Pawing Through the Past
Rita Mae Brown
* * *
Dedicated to Cindy Chandler
In a dog-eat-dog world,
she hands us our napkins
* * *
Cast of Characters
Mary Minor Haristeen (Harry), the young postmistress of Crozet. She won double senior superlatives in high school: Most Likely to Succeed and Most Athletic.
Mrs. Murphy, Harry’s gray tiger cat, calm in a crisis and sassy, too.
Tee Tucker, Harry’s Welsh corgi, Mrs. Murphy’s friend and confidante, is a solid, courageous creature.
Pewter, Market Shiflett’s shamelessly fat gray cat, who now lives with Harry and family. Her high intelligence is usually in the service of her self-indulgence.
Pharamond Haristeen (Fair), an equine veterinarian, formerly married to Harry. He wants to get back together again with Harry.
Susan Tucker, Harry’s best friend. She tells it like it is. She won the Best All-Round senior superlative in high school.
Olivia Craycroft (BoomBoom), a buxom dilettante who constantly irritates Harry. Her senior superlative was Best Looking.
Cynthia Cooper, a young deputy in the sheriff’s department, who is willing to use unorthodox methods to capture criminals.
Sheriff Rick Shaw, a dedicated, reliable public servant. He may not be the most imaginative sheriff, but he is the most persistent.
Tracy Raz, the former All-State football player, who comes home for his fiftieth high-school reunion and rekindles his romance with Miranda.
Chris Sharpton, a newcomer to Crozet, she jumps right into activities hoping to make friends.
Bitsy Valenzuela, a socially active woman who includes Chris in her circle.
Marcy Wiggins, an unhappily married woman, who looks forward to her outings with Bitsy and Chris. She needs the diversion.
Big Marilyn Sanburne (Mim), the undisputed queen of Crozet, who can be an awful snob at times. She knows the way the world works.
Little Marilyn Sanburne (Little Mim), a chip off the old block yet quite resentful of it.
Charlie Ashcraft, a notoriously successful seducer of women. Voted Best Looking by his high-school class.
Leo Burkey, was voted Wittiest.
Bonnie Baltier, was voted Wittiest.
Hank Bittner, was voted Most Talented.
Bob Shoaf, was voted Most Athletic later playing cornerback for the New York Giants.
Dennis Rablan, voted Best All-Round and now a photographer. He squandered his inheritance and is regarded as a failure.
Miranda Hogendobber, last but not least on the list: A woman of solid virtue, common sense, she works with Harry at the post office.
* * *
1
The huge ceiling fan lazily swirled overhead, vainly attempting to move the soggy August air. Mary Minor Haristeen, Harry to her friends—and everyone was a friend—scribbled ideas on a yellow legal pad. Seated around the kitchen table, high-school yearbooks open, were Susan Tucker, her best friend, Mrs. Miranda Hogendobber, her coworker and good friend, and Chris Sharpton, an attractive woman new to the area.
“We could have had this meeting at the post office,” Susan remarked as she wiped the sweat from her forehead.
“Government property,” Miranda said.
“Right, government property paid for with my taxes,” Susan laughed.
Harry, the postmistress in tiny Crozet, Virginia, said, “Okay, it is air-conditioned but think how many hours Miranda and I spend in that place. I have no desire to hang out there in my free time.”
“You’ve got air-conditioning at your house.” Miranda stared at Susan.
“I know but the kids are having a pool party and—”
“You left the house with a party in progress? There won’t be a drop of liquor left,” Harry interrupted.
“My kids know when to stop.”
“Congratulations,” Harry taunted her. “That doesn’t mean anyone else’s kids know when to stop. I hope you locked the bar.”
“Ned is there.” Susan returned to the opened yearbook, the conversation clearly over. Her husband could handle any crisis.
“You could have said that in the first place.” Harry opened her yearbook to the same page.
“Why? It’s more fun to listen to you tell me what to do.”
“Oh.” Harry sheepishly bent over the yearbook photo of one of her senior superlatives, Most Likely to Succeed. “I can’t believe I looked like that.”
“You look exactly the same. Exactly.” Miranda pulled Harry’s yearbook to her.
“Don’t compliment her, it will go to her head.” Susan turned to Chris. “Are you sorry you volunteered to help us?”
“No, but I don’t see as I’m doing much good.” The newcomer smiled, her hand on her own high-school yearbook.
“All right. Down to business.” Harry straightened her shoulders. “I’m in charge of special categories for our twentieth high-school reunion. BoomBoom Craycroft, our fearless leader”—Harry said this with a tinge of sarcasm about the head of the reunion—“is going to reshoot photographs of our senior superlatives with us as we are today. My job is to come up with other things to do with people who weren’t senior superlatives.
“That’s only fair. I mean, there are only twelve senior superlatives, one male, one female. That’s twenty people out of one hundred and thirty-two, give or take a few, since some of us were voted more than one superlative.” Harry paused for a breath. “How many were in your class, Miranda?”
