16
Fremont Fest
There’s nothing like a good root beer float to perk you right up. Or to take your mind off an approaching insolvency crisis. George and Nan were never quite sure what it was that set Peter Sunset’s Brew apart from so many other plenty-tasty root beers.
There were three varieties—Honey Calm, Greased Wheels, and Yellow Jacket. George and Nan stocked up on all three, though their personal favorite was Yellow Jacket. It had that bite that left you shaking your head and extremities involuntarily after each quaffed draft. Toss in a couple of gobs of Sandy-town coffee/vanilla ice cream, and the buttery-rich semi-soft chocolate chunks mixed with nuts made locally by the Wasserman sisters, and you had a confectionary delight that would send you soaring heavenward.
George and Nan made their first floats. Why stand on politeness and wait for the first guests to arrive? They then toasted each other on the successful preparations for the fifth annual FremontFest, their neighborhood fete held on whatever Saturday coincided with Nan’s or George’s birthday—July 1 and 7, respectively—or, barring that, on the Saturday that came between those two dates.
Guests were arriving. Here came those wonderful contrarians, Mitzi and Howard “Frip” Rodard. George and Nan chuckled watching them walk up the steps toward the patio, chattering away, contradicting each other, no doubt, at every step. They rose from their chairs to meet their first guests and lifted their frothy-topped plastic cups to them in salute.
“Root beer floats again, no doubt,” said Frip. “Don’t you folks ever change your routine?”
“What routine?” said Mitzi. “There’s no root beer routine. The routine around this place is wine, wine, and more wine, and gin, gin, and more gin. Root beer’s non-alcoholic the last I heard. And at least it gives them a chance to steer away from incipient alcoholism.” George and Nan smiled as they gestured to the tapped kegs of root beer and ice-packed cartons of ice cream.
“What!” said Frip. “Are you implying that George and Nan are alcoholics? Well, that’s not a very gracious way of greeting your hosts.”
“I’m implying nothing of the sort,” Mitzi said. “I’m saying it outright.” George and Nan drained their root beer floats with moans of satisfaction. “See what I mean? Listen to that. We’re consorting with people who are instant-gratification, pleasure-seeking malachites.”
“Malachites?” said Frip.
“Malachites.”
“Ha-ha. I don’t think that’s the word you intended to use. You mean sybarites.”
“It is exactly the word I intended to use,” said Mitzi, turning for support to George and Nan, who just shrugged as they headed back to the kegs for refills. “What’s so funny?”
“You are,” said Frip. “You’re what’s so funny with your malapropisms.”
“My what?”
“Your mal-a-prop-isms. Usage of the wrong words, usually with comic effect.”
“How dare you hold me up for ridicule! How dare you! My own husband! And in front of our dearest friends!” Here came George and Nan charging to the rescue, handing Frip and Mitzi root beer floats smoking and bubbling with foamy goodness.
“Ah, just what the doctor ordered,” said Frip after a long, head-tipping draft. “Do your stuff, magic brew!”
“What magic?” said Mitzi. “No such thing as magic.”
George and Nan sighed contentedly. They were accustomed to this Rodard routine, and, in the presence of the right crowd, it was quite harmless. Frip and Mitzi had been married as long as they had—twenty-three years. They had been married on exactly the same day, in the same year, in the same city, at churches two blocks apart, and had never even come close to divorcing as far as George and Nan could tell. Indeed, each one’s contradictory nature seemed to complement the other’s, strengthening the bonds of their union. Had one of them been cooing, agreeable, and ceaselessly pleasant and deferential, the marriage wouldn’t have lasted three months.
“It’s just an expression, dear,” Frip said. “A manner of speaking.”
Mitzi shook with contrarian ire, then knocked down a big slug of root beer.
“Ah,” she went, wiping the foam off her mouth with the back of her hand. “This has got to be the best root beer float I’ve ever tasted.”
“I would suppose,” said Frip. “Considering how this is the only place you’ve ever tasted root beer floats, and the last time you would have tasted one was right here, almost exactly a year ago, which is to say at this same FremontFest celebration.”
At this point, George and Nan were laughing out loud. Mitzi and Frip, baffled, stared at them. Then, in unison, they took long, Adam’s-apple-bouncing draws from their cups. A couple of car doors slammed shut. George and Nan could see new cars parked along the Payne Avenue curb. Figures were making their way toward the patio. Some of them were approaching in a civilized manner up the pea gravel steps. Others baldly traipsed up the slope of the yard itself. Mitzi and Frip would have to find a new audience for their contrariness now. Within an hour, they would be stomping back down the steps toward home, having offended at least a dozen people and making their continued presence at FremontFest untenable.
