“RUTH TROTTER-HYPHEN-SCHAEFFER, UP AND at ’em peanut butter. We’re hyphen outta here in something like fifteen minutes.” Mealie Marsh stood at the bottom of the stairs, sharpening her voice like an axe on a whetstone. “Time waits for no man and precious few women.”
It was Tuesday morning. Flossy and Mealie were already on their second cup of coffee. She came back to the table.
“She unpacked yet?” Mealie asked in a low voice.
Flossy shook her head.
Ruth shuffled into the kitchen a few minutes later, stretching and rubbing her eyes.
“Mornin’,” she said.
“Sleep well?” Flossy asked.
“’Til now,” she replied, glancing warily at Mealie. She reached down to rub Oscar Wilde’s ears. “I’d prefer Dash,” she said, nudging Mealie’s foot with her bare toe.
“Unh?” Mealie turned one corner of the paper down, pulled her chin in and looked up at her over the top of her half-glasses.
“Trotter-Dash-Schaeffer,” she said.
“Okay with me,” said Mealie. “Then, we’ll be dashing outta here in …,” she checked her watch, “eleven minutes.”
“Why?”
From behind the newspaper, Mealie replied, “Why is not in question.”
Ruth stood in the middle of the kitchen thinking about that. “Where, then?” she asked.
“My Life Studies class, at ten, with the most gorgeous body either side of Cobequid Bay.” By now Ruth had seated herself at the table before an empty bowl and a glass of orange juice. She was shaking cereal into her dish when her eyes suddenly opened. She sat forward and looked at Mealie.
“Nuuuude!” Mealie crooned, one eyebrow reaching up.
Ruth’s cereal dribbled over the side of the bowl. She picked up two Shreddies and put them into her mouth.
“These are for you.” Mealie pushed a sketchpad and a set of charcoal pencils in a wooden case towards her.
“Really?” The young woman opened the pencils as she munched on the cereal. She looked from them to Mealie then Flossy. “But I can’t draw.”
“Who said?” Mealie scowled.
“Oh, you won’t want to miss Peter, dear.” Flossy leaned towards her confidentially, “He’s …,” she paused for a moment, stretching for the right word, then, in a low voice, murmured, “extraordinary.”
“A man?” Ruth scratched her saffron crown, focussing now on Flossy. “Are you coming?” the words tumbled out.
“Oh, no, no, I’ll wait to see your work.” Noting the puzzlement drifting into the young woman’s eyes, Flossy added from the perch of her yellow chair, “There are some appreciations, Ruth, that time doth not wither.”
“One just gets over talking about ’em,” Mealie added from behind the newsprint.
A suppressed smile drifted slowly across Ruth’s face as she looked from Flossy to Mealie and down to her bowl of cereal.