Republic of Dirt (30 page)

A
lec Baldwin wasn’t looking so hot. Eustace and Stephan McFadden and Anoop, who is actually pretty handy, built him a little rooster convalescence hospital with heated shed and small run for when he felt well enough to take a walk outside. The hospital was parked on Earl’s porch. I’d opened the back of the rest box and saw that the no-longer shiny black bird with the droopy Liberace head crest was crouched inside.

Prudence came bustling over. She still gets cold easily, so she was bundled up, three times her usual size, in sweaters and coats and hats and gloves under mittens.

“Seth!” she yelled, which was unusual for her. Even when she’s in full speed mode she usually has one of those calming, nicely modulated voices.

“I’ve had an idea!”

Oh shit, I thought.

“Sara’s parents are leaving. And they’re taking Sara with them. Only for a few months, but who knows what might happen? This is
our last chance to get her back. We’ve got to get that social worker here and convince him to write a report that they can bring to their divorce lawyers.”

“I don’t think that social worker is going to write a report. Sara’s not part of his caseload. That’s why he’s not showing up. He just said that to get Mr. and Mrs. Bitterspratt to stop fighting.”

“They won’t change their minds unless they have something in writing from an authority.”

“The whole thing is just so unfathomably stupid. They know she’d be better off here. They know we aren’t unsafe. Well, we are, but mostly to ourselves.”

“We need to give them space to change their minds. To retreat with dignity from their entrenched positions.”

“How about they think about what’s good for Sara?”

“Someday they’ll think in those terms, but they can’t seem to do it now. The social worker and the party is what we have. We’ve got to make it count.”

“Are you sure inviting the social worker to one of our events is a good idea?” I asked, trying to sound like I didn’t think she’d lost her mind. “Not everything we do around here is an unqualified success.”

“Those situations were different,” she said. “The Cedar Christmas Mule Tour idea is dead. This is the only option we have. We’ll put on a Christmas party so amazing that no one could possibly object to Sara coming back to stay. The social worker will be dying to write a glowing report.”

“Okay,” I said, wishing we had a viable Plan B. What would happen if we didn’t get the report? Would Mr. or Mrs. Spratt take Sara with them? Leave her with her aunt in Duncan? How would we ever get to see her then?

I glanced into the box. The rooster hadn’t moved. Damn it.

“My friend Hugh, from Cedar Cab, called. He said that the botanical garden in Nanoose has decided not to put on their annual Christmas display. They have thousands of dollars’ worth of lights they’re not using and they’ve agreed to rent them to us!”

“For what? A few bags of greens? I thought we were nearly broke.”

Prudence laughed merrily. “I made a special arrangement. We’re going to let the woman who runs the botanical garden ride Lucky! Her name is Tai and she loves mules. I told her she can come over anytime.”

“I hope Tai has a lot of insurance.”

Prudence wasn’t put off by my negativity. “Now we just need a little help putting up all those lights in time for the party. We need to gather cedar boughs. We need a menorah, just in case we get Jewish visitors. We’ll need ribbons. Call everyone you know. We’ve got to make this thing happen.”

Then she zipped away, inasmuch as anyone shaped like an overdressed egg can zip.

By the end of the next day, the farm looked like one of those traveling carnivals setting up in the Walmart parking lot.

S
he got all of us, the volunteer fire brigade, the local tree-chopping service, two loggers and three roofers involved. There was guys hanging out of every tree on the place and two of them cherry-picker platforms, one parked by the house so the guys could string lights along the roofline and another one parked near the tallest stand of fir trees at the far edge of the property.

Problem was, there was more lights than there was things to hang ‘em on, so Prudence got them doubled up. We ended up with so many lights crisscrossing the new barn, it looked like a Vegas casino.

My cabin was the worst. Practically falling down under the weight of them sparklers. The commotion probably didn’t help the sick rooster living on my porch. I kept his hospital covered in an old sheet so he could get a little shut-eye and not be bothered by all the goings-on.

Most of the young guys who come out to help did it because Eustace promised them free vet services for their dogs. Seth got that mother of his and her boyfriend to pitch in with decorating, along
with his aunt and some of their barfly friends. There was about six of them gals, and I’d guess that they all watch a helluva lot of decorating TV. Every one of them smoked and swilled wine from plastic cups. The more wine they drank, the more directions they had for Bobby, Seth’s mother’s boyfriend.

