The Art of Wag

by Susan C. Daffron

  Several other people came in and sat down. Ben introduced them as members of the marketing committee. Tracy mentally forced herself to embrace her imaginary Annette persona and not to be nervous about the fact that there were way more people in the room than she had expected. She thought the presentation was going to be for just one guy, not a committee. But Annette wouldn’t care. She would relish the challenge because she was a brilliant artiste with legions of adoring fans.

  Rob spread out his diagrams on the table and started explaining how the databases would drive the web site and display information about Alpine Grove. Along with the real estate information, he planned on including a classified section and business listings, which could be updated easily using online forms.

  After Rob had regaled them with nerdy stuff for a while, Tracy could sense the audience’s attention waning. Plus, Rob seemed to be losing his voice, which was distracting. At the restaurant, if customers started looking anxious or unhappy, they referred to it as a “bread-stick situation.” Back in the kitchen, shouts of “bread sticks on table two stat” meant “feed those people some bread sticks now before the mood turns ugly.” Tracy didn’t have bread sticks, but clearly something had to be done here. They were losing them.

  Rob paused to cough and Tracy stood up. She pulled the many photos of Alpine Grove from her bag and spread them out on the table. “Although the technology is interesting, I’m sure you all want to know what we envision the site will actually look like. Here are some sample photos.” She handed a particularly glorious photo of a sunset over the lake to Ben. He held up the image for the others to see. “This is right near my house!”

  Tracy smiled. “That’s near Gray’s Point on the lake. It’s a lovely spot.”

  “Yes. I own the house at the end of the peninsula.”

  “Are you the one who restored the old house? It’s gorgeous now! That place was fenced off and boarded up for years. It was so sad, since it was such a beautiful Victorian. When I was in high school, we would boat to the beach, have a bonfire, and tell ghost stories about Miriam Gray.”

  Ben laughed warmly. “Yes, everyone told me I was buying a haunted house.”

  “So have you seen Miriam?” Tracy gestured toward the photo. “She used to like to sit in the branches of that huge tree near the beach. The story was that she was waiting for her lover to return, but there was a storm and his fishing boat sank in the lake.”

  “You certainly know your Alpine Grove history.”

  “I lived there for a long time.” Tracy picked up another photo. “As Rob pointed out earlier, we want the web site to show off the beauty of the location. But what’s equally important is that the site needs to be easy to use.”

  Tracy paused to move the flip chart easel and pad closer to the table. “A lot of designers get so wrapped up in the cool graphics that they create a web site that takes forever to load and is impossible for anyone to actually use. A site this large needs to be extremely well organized with clear navigation. What you want is a site that is so easy that even my mom could figure it out.”

  Ben’s mouth curved in a smile. “I’m sure your mother is a smart lady.”

  “Oh she is. But she’s not a big fan of computers or technology. And she’s really busy. She owns the gift store in Alpine Grove and loves pretty things. So the goal is to use the design to catch her eye and direct her, so she knows exactly what to do.”

  Ben waved his hand to interrupt. “Wait, your mom owns Bea Haven Gifts? I love that place! She’s a nice lady too.”

  “Well, I think so. But she is my mom, so I’m biased.” She turned and sketched a quick design of her ideas for the home page on the pad. “Design is all about balance and contrast. For example, here we would pull highlight colors out of the photos. We take those colors and use them for the text to direct people to the various areas of the site. The contrasting color stands out, but because it’s also part of the photo, it unifies the design, making it more pleasing to the eye.”

  Rob cleared his throat and croaked, “I know it might sound like common sense, but you’ve probably all seen web sites that just didn’t work. We want to avoid that.”

  Tracy said. “Exactly. When you have a large web site like this one, you need to create a visual hierarchy that shows what’s important, so people can tell where to go to get the information they need. When people are looking at the real estate pages, for example, what are the first things they want to know? What a place looks like. Where it is. How much it costs. Then who to contact to learn more.”

