Poppy is, though.
When Angus asked for volunteers to help deworm Snow White and Baashful, two parasite-riddled ewes, Poppy eagerly raised her manicured hand. She didn’t even flinch when Angus pulled out a large curved wicked looking syringe/medieval torture device.
“I really don’t mind the messy bits,” she said, rolling up her sleeves.
If you had told me a week ago that Prada Poppy Worthington of the exclusive Worthington Boutique Hotels, the woman who shagged Tristan Kent and Britain’s hot-hot-hot multimedia titan, would be up to her elbows in sheep excrement and intestinal worms, I would have thought you were Mad Cow Disease-crazy. As bloody wrong as it sounds, she is in her element.
In the afternoon, while the others are getting hot stone massages and lanolin wraps, I interview Fiona for my GoGirl! column. I have decided to write two sidebars to run alongside my column—one about how Fiona, an American woman with no experience in animal husbandry, is succeeding in a male-dominated business in macho Scotland. I want to focus on the practical side of moving to a foreign country—what it’s like to be an expat, living and working abroad. I thought it would appeal to my career-minded readers.
The second sidebar is for my romance-minded readers. Filled with overblown language and poetic waxings about the rugged landscape, the sidebar will be about Fiona’s big gamble, how she gave up a well-paying career to follow her heart to Scotland, and how it led her to the love of her life, Angus.
After my interview with Fiona, I return to the cottage eager to begin writing my column. I am typing my notes on my MacBook when Fanny knocks on my door.
“Wanna give your Wellies a little workout?”
“That depends,” I say, frowning. “What were you thinking?”
For those of you who aren’t yet proficient in Fanny-speak, “a little workout” could mean anything from a bucolic hike through the heather to a thirty-mile march wearing a sixty-pound rucksack, reminiscent of the Baatan Death March.
“Juste une petite promenade,” she says, smiling innocently.
“Just a little stroll,” I repeat in English, narrowing my gaze. “You don’t fool me, Emperor Hirohito. I know all about your little strolls.”
Fanny laughs.
Despite all of the good-natured teasing she’s given me, my best friend hasn’t been herself this trip. She’s looked rawther glum, as Poppy might say. It’s time I get out of my head and into Fanny’s.
“Let’s do this thing.” I close my MacBook, shove my feet into my Wellies, and grab my iPhone. “It will give me some time to get the 4-1-1 on what’s been happening in your life lately.”
* * * *
We climb up a wooden A-frame ladder over the fence separating the grazing land from the cottages and begin a slow, steady hike toward a distant pap. My boots sink into the wet, spongy ground, with each step and make satisfying schloop-schlooping noises as I lift them out of the muck. I attempt to leap from one soggy patch of what passes as grass in the Highlands to another soggy patch, miss, and land in a boggy pool, the brackish water nearly spilling over the tops of my tall Wellies.
“Woo-hoo! This is way more fun than puddle stomping!”
Fanny chuckles. “Does that mean you want to climb to the top of that pap?” She points to a craggy mountain looming in the distance.
I stop leaping. I knew it! Didn’t I tell you the little Emperor would try to turn this into a death march?
“Nope,” I say, lifting my boot out of the primordial muck. “It most certainly does not mean I want to build you a railroad over the River Kwai.”
“What?” Fanny laughs. “What does that even mean?”
I should be accustomed to my best friend’s gross ignorance when it comes to movie trivia, but sometimes it still gobsmacks me. I stop walking and stare at Fanny.
“Bridge on the River Kwai?”
She shrugs.
“Sir Alex Guiness and William Holden?”
Fanny stares blankly. I might as well be speaking German or Spanish, except that Fanny speaks those languages, too.
“Academy Award-winning movie about World War II British prisoners of war at a Japanese prison camp who are forced to build a bridge through the jungle and over the River Kwai. Epic film.”
I begin whistling the iconic “Whistle Song” from the movie and march with my arms swinging at my sides. Fanny marches beside me, but doesn’t join in on the whistling.
