Front Yard (19 page)

“Good. Call him up and tell him you've got a job for him. And, yes, one that requires discretion. Oh, and I've got a property I want you to take over. In fact, it was cheap. A foreclosure property. I've already signed the papers on it. I'll give it to you and your useless brother.”

“I've already got a really nice home, Miss Price.”

“Not to live in, nincompoop. To use as a staging area. The property right next door to the Fremonts. And no more than a few piddling yards to one very large stump hole on the other side of a fence. Get my drift?”

There was a groan and some mumbling. It was soft and distant, as if Artis was holding the phone away from his mouth so he could vent his frustration in private.

“I heard that, Mr. Worthless-Lazy-Bones. Now, if you have a better suggestion, I would like to hear it. Otherwise, Plan B. Come over to my apartment with your pathetic slip of a brother tomorrow—or I guess, technically, today—and we'll discuss Plan B.”

“Why so soon?”

“So soon! So soon! You worthless so-and-so's couldn't open a frozen slushie stand in hell. You have a wonder of the New World awaiting your grasp, and you want to wait! Waiting is for saps and losers. You will come over in the morning, the earlier the better, for your briefing. Then, you will put Plan B into effect with all possible dispatch. Otherwise, I will look elsewhere for men of action and you will get no share and no recognition from what will inevitably follow.”

“Miss Price!”

“Don't you ‘Miss Price' me. Remember, one of the greatest treasures of the New World lies at your feet. Don't let it slip through your fingers!”

21

D
r. Sproot pulled into her driveway shaking so hard she could barely keep a grip on the steering wheel. How she had managed to get home she had no idea. Her eyes were twitching so rapidly that it seemed as if she was watching a strobe light show.

In fact, she was caught in a violent upheaval. The forces of good and evil were locked in combat for possession of her soul. When a soul possession battle happens, there's a certain amount of discomfort and disorientation, the degree of which depends on how badly good and evil want the soul in question. In the case of Dr. Sproot, they wanted it in the worst way. It looked like she was having a seizure. Her head throbbed. Her pulse raced. Her stomach churned like a cement mixer ready to disgorge its contents. Her legs and feet suffered from such tremors that she could barely step down on the accelerator or brake.

“Oh, poor me,” she moaned. “Poor, poor me.” Even speaking to herself, she couldn't keep her voice from quaking.

This was all the fault of those Fremonts. Dr. Sproot had just been out for a drive down Sumac Street, paying particular attention to the sloping side of the Fremont property. She wanted to see for herself if the rumors about the front yard were true.

And were they ever! My God, what happened to the scabrous desert of cockleburs, dandelions, and barren earth? Here was . . . well . . . an earthly paradise!

Of course, Dr. Sproot recognized everything they had planted. There was nothing there she couldn't have nurtured herself to a certain degree of brilliance. But not to THAT degree of brilliance! She could not have devised as perfect a symmetry or combination of annuals and perennials in a million years.

Goodness, they were dabbling in hybrid teas! Though to call what they did “dabbling” would do a terrible injustice to the magnificent creations that shone along the top of the slope so iridescent in the afternoon sun.

The skilled cultivator in Dr. Sproot couldn't help but appreciate such a rare accomplishment. She herself had tried growing hybrid teas once in her younger days. That experiment had failed dismally.

Dr. Sproot mostly poked along, her car barely moving, as she drank in the wonders of these new front yard gardens. Then, she'd speed up and slow down again. Back up, then drive forward. She'd swerve from one side of the street to the other, then do a U-turn to drive back across the length of the property.

A loud honk signaled that she'd barely missed getting broadsided by a UPS truck.

There, what was that? An orange-and-black blob shot past the front of the car, and skimmed the contours of the slope, then rose to perch in one of the lower branches of the big silver maple. From there, it dropped down to land on the little structure suspended on the shepherd's crook pole a short way to the side of the hybrid teas. Ah, she thought, that must be a Baltimore oriole. Isn't it lovely?

