Pawing Through the Past (2 page)

“People said he was gay and couldn’t handle it.” Harry also studied the picture. “He was a nice boy. But the bruiser boys used to pick on him something terrible. I bet it was rough being a gay kid in high school but back then no one said anything like that. The gay kids must have gotten roughed up daily but it was all hidden, you know.”

“I do, actually. We had the same thing at Lake Shore. I guess every school did. It’s sad really. And to think he jumped off the bridge.” Chris shuddered.

“May the Lord be a tower of strength for the oppressed.” Mrs. Hogendobber cited a verse from Psalm Nine and that closed the subject.

“Who knows what secrets will pop up like a jack-in-the-box?” Susan ruminated. “Old wounds might be opened.”

“Susan, it’s a high-school reunion for Pete’s sake. Not therapy.”

“Okay, maybe not therapy but it sure is a stage where past and present collide for all to see.”

“Susan, I don’t feel that way. We know these people.”

“Harry, when was the last time you saw Bob Shoaf?” Susan mentioned the star athlete of their class, who became a professional football player.

“On television.”

“You don’t think he’ll have the big head? Those guys snap their fingers for girls, cars, goodies . . . and presto, they get what they want. He won’t be the same old Bob.”

“He sounds fascinating, too.” Chris’s eyes widened.

“He thinks so. He was always conceited but he is good-looking and I guess he’s rich. Those people pull down unreal salaries.” Harry sighed, wishing a bit of money would fall her way.

“Maybe he blew it all. Maybe he’s suffering from depression. Maybe he’s impotent.” A devilish grin filled Susan’s face. “Secrets!”

“She’s right, though. At our twentieth people who had crushes on one another in high school snuck off, marriages hit the rocks, old rivalries were renewed. It was wild, really. I had a good time, though.” Chris shyly grinned.

Susan wheeled on Harry. “Charlie Ashcraft!”

“Not if he were the last man on earth!”

“You slept with Charlie. That’s your secret.”

“Is not,” Harry protested.

“Girls.” Mrs. Hogendobber feigned shock. She’d spent enough time around this generation to know they said things directly that her generation did not. She still couldn’t decide if that was wise or unwise.

“You know, Harry, it will all come out at the reunion if what Chris says holds true for us.”

“You’re one brick shy of a load.” Harry considered flicking a cucumber at her face. “Anyway, a woman has to have some secrets. People are boring without secrets.”

Mrs. Murphy raised her head, her mind clearing somewhat from the delightful effects of the homegrown catnip.
“That depends on the secrets.”

2

Canada sent down a ridge of cool dry air which swept over central Virginia, bringing relief from the moist, suffocating August heat.

That evening Harry, on her knees weeding her garden, rocked back on her heels to inhale the light, cool fragrance. With the mercury dipping to sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit, she had put on a torn navy blue sweatshirt.

Mrs. Murphy stalked a maple moth who easily saw her coming; those compound eyes could see everything. The yellow and pinkish creature fluttered upwards, fixing on the top of the boxwoods. From this lordly perch it observed the sleek cat, who, intelligent as she was, couldn’t climb a boxwood.

The pile of weeds grew to a mound.

“Better toss this before it gets too heavy.” Harry lifted the pitchfork, wedged it under, and in one neat motion picked up the debris. She walked past to the compost pile some distance from the manure spreader.

“Dump it on the manure spreader,”
Murphy suggested.

“You don’t have to come along,” Harry replied to her cat, who she thought was complaining. She walked to the edge of the woods, where she chucked the weeds. Murphy caught up with her.

“If you’d put it in the manure spreader, Harry, it would have been a lot easier.”

Harry leaned on her pitchfork and looked out over the hay field. The bees were heading back to the hives as twilight deepened. Even the nasty brilliant yellow digger bees headed to their labyrinthine underground nests. The bats stirred overhead, consuming insects.

“Farmer’s friend,” Harry said. “Did you know, Mrs. Murphy, that bats, black snakes, praying mantis, and owls are some of the best partners you can have among the wild animals?”

“I did. I forgot to tell you that the black snake that winters in the loft is now close to four and a half feet long and she’s on the south side of the garden. Her hunting territory is a giant circle and she moves counterclockwise. The sight of her is a fright. ’Course, the sight of Flatface, the barn owl, is a fright, too. She’s grown twice as tall as last year. Thinks she’s better than the rest of us.”

Harry reached down, picked up her little friend, and kissed the top of her head. “You are the most wonderful cat in the world. Have I told you that lately?”

“Thank you,”
Murphy purred, then wiggled to get down. The night creatures emerging were too tempting. She wanted to stalk a few.

Harry grabbed the pitchfork which she’d propped against a hickory: “Come on, time for supper.”