Bobby, said Seth’s mom, I think we need another cedar bough on the porch. Then she got to hacking and said she needed another drink.

Bobby, said Seth’s aunt, a great big lady in a checked work shirt and long skirt. Can you straighten the plaid ribbon on the compost bin?

Goddamn it if old Bob didn’t do everything they said, running all over the place, mustache twitching. I guess working with model helicopters has made him good with his hands, because he made at least eight damned nice wreaths, and the boughs he tied with pinecones and ornaments was even nicer.

Looks good, Bobby, said Seth’s mom. She was in a blue snowsuit with fur around the hood and didn’t look half bad. Having Seth out of the house was agreeing with her.

There was an argument when one of the ladies said we needed a blow-up Santa on the roof of the house and some of them ladies agreed that was what was missing, but Seth’s mom and his aunt said the idea was to make the place look classy, and those blow-ups was about as classy as hot dog night at the homeless shelter, and the lady who suggested the blow-up got offended and said she always put up Santa and Frosty and Rudolph, and someone else said that was exactly the point.

I guess Seth seen this kind of argument go wrong before, because he got in there right away and said how inflatables were real festive
but you had to blow them up every day, pretty much, and because of having to farm, we wouldn’t have time to do that. He said everyone should just pour themselves a fresh drink from the wine box and enjoy the afternoon.

When it was all done, the place looked like hell, all covered in wires and branches, but then it was daytime, so maybe it would look better at night and with the power turned on.

Prudence come over to where I was standing with Eustace and Seth and we were watching the ladies and Bob share what was left of their box wine with some of the young guys, and Prudence put a hand on my shoulder.

Tonight we test, she said. I’ve invited the social worker to attend tomorrow. Both Sally and Dean have also asked him to stop by and so did Sara’s teacher, Miss Singer. He can’t ignore all of us.

Her cheeks was all red and she was smiley as hell and I hoped this was all going to work out.

I
magine that moment when a metal supergroup stands on the stage to rehearse the show for their world tour. They look around, prepared to be amazed at the array of seizure-inducing lights, the huge staircase rising out of the stage, the massive video screens, enormous smoking volcano, the works. If they’re control freaks, like David Lee Roth, they have also poked around in the dressing room to make sure there are no brown M&M’s in the candy bowl.

Well, if the band was me, Prudence, Earl and Eustace waiting for the big Woefield Light-Up, they would have been seriously fucking disappointed. The volcano would eject a single puff of electrical smoke, the stage would stall halfway out of the floor, and the video screens would be cracked and dark. The candy bowl in the dressing room would contain exclusively brown M&M’s.

It turns out that thousands of Christmas lights require a shitload of electrical capacity. When we plugged the extension cords into the power bars, there was a brief pop and all the power went out. Not just on the farm, but over half of Cedar.

We stood in the dark.

“Guess it’s too much draw on our system,” said my sponsor, the genius. “I’d have thought someone would have caught that.”

The porch was black as an outhouse hole, so we couldn’t see each other at all.

“This is why David Lee Roth put the brown M&M’s in the concert rider,” I told everyone. “Putting on a major show means paying attention to the details. He didn’t want promoters who would cut corners setting up Van Halen’s stage show.”

“Goddamned candy wouldn’t have helped this outfit,” said Earl.

A light flared on when Prudence clicked on her LED headlamp.

“Thank goodness we tested it before the actual evening!” she said, completely unconcerned. “So how do we get more power?”

“Once BC Hydro gets the power back on, you mean? Let’s go to Home Depot or one of those equipment rental places and get a generator. Maybe two,” said Eustace.

“Great,” said Prudence. “Let’s do it now! I think Home Depot is open until nine.”

She hurried off to Eustace’s truck and he hurried after her.

Earl fumbled his own LED headlamp, which he keeps in his pocket, onto his head and his beam appeared.

We stood in silence for a minute.

“Think this is going to work?” I asked.

“I don’t even know what’s going on around here,” he said.

We were quiet for a long moment.

The day of the party, I was pretty much going to pieces. Not only were we in a make or break situation with regard to getting Sara back, but my editor, Tamara, was on her way.

