full-scale, uncontrolled series of war whoops.
“Get a grip, Shadowbrook. This is serious.”
“Then, she … he, she … shoved … the lube gun … into his Dockers … and… and… pulled the trigger.”
Price slid back against the chair’s stuffed cushion and shut her eyes tight.
Tony’s guffaws slowly wound down as tears streamed. He wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve, the new Roper shirt with the black horse silhouettes. “When she jumped into her truck and drove off, he was still screaming curses and running around like a snake bit him.”
“At least she didn’t punch the guy’s lights out this time.”
“I guess she went home, changed clothes, drove straight to Mesa and promptly got herself a job at an auto parts store.”
“I hope they didn’t ask for references.”
“It’s owned by the father of someone she met at the drag races.”
“Is she doing all right?”
“She told me she spent time out at South Mountain Park. She suspects the Lord wants her to apologize, but she’s still too angry. She said she was going to write Conesco an apology and have Josh deliver it when he picks up her check.”
“She talked to her brother? What did Josh say about all this?”
“I think his exact words were, ‘I’d be happy to stop by and face down the sleazy creep.’”
“We need to be home.”
“They’ll survive, Dr. Shadowbrook. Kit thinks it’ll all work out. She told us not to worry.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ve worried about those two since the day they were born.”
“Mama, you’ve worried about Mark and Josh just the same.”
But son worries fell into a whole different category than daughter worries. The girls definitely needed their mom there to coach them along. “What’s this with Kathy?” she asked.
“It seems this totally awesome guy at work came to the Bible study tonight. But he was having some kind of car problem with his new Camaro convertible, so Kathy invited him to stay until Kit came back, so she could look at it.”
“But Kit got home late….”
“At which time Kathy and this guy, Linc, were in the swimming pool.”
“Doing what?”
“Swimming, I guess. Kathy said it’s still over a hundred in Scottsdale. Well, Kit fixed his car, while this guy stood around dripping water off his bathing suit and visited with her. She said he was a pretty neat guy, but said he had poor taste in girls.”
“And Kathy said?”
“She said Kit was trying to hit on Linc, and if she didn’t stop, she would rip her lips off.”
“Kit? Making a pass at a boy? And what did you say?”
“I said for Kit to write the apology to her former boss, for Josh to deliver it without commentary and pick up her check. Then I told Kathy it didn’t look right to have a male guest over to swim after dark, no matter what the excuse.”
“That’s all you told them?”
“No, I said their mother would call them tomorrow and give them both a long lecture.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you’re Dr. Mama, the professor.” Tony took a deep breath and sighed. “Okay, now it’s your turn. No more stalling. What happened at the community meeting?”
“Wait a minute… my head’s still buzzing. Do you want me to warm up some coffee for you? I need another cup of tea.”
“That would be great. You know what, babe? I’m trying to figure out which daughter we should be more worried about. I suppose that’s why parents have gray hair, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but gray hair looks distinguished on men.” Price headed to the kitchen.
“listen, kid, you’re way too defensive over a couple of strands of gray. Why, you don’t look a day over… say… fifty.”
Tony didn’t even see the square leather pillow that sailed toward his head.
They sat at opposite ends of the sofa. He chugged coffee. She sipped scalding tea. Price tugged both shoes off and tucked her legs under her. Tony used a Time magazine on the end table as a coaster for the heels of his cowboy boots.
“Okay,” he began, “when I left, a short dynamo named Ms. Tulip, or Miss Tulip, stood up, with a braid as pretty as a bronc rein hanging to her knees. Tulip Something-Or-Other protested the inhumane treatment of animals by the Cascade KidsCan Pet, Inc.”
“Was that before or after Harvey Peterson ranted and raved about dismantling the bridge and bringing back the ferry?”
“What?”
She cleared her voice to the semblance of a deep bass. “‘Before the bridge, we didn’t have scumbags like you polluting our island.’”
“He actually said scumbags?”
“Yep.”
“How did that go over?”
“The animal rights crowd stood in unison, gave Harvey a ‘Heil Hitler’ salute and called him a fascist.”
“I don’t suppose that sat well with Harvey?”
“He turned red in the face and said the Fox Island cemetery held the graves of his oldest brother, his uncle and a cousin, who all died fighting fascists. Their outburst was an insult to the memory of many fine Fox Islanders, and he’d gladly step outside with any or all of the… I think his words were ‘puke-faced wimps.’”
“He called them all out?”
“Yes, but they reminded him they only practiced nonviolence.”
Tony leaned his head on the back of the cushion. “That reminds me, we ought to spend a couple hours at the cemetery reading the tombstones. Could be a story there.”
Price unfolded her legs from beneath her.
“Go on,” Tony urged. “What happened next?”
“Well, they finally got some order into the meeting, then the Wild and Free bunch …”
“Where does the Wild and Free title come from?”
“I think it’s a national group or something. Several were from out of the state. Tulip lives here on the Island, though. Melody says she’s been here for years. Anyway, they made a big case over Ho Chow.”
“Who?”
“A Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. They had a huge blowup of an article in a newspaper in Oregon when Cascade KidsCan Pet, Inc., held their petting zoo in a shopping center at Beaverton. The charge was that they so neglected the animals that Ho Chow died of starvation.”
“Could be they have a case. How did KidsCan Pet, Inc., respond to that?” Tony asked.
“Their representative insisted the person responsible had been fired and such a thing wouldn’t happen again.”
“Both sides have a point. Sounds like an impasse.”
“For the next two hours everybody in the building gave their opinion on everything from the
Vietnam War to the need to overhaul the income tax to the safe and sane disposal of nuclear waste.”
“Were any decisions made?”
“They’re against the IRS and divided over the war, and definitely don’t want radioactive material stored at the Acoustic Range.”
“But, what about the petting zoo?”
“Kenny Mallard finally settled that.”
“Melody’s buddy?”
“Yeah, Kenny said they should allow the petting zoo to participate, but they ought to appoint a committee to oversee the animal care while they’re here on the Island.”
“Ahhh, and who were the lucky ones drafted for such a thankless chore?”
“Four were chosen. Tulip, Harvey Peterson, Kenny Mallard …” Price set her cup on the on the coffee table and kept rubbing the handle.
“And …? You said four. Who was the other one?”
“They decided to get someone from off the Island for an objective point of view.”
“Surely not…?”
“Me.”
“You? But we’re here to observe, not to get involved.”
“Melody nominated me, and everyone seemed so enthused. Frankly, I didn’t know how to get out of it.” Tony stood up and stretched. “I guess that’s one way to get to know people better.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
He tugged her to her feet. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“This isn’t a dumb line to get me into your bedroom, is it, Shadowbrook?”
“I can’t believe you’d think such a thing of me.” He nuzzled her neck. “While I was waiting around, I did a little exploration downstairs.”
“You mean, you sorted through Jessica Reynolds’ things?”
“Kind of…”
“And you found something?”
He flipped on the light and led her downstairs to a large family room, spare bedroom, and a storage area. “I think I found some additional Grandma Jessica paintings.”
“More original Davenports?”
“But they’re signed, ‘Reynolds.’ Look at these.” Tony pulled out half a dozen unframed canvases from behind a tall mahogany bureau.
“They don’t look like the others, but they’re good. Very good.”
“It’s like she gave up on the ‘Two Girl’ motif. They sort of remind me of Norman Rockwell, that is, with the realistic detail and the family life themes.”