Here were the Mikkelsons, warily ascending the steps. Their faces were etched with concerns that trickled up from some deep, unfathomable well of inexplicable woe. Deanne was carrying their ten-month-old, Sievert, Jr., as if he were a bundle of jeweled Fabergé eggs.
The Mikkelsons, modest and quiet folk even in the most engaging of circumstances, approached with solemn deliberation.
“How nice of you to come! And here’s little baby Sievert. How are you, little baby?” Nan cooed and played with baby Sievert’s wrinkled fingers as he did nothing but look down forlornly at the cement patio. A true Mikkelson, thought Nan; no need to worry about true parentage here.
“How’s it going there, Sievert?” said George, pounding Sievert’s shoulder in a show of excessive camaraderie he always thought necessary to bring the shy chap out of his shell.
“Okay, doing okay,” said Sievert with a meek smile.
“Well, that’s great, Sievert, just great. Gee whiz, this is you guys’ first time here at FremontFest, isn’t it? Well, there’s pulled pork sandwiches and lots of chips, and snacks, and some fruit over there. We’ve also got our patented root beer floats, and you’re welcome to indulge yourself. Right over there are the kegs and taps. Plastic cups, spoons, and napkins on the table, and there’s the ice cream. We had to pack it hard in ice on a warm day like this. It’ll stay cold and hard for a couple more hours.”
Sievert nodded, and tried hard to smile. He leaned close to George.
“You don’t happen to have some of that special wine of yours lying around, do you?”
George squinted and knitted his brow. “Special wine? Now what special wine is that?”
Sievert looked distressed. “Don’t you remember?” he whispered. “That special wine made from coast-of-Oregon grapes? So strong that you don’t really notice how strong it is? And the amazing thing, it doesn’t make you sick or act like a complete drunken fool?”
George couldn’t remember how long it had been since the Mikkelsons had asked for their “special wine,” though no one could forget their introduction to it. He smiled at the recollection of that first encounter. The introverted Mikkelsons had become alarmingly drunk, boisterous, and, even threatening on that day he and Nan had invited them up to the patio for a glass of Sagelands. After they’d glugged down three filled-to-the-brim servings, then demanded—yes, demanded!—more, George had been forced to improvise for the sake of everyone’s safety. He had switched them over to Cranberry PowerPressPlus, Cullen’s power drink, and pretended it was wine so potent that it didn’t even taste like ordinary wine. Advertised as having “three times the caffeine and twice the sugar of a regular Coke,” it had made the Mikkelsons rambunctious, but saved them from what could have been an ugly scene that day.
“Hmmm, well, we might have some left. But you know, Sievert, this is a non-alcoholic event. We don’t want you and Deanne running naked through the woods and leaving little Sievert Junior to be eaten by raccoons and opossums. Ha-ha!”
Sievert blushed and looked down at his sneakers, which George noticed were decorated with pictures of babies in cowboy and astronaut outfits.
“You know that wine doesn’t make you do that,” Sievert said shyly. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t dream of taking so much as a sip. What it does is make you more sociable. Don’t you remember? That’s such a good thing for us in a setting like this. And we’d like to get to know some of our neighbors a little better.”
George stroked his chin and pretended to give the matter careful consideration.
“Well, okay, I’ll see if we have some. I’ll just put it in regular cups for you so the other guests don’t come asking for it. Okay?”
Luckily, there was plenty of PowerPressPlus in the refrigerator. George emerged from the back door with two brimming cups.
“Oh, wonderful!” gushed Sievert. “You have some!”
“Yes, we do,” George said. “But this is all you get. Be very careful about mixing this with the root beer floats. I’d say limit yourself to one each. Otherwise, I’m not responsible for your behavior. And, if people ask, tell them we gave you some grape juice.”
“Yes, George, will do, though that would be telling a lie, and we’re not very good at that. In fact we’re awful at telling lies.”
“A couple sips of that and you’ll get much better. Trust me.”
Sievert marched off with the sloshing cups to Deanne, who was talking very quietly to Nan as Nan played with an unresponsive baby Sievert.
“Our special beverage,” said Sievert, holding up the cup for Deanne to inspect as if it were a gemstone of incalculable value. “You know, the one we liked so much when we used to come here.... Sorry to interrupt, Nan.”
“Oh, no,” said Nan, whose exchanges with Deanne were falling well short of anything you’d worry about interrupting. “Not at all, Sievert.”
Deanne’s eyes lit up.
“Oh, yes,” she cried. “Oh, heavens yes. Would you please hold Sievert, Jr., for me for a minute, Nan, while I take a couple of sips of your wonderful drink?”