“Fifty-six. Forty-two are still alive, although some of us might be on respirators. My task for my reunion is easier.” Miranda giggled, her hand resting on the worn cover of her 1950 yearbook.
“You all were so lucky to go to small high schools. Mine was a consolidated. Huge,” Chris remarked, and indeed her yearbook bore witness to the fact, being three times fatter than that of Harry and Susan or Mrs. Hogendobber.
Susan agreed. “I guess we were lucky but we didn’t know it at the time.”
“Does anyone?” Harry tapped her yellow wooden pencil against the back of her left wrist.
“Probably not. Not when you’re young. What fun we had.” Miranda, a widow, nodded her head, jammed with happy memories.
“Okay, here’s what I’ve got. Ready?” They nodded in assent so Harry began reading, “These are categories to try and include others: Most Distance Traveled. Most Children. Most Wives—”
“You’re not going to do that.” Miranda chuckled.
“Why not? That one is followed by Most Husbands. Too bad we can’t have one for Most Affairs.” Harry lifted her eyebrows.
“Malicious,” Susan said dryly.
“Rhymes with delicious.” Harry’s eyes brightened. “Okay, what else have I got here? Most Changed. Obviously that has to be in some good way. Can’t pick out someone who has porked on an extra hundred pounds. And—uh—I couldn’t think of anything else.”
“Harry, you’re usually so imaginative.” Miranda seemed surprised.
“She’s not at all imaginative but she is ruthlessly logical. I’ll give her that.”
Harry ignored Susan’s assessment of her, speaking to Chris, “When you’re new to a place it takes a long time to ferret out people’s relationships to one another. Suffice it to say that Susan, my best friend since birth, feels compelled to point out my shortcomings.”
“Harry, being logical isn’t a shortcoming. It’s a virtue,” Susan protested. “But we are light on categories here.”
Chris opened her dark green yearbook to a club photo. “My twentieth reunion was last year. One of the things we did was go through the club photos to see if we could find anyone who became a professional at som
ething they were known for in high school. You know, like did anyone in Latin club become a Latin teacher. It’s kind of hokey but you do get desperate after a time.”
Harry pulled the book toward her, the youthful faces of the Pep Club staring back at her. “Which one are you?”
Chris pointed to a tall girl in the back row. “I wasn’t blonde then.”
“I can see that.” Harry read the names below the photo, finding Chris Sharpton. She slid the book back to the owner.
“What we also did, which took a bit of quick thinking on the spot, was, we had cards made up with classmates’ names written on them in italics. They were pretty. Anyway, if the individual hadn’t fit into some earlier category we did things like Tom Cruise Double—anything to make them feel special.”
“That’s clever,” Miranda complimented her.
“The other thing we did was make calls. As you know, people disperse after high school. Each of us on the committee called everyone we were still in contact with from our class. We asked who they were in contact with and what they knew about the people. This way we gathered information for things like Most Community Service. After a time it’s a stretch but it’s important that everyone be included in some way. At the last minute we even wrote a card up, Still the Same.”
“Chris, these are good ideas.” Harry was grateful. “You’re wonderful to come help us. I mean, this isn’t even your reunion.”
“I’m not as generous as you think,” Chris laughed. “Susan bet me she’d beat me by three strokes on the Keswick golf course. The bet was I’d help you all if I lost.”
“What would you have gotten if you’d won?”
“Two English boxwoods planted by my front walkway.”
Since moving to Crozet four months ago, Chris had thrown herself into decorating and landscaping her house in the Deep Valley subdivision, a magnet for under-forty newcomers to Albemarle County.
An outgoing person, Chris had made friends with her neighbors but most especially Marcy Wiggins and Bitsy Valenzuela, two women married to men who were classmates of Harry’s.
“Good bet,” Harry whistled.
“I told you my golf game was improving,” Susan gloated. “But Miranda, I don’t think we’ve done one thing to help you.”
She smiled a slow smile. “Our expectations are different than yours. At your fiftieth high-school reunion you’re thrilled that all your parts are moving. We’ll be happy to eat good food, share stories, sit around. I suppose we’ll pitch horseshoes and dance. That sort of thing.”
“Are you in charge of the whole thing?” Chris was incredulous.
“Pretty much. I’ll need to round up a few people to help me decorate. I’m keeping it simple because I’m simple.”
Before anyone could protest that Miranda was not simple, Mrs. Murphy, Harry’s beautiful tiger cat, burst through the animal door.
“What have you got?” Harry rose from the table expecting the worst.
Pewter, the plump gray cat, immediately followed through the animal door and Tee Tucker, Harry’s corgi, burst through behind her, bumping the cat in the rear end, which brought forth a snarl.
Susan focused on the animals. “I don’t know what she’s got but everyone wants it.”
Mrs. Murphy blew through the kitchen into the living room, where she crouched behind the sofa as Pewter leapt onto the large stuffed curving arm.
“Selfish!”