“Wait a minute!” She stops marching. “Did you just compare me to a prison camp warden?”
I stop whistling and stare blankly.
“Nice, Vivian!”
“I was just kidding.” I resume marching. “You are not a prison warden.”
“I’m not!”
“You’re not.”
Fanny double steps until she catches up to me. “Am I really a warden?”
“You might be the teensiest, tiniest—”
“What?”
Bless her little French heart. She genuinely sounds bemused.
“—wardenish.”
“Wardenish? Is that even a word?”
I shake my head.
“So what does that mean—wardenish?”
I look at her sideways. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Oui.”
“Because you’re not really good with negative feedback.”
“Vivian! Just tell me.”
“Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, you are—”
“Controlling? Exacting? Judgmental? Mean?”
“Wow!” I look at her full-on. “I was going to say exhaustingly competitive. Where’s all this coming from?”
Fanny shrugs and looks away.
“Uh-uh! I don’t think so. Out with it, Stéphanie Moreau. Who said you were controlling, exacting, and judgmental?”
“And mean. Don’t forget mean.”
Up ahead, there’s an upcropping of flat-topped boulders covered in lichen. I walk over to one of the boulders, brush the fuzzy green top with my hand, have a seat, and motion for Fanny sit across from me.
“What’s up, girl? Talk to me.”
Fanny climbs up on the boulder. She’s so short; her legs dangle like she’s a toddler in a highchair. With her sad basset hound eyes and pouty lips, I’ve never seen her look more vulnerable than she does right now.
Fanny takes a jagged breath and begins filling me in on her situation—the real sitch, not the fake-upbeat-because-we-only-have-a-few-minutes-to-talk bullshit she’s been giving me. She tells me the real deal about her new job as a Division Manager for Christian Dior Boutiques—how she had to fire a popular boutique manager for failing to uphold the company’s exacting standards and put another manager on probation because she didn’t “possess a strong enough knowledge of the luxury industry.”
Fanny has been obsessed with Christian Dior—even repeating the couturier’s quotes like mantras—since she was five years old, when her well-intentioned but hopelessly inept father gave her a diamond Dior flower brooch; so it is shocking to hear her dream job is turning out to be disillusioning.
“I spend a preponderance of my time assigning monthly sales goals, motivating my team to reach said goals, and disciplining boutique managers who fail to reach said goals.” Fanny scratches the lichen with her fingernail. “My boutique managers hate me. They say I am too driven, that I am more concerned with sales goals than sales girls. One even told me I have a cash register where my heart should be.”
“What an assjack!” I hop off down off my boulder and go to sit beside my best friend. “That’s just bullshit. Don’t let a couple of bitter burnt-out people steal your sunshine, girlfriend. You worked damned hard to get hired at Dior, and now you feel like you have to work doubly-hard to prove you’re worthy of the shot. I get it.”
“I guess.”
She sniffs and quickly wipes her eyes before a tear falls.
“It’s not true, Fanny.” I wrap my arm around her shoulder and give her
a good squeeze. “You don’t have a cash register inside your chest; you have a big, generous, loving heart. You’re the most generous person I know.”
“Pfft.”
“Don’t you ‘pfft’ me!” I give her shoulders another squeeze. “Who called every single one of my wedding guests after Nathan ended our engagement? Who talked me into taking my honeymoon anyway? Who held my hair back when I was vomiting up a bad burrito and a pitcher of pineapple mango margaritas?”
“Me.”
“And who just flew halfway around the world to help her best friend shovel sheep shit?”
“Me.”
“Abso-bloody-lutely!”
“Okay, that word has to go”—Fanny laughs and wipes her cheek again—“along with boffing, freaking, and discombobulate.”
“Oh, no, you didn’t!” I snap my fingers and bob my head. “You can criticize my Prada knock-off; you can criticize my abysmal bike riding skills, but don’t you dare diss my lingo. Freaking and discombobulate are sacrosanct, yo?”