The sweet smell of redbud clover filled their nostrils as the thin line of ground fog turned from seashell pink to mauve to pearl gray. A bobwhite called behind them. The magnificent owl of whom Mrs. Murphy had just spoken flew out from the barn cupola on her first foraging mission of the evening.

Part of the rhythm of this place and these animals, Harry placed the pitchfork on the wall of the small storage shed. The night air cooled the temperature considerably. She put her hands in her jeans pockets as she hurried into the house.

“What took you so long?”
Pewter complained.
“I thought you two were weeding the garden.”

“We did but we had things to talk about.”
Mrs. Murphy brushed past her, then quickly turned as she heard the can opener.
“Hope it’s tuna tonight. I’m in the mood for tuna.”

A bark outside and then a whap on the doggie door announced Tucker’s presence.

“Where were you?”
Mrs. Murphy asked from the counter as Harry spooned out the tuna into the two cat dishes, one marked Her Highness and the other, Upholstery Destroyer.

“Blair Bainbridge’s.”
The dog mentioned Harry’s nearest neighbor to the west.
“Bought starter cattle and I had to help him herd them. He doesn’t know beans and he’s still moving a little slow after his injuries from last year. Wait until you see the calves. Weedy, spindly legs and thin chests, not good specimens at all but at least they’ve been wormed and had their shots. Wait until Mom sees them. It will be interesting to see how she manages to praise him without telling him these are the worst heifers she’s ever seen.”

“She’ll find a way.”

“Tucker. You’ve been busy. You’re getting lamb bits in gravy.”
Pewter sniffed the distinctive mutton aroma.

“Yeah!”

As the three ate, Harry popped a pasta dish in the microwave. She wasn’t very hungry but she ate it anyway since she had a tendency to lose weight in the summers.

Afterward they all sat on the sofa while Harry tried to read the newspaper but she kept rattling it, then putting it down. Finally, she got up, threw on her jacket, and walked outside.

“What’s she up to?”
Pewter, quite comfortable, wondered.

“I’ll go.”
Tucker roused herself and followed.

“Me, too.”
Murphy shook herself.

“Damn,”
Pewter grumbled. She flicked her tail over her gray nose, finally got up to stretch, and tagged along.

Harry walked to the paddocks behind the barn, where she leaned against the black three-board fence to watch her horses, Gin Fizz, Tomahawk, and Poptart, enjoying the refreshing air.

They looked up, said hello, and returned to grazing.

Overhead the evening star appeared unreal, it was so big and clear. The Big Dipper rolled toward the horizon and Yellow Mountain was outlined in a thin band of blue, lighter than the deep skies.

“Kids, I couldn’t live anywhere else. I know I work fourteen to sixteen hours a day between the post office and the farm, but I couldn’t work in an office. I don’t know. . . .” Her voice trailed off. Pewter climbed up one fence post, Mrs. Murphy climbed up on another one while Tucker patiently sat on Harry’s foot. “I kind of dread this reunion. I went to the fifteenth—still married then. It’s a lot easier when you’re married—socially, I mean. The ones from far away will look at me, then look at BoomBoom. I guess it’s pretty easy to see why Fair hopped on her in a hurry. Wonder if he’ll come? He was in the class ahead. But of course he will, he knows everybody. He’s a good man, guys. He went through a bad patch, that’s all, but I couldn’t endure it. I just couldn’t do it.”

“He’s over that now,”
Tucker stoutly replied. The corgi loved Fair Haristeen, DVM, with all her heart and soul.
“He’s admitted he was wrong. He still loves you.”

“But she doesn’t love him.”
Pewter licked her paw and rapidly passed it over her whiskers.

“She does love him,”
Mrs. Murphy countered,
“but she doesn’t know how much or in what way. Like she wouldn’t want to marry him again but she loves him as a person.”

“It’s awfully confusing.”
Tucker’s pretty ears drooped.

“Humans make such a mess,”
Pewter airily announced.

“They think too much and feel too little,”
Murphy noted.
“Even Mom and I love her, we all love her. It’s the curse of the species. Then again I sometimes reverse that and believe they feel too much and don’t think enough. Now I’m confused.”
She laughed at herself.

“You all have so much to say tonight.” Harry smiled at her family, then continued her musings. “I watch television sometimes. You know, the sitcoms. Apart from being the same age, I have nothing in common with those people. They live in beautiful apartments in big cities. They have great clothes and no one worries about money. They’re witty and cool. A drought means nothing to them. Overseeding is a foreign word. They drive sexy cars while I drive a 1978 Ford half-ton truck. My generation is all those things that I am not.” She frowned. “Not too many of us live in the country anymore. The old ways are being lost and I suppose I’ll be lost with them but—I can’t live any other way.” She kicked the dewy grass. “Damn, why did I get so involved in this reunion? I am such a sucker!” She turned on her heel to go back to the house.