The tiger cat did not answer her gray accuser because, if she did, the mole she had carefully stalked would have popped out of her mouth and escaped.
Harry knelt down. “Say, Murphy, good job. That’s a huge mole. Why, that mole could dig to China.”
“She didn’t catch it by herself,” Pewter complained loudly. “I blocked off the other exit. I deserve half of that mole.”
“I helped.” The corgi drooled.
“Ha!” Pewter disagreed.
“Thank you for bringing me this prize.” Harry carefully reached behind the sofa, petted Murphy, then grabbed the limp mole by the scruff of its neck.
The tiger cat opened her jaws. “Moles are dangerous, you know. William of Orange, King of England, was killed when his horse stepped in a mole hole. He broke his collarbone and then took a fever.”
“Show-off.” Pewter’s pupils narrowed to slits.
Mrs. Murphy sashayed into the kitchen, ignoring her detractors.
“Excuse me, ladies.” Harry walked outside, depositing the mole at the back of the woodpile. The minute it was on the ground it scurried under the logs. “That’s Murphy for you. She didn’t even break your neck, little guy. She was bringing me a present. Guess she expected me to dispatch you.”
When Harry returned, Chris said, nose wrinkled, “I don’t know how you could pick up that mole. I could never do that. I’m too squeamish.”
“Oh, when you grow up in the country you don’t think about stuff. You just do it.” She pointed to Chris’s yearbook. “Lake Shore, Illinois, must be a far cry from the country.”
“That it is.” Chris laughed.
Susan, flipping through her yearbook, bubbled. “I’m getting excited about this reunion. October will be here before we know it. Time flies.”
“Don’t say that. I’m nervous enough about getting organized for the damn thing,” Harry grumbled.
“Maybe you’re nervous about seeing all those people,” Chris said.
“I’m as nervous about them seeing me as me seeing them. What will they think? Do I look like a . . .” Susan paused. “Well, do I look older? Will they be disappointed when they see me?”
“You look great,” Harry said with conviction. “Besides, half of our class still lives within shouting distance. Everyone knows what you look like.”
“Harry, we hardly even see the people who moved to Richmond—like Leo Burkey. Shouting distance doesn’t matter.”
Harry cupped her chin in her hand. “Leo Burkey will be just like always, handsome and B-A-D.”
“Hey, I’d like to meet this guy.” The single Chris smiled.
“Is he between wives?” Harry asked Susan.
“BoomBoom will know.”
“Of course she will.” Harry laughed. “Miranda, we really aren’t doing a thing for you but I’m glad our reunions are at the same time. We can use a skateboard to go up and down the halls to visit.”
“I’ll bet you think I can’t even use a skateboard,” Miranda challenged her.
“I never said that!”
“You didn’t have to.” Miranda winked. But just you wait, Miranda thought to herself, smiling.
“It’s not fair that Murphy gets all the attention,” Pewter wailed as she jumped on the kitchen counter.
“I don’t get all the attention but I did bring in a fresh mole. Jealous.”
“I am unloved,” Pewter warbled at a high-decibel range.
Harry got up, opened the cupboard, and removed a round plastic bowl of fresh catnip. She rolled it between her fingers, releasing the heavenly aroma. Then she placed the bits on the floor where Pewter dove in, quickly followed by Murphy. Harry handed Tucker a Milk-Bone, which satisfied her.
A little coo from Pewter directed all human eyes to her. Blitzed on catnip, she lay on her back on the heart pine floor, her tail slowly swishing. Mrs. Murphy was on her side, her paws covering her eyes.
“Bliss.” Miranda laughed.
“I love the whole world and everyone in it,” Pewter meowed.
Murphy removed one paw—“Me, too”—then she covered her eyes up again.
“That ought to hold them.” Harry sat back down after pouring everyone iced tea. Mrs. Hogendobber had brought homemade icebox cookies, cucumber sandwiches, and fresh vegetables.
“Do you know that some schools now regard senior superlatives as politically incorrect?” Susan reached for a sandwich.
“Why?” Miranda wondered.
Susan pointed to the senior superlative section, one full page for each superlative. “Elitist. Hurts people’s feelings.�
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“Life is unfair.” Harry’s voice rose slightly. “You might as well learn that in high school if you haven’t already.”
“You’ve got a point there.” Chris shook her sleek blonde pageboy. “I can remember crying hot tears over stuff that now seems trivial but I learned that disappointments are going to come and I’ve got to handle them. And all that surging emotion going through you for the first time. How confusing.”
“Still is.” Harry sipped her tea. “For me anyway.”
“Is everyone in your class still alive?” Chris asked Susan and Harry.
“We’ve lost two,” Susan answered. “Aurora Hughes.” She turned the page to Most Talented and there a willowy girl in a full-length dress was in the arms of a young man, Hank Bittner, wearing a top hat and tails. “She died of leukemia the year after graduation. We were all in college and, you know, I still feel guilty about not being there. Aurora was such a good kid. And she really was talented.”
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