What wonderful drink? thought Nan. She took the baby, who looked at her with a witless, uncomprehending expression, and turned toward George, who winked and smiled at her. It took ten seconds for the Mikkelsons to glug down their drinks and sigh almost orgasmically. They looked at George pleadingly.
“Oh, okay, but just one more. Our supplies aren’t limitless, you know.” The refills went down in five seconds flat.
“Watch it now,” George warned.
“Don’t worry about us,” Deanne said. “We can hold our booze, can’t we, dear?”
“Of course, sweetest. Well, newly fortified as we are, shall we go and mingle?”
“Let’s go mingle till the cows come home,” said Deanne, yanking baby Sievert back from Nan. Then, off they went, accosting everyone they came across with a surfeit of bonhomie that had the neighbors talking about them for months.
“Cranberry PowerPressPlus,” said George to Nan once the Mikkelsons had gotten out of earshot. “Turns the meek into the mighty. They needed a booster shot to be able to function here.”
Nan laughed.
“Ah, yes,” she said. “Our special Mikkelson drink. Maybe they ought to start giving that to baby Sievert.”
The yard was starting to fill up with guests. Here were the Winthrops and the McCandlesses, and such lesser, though still considerable, friends as the Davieses, the MacDonalds, the Brittles, and the LeBlancs. Some folks new to the neighborhood—the Spinozas, Jon Warneke and Geoff Beadle, the Rodriguezes, and the Singhs—were here, mostly oohing and aahing over the gardens. Jon and Geoff were showing signs of being future, though smaller-scale, competitors if they expanded what they had growing in their yard. What was there now was already beautiful—especially the resurgent peonies, which had been left in a rather dire state by the previous homeowners—though they used too much Dusty Miller in their borders. And here were the Fletchers, plowing straight through the thick underbrush tangling up the strip of woods. There was the usual complement of neighbors, barely known acquaintances from the world of education, politics, religion, and the Livia Athletic Association, and the occasional complete stranger drawn by the now-well-known glories of the Fremont gardens. In fact, the Burdick’s sign was still up, with one week left before it was to be taken down. Probably as a result of that, the number of strangers in attendance seemed to be greater this year than last.
“Some people must figure this is a public tour-the-Fremont-garden day,” Nan said to George. “I’ve picked out at least a dozen people here I’ve never seen before. Mostly in the front yard.”
“Me too,” said George. “And after what happened last year, I can’t help but get a little nervous about it.”
Nan snorted.
“Oh, don’t sweat it, George. There’s no contest this year. No reason for gardening saboteurs to be casing the grounds like they did last year. I just hope they don’t all discover the root beer floats, or we’re gonna run out pretty quick.”
Nan sauntered off to greet the Boozers, who would stay for one quick root beer float only, then leave. She was soon back at George’s shoulder, surveying the crowded yard to make sure the children weren’t trampling through the flowers, and to spot newcomers who might merit a personalized greeting.
“There’s that idiot, Merle Pressman, on the school board,” said Nan, pointing her float toward a clot of visitors who were standing in one of the hosta beds. “Amazing how people feel that they can just stand right on top of somebody’s hosta as if it were some kind of rubber plant that can spring right back up after you grind it down good. Of course that’s where the stupid politicians are, since that’s where they can do the most damage. I see Richard Mellon and Lucia Everett. Aren’t they running for their House and Senate seats again?”
George shrugged.
“And there’s our idiot mayor. What’s he doing here? Slumming among the middle-class voters, I suppose. George, please go tell them to kindly get off the hosta. Or we won’t vote for them in November. Ha-ha!”
George, fortified by another root beer float, strode off to take on Livia’s political machine while Nan took in the rest of the scene.
There must have been a hundred and fifty people in the backyard now. The crowd took up almost every square inch of lawn, which was probably why some were standing in the hosta beds. Here came another procession of visitors up the steps toward Nan. The Goodriches offered their customary cold, formal greetings. The Buckwalds were perfunctory. The Hoo-senfoots and Mitchells were absolutely gaga over how the gardens looked this year. All moved on quickly to the feeding stations. Then came Marta Poppendauber, all by herself and smiling in the subtle, unself-conscious way that suggested she was basking in the glories of the Fremont gardens. Nan and Marta hugged unabashedly.
“Marta!” gushed Nan. “How nice of you to come!”
“I must say I felt like I’d be intruding,” Marta said. “Especially after what happened last year. I was even reluctant to bring over Dr. Sproot last month to do her penance. But she insisted on having a chaperone. Ha! Imagine that.”
“If we thought you’d be an intruder we wouldn’t have sent you an invitation,” said Nan, ignoring the reference to Dr. Sproot. “You’re always welcome here, Marta, and so is . . . oh, my . . . what is your husband’s name?”