“Yo? This new urban, street thug Vivia is freaking me out.”
“Ah-ha!” I snap my fingers again and point. “You see? Keep it real, sistah. You know you like throwing down a freaking every now and then.”
Fanny laughs but the shadows in her eyes remain.
“What else?”
Fanny inhales deeply, holds the breath for several seconds, and lets it go in a slow, measured exhalation. When she finally speaks again, it is in a soft paper-thin voice.
“I feel like I am lost at sea, adrift with no rudder or sail. I feel…like I have no purpose, no direction.” She picks at the lichen with her fingernail again, avoiding eye contact. “You have this awesome job that lets you travel the world. You rub elbows with royalty and celebrities, make friends everywhere you go, have romantic trysts with your hopelessly devoted boyfriend. Meanwhile, I am selling over-priced handbags to blue-haired society matrons and then going home to my empty apartment to eat take-out sushi while standing over the sink.”
I let my best friend drain her festering wound.
“I sound jealous, don’t I?”
“Ach, aye.” I try to mimic Angus’s thick brogue in an attempt to lighten her mood. “Maybe a wee bit, woman.”
Fanny just smiles at me, a sad smile that twists my heart into painful knots. I hate it when someone I love is in pain or struggling. I want to fix it, put a Band-Aid over it, make it better with a joke, but some pains go deep and require more to heal than a laugh.
I hug Fanny and tell her that she’s not out on that ocean alone, that I am sailing right beside her.
“I won’t let you drift too far for too long.” I hop down off the boulder. “If you don’t like the path you’ve charted, chart a new one. I’ll help you.”
“Thanks, Vivian.”
“It ain’t nothin’ but a thang, girl. You know what I’m sayin’? I got your six, ’cuz you’re my Hype Girl.”
“Yeah, I have no idea what you just said, and it’s not because English is my second language.”
“Basically, I said I will always be here for you because you are my best friend.”
“So Hype Girl means best friend?”
“It means you are the Ethel to my Lucy, the Woodstock to my Snoopy, the Tonto to my Lone Ranger.”
“Okay,” Fanny laughs. “I don’t know who any of those people are, Vivian.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, walking back in the direction of the cottage. “It just means I am glad you’ve decided to ride shotgun on this wild ride that is my life.”
* * * *
We are on our way back down the hill to the cabin when we find an obese sheep lying on his back, skinny legs up in the air, tongue lolling out of its mouth.
“Ohmygod!” I stop walking and stare at the sheep writhing around. “I think that’s one of Fiona’s expensive black faced breeding sheep.”
The sheep rolls to one side, jerks its legs, rolls back.
“Why is it doing that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it is having a seizure.”
“Or maybe that’s just the way sheep sleep.” Fanny keeps walking. “Come on, let’s just go.”
“I don’t think so…” I step closer to the poor beast. “His eyes are rolled back in his head and his tongue is purplish. I think he’s dying.”
“I don’t think he is dying, Vivian.”
“Yes!” I cry, jumping up and down and shaking my hands. “He’s dying! Oh my God, Fanny, he’s dying. We have to do something.”
“What? Sheep CPR?”
“I can’t just stand here and let this sheep die.”
Before I even realize I’ve formed a plan, I am running down the side of the hill as fast as my Wellies will take me, arms waving like a demented person.
“Angus! Angus!”
I step on a squishy, boggy patch of grass, twist my ankle, and fall flat on my face. I hop right back up, ignoring the stabbing pain in my ankle, and continue racing down the hill.
“Ang-guuuuuus!”
Angus and the Magic Mike crew come out of the barn and stare up the hill at me.
“Angus,” I cry, waving my arms again. “Help! Your sheep is dyyyyyyying.”
The Scots don’t move. They stand with their brawny arms crossed over their brawny chests.
