Probable Claws

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Spring,” Anne called from the counter. “And it’s supposed to start snowing again tomorrow and on Christmas. A white Christmas.”

  “I tell myself winter can be beautiful but I never quite believe it.” Lisa walked to the counter where Anne had piled up her ordered books.

  Lisa took the first one off the pile, a history of architecture in Richmond. Nature First, while primarily an environmental group, also regularly joined forces with other nonprofits to save historic buildings. The organization was also keen on the epochs before colonization, even before human life.

  Lisa licked her forefinger to turn the page.

  “My great-aunt used to do that.” Harry laughed.

  “Are you telling me I’m an old lady? I’m younger than you,” Lisa fired back as she turned another page.

  “Well, yes you are,” Harry replied, enjoying the exchange. “But I’ve only ever seen old people do that.”

  Lisa motioned Harry over. “Look here. Pages always stick together. Licking my finger is easier than trying to slide my fingernail between pages or rubbing them together to pop them apart.” She demonstrated her thesis then said, “If I buy a book I have to leaf through it for a few pages, get a glimpse of it. Then I’ll read it later.”

  Anne seconded this, adding, “Harry, your Mixed Role Productions calendars are here, too. You’re behind this year. Usually you order them in July.”

  “July?” Raynell asked, having joined the others at the counter. “Why order a calendar in July?”

  Harry replied, “They run August to August. And they’re eight and a quarter by five and a half inches so I can’t overlook them. See? Perfect size. If I order them in July they arrive in time for August.”

  She removed shrink-wrap from the black-covered calendar with silver lettering that read 2017–2018, then demonstrated. “Big squares for each month, and then the days for the month are on lined pages, three days to a page. There’s a monthly financial record, too. A special occasions page is opposite the month at a glance. I got hooked. Here. Merry Christmas.”

  “Harry, I can’t take your calendar,” Lisa demurred.

  “I always order extras. You use it for a month and you’ll get hooked, too. And they aren’t expensive, which is the best part.”

  Lisa took the light green–covered calendar offered her; they came in many colors. “Thank you.”

  Harry examined Lisa’s books, read the titles on the spines. “Let’s see, Architecture in Richmond before 1800. Birding books and books on dinosaurs. Are you bringing them back? Nature First isn’t bringing them back, are you? Have you found some DNA?”

  “Funny you should bring that up. I believe the day will come when that happens. Look at the uproar over that perfectly preserved mastodon,” Lisa replied.

  “No need to dig. Those are in the Senate,” Harry kidded.

  “If you only knew some of the people we have to work with in the House of Delegates. They don’t read. They deny what they don’t know. They love to exercise their little bit of power. You’d think they would at least read history and political theory. I always hope the level of intelligence is higher in Washington.”

  “Oh, Lisa, I think the results speak for themselves.” Harry shrugged.

  Raynell, close to Lisa’s age, piped up. “They deny climate change. They fail to realize how significant the architecture is in parts of Richmond. It’s maddening to work with such limited people. All they think about is their next election.”

  “You’re right about that,” Lisa agreed as she closed the book about architecture. “There aren’t many really old buildings left since Richmond was burned in 1865. A few. They are so beautiful. The new stuff, not so much. But the scarcity means we must protect them, the detail alone on some of these structures is beautiful.”

  “Marvella Lawson, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts power, has promised to take me to look at some of the newer things, including those under construction,” Harry said.

  “We fought the demolition of the Kushner Building,” Raynell said. “Didn’t do a bit of good. Big money. These tall buildings can interfere with nesting and the lights at night confuse migrating birds. Big money doesn’t care about anything but more profit.”

  “Richmond doesn’t have a good development plan. Charlottesville is even worse.” Lisa sighed. “I’m beginning to think they hire the architect who will build the ugliest thing ever, like the giant pickle in London.”

  “That is pretty awful,” Harry agreed. “I always think the English know better and now they are as bad as everyone else. Old London was so much prettier than New London.”