The gardening ogre that had reemerged as
Doc-tor
Phyllis Sproot a month ago was still fully evident to anyone careless enough to cross paths with her. But alone, Dr. Sproot was a conflicted and miserable soul. As dominant as the dictatorial, scornful, and destructive Dr. Sproot persona was, it had never completely subdued the patient, appreciative, and at least marginally humble Phyllis, who could still be lost in admiration for a garden other than her own, even if it defied her own rigid floricultural formulas. Such a garden was a rare find indeed, but this was truly one of them. Dr. Sproot pulled over to the curb, stopped the car, and sighed.

That nagging inner voice was back. It whispered that this was the apex of the gardener's craft, and that her own efforts were no more than a shadow of what was happening here. But that was okay, it said; make your peace with it, Phyllis.

Dr. Sproot whimpered. She knew the inner voice spoke the truth. And that truth had a certain allure. To recognize true beauty and let it suffuse your very being is one of the greatest joys this world has to offer, even for the blackest of hearts. Stories abound of dictators drinking the finest Scotch, dining on Caspian Sea caviar, and whiling away evenings listening to Mozart as they gazed upon the uncovered charms of their mistresses. Nero played a mean fiddle. Attila the Hun was a connoisseur of horseflesh and fermented goat's milk. Who knows whether such monsters would have tempered their behavior had they given full rein to such epicurisms?

So it was with Dr. Sproot, whose road to salvation lay in her discriminating eye for gardening magic and the soothing pleasure on succumbing to its spell.

That salvation, however, would have to wait.

Another voice piped up loud and clear. It was the bleating, hateful voice of a dipshit. It called Dr. Sproot a weenie, and repeated many of the insulting things the Fremonts had said to her. It suggested that if championship-level gardening was too demanding for her delicate sensibilities then maybe she should try something less taxing: juggling two tennis balls, for instance.

“Zip it,” Dr. Sproot commanded the voice. “Zip it now, and leave me in peace.”

The new voice would not be zipped. In fact, it cackled as Dr. Sproot strove to call back the good voice—the voice of a peaceful, harmonious nature.

“I said shut up, asshole!” Dr. Sproot screeched. “Shut the hell up and leave me alone, or I'll . . . I'll . . .”

That's more like it,
said the voice.
That's the Dr. Sproot I want to see. The one we all love to hate. Ha-ha!

Dr. Sproot pleaded for the good voice to come back. She called up visions of beautiful flowers and extravagant gardens, only to watch them wither and crinkle, then disintegrate in gale-force winds. She cursed at the bad voice, employing a language so profane that it cannot be repeated here. All that did was drive the good voice deeper into her subconscious. She grasped at it, but it was elusive, reduced now to incomprehensible babbling. Then, a barely audible murmur.

At that point, Dr. Sproot caught a glimpse in her rearview mirror of a Livia police cruiser, lights flashing, as it pulled up behind her. Trembling with mingled fear and rage, she lowered the driver's side window and looked up at the police officer, who asked to see her license and proof of insurance.

“Are you okay, ma'am?” the officer asked as she handed him her license and insurance card. “We got a call saying someone was driving erratically on this block. The description we got matches this car. The caller also said that the driver seemed to be flailing her arms around after she stopped, in a no-parking zone, I might add. Are you having a problem, uh, Ms. Sproot?”

“Flailing?”

“Flailing. Someone said it appeared you were waving your hands around while sitting in the car, then grabbing your head and twisting it from one side to the other. And that all this was going on for, oh, fifteen minutes or so.”

“I was?”

“That's what was reported to us, ma'am.”

“I didn't know that I was flailing,” said Dr. Sproot, her voice rising. “Even if I was, what business is that of anyone's?”

“It's not illegal per se,” said the officer. “It is, however, highly unusual behavior, and is definitely our business if you're posing a threat to yourself or to others.”

“I'm not a threat,” said Dr. Sproot. “I wasn't even aware I was flailing.”

“Have you been drinking, Ms. Sproot?”

Dr. Sproot drew back from the window, indignant.

“I certainly have
not!
” she said.

“Have you been using drugs, or do you have any drugs in the car?”

“Of course not! And how dare you address these impertinent and mortifying questions to me. Do you know who I am, officer?”

“I do,” the officer said. “You're Ms. Phyllis Sproot. At least that's what it says on the driver's license you just handed me.”

Dr. Sproot snorted.

“I mean, do you know who I
am?
”

“I do not, and, for that matter, I don't care who you are.”