Marta smiled. “It’s Hamilton, but I call him Ham,” she said, giggling. “He really is not very interested in gardening and things like that. Just kind of leaves it to me to tell him what to do and where to put things. It must be nice to have a husband like George, who takes such an active interest in gardening.”
“Ah, yes,” said Nan. She cast her gaze over to where George was lost in conversation with the politicians, who were still standing on the hosta. “Uh, George needs to be told things sometimes, too, but he’s picked up a lot over the last seven years. You know, Marta, Ham doesn’t have to talk about gardening when he comes over. George is always looking for someone to talk Muskie baseball with.”
“Ham is a huge fan,” Marta said. “I’ll tell him that. My gosh, Nan, your front yard is divine. I went over to look at it before coming back here. I know most of what’s there, but not everything. Will you tell me?”
“Of course I will,” Nan said. “Anything you want to know. There are no gardening secrets here.”
“Maybe not,” Marta said admiringly. “But there is gardening talent that puts all the rest of us to shame . . . Uh, Nan?”
“Yes?”
“This might be nothing. It might be nothing at all. In fact, I almost hesitate to bring it up.”
“Yes?”
“Dr. Sproot might be back on the warpath again.”
Nan gulped down a cold lump of ice cream that almost choked her, suffered through a brief bout of constricted esophagus pain, then forced out a brittle, defiant laugh.
“What!”
“She’s changed back into her old self.”
“What’s that to us? She can gag on all her spite and hatred for all we care.”
“She seems to be out to extract some vengeance. We’re all on the lookout. No one feels safe.”
“After almost going to prison last year for all the havoc she wreaked?”
“Yes. She’s really out of her mind.”
“Marta,” Nan said. “You can tell that woman, if you are still on speaking terms with her, that if she comes over and threatens our property the way she did last year, I will call the police and press charges. Or, if I’m mad enough, take George’s baseball bat and smash her little pea brain in.”
Nan stared at Marta, then spooned another glob of ice cream into her mouth and worked it slowly around.
Marta smiled, remembering how brave the Fremonts were last year, George with his baseball bat and Nan with her butcher knife triumphing during that terrible storm.
“I don’t talk to her anymore, Nan,” she said with a sigh. “I’ve given up on rehabilitating Dr. Sproot. I really hope she doesn’t mean us harm.”
“That stupid old harpy!” cried Nan. “Let her just show her face around here. And she can have her dumb old fairy house back, for that matter. It’s just sitting over there taking up space and acting as an unfortunate conversation piece for our friends, who somehow equate my horticultural communications with a belief in fairies. Oh, Marta, you wouldn’t believe it!”
“Yes, I would,” Marta said. “But I think you should keep the fairy house, Nan. You never know when it might come in handy. Well, I’ll leave you to your other guests.” With that, she slipped away into the crowd.
Nan shivered with a strange, murderous impulse. Tremors of unfamiliar rage shot out through her extremities, threatening her balance and forcing her to clasp her root beer float with both hands. How dare that awful woman so much as think about coming back here to do harm! She began to entertain images of Dr. Sproot entwined and constricted to death by the clematis, or torn to shreds by serrated saws whose teeth were made of hybrid tea rose thorns.
“Nan-bee.” George was back, having failed to move the politicians off the hosta bed. “Look who’s here.” It was Shirelle and a guest. Shirelle beamed. Her guest stretched her curled, sneering lips into a faint smile.
“Mrs. Fremont, I’d like you to meet Dr. Brockheimer, from the horticultural department at the university. She’s my academic adviser and one of my teachers.”
Nan thrust out a shaking hand, as her float sloshed wildly in the other.
“Excuse my shakes,” she said as George and Shirelle jerked back, startled, from the spilling root beer froth. “I’ve just had a bit of a shock. Nothing serious.”
“I’ve heard so much about you, Nan,” said Dr. Brockheimer, grasping her proffered hand firmly. “And your husband, too. May I call you Nan? Shirelle speaks so highly of you.”
George smiled. “Shirelle’s our secret weapon,” he said. “She really helped us design our front yard this year.”
“That’s true,” said Nan, becalmed to the point of displaying only an occasional facial tic. “Without Shirelle, we would have been hopeless trying to figure out a new design.”
“I really doubt that,” Shirelle said, blushing. “Anyone who’s taken the right classes can design a garden. It takes true genius to make what’s on paper come alive the way you have. The front yard is unbelievable. I never dreamed even you guys could make it so good. And the backyard? Same old story. Amazing!”
“Shirelle’s being too humble,” Nan said. “She and our daughter, Mary, actually did most of the front yard work.”