Mrs. Murphy gracefully leapt off the post while Pewter turned around to back down. No need to jar her bones if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. Tucker stayed at her mother’s left heel.

As they passed the front of the barn, Simon, the possum who lived in the hayloft, peered out the open loft door.

The animals greeted him, causing Harry to glance up, too. “Evening, Simon.”

Simon blinked. He didn’t hurry back to his nest, and that was as close as he got to greeting them.

“You want marshmallows, I know.” Harry walked to her screened-in porch and opened the old zinc-lined milk box that her mother had used when Monticello Dairy used to deliver milk bottles. She kept marshmallows and a small bag of sunflower seeds for the finches there. She walked back with four marshmallows and threw them through the hayloft door. “Enjoy yourself, Simon.”

He grabbed one, his glittering black eyes merry.
“I will.”

Harry looked up at Simon, then down at her three friends. “Well, I bet no one else in my class feeds marshmallows to their possum.” Spirits somewhat restored, she trotted back into the house to warm up.

3

After sorting everyone else’s mail, Harry finally sorted her own. If the morning proved unusually hectic she’d slide her mail into her metal box, hoping she’d remember it before going home.

Sometimes two or three days would pass before she read her own mail.

This morning had been busy. Mrs. Hogendobber, a tower of strength in or out of the post office, ran back and forth to her house because the hot-water heater had stopped working. She finally gave up restarting it, calling a plumber. When he arrived she went home.

Fair stopped by early. He kissed his ex-wife on the cheek and apologized for delivering four hundred and fifty postcards to mail out. Each containing his e-mail address. He had, however, arranged them by zip code.

Susan stopped by, grabbed her mail, and opened it on the counter.

“Bills. Bills. Bills.”

“I can take care of that!”
Mrs. Murphy swished her tail, crouched and leapt onto the counter. She attacked the offending bills.

“Murphy.” Harry reached for the cat, who easily eluded her.

“Murphy, you have the right idea.” Susan smiled, then gently pushed the cat off her mail.

Mrs. Hogendobber came through the back door. “Four hundred and twenty dollars plus fifty dollars for a house call. I have to buy a new hot-water heater.”

“That’s terrible,” Susan commiserated.

“I just ordered one and it will be here after lunch. I can’t believe what things cost and Roy even gave me a ten-percent discount.” She mentioned the appliance-store owner, an old friend.

“Hey.” Susan opened a letter.

“What?”
both Harry and Mrs. Murphy asked.

“Look at this.” She held open a letter edged in Crozet High’s colors, blue and gold.

It read, “You’ll never get old.”

“Let me see that.” Harry took the letter and envelope from her. “Postmarked from the Barracks Road post office.”

“But there’s no name on it,” Susan remarked.

“Wonder if I got one?” Harry reached into her mailbox from behind the counter. “Yep.”

“Check other boxes,” Susan ordered.

“I can check but I can’t open the envelopes.”

“I know that, Harry. I’m not an idiot.”

Miranda, ignoring Susan’s testiness, reached into Market Shiflett’s mailbox, a member of Harry and Susan’s class. “Another.”

Harry checked the others, finding the same envelope. “Well, if someone was going to go to all that trouble to compliment us, he ought to sign his name.”

“Maybe it’s not a compliment,”
Mrs. Murphy remarked.

Pewter, asleep, opened one eye but didn’t move from the small table in the back of the post office.
“What?”

“Tell you later,”
Mrs. Murphy said, noticing that Tucker, on her side under the table, was dreaming.

“Oh, whoever mailed this will ’fess up or show up with a face-lift.” Susan shrugged.

“We aren’t old enough for face-lifts.” Harry shuddered at the thought.

“People are doing stuff like that in their early thirties.” Susan read too many popular magazines.

“And they look silly. I can always tell.” Miranda, still upset about her hot-water heater bill, waved her hand dismissively.

“How?”
both women and Mrs. Murphy asked.

Miranda ran her forefinger from the corner of her cheekbone to the corner of her mouth. “This muscle or ligament, whatever you call it, is always too tight, even in the very, very good ones.”

“Like Mim’s?” Susan mentioned Crozet’s leading citizen.

“She won’t admit to it.” Harry liked Mim but never underestimated the woman’s vanity.

“Cats are beautiful no matter how old we are,”
Mrs. Murphy smugly noted.

Harry, as if understanding her friend, leaned down. “If I had a furry face I wouldn’t care.”

Susan tossed the mailing in the trash. “You’ll never get old. Ha!”

Ha, indeed.