“Well, you should!” Dr. Sproot barked. “I am
Doc-tor
Phyllis Sproot, the preeminent gardener in Livia. I am the person who invented the coreopsis-salvia-hollyhock blend. You probably heard something about that, eh? Or maybe your wife has? I am the person who calculated precise percentages of gardening composition, even for dahlias and roses and yucca.... Do you grow yuccas, officer?”

“I'm going to ask you to step out of the car, Ms. Sproot. With your permission, I will administer a Breathalyzer and do a quick search of your vehicle. Please, as you exit the car, make no sudden motions, as if you're going for a weapon of some sort. Do you have weapons on you, Ms. Sproot?”

 

The trembling stopped. Dr. Sproot grabbed the steering wheel with a renewed resolution of such force and steadiness that her knuckles whitened and cracked. The little voice—the so-called
good
one—had finally responded to her pleas and was making its case in its prissy little hesitant way. But Dr. Sproot now recognized it for what it really represented—weakness!
Lie down and let yourself get trampled on,
is what it was telling her.
Let others hog the limelight while you retreat into the shadows.

Dr. Sproot willed the little voice back into a silence she hoped would be eternal, got out of her car, and slammed the door so hard the window rattled.

22

A
nervous and downcast George reported for his first day at work.

This was a milestone of sorts, but not one that either George or Nan would consider to be a mark of progress. How many years ago was it that he had actually driven somewhere with regularity to earn a biweekly paycheck? Back when he was editing the shopper, that's when. That was nine years ago, before his dabbling in creative toys for children led to the big Whirl-a-Gig Bubble Blower payday.

George's reentry into the workforce followed a long conversation with Nan over a bottle of Sagelands. They began on a positive note, weighing their prospects for instantly coming up with tens of thousands of dollars, and not having to find real jobs after all. Cracking open another bottle, they realized, led to the danger of a wine-induced euphoria that would cast their cares to the wind. They opened the bottle anyway and found to no surprise that their situation didn't really look that bad.

“I'm sure you've got another one of your inventions hiding there up your sleeve, don't you, dear?” said Nan.

“Yes,” said George, puckering his lips resolutely. “As a matter of fact, I do, Nan-bee.” There was a pause.

“And?”

“The talking hose.”

“The talking hose.”

“Yes. A hose that can actually talk to you.”

“How can a hose talk when it's got water coming out of its mouth?”

Nan filled her mouth with wine, then made an effort to talk as an illustration. She gulped it down and laughed.

“And what would a hose talk about? ‘Oh, looks like rain; won't need to turn me on today.' Or, maybe, ‘Screw me in to that slutty little oscillating number over there, then stand back!' Tee-hee-hee.”

“The hose itself wouldn't actually talk,” said George stonily. “It would be a simulated kind of talk. More like a beeping. Or I suppose you could substitute some very rudimentary words. It would need some kind of computer chip.”

“Ah.”

“The computer chip would let you know after a predetermined amount of time that the hose is still on. So, no more leaving the hose on overnight!”

“Okay. Where's that brilliant invention stand now?”

“It hasn't gotten beyond the concept stage.”

“Ah-ha. So we can scratch that one off the list. Whatever happened to that beeping greeting card that could read your writing and tell you when you've misspelled a word? I thought that had some real promise. Besides, you've got an in with the greeting card business, don't you?”

“Well, yes I do, considering that they're still asking me for my special-occasion doggerel. I do have that going for me. That's still good for a couple thou a year. The greeting card idea was good, but it still faces a major hurdle.”

“Which is?”

“Reading cursive handwriting. Even block print. Everyone writes differently. If everyone typed out their greetings, then we'd have a standardized format that the computer chip could respond to. At least that's my theory, based on a limited knowledge of how artificial intelligences work.”

“One big problem there, slick: If you send a greeting card to someone, you're probably not going to type out a note on your computer and stick it in there. You're going to write it longhand. It's what they call the personal touch. You knew that, didn't you?”

“I had sort of an inkling. But I got kind of caught up in the eureka moment, I guess.”

“And how is the computer chip going to work?”

“Don't know. I'll have to connect with someone who knows something about computer chips.”

“Okay, well, that's probably a ways off then.”

“Yes, a good ways.” George solemnly refilled their glasses.