  “Well, they’ve mucked up Philadelphia, too. That used to be such a unique environment. Now it looks like every other city.” Raynell’s voice carried a hint of venom.

  “Are you from Philadelphia?” Harry asked.

  “I went to Swarthmore.”

  “Ah, good school.”

  “Where did you go, Harry?” Raynell asked.

  “Smith.”

  That more or less settled the college discussion. It’s hard to beat one of the Seven Sisters. But Anne thought otherwise.

  “Well, I went to Denison.” Anne beamed at Harry. “Not Ivy League but I am proud of my alma mater.”

  “Back to Richmond.” Lisa tapped the architecture books. “It’s estimated that four hundred thousand people will move to the city in the next ten years. Where are we going to put them so they won’t destroy natural habitats?”

  “How about on riverboats?” Harry remarked.

  “Why would anyone live on a boat?” Pewter, tired of being in the store, grumbled.

  “Maybe they like to fish.” Tucker was practical.

  “Houseboats can be pretty,” Mrs. Murphy said. “Remember that old movie Harry and Fair watched? Houseboat. ”

  “Hollywood.” Pewter sniffed. “Of course the boat looked good. They need to make more movies about cats.”

  Slyly, Tucker responded, “I’m sure they’re planning that right now.”

  Pewter bared her fangs. Harry saw it just in time. “Don’t you dare. I’ll never bring you in this store again.”

  “Bother.” But Pewter did close her mouth.

  Anne put a bow on the large paper bag. “Here. You can reuse it.” She handed it to Lisa.

  “I can.”

  “I don’t see any presents for me,” Pewter complained.

  “You don’t read,” the corgi fired at her.

  “You can’t read. At least I can.” The fat gray cat sniffed.

  “Oh, patting at the pages of a book or the computer screen isn’t reading,” Tucker replied.

  That fast, Pewter boxed the corgi’s upright ears. “Don’t you insult me, you illiterate cur.”

  “Stop it. We’ll get thrown out of the store. I like it here,” Mrs. Murphy told them.

  Both Harry and Lisa carried their treasures in large shopping bags. Harry followed Lisa and Raynell to the Nature First office down the hall from Over the Moon, as they were both located in a new commercial building.

  “Hello, Felipe,” Lisa called to the number two man in the organization.

  Looking up from his computer, he said, “What a haul. You must have bought out the store. You, too, Raynell, but you showed a little more restraint. Oh, hello, Harry, and your posse, too.” He smiled at the pets.

  “I’m here!” A nine-week-old Irish wolfhound puppy, already substantial, raced out from Lisa’s office.

  Pewter puffed up. “Don’t touch me!”

  The puppy stopped cold.

  “Just ignore her,” Tucker counseled the youngster. “Who are you?”

  “Pirate. Lisa bought me and she is taking me to work but I have to be quiet and I have to ask to go to the bathroom.”

  “Good idea,” commented Mrs. Murphy, who knew how big the Irish wolfhound would grow to be.

  Harry set her bag on a corner table, knelt down. “Hello, puppy. Aren’t you beautiful.”

  Pirate ambled right over, placed his head
in Harry’s hand. “You are a nice person. And you’re walking with Lisa, you have to be a nice person. I start school after Christmas. I have a new collar and leash.”

  “Lisa, he’s beautiful. When did you decide to have a dog?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. I live alone. I like dogs but I was always on the go. Now that I’m settled I thought this is the time. Well, come on, let me show you what Gary’s done.”

  Raynell ducked into a small office near the front door.

  The two walked through the changes Gary had made, which mostly involved moving or angling walls. Clever. His alterations brought in more light, taking full advantage of the many windows in the new building. Although an architect, he also guided Lisa and Felipe to interesting furniture, comfortable chairs in natural colors. Gorgeous photographs of Virginia’s wonders covered the walls: the falls in Richmond, the Chesapeake Bay, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the bridges of Norfolk and Virginia Beach that ran over to the long spit of land, the Eastern Shore. The combination of bridges and tunnels traversing the bay were an engineering wonder. Then again, Virginia was home to one of the Eight Engineering Wonders of the World, the four tunnels that Claudius Crozet dug out of the Blue Ridge Mountains for the new form of transportation, railroads. He had no dynamite. It was all done by hand. Two of the tunnels remained in service. The other two were being reclaimed and rehabilitated as part of a walking tour. Another large photograph of a bald eagle soaring over the James River, sun glistening off his wings, had pride of place when you walked into Lisa’s office.