Dr. Brockheimer smiled in a way Nan interpreted as patronizing.
“They do look good,” she said. “There are some things I would change, but, yes, not bad for neighborhood gardeners.”
Nan blinked rapidly, and swallowed back a rude remark before it could get past her gullet.
“We have sandwiches, chips, and root beer floats over there, Dr. Brockheimer, if you’d care to avail yourself.” Dr. Brockheimer stared at Nan with eyes intent on shrinking her down to plant size.
“No, thank you, Nan; I ate a big lunch. I’m here because Shirelle tells me you talk to plants. I’d like to learn more about it.”
Nan shook her head, then smiled.
“This is not something easily explained to strangers,” she said. “I consider it a form of cross-cultural communication.”
Dr. Brockheimer tilted her head in a quizzically condescending manner.
“But you can probably imagine why it’s so hard to talk about. To our friends, yes. But even they’re skeptical and think we’re off our rockers. We aren’t off our rockers, are we, George?”
“Certainly not,” said George, having tossed back the remnants of his float with a massive and, Nan thought, rather indelicate, sigh. “But two floats from now, I certainly might be.”
“Well,” Dr. Brockheimer said. “It sounds like I’d better sample one of these concoctions. Then, Nan, can we talk some more about your efforts at ‘cross-cultural communication’?”
Nan didn’t like this Dr. Brockheimer’s attitude or tone, but figured maybe after a root beer float worked its magic on her they could have a nice little off-the-record chat about what it was like to be a plant whisperer.
By this time, most of the visitors had settled into their little clots of conversation, broken only by return visits to the food and beverage tables. Here and there, and where the crowds would allow, individuals or groups of two or three walked the entire backyard inspecting the Fremonts’ new summer bounty.
A respectable number had even wandered around the north and south ends of the house to the front yard. A few strangers attracted by the Burdick’s sign had parked their cars right there in the intersection and walked up the slope to take photos. Nan and George briefly worried that the front yard gardens might be in danger from all these visitors, either through malevolence or unintended carelessness. Cullen, Ellis, and a few of their friends were out front, but a fat lot of good they would do. At least, Mary, Shirelle, and that Dr. Brockheimer were out there. Weren’t they?
Just to be sure, and with her third root beer float in hand, Nan marched off to the front yard. Clearing the northwest corner of the house, she was amazed to see thirty to forty people—most of them, strangers—scattered around, and, Lord help her, a couple of children rolling around in the Walker’s Low catmint. Nan was just about to spring into action when a figure emerged as a running blur out of her peripheral vision. This figure, now identifiable as a slender and youngish woman, carefully picked its way through the catmint and its bordering lilies, grabbed the offending children firmly, and guided them out of the flower beds.
“Whose offspring are these?” barked Dr. Brockheimer. A young couple who had been taking pictures of the hybrid teas responded to the summons, and stood before her at meek attention.
“These brats have been ruining these beautiful flowers,” said Dr. Brockheimer. “Either keep them under control or get out!”
The couple quickly herded their children back down the slope toward their parked car as Dr. Brockheimer watched them go, her chest heaving and her face reddened with ire.
Nan walked over to Dr. Brockheimer, who, with her arms akimbo, still seemed poised for confrontation. Gazing down across the expanse of the catmint, Nan couldn’t see much to worry about. A few plants beaten down; they’d probably bounce back within a day. No real damage done.
“Well, Dr. Brockheimer.”
Dr. Brockheimer wheeled around to face this new threat.
“Thanks for helping us police our gardens. I’m sure the children meant no harm. I doubt there’ll be any lasting damage.”
Dr. Brockheimer huffed.
“Nan, you must take more care of your gardens if you want them to truly flourish. For a gathering such as this, I would have posted a guard.”
“That’s usually not necessary for FremontFest.”
“With children running around it is. And Shirelle has told me all about what happened last year. I’d have thought you’d have learned a lesson as a result.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Brockheimer, but we can’t afford a guard. Neither would we want one. FremontFest is open to all comers. We haven’t really had any problems before. Besides, this an open and welcoming event, not a museum tour. Still, we do appreciate you protecting our flower beds. We might even need you to help out with the hosta in the backyard. Those politicians just don’t seem to think about where they’re standing. And George . . .”
“He’s pretty worthless, isn’t he?”
“I beg your pardon!”
“He’s not much help with the gardening, is he? I can tell. Just another feckless male. I know. I’m married to one. Soon to be my ex, I might add. Ha-ha!” Nan felt her jaw tighten and the hand clutching the root beer float cup quiver.