  Tracy went on to describe the color scheme for the site and the overall look of the various sections. As she drew her presentation to a close, everyone was smiling.

  Ben said, “This has been very insightful and I like your ideas. The marketing committee and I have some more firms to interview and I’ll be in touch.”

  Rob and Tracy thanked everyone, and as the attendees filed out, they began collecting their materials. Tracy scooped up her photographs and paused to look at one of her father. She hadn’t really examined it closely before, but Dad was standing next to an incredibly ornately hand painted car. She’d always assumed it belonged to someone else in the commune. But maybe not. It looked suspiciously like a Subaru station wagon. Did someone actually paint over the car with brown paint to turn it into The Turd? She needed to remember to ask her father about that the next time she saw him.

  Rob nudged her. “Something wrong? We should probably get going.”

  “Nope. I just noticed something about this picture. Never mind.”

  They walked to the elevator and stood staring up at the descending numbers. Rob popped a throat lozenge into his mouth and turned to look at her. “I thought you weren’t a web designer? How do you know all that stuff about usability?”

  “I went to the library. One of the librarians there at the Alpine Grove library is a total researching machine. She found all kinds of great stuff and made copies for me.” Tracy grinned at him. “I’m a quick study, I guess.”

  “Well, it worked. I think they liked it!”

  Tracy glanced at him. “Yeah. You’ll have to let me know what happens. Do you have my check?”

  “No. But you were amazing. You totally earned the money. How about I take you out to dinner tonight to celebrate? I’ll bring the check with me then. I’d like to go home and wash my hair.”

  Tracy chuckled. “Okay. I want to get out of these shoes too. Where are you taking me?”

  “How about a Japanese restaurant? Then you won’t have to wear shoes at all.”

  “Works for me!”

  Later, Tracy had changed into one of Shelby’s colorful floppy skirts and comfy flats. Once again, Shelby was off tutoring some undergrad somewhere. The two women had an open-closet policy, so Tracy knew her friend wouldn’t mind that she had run off with one of her favorite skirts. It was nice to be comfortable again and Tracy was looking forward to more free food. She had to admit Rob had been nice about feeding her frequently. Being a guest instead of an employee at a restaurant was a refreshing change. It made her feel like she was an adult again instead of an indentured servant.

  Billy Bob stretched out on the rug, indicating that he was ready for a tummy rub. He reached out a paw toward Tracy and meowed loudly. Tracy bent down to oblige. “Okay, fine.”

  There was a knock at the door and Tracy gave the large cat one final pat. “Sorry, buddy, you’re on your own until Shelby returns.” Billy Bob stood up and sauntered off in disgust.

  Tracy opened the door, where Rob stood with a bouquet of flowers. He waved and whispered, “Thank you for everything you did at the meeting. I have big news too!”

  “Come on in.” Tracy took the flowers and waved toward the apartment. “Thank you. I see your hair has returned to full force. But I think there’s even less left of your voice than before. You really are a germ. Are you sure you want to go out?”

  “Yes. Other than speaking more softly than usual, I feel fine. I think some Japanese tea wil
l help. This week I was up on a roof doing an installation and it was really rainy and cold.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay to drive? Because I’d be happy to drive your car.”

  He grinned and rasped. “Nice try.”

  “It never hurts to ask.”

  As Rob had promised, the restaurant was a traditional Japanese place with little compartments next to the door, where people placed their shoes. It had sunken tables and a clean, minimalist design. After removing and stowing their shoes, Tracy and Rob settled in to their table on the floor and ordered a pot of tea.

  Tracy handed Rob a menu. “So what’s this big news?”

  “I got a call from Ben. He already wants to talk to us again.”

  “What do you mean us?”

  Rob cleared his throat, took big gulp of hot tea, and winced. “Ben said he wants to talk to us again. But not here. He’s going to be at his house in Alpine Grove for a couple of weeks. I guess it’s some sort of a working vacation or retreat or something. I don’t know. I figured that would be great, because it would be easy for you to attend.”