  “This is wonderful,” Harry exclaimed.

  “We’re almost done. Gary wants to come make sure the cabinets fit in. You simply touch the front of them and they open.”

  “No kidding.” Harry reached out, pressed the front and sure enough the cabinet opened noiselessly.

  “They’re enameled. That was expensive but it looks fabulous,” Lisa enthused.

  “Do you like puppies?” Pirate asked Mrs. Murphy.

  “I do as long as you don’t slobber on me,” the tiger answered.

  “Puppies are disgusting. They poop, they pee, they slobber, they throw up, they chew. Ugh!” Pewter bared her fangs.

  “Ignore her,” Tucker again told the puppy.

  “Do you live with her?” Pirate wondered.

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  “You would be bored without me. Bored to tears. You have no new thoughts. You rely on me.” Pewter lifted a paw to lick it, languidly.

  “What about the other kitty?” the large puppy inquired.

  “We’re friends.” Tucker smiled as Mrs. Murphy came over to sit with the corgi while the humans babbled on.

  Lisa was showing Harry her revitalized office. Sleek, the only knickknacks were little rubber dinosaurs and some detailed decoys.

  The bookshelves, also enameled, reflected light. Behind a row of dinosaur and raptor books two long black legs poked out. Harry, ever curious, peeked behind the books, jumped back.

  “Lifelike! What’s a rubber tarantula doing here?”

  “I actually had Mildred, I call her Mildred, on the shelf, but Raynell hates spiders, so I sort of hid her.”

  “I hate spiders, too,” Pewter pronounced.

  Pirate asked, “Why?”

  “Too many legs. If you walk into a web it takes time to clean it off. Those strands are sticky,” Pewter said.

  “Oh.” The big-little puppy, wide-eyed, looked at the fat cat, who was always happy to be the authority.

  Harry, now back at the entrance door, knelt to again pet the puppy. “Lisa, the best friends come on four feet.”

  “I believe it.”

  “Bye,” Tucker and Mrs. Murphy said to the puppy while Pewter strolled out in front of everyone.

  “Come back. We can play!” Pirate wagged his tail.

  “We’ll try. Wish we could drive.” Mrs. Murphy laughed.

  “Merry Christmas, Lisa. Merry Christmas, Felipe and Raynell.”

  “You, too,” they called back.

  The four hurried to Harry’s Volvo station wagon as it began to sleet, now turning to snow. The precipitation wasn’t heavy but it was cold. Harry wanted to get home before the roads turned slick as an eel.

  “Turn on the heater,” Pewter demanded.

  “She will. You have a fur coat. She doesn’t,” Tucker reminded the fatty.

  “Humans lack fur, claws, sharp teeth. They are so slow. I mean they can’t run. Hearing, pfft. But their eyes are good.” Pewter added something positive.

  “Look at it this way, Pewter. She can use the can opener. We can’t,” Mrs. Murphy said.

  “There is that,” Pewter agreed as the snow fell a bit more heavily.

  2

  December 27, 2016

  Tuesday

  An earlier dusting of snow reflected the small round lights of various colors, strung from shops. The shopkeepers were upbeat. Even the Salvation Army bell ringers were smiling. With New Year’s around the corner more sales could be expected. Bargain hunters walked briskly from shop to shop in the small Crozet downtown, more like a crossroads, really.

  Bending over an old, lovely, much-used large drafting table, Harry noticed the flow of people outside the storefront windows of Gardner’s Design. The shop, marked by a compass over a T-square painted on its hanging sign, was next to the well-lit art shop, and provided good parking, which was always a problem as the old stores had been built close to the road. The no-longer-used railroad station, originally the draw for business, still stood by the tracks.