What is the matter with them? There is a life-threatening emergency going on and they’re just gawking like those people who slow down when they are passing an accident on the road.
When I finally reach the barnyard, I am covered in mud and sheep shit, dripping bog water, and wheezing like an accordion. I press my hand to my side and bend over.
“Breathe, woman!”
I stand up again, but continue to hold my aching side. By now, the entire group of Chick Trippers has assembled around us.
“Your sheep,” I gasp and point wildly up the hill. “I think it’s having a seizure.”
The brawny Scots don’t flinch. Their expressions remain as flat as lichen-covered standing stones…in fact, the hulking Scots look like a circle of standing stones.
“What sheep?” Angus asks.
“One of your big black-faced rams,” I say, grabbing his arm and attempting to pull him up the hill. “He’s on his back, writhing in agony. His tongue is out and his eyes have rolled back in his head. I think he’s dying.”
“Is he in a ditch by an auld shed?”
“Yes.”
“Ach! That’s just auld Torcach.”
The Scots slap Angus on the back, the way men do when they mean to convey deep sympathy to one of their brethren, and walk back to the barn, chuckling and murmuring in Gaelic.
“What does that mean?” I remember what old Torcach looked like with his fat tongue hanging out of his mouth and I begin to cry. “He’s old so you are just going to let him die up there?”
“That’s just cruel,” Lisa murmurs.
“Ageist,” Kathy cries.
“Lassies, please.” Angus raises his hands. “He’s nae dying.”
“Why is he on his back then?”
“The mangy beast falls, and he’s so fat he cannae get up.”
I suddenly see the old Life Alert commercial with the elderly woman sprawled out on the floor, calling out for help. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
“Maybe you need to get him a Life Alert bracelet.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Angus scowls before turning to go back into the barn.
“Wait.” I grab his arm again. “Aren’t you going to do something?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug, looking helplessly at my female compatriots for support. “Something.”
“Flip him back over,” Lisa suggests.
“Or, I don’t know,” Tava cracks. “Maybe fill in the hole so he doesn’t keep falling into it?”
“Or just let him die because he’s old and no longer use
ful.” Kathy mutters. “Ageist.”
“Please, Angus.” I tug on his arm again. “Please.”
“Dinna fash yourself, Vivia, auld Torcach will put himself to rights, or he’ll fall asleep.”
“That’s cruel!” I imagine the old ram being torn apart limb from twitching limb by a pack of rabid coyotes. “Please, Angus. Please don’t leave him up there, alone and vulnerable. It’s going to be dark soon. What if another animal comes along and attacks him?”
Angus scowls, but the twinkle in his eye tells me the bluster is for show, so he doesn’t lose any of his gruff Scot street cred.
“Fine.”
The Chick Trippers applaud as Angus stomps off to assist his old, half-blind, obese sheep. He passes Fanny on his way up the hill.
Ka-ching! You hear that? I just deposited another coin in my Karma Bank, and it’s about time I get a little something-something back.
Chapter 21
Hitting It Hard
I return to our cottage as high as Wiz Khalifa, which, I assume, is a natural side-effect of flying down a mountain like a superhero to rescue a sheep in distress. I don’t care what Angus said—dinnea fash yourself, lassie—poor, old Torcach would have died up on that mountain if not for my intervention.
“You saved that sheep,” Fanny says.
“Boo-yah!” I punch the air over my head with my fist. “Yes, I did!”
“Easy, Wondergirl” Fanny laughs. “You’re flinging mud all around the kitchen.”
I plop down on the wooden bench by the kitchen door, shrug out of my wet rain slicker, and kick my Wellies off. Clumps of mud fall onto the slate floor.
“I am going to take a shower”—I stand and drop my pink wooly cap onto my rain slicker—“and when I am done, do you want to go into town and hit that chocolate store Fiona mentioned?”
“Chocolate? After our hike?”
“Shyeah! We’ve got to add a little weight on the calorie scale—just to keep things balanced.”
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