“How dare you talk about my husband in that manner!” she said. “George has been my true partner for seven years of hard gardening toil, much more actual work than you’ve ever done, Miss-Fancy-Pants PhD. I’ve dealt with people like you before, Dr. Brockheimer, and one thing I’ve discovered is that you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about and you’ve got corncobs shoved so far up your rear ends that no implement or machine yet invented could extract them. If you don’t like George, or me, or what we’re doing here, then either shut up about it, or take your little snot-nosed gardening high falutin’ rectitude and get off my . . . our . . . property!”
Nan chugged the dregs of her root beer float and threw the plastic cup at Dr. Brockheimer’s feet.
“If you don’t mind, Dr. Brockheimer, could you please pick that up and throw it away for us. The garbage is in the back, right next to the patio.”
Both women were shaking as Nan stalked off in a rage, ignoring first a greeting from the Hausers, and then the Mar-tensens. Another root beer float was exactly what she needed now, she thought, her head held high as triumph and regret mingled together and vied for dominance of her emotions. As she plopped a couple of scoops of the softening ice cream into a new cup, a disquieting thought suddenly intruded itself upon the welcome return of her equanimity.
Oh, my gosh, she thought, I hope this doesn’t damage Shirelle’s academic standing!
At the nearby float stand, George scooped himself out three giant hunks of coffee/vanilla ice cream, then kept lathering them with root beer until the foam started cascading over the side of his cup. He opted for the Honey Calm flavor in the hopes it would ease his troubled mind. What was especially troubling George lately were the latest tuition hike notices from both Cullen’s and Ellis’s expensive colleges. Then, there were the credit card bills, the prohibitive cost of insurance, and the small matter of keeping the family fed and clothed.
At least the mortgage was paid, but that was just the first mortgage. George had taken out a second, and thank God Nan was such a trusting soul and had signed off on it. Borrowing money was such a mystery to her. It was almost as if she saw it as a gift to be paid back at leisure, or maybe even not at all. And, as always, God would provide.
Banish these thoughts! And these thoughts were now being rather easily banished by the root beer float, which had a Novocain-like power of deadening his every trouble.
George moved through the gate, then toward the fence so he could keep a discrete watch on the angel’s trumpets. It simply would not do to have children wandering around back there, testing out the pretty flowers and seeds and ending up wandering around in psychotropic trances. Of course, he had forgotten to post DO NOT TOUCH signs on the plants.
What’s this? he thought, his attention drawn to activity far beyond the angel’s trumpets and at the very edge of the woods. Who the heck was that checking out the white oak? Why, what an unpleasant surprise; it was Miss Price. What was it with that tree that seemed to attract her like iron filings to a magnet?
As George approached the tree, he noticed, shocked, that it had taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Not a single crinkled leaf remained on its branches, which now had appeared to wither and blacken. Even the trunk itself appeared charred black, as if it had just been cooked in a forest fire.
“My God!” cried George, his eyes lifted to behold the spectacle of a tree dying before his eyes. “Look at it! Ah, and look who’s here. It’s Miss Price. You decided to come back for some more tree gazing. Why is that, Miss Price?”
“The tree must come down,” Miss Price said portentously.
“Huh?”
“I said you must have this tree cut down.”
“Well, yes, Miss Price, but you’ve already told us that. What business is it of yours?”
“The welfare of all trees in this community is my business, Mr. Fremont. As I’ve told you, I grew up right here, almost exactly on this spot. I knew this tree quite well. I do not want to see it in misery. Put it out of its misery, Mr. Fremont.”
“Uh, sure, sure. I’m sure Nan and I plan to do that. It’s just that I didn’t realize its condition was so far advanced. I mean, wow, look at it!”
“So far advanced that in the matter of weeks, maybe even days, it will fall. When it falls, it will probably wreck either this nice privacy fence, or worse, as far as your wife is concerned, her beautiful flower beds over there, to say nothing of your little shed.”
George gulped. He certainly didn’t want that. But the cost! Where would they get the money to do that?
“You’re thinking about the cost, aren’t you, Mr. Fremont?”
George stared at Miss Price, astonished.
“How’d you know that? Well, I’m not sure my thoughts are a matter for you to concern yourself with, Miss Price.”
“I know how you can get that tree cut down, get the stump taken care of, and the site cleaned up, and have it carted away, dirt cheap,” Miss Price said. “I know someone who’s just getting into the business and needs to get the word out. What better place to start but here?”
George frowned. He was torn between the appealing prospect of paying virtually nothing to clear up a backyard problem and the nagging suspicion that there was a huge catch lurking somewhere in Miss Price’s offer.
“Well, we’d want references,” he said. “We don’t want just anybody learning on the job with a big tree like this. We’d want somebody who’s experienced, with references.”