“And how's the handbag business going?”

“Have you seen me knitting any handbags lately?”

“Come to think of it, no.”

“Well, then, that's how it's going.”

“Ah.”

“There's been so much to do with our expanded gardens that I haven't even given it much thought. Besides, Cloud's and Deevers dropped my line.”

“They didn't!”

“Yes, they did. Cloud's, just last week; and Deevers, about a month ago. I didn't think it was worth telling you. They weren't selling enough of them. Apparently, the fad for custom, great-aunt-inspired handbags has come and gone.”

“But you had a great little tag on each one with that wonderful photo of your great-Aunt Lily.”

“Yes, I thought that was a nice touch, too. But it wasn't enough.”

Nan sighed and slumped over the tabletop. She felt she could hear the murmurings of her many living creations, but they were sad and confused murmurings that would not contribute to healthy growth patterns and brilliance of blooms. George felt he could hear them, too, though to a less sophisticated degree, and as more of a disorganized babel that he could only understand in snippets, as if he were talking over a bad cell phone connection.

Couldn't we muddle through? thought Nan. Couldn't they just wait for another blessed event, like the one last year that saved them from insolvency? There was obviously something about this property that invited good fortune coming hard and fast on the heels of bad.

The flowers were sighing. To the untutored sensibility, it might sound like a rustling or the rise and fall of the wind. It might not be any sound at all, and more like the whiff of a fragrance. To Nan, though, these were all signals. Today, there were a lot of them. Every genus within a hundred-yard radius seemed to be giving voice to its own flowering energy. The signals told her uniformly to stick to the plan. They pleaded with her not to leave them to the whims of nature, which could be wild and cruel.

George's messages were more fundamental. They left quite a bit of room for interpretation. Were they wishing him new luck in his endeavors, or warning that a nibbling rabbit was in the vicinity? There were the hybrid tea roses. They were interrupting in their loud, arrogant way, to demand water. Sometimes, they did that even after he watered them, just to be prima donnas. Ha! There were his buddies, the irises. They were done for the year, their blooms having already crinkled and fallen off. Here they were, with what energy remained to them, telling the hybrids to go screw themselves.

George laughed.

“Don't tell me,” Nan said. “It's your buddies, the irises. This is no time for joking, George. The flowers are very upset.”

George pondered that for a while. Then, he concentrated on the noise of the nearby interstate to block out all the floral chatter that was rising to the level of a cacophony.

“George,” said Nan. “You're blocking them out. You're not listening.”

George stiffened.

“That's right,” he said. “Because this is the time to turn off the plant world and do what's right, Nan-bee. We won't have any of this without one of us giving it up, at least for the time being, and taking on a full-time job.”

The humming of sentient flowers rose to the level of the sound of a hummingbird slurping nectar if you were standing within one centimeter of it.

“There are times when you have to ignore what your little flower beings are telling you, and decide what's right on your own. We can't wait for another miracle to happen. We've got to make money.”

The gentle murmurings quieted, then subsided altogether. George and Nan were entering the practical realm of animal conversation, which can be cerebral and confusing during the course of cross-cultural communications. At times such as these, flowers tend to clam up.

“Okay,” said Nan, bolting up ramrod straight. “Let's draw straws. I'll cut one to be shorter. The short straw has to go find a real job.”

George grimaced.

“There's got to be a better way to do this,” he said. “And I have it. Forget your short-straw idea, Nan-bee. I'll be the one who goes job hunting. I'm the obvious choice. Without you, I'd be a complete muddle in the gardens. Without me, you can still make everything flourish. And you've got Mary and Shirelle to help you out. Who needs me, except to finally be the family breadwinner I always should have been?”

Nan stared at George. Her eyes began to mist up.

“Oh, George!” She felt herself going all weak and swoony. Here was the man of her dreams, the man who would conquer the world for her, or maybe do something else a little more reasonable but which was still sort of a sacrifice. This was the George who could rise to any occasion, especially after he had had a couple of glasses of Sagelands. Speaking of which, Nan wondered how long this mood of self-sacrifice would last. If she let things hang there in suspense for too long the good effect of the wine would wear off, and George might start having second thoughts about voluntarily throwing himself on the altar of humdrum, wage-earning existence. Besides, that swoony mood that had come on her so suddenly was dissipating. She had to act quickly. George was pursing his lips and tapping his fingertips on the glass tabletop. It was the sign of a faltering resolve.