  Gary Gardner, trim white mustache, in his early sixties, bent over the table. Large sheets of paper were held down by tiny sandbags and his T-square, which was affixed to the top of the drafting table.

  “Harry, if you’d just give me the word, I would create La Petite Trianon for you. Imagine working in such divine surroundings? You might even decide to keep sheep.” He tapped her hand with a pencil.

  “Gary, I’d need to wear a bonnet. That would never do. For one thing, the cats would destroy the ribbons.”

  Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, sitting on the floor, quickly defended themselves. “Never!”

  Tucker saw her moment. “Ha. Then they’d chew the straw.”

  “You’d herd the sheep. You’d create more havoc than we would.” Pewter curled her lip.

  “My job is to herd,” the corgi responded with pride.

  “Well, our job is to dispatch vermin. How do you know mice won’t make a nest in a big bonnet when it’s not on Harry’s head? Think what might happen when she’d tie the bonnet on her head?” Mrs. Murphy sounded perfectly serious.

  “No Trianon?” Gary’s eyebrows shot upward. “Harry, you disappoint me, but only a little. Your workshed, as you can see, has two large rooms, plenty of space to use the long desk against the wall, lots of windows and skylights for natural light, and an across-the-wall pegboard. You can hang up everything.”

  “That is useful.”

  “And you’re sure you aren’t going to buy a band saw?”

  “No. I don’t want to use gas- or electrical-powered tools. They’re too fast for me. Know what I mean? I’d rather do it the old way.”

  “The eighteenth-century way.” He grinned at her.

  “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” She shrugged and then looked at his one wall, built-in bookcases that he had designed, identical squares, bursting with books. “Have you read all those books?”

  “I have but I’ve had decades to do so.”

  “What about those boxes on the bottom, the ones that look like fat old books? My father used to have those file boxes, as I recall,” she asked.

  “Building codes for the counties where I’ve designed a house or a barn. I can fit two per square as you see. Breaks up the visual monotony. Every file box is a year. You’d be surprised how often those codes are changed. Of course now you can download them, but I do prefer the files.”

  “Do you have the codes from when you worked for Rankin Construction?”<
br />
  Rankin Construction was a large, third-generation company in Richmond. They had started before World War One and changed with the times. Now they built high-rises, stripped old tobacco warehouses, made pricey condominiums as well as office buildings.

  “Yes, up until I left thirty years ago. I’m sure Rankin has kept everything.”

  “Did you like working on those large projects? You never talk about them.”

  “Well, I like architecture, old and new materials. I like efficiency and soundness. And Rankin is a good company but as it grew and grew, more and more layers of people meddled with my work. More and more building inspectors at every phase of the project. I learned to hate it so I packed up, moved here, and took my chances.”

  “You certainly hit the top. Your homes are featured in all those glossy magazines.”

  “Harry, I am just as happy creating the perfect work space for a good woman as I am putting together a two-million-dollar showplace. Why anyone wants to live in something like that is beyond me but hey, the commissions are good.”

  “You have sure helped us a lot with those old school buildings, and we are keeping the name, too, ‘The Colored School.’ I think it’s important to be truthful.”

  “Me, too. Working with Tazio Chappars is a joy,” he said, referring to a young architect who was making her way in the world to whom he was a mentor.

  Dazzling Tazio, half Italian and half African American, took the best from both. She was also a person with a big heart. In a snowstorm years ago she had rescued a yellow Lab youngster abandoned and starving. Like most people she had no intention of owning a dog, and a big dog at that. But Tazio and Brinkley were a happy part of Crozet. If you saw one you saw the other.

  Harry nodded. “She is talented, isn’t she?”

  “Very. Talented and practical, my two favorite qualities. Okay.” He pointed back to his drawings, hand drawn. “The fireplace in the corner will heat the building up once the fire is going, but I suggest a small propane fireplace in the opposite corner diagonally kept on a low flame. Your pipes won’t freeze.”

  “What pipes?”

  “The pipes for your bathroom.”