“Sure,” Miss Price said. “And those kinds of people cost a lot. But I must repeat myself. You must cut down this tree, Mr. Fremont. Don’t let the poor thing suffer.”
George bit his lip. He fought back an urge to throttle Miss Price.
“Can I help you to your car, Miss Price? Or you’re certainly welcome to stay for a root beer float. But you’d better hurry because the ice cream’s melting fast.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fremont, but I’m quite capable of making it back to my car on my own.... And, please, don’t do anything to that tree without contacting me first.”
Before George could warn her never to return, Miss Price bounded across the north end of the yard and down the hill with an agility that would have put him to shame.
“George!” It was Nan, whose voice he could barely hear above the cacophony of the root beer-enlivened crowd. “George! What are you doing over there?”
George sauntered back toward the patio as Nan threaded her way toward him through the knots of guests. She regarded him with concern.
“Why are you being so antisocial, George? And could that have possibly been Miss Price you were talking to?”
“It was. She wants us to cut the tree down.”
“What is the deal with her anyway? I want to cut the tree down, too. But what’s her big stake in all this is what I want to know.”
George shrugged.
“She knows the tree from when she lived here,” he said. “She wants it put out of its misery. She said she knows someone who’ll cut down the tree, remove the stump, the whole kit and caboodle for dirt cheap.”
“That so?” said Nan. “Well, I’m getting sick and tired of all these busybodies trying to tell us what to do with our property. Why, you should have seen that awful Dr. Brockheimer! George, she—”
George made bug eyes at Nan and gestured with a quick nod to a point over her right shoulder. She turned to see Shirelle and Dr. Brockheimer standing rigidly behind her. Shirelle looked pale and sheepish. Dr. Brockheimer had obviously been crying; she daubed at her eyes and puffy cheeks with a wadded-up Kleenex.
“Time for us to go, Nan and George,” Shirelle said. “Dr. Brockheimer wanted to say something to you first. Dr. Brockheimer?”
After some more daubing and a few false starts at making what was obviously a little mini-speech she had been preparing, Dr. Brockheimer finally spoke.
“Nan, I can’t tell you how sorry I am to have treated you and your gardens so cavalierly.” Here, Dr. Brockheimer paused to sniffle and apply the Kleenex to her misting eyes. “I was very rude to you and to your husband.” She turned to face George with a meek, solicitous smile. George smiled forgivingly while having no idea what she was talking about. “In absentia, of course. I hope you both will forgive me. No one’s ever stood up to me like that, Nan . . . and . . . I admire that. I truly do. I’d like to consider you my friend.”
Dr. Brockheimer stretched out her arms toward Nan. Nan, moved to tears herself, opened her arms to enfold the smaller woman.
Watching this act of repentance and forgiveness unfold, Shirelle found herself transformed. An hour ago, she was a shame-faced apologist for Dr. Brockheimer, seeking to ingratiate her with the Fremonts, yet mortified by her arrogant and boorish behavior. Watching the two women embrace, she became a cherubic angel of hope. The sun appeared to have gotten the message. It chose that very moment to peek out of the clouds and cast a beam directly onto her rosy, freckled cheeks. She started to cry.
George was taken aback by this showy manifestation of womanly emotions. His first impulse was to about-face and hightail it back to the root beer stand, or maybe it was time for another pulled pork sandwich. But George was bigger than his base prejudices. In a burst of genuinely inspired yet artificial goodwill he, too, thrust out his arms for a hug from Dr. Brockheimer. By then, though, Dr. Brockheimer and Nan had unclasped, and Dr. Brockheimer had turned to head down the steps to the driveway. That left George embracing millions of air molecules that had come within the range of his grasp. He sheepishly drew his arms back in and dropped them limply to his sides. Dr. Brockheimer wheeled around to face Nan.
“I’m sorry we had our differences today,” she said, her voice having lost its tremor and regained its bite. “Maybe I came on a little strong. I do that sometimes. I still want to talk to you about plant whispering. I also want to see you in action. This could be big for me and for you! When can we do it?”
Nan recoiled briefly, then perched her fingertips delicately on her sternum, a sign of what everyone there except Dr. Brockheimer knew to be of temporary confusion and speechlessness.
“Well,” said Dr. Brockheimer, “you’ll hear from me later, probably through Shirelle.”
Dr. Brockheimer wheeled to her right with military precision, then loped clumsily down the steps, kicking up pea gravel with every footfall. Shirelle, still misty-eyed, hugged George and Nan.
“Thanks for the wonderful time, Mr. and Mrs. Fremont,” she said. “The food was great and the floats were dreamy. See you next week.”