Prudence was in the kitchen, preparing what she called “holiday party fare,” and like the supremely confident, non-shaming person she is, she kept trying to encourage me.

“You look amazing,” she said, when I came downstairs in my light wash blue jeans.

“Even better,” she said, when I changed into a dark wash pair.

“Those are the best yet,” she said, when I switched into my black skinnies.

Tamara texted to say she’d left Victoria and would be about an hour and a half getting to the farm.

“This is exciting,” said Prudence the fifteenth time I came back inside after going outside to stare at the road.

Eustace was less gentle with me, partly because Prudence had given him all the annoying jobs, like rolling the shortbread dough into tiny balls, pressing thumbprints into them and then spooning in a teaspoon of Prudence’s raspberry jam. When he got done that, she put him to work making the molasses cookies and cheese tarts.

“Don’t you think three hundred might be too many?” he said. Followed by, “Maybe Earl should help.”

“He’s sitting with Alec Baldwin.”

Eustace, who’d been checking the bird three times a day, made a face I chose to ignore.

I reached for one of the thumbprint cookies from a wire rack where dozens of them cooled and Eustace jabbed a jam-covered spoon at me.

“Leave them. We need all three hundred cookies because I think Prudence invited about four hundred people.”

“Nearly,” said Prudence, laughing merrily and dumping more cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves into a bowl. “Tonight is going to be talked about for years.”

Eustace’s voice softened. “Please don’t get upset if this doesn’t go the way you want,” he said.

Prudence was preparing apple cider spice mix for people to take away with them in little brown envelopes printed with the name of the farm. “I just want tonight to be nice,” she said. “I want to show people who we are and I want Sara back here when her parents leave.”

The telephone rang for about the twentieth time in the past couple of hours.

“Seth, would you mind getting that?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m going to have to decline. My nerves are shot. Can’t answer any more questions about the party.”

I heard the engine and darted outside to see a brown car coming down the driveway. Even the car, which she’d borrowed from her sister, was cool and French. Not
literally
French. It wasn’t a Peugeot or a Renault or anything. But it was the kind of car a certain kind of cultural person in Montreal should drive. Staffers at
Vice
magazine. Quebecois filmmakers and musicians who haven’t hit it big yet.

I panicked and ran back inside.

“Get back out there,” said Prudence, cheerfully. “It’s going to be so great! She’s your editor. She’s Team You!”

“Oh god,” I said. “I think I’m going to be sick. I might have IBS.”

“Enough with the fear,” said Eustace. “Grow a pair. You’re a new man.”

I forced myself back outside. By then, Tamara had gotten out of the car.

I had sent her my photo to run next to my column, so she had some idea what I look like, but her editorials are accompanied by a drawing that makes her look like a smart cartoon character. In person, she looked like Prudence if Prudence used to be a junkie punk rocker and was able to see and appreciate the bad side of everything.

That is a wholly inadequate description. Tamara, my editor, had brown hair that was unkempt and she wore a scarf around her neck in a way that was careless and perfect and tight jeans and motorcycle-ish boots and a light brown motorcycle-ish jacket, and I swear to god my heart nearly stopped when I caught sight of her.

I realize I’m gushing. I can’t help it.

She spotted me and grinned. “HM,” she said.

I felt my face crack into an uncontrolled, ear-to-ear smile.

We stood like that for a minute. Me on the stairs of the house, Tamara in front of her car. We grinned at each other like a couple of idiots. Or kids.

I could feel my chest cavity expand to fit my swelling heart.

She walked over to me, her boots crunching on the gravel.

“You’re cute,” she said. “Just like in your writing.”

Like the recent winner of a seventh-degree black belt in social ineptitude, I couldn’t seem to make any words.

“You going to show me around?” she asked.

I nodded.

“First the mule. Then I want to meet Earl.”

I puffed out a big breath that I’d been holding and took a few steps toward her. Then I stopped. “I can’t believe you’re here,” I said.

Tamara’s hair fluttered across her intelligent face. Her dark eyes were free of makeup and her lips were pale.

“Life is full of startling things,” she said. “Haven’t you noticed yet?”

Then we went to see Lucky, and as we were leaving the pasture, the gleaming new Lincoln Town Car swept up the driveway, looking about as out of place on Woefield Farm as it was possible for a vehicle to look.