  Tracy looked down into her little round white porcelain teacup. “Another meeting? I’m not sure about that. I thought you wanted to hire a real web designer.”

  “Well, I don’t have the contract yet. He said he doesn’t want to wait on this project, so he wants to meet with us again there.”

  “So what am I supposed to do at this meeting?” Tracy waved her menu at him. “I pretty much said everything I learned from the stuff the librarian gave me. I’m out of material.”

  Rob said in a more normal voice. “He wants us to bring some complete mock-ups of sample pages and a quote for what it will cost.”

  Tracy dropped the menu on the table and leaned back in her chair. “You mean comps? Are you saying you want me to design this? I don’t even have a computer. Are you nuts?”

  “Comps?”

  “Comprehensive layouts. Designers give them to clients to show the design. They are a lot of work.”

  Rob interlaced his long fingers around the teacup and studied it. The backs of his large hands were weathered and chapped. Looking back up at her, he said, “We can work on it together. I’ll take some time off of work and come up to Alpine Grove. I have a lot of calculations to do to figure out the scope of work and the money part of it anyway. I have tons of vacation time that I haven’t used and all this rainy weather has been horrible for installing satellite systems.” He frowned. “To tell the truth, I could really use a break.”

  Tracy said, “I have to work, you know. I can’t afford to take a vacation.”

  Rob took a sip of tea. “I know. I’ll bring my computer and stay at a hotel or something. We can work on it after hours. You are so good at the Photoshop stuff and you know what the wire frame layouts look like. All you have to do is take those and make them pretty.”

  “They were boxes that said things like menu goes here.” Tracy waved her hand at imaginary wire frames. “How am I supposed to make that pretty?”

  “It’s no big deal. Just do what you said in the meeting with color and stuff. It will be great!”

  Tracy poured some more tea into her cup. “You say great a lot. I think you’re seriously overestimating the greatness of this situation. You really need to get a new adjective.”

  A waitress in an elaborately embroidered kelly green silk kimono appeared, and Rob asked Tracy, “Are you ready to order?”

  “Yes. I want the agedashi tofu and vegetable tempura.”

  Rob peered over his menu. “No sushi for you?”

  “I spent too many years being the one stuck cleaning the fish my father caught at the lake. No raw fish for me, thanks.”

  Rob ordered and after the waitress left, he turned back to Tracy. “It’s not like you’ll have to code the site. It doesn’t have to work. All we need are pictures of web pages for this meeting. I know you can draw pictures.”

  “Code? What do you mean code?”

  “I mean you don’t have to write the HTML code that runs the site. That’s what I’d do. And only after I get the contract.” Rob looked down at the teacup he held in his hands again. “Except, this site is going to be so big, I’d probably have to hire another coder too. I don’t think I can do it all myself. That’s part of the money stuff I have to figure out.”

  “HTML? What? Now you’re speaking in code. Nerd code. I have no idea what you’re even talking about.”

  “HTML stands for hypertext markup language.”

  Tracy smirked. “Oh yeah, that clears everything right up.”

  “It’s the language you use to create web pages.”

  Tracy crossed her forearms and rested them on the table. Leaning forward, she said, “I don’t know about computer languages and all that stuff. I’m a vet tech. You said you were hiring a designer. Why don’t you just do that?”

  “Because Ben Walsh loves you. He went on and on about you and your ideas.” Rob’s shoulders slumped. “And if you want to get picky, I can’t afford to pay a pro designer until I get the contract. Well, if I get the contract. That $500 I gave you was a substantial portion of my budget.”

  Tracy cocked her head. “Well you certainly didn’t plan that out too well. So what you’re saying is that I’m supposed to do all this work for you for free? And then when you get the contract, you just kick me to the curb. No thanks.”

  “Well, maybe you could work on design stuff after I get the contract too.” Rob swirled the tea in his teacup and looked at her. “There’s going to be a lot of work to do. Scanning and editing all those photos. And other images, like ads. I don’t know. I haven’t really gotten that far. Financially, it’s all a bit of a risk for me to bid on this job. But it will be worth it, if I don’t have to crawl around on rooftops in the rain anymore. I’m dreading winter.”