She had to quick-step it to catch up with Dr. Brockheimer, who was already striding purposefully down the driveway and toward the street.
“Well, that woman is quite the enigma,” Nan said. “One minute she’s coming on like a freight train and the next she’s a blubbering puddle of helplessness. Then, back again. How am I supposed to teach her how to talk to flowers? Or why should I even try?”
“We don’t need to worry about that now,” said George, extending his arms to embrace her. “Our guests are leaving. Let’s be good hosts and bid them all adieu with smiles on our faces and laughter in our hearts.... By the way, what happened to you right before Shirelle and Dr. Brockheimer arrived? You had the shakes pretty bad there for a minute.”
“That? Oh, it was Marta talking about Dr. Sproot. She said to watch out because she’s on the warpath again. I guess I got a little mad.”
George chuckled. “Hmmm,” he said. “Maybe Shirelle ought to go get her shotgun after all.”
Clinging to each other like two strands of a clematis vine, George and Nan toured the yard and made as many stops as it took to say thanks and good-bye to their guests, even waving to the Jerlicks, who, as usual, dropped their napkins and empty cups right on the lawn, as unabashedly as if they had just deposited them in the garbage can.
After another fifteen minutes, all that remained were the McCandlesses and the Winthrops—who stood looking at George, awaiting his annual post-party announcement. George cleared his throat and broke free of Nan’s embrace—a little too abruptly, she thought.
“Your attention, please,” he said. “It appears all the riffraff have blown away. Time to break out the hard stuff.”
As the sun dipped into its summer evening zone, and the Muskies wrapped up their 12–3 laugher over the Starlings, the Winthrops and McCandlesses got up listlessly from their chairs and began to move toward the steps. The McCandlesses were already halfway to the driveway, with Steve Winthrop right behind them, when the slowpoke of the group, Juanita, finally rose from her wine-induced semi-stupor, turned toward the back, and stopped abruptly, staring at the woods.
“What is it?” wondered Nan, gaping. Her third glass of merlot had apparently unhinged her jaw.
George laughed. “Better close up,” he said. “The male wrens are looking for homes again, and your mouth is just about the right size.”
“My gosh! Your tree! It’s like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.”
All heads turned toward the back, and there was the dying white oak, only not nearly as vertical as it was when George stood next to it with Miss Price. Now, it had tipped precipitously toward the west, part of its root system unearthed, and leaning at a sixty-degree angle like an arboreal sword of Damocles over the shed and Nan’s new bed of brilliantly flowering liatris and rudbeckia. Only the bracing effect of its massive branches had apparently prevented it from toppling over, and several of them had cracked and broken.
“Good Lord!” cried George. “When did that happen?”
“Must have been in the past, what, fifteen minutes?” said Nan, whose mouth opening had returned to its customary aperture. “We must have been too besotted by wine to notice.”
“Well, good grief,” said Steve, who was now standing there, along with the Winthrops, staring at the tree. “You’d think it would have creaked or groaned. The lowest branches look like they snapped. Wouldn’t we have heard that?”
“I heard a groan,” said Jane. “I thought it was just Alex. Tee-hee-hee.”
“Why do weird things always happen in your yard?” Jane said. “You poor Fremonts. Haven’t you had enough drama in your backyard to last you a lifetime?”
“Apparently not,” said Nan with a sigh. The couples exchanged another round of hugs and farewells, then the Winthrops and McCandlesses picked their way down the steps, careful even after three glasses of wine not to disturb Nan’s pea gravel.
“George, on to the Internet, chop-chop. There’s gotta be a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week tree service around here somewhere. That tree has to come down, and I mean right now.”
George disappeared into the house and emerged, downcast, a few minutes later. He pretended to watch the unsteady clot of Winthrops and McCandlesses passing out of view in the course of their stop-and-start transit down Payne toward their homes.
“George?”
“Okay, Nan-bee, but there’s one little problem. It’s called family finances. We can’t afford it. We’re either going to have to get Jerry over here with his chain saw, or we’re going to have to take Miss Price up on her offer.”
Nan shuddered, then picked the last wine bottle up off the table, put it to her lips, and glugged down the remaining contents.
“I’m not sure I trust Jerry with a project that big. Besides, he’d charge us, of course, and I’m guessing more than we’d want to pay. Looks like Miss P.’s our only option.”
“There’s only one problem with that,” said George. Nan hiccupped, then sighed.
“Spill it,” she said. She hiccupped again. “Not literally, of course. Ha-ha.”
“I just checked; both she and the Historical Society are unlisted. I have no idea how to reach her. She’ll have to come back.”
“Given her recent track record,” said Nan between more hiccups, “that shouldn’t be a problem.”