“Maybe the short straw idea . . .” he began. Nan quickly grabbed his hand and yanked it to her lips for a kiss.

“I'm so proud of you, George! To have offered yourself up like that. How gallant! Now, go make a pot of decaf and get on the computer classifieds. I've got another garden plot to plan. Go on! Chop-chop. Time's a-wasting. I think you look under Help Wanted—isn't that it?”

 

The job at Li'l Tweeters bird store wasn't really so tough. George, being an affable fellow with a ready smile, was an instant hit with the staff and customers. He came armed with a solid knowledge of backyard and migratory birds, their habitats, and their feeding habits. Always ready to learn, he quickly became familiar with the twelve different kinds of feed offered in barrels for the customers to scoop up, bag, and weigh, as well as birdcalls. He was given a spiffy blue denim shirt with
Li'l Tweeters
embroidered in yellow cursive lettering on the breast pocket, and even a Li'l Tweeters baseball cap, which he was instructed not to wear inside the store.

The pay wasn't very generous—$12 an hour. For six hours a day, five days a week, that amounted to $360 a week, enough to pay the mortgage, but virtually nothing else, which left him wondering how the heck they would be able to handle three semiannual college-tuition-and-room-and-board payments.

“Oh, well,” said Nan, sighing. “It's going to have to be ‘Welcome to the real world, kids; you're going to have to take out loans and help pay your own way.'”

As George pulled into the driveway at five thirty p.m. on a Friday, having finished his first week at Li'l Tweeters, he mused proudly about what he had accomplished over the course of the past five days. He had personally sold three squirrel baffles, two wren houses, four bird guides, four tubular finch feeders, one humongous Old Hickory Crafts bird-feeding station, twelve Styrofoam cups of mealworms, twelve cakes of suet, two birdsong CDs, and 340 pounds of birdfeed, with a special emphasis on the store's own “Feast for All” blend designed to attract the biggest possible variety of birds to your feeder.

He had signed up four customers to annual memberships in the Tweeters Club. He was able to offer advice on attracting orioles and hummingbirds.

All this earned him a pat on the back from the store manager, who was impressed enough with his knowledge that he had put George in charge of the bird log, where the sightings of various species were typed into a computer logbook and marked with colored pushpins on a big map of Livia spread out on the wall. Two pileated woodpecker sightings alone in the past week!

As George pulled into the driveway, he had begun to entertain daydreams of success in the bird-business world. Promotion would follow promotion as his talents came to the attention of the bird-store moguls. Before long, he would branch out on his own, starting a chain of high-end stores, appearing on television commercials, and doling out huge donations to the charitable causes and political candidates of his choosing.

Why, he would become to bird stores what Jasper Burdick was to gardening centers.

A sharp rap on the passenger-side window interrupted his reverie. He looked over to see Nan signaling for him to roll down the window. She had her sun hat, sunglasses, and work gloves on, and was sweating to beat the band. Ah, poor Nan-bee. Doomed to slave away in the outdoor heat while her husband, the bird supplies wunderkind, gets to soar through the corporate ranks in air-conditioned comfort.

“Fall asleep after your hard day at the office?” Nan said. “Get up here and do your wine thing. It's cocktail hour, you know. And, say, remember how the Grunions' house went into foreclosure? Well, someone must have bought it, because there's a big backhoe making one heck of a lot of noise in their backyard right now.”

 

“There, that should do very nicely,” said Nan, standing up to regard her new creation. “And it'll give us a nice swath of color back here close to the woods. My gosh, would you look at all the sunlight coming in now! Seven hours' worth maybe before the sun goes behind the house.”

George nodded.

“I suppose it's a nice consolation prize,” he said.

“Oh, stop being Mr. Downer, will you? There is no treasure.
Nada. Nunca
. Nix.
Nein. Nyet. Comprendes?
And now that you've got your job, no worries, correct-o?”

“Well, as I told you, we'll be able to pay the mortgage. We should be able to eat reasonably well. New clothes are kinda out of the picture there, Nan-bee.”

“What! Shoes?”