  “You and me both.” Tracy fiddled with a chopstick, spinning it in her fingers. “Winter in Alpine Grove is lovely in a picture-postcard kind of way. But I hate the cold. I’d rather be lying on a beach in the Caribbean.”

  “Maybe you can give me a reasonable hourly rate because you don’t have professional web design experience? But you’d learn a lot too.” He smiled and leaned forward. “You’d be able to put the work experience on your resume.”

  “My resume? That’s a joke.” Tracy sighed. “But I do need a job. What’s a fair rate? I work at a tiny vet clinic in a small town and I’m basically starving.” She had all those revolting boxes of ramen noodles to prove it.

  Rob threw out a number and Tracy’s eyes widened as her brain moved into power calculation mode. She straightened in her chair. “So how many hours are we talking about here?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe 20 hours to get the mock ups done? Then the meeting will be a couple of hours I guess. I’ll keep track.”

  Tracy put her chopstick back down on the table next to the other one. “You’re really sure you want me to do this? I’m not a computer person, you know.” That was putting it nicely.

  “I know. You just don’t have much experience. You can learn it like you did in the class. But you are an art person.”

  “An art person who really needs money.”

  Rob sipped his tea. “If that’s the way you want to put it, yes, I suppose so.”

  Chapter 7

  Cooties & Hunters

  As Tracy limped The Turd up the mountain road back toward Alpine Grove, she tried to imagine she was driving the Prelude instead. The weather was gray and dreary again, which was making the tired old car cranky. It backfired and slowed to twenty-five miles per hour, which effectively destroyed the feeble illusion of driving bliss that Tracy was attempting to conjure up. Real life had an unpleasant habit of intruding on her fantasies.

  An obnoxious booming ooo-gaaa horn sound came from behind her on the road. Tracy looked in her rearview mirror and spotted Bud Fowler’s truck following her. He leaned his grizzled bald head out the window and shouted, “Come on Tracy! Put that thang in gear wouldja?”
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  Tracy waved her hand out the window indicating he should go around. Bud honked at her again. She glared at the rearview mirror. Just go around, Bud. But no, he honked again. She slowed The Turd down to a crawl, which made the car happy, but given the expression on Bud’s face, seemed to infuriate him. He spit some brown fluid out the window. Yuck. Tracy had seen Bud’s car around town and noticed that there were streaks of brown that had dribbled down the side of the truck door. Why did men chew tobacco? It was disgusting.

  Bud leaned out the window again. “Outta my way, sweetheart. I gotta git home or the wife is gonna kill me.” He revved the engine of the old truck for emphasis.

  As Tracy approached a pull-out on the road, she slowed the car to a stop and let Bud go by. He waved out the window as he accelerated. The Turd’s idle started to sputter even more than usual and Tracy jammed the car into first gear and popped the clutch. “Don’t you dare crap out on me here!” With a lurch, the car moved back onto the road. Tracy floored it, trying to will the car to at least accelerate up to the speed limit. But the geriatric machine had other plans and it was not to be. Tracy frowned as she grudgingly accepted the second-gear lumbering. It was slow going, but at least the car was still moving, which was better than walking home.

  After the interminably slow ride up the hill, Tracy finally arrived at her apartment. She waved to her mom through the window of the gift store and Bea smiled back at her warmly. At least Mom was glad to see her. She went up the stairs to her apartment and opened the door. An array of unpleasant odors assaulted her senses. Had Roxy hunted down something when she wasn’t looking? Although dachshunds were originally bred to hunt badgers, Roxy wasn’t picky. If she had found a rodent in here somewhere, she might have hidden it before Tracy took her to Kat’s place. Tracy gazed across the sea of clutter in the small apartment. It wasn’t like there weren’t a lot of places to hide a partially masticated rodent body.