Scarecrow

by Robin Hathaway

  I restrained the desire to punch him. He fumbled through a filing cabinet for a minute. Then he glanced up. “That’s funny. His file is missing.”

  A small shock ran down my spine that had nothing to do with electricity. “How long has he been working here?”

  “Under a month. And yesterday he just walked out. No notice. You’re supposed to give at least a week’s notice.”

  “Well,” I said, “thanks anyway.”

  The slim woman let me out.

  When I barreled up the Sheffield driveway, Becca was sketching in the swing. I stashed my bike and joined her. After admiring her drawing—another falling-down barn—I asked, “Where are your houseguests?”

  “Who cares?” She shrugged.

  “I do.”

  Raising her eyes to the field beyond, she said, “There’s one of them.”

  A figure no bigger than an ant was making its way across the horizon. He was carrying something twice his size, which made him look ungainly—like an ant with an enormous breadcrumb.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Bringing in a scarecrow. It’s time. Winter’s hard on them.”

  Spoken like a true farmer. As the tiny, top-heavy figure drew closer to the barn, I jumped up.

  “Hey! You just got here,” Becca cried.

  “Sorry. Gotta go.” I was in no mood for a confrontation right now. (Maybe Paul’s apathy was contagious.)

  As I roared off, I wondered which Milac suffered from constipation. Or was it a family affliction?

  CHAPTER 23

  Slowly my office was coming into shape. I had repaired all the holes in the floor, and covered my inept carpentry with two colorful rag rugs from the nearest Wal-Mart (twenty-five miles away). I’d painted the shabby woodwork a glossy white, and I’d even papered the waiting room with tiny sprigs of violets on a creamy background. One thing I firmly believed: a doctor’s office should be warm and welcoming, like a country inn, not cold and forbidding, like an operating room. People are feeling bad enough when they go to see a doctor. Why make them feel worse?

  Maggie was the one who found most of the furniture. She dragged me to local flea markets and yard sales every Saturday morning. She had a knack for spotting a bargain and we made off with some gems. The trick was to arrive early. Real early. Before the dealers. She snagged the rolltop desk right from under the nose of one of the sharpest Philadelphia dealers. (She’d been to so many of these things, she knew all the dealers by sight.) I grabbed the cherry wood coffee table—perfect for all those out-of-date magazines. I found a couple of halfway decent lamps, two soft chairs, and an oak dining table that—with a little padding—became the perfect examining table. You don’t want to make the patients too comfortable. They might linger.

  But the big find was Maggie’s: a pharmacist’s chest with cute little drawers for storing pills. I sanded it, buffed it, and stained it. It was my one bona fide antique. When I was done, I went to the local printer and ordered a sign with my office hours and tacked it to the front door. The only thing missing were the patients.

  “They’ll come,” Maggie assured me. “Once the weather changes, they’ll come in from their fishing and their hunting and their crabbing and start thinking about their ailments again.”

  “I sure hope so.” I sighed.

  It was on one of these furniture jaunts that Maggie confided in me about her son. Except for that day at the auction, when she thought she spied him walking ahead of us, she’d never mentioned Nick. It was the toy train that brought it out.

  We were rummaging through a pile of old junk on a table when I heard her catch her breath. I looked up. She was holding a small, black metal steam engine. A wind-up toy. As she turned it over, her eyes filled.

  “What is it, Mag?”

  “This was Nick’s,” she said.

  “How can you tell?”

  She held it out to me and I saw the initials scratched on the bottom. N. N. “He did that with his penknife when he was ten,” she said.

  “How did it get here?”

  She frowned. “He must have sold it. He used to do that, sell his toys—even his clothes—when he …” She hesitated. “When he needed money.”

  She took the train over to the cashier and paid five dollars for it. The expression on her face made me want to cry. She was silent all the way home. I wanted to say something comforting, but nothing came to me. She didn’t speak until we were back at the motel. As she pulled into the parking lot, she said. “He had a drug habit, you know.”

  I shook my head.

  “I think that’s what happened to him. He overdosed somewhere—in the woods, probably—where no one will ever find him.” She jerked the key from the ignition. “You see”—she turned toward me—“if he were alive, he would let us know.” It was a statement, but her eyes held a question.

  What could I say? I didn’t know Nick. But from what Tom had told me, I couldn’t be sure. My nod seemed to satisfy her.

  We went inside and told Paul about all our purchases. All but one.

  CHAPTER 24

  I decided to grace the Nelsons with my presence on Thanksgiving Day. My dad and I had never made a big thing of that holiday, usually spending it at our favorite diner. Becca would have her aunt and her menial servant (definition of “dogsbody”; I looked it up) and the Milacs for company. But the Nelsons, I reasoned, would probably be celebrating alone.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  The Nelsons lived in a small ranch house a few miles from their motel. As I entered, bearing my hostess gift (it had taken some trouble to find a decent wine around Bayfield—veteran beer country), the delicious aroma of a home-cooked turkey dinner with all the trimmings swept over me. Inhaling deeply, I felt a pang for all those Thanksgiving dinners I had missed.

  Maggie gave me a big hug and relieved me of my bottle.

  Paul’s normally gray countenance was suffused with color as he smiled at me from across the room. The living room was tiny but comfortable, furnished with an ample sofa covered in bright plaid, two homely rocking chairs, and an overstuffed chair that matched the sofa. A rag rug covered most of the floor, and the walls were decorated with old-fashioned samplers. In one corner stood a desk piled high with papers that no one had bothered to hide for the occasion. On the desk was a single framed photograph of a young man with what seemed to me an arrogant expression. Pretending an interest in the sampler above the photo, I moved closer to check him out. I was right. His jaw jutted toward the camera, but his eyes had shifted away from the lense looking to the left. And instead of a smile, his mouth curved in a slight sneer. He didn’t resemble either of his parents.

  “Work while you work, Play while you play,” I read aloud. “Is this your work, Maggie?”

  “No, dear. My grandmother made that when she was twelve. Come sit down.”

  As I obeyed, choosing one of the rockers (I loved rocking chairs), a woman resembling Maggie, but twenty pounds lighter, came in bearing a potted mum. After hugs and kisses were exchanged, she was introduced to me as Polly, Maggie’s younger sister. A single woman, she taught eighth grade at the local grammar school.

  “How do you do?” She clasped my hand warmly. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  Assuming she had heard about me from the Nelsons, I was surprised when she added, “ … from Becca.”

  “Becca?”

  “Yes. Becca Borovy. She’s a student of mine. A bit unruly right now, but a very talented artist.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve seen some of her drawings.”

  “I’m trying to steer her toward architecture. She comes by it rightly. She’s from Prague, you know.”

  And two of my most cherished assumptions were wiped out with a single blow. One: Nobody in Bayfield is interested in anything outside of Bayfield. Two: All female children in Bayfield were brought up to cook and sew. Paul handed me a glass of rosy wine, from which I took a large gulp. “I had the same idea,” I told the teacher. “I’ve even promised
to take her to New York.”

  Polly’s face lit up almost as much as Becca’s had. “Could I come, too?” she asked, instantly smashing my third favorite assumption: Everyone in Bayfield hates New York.

  “Sure,” I agreed eagerly. “Let’s set a date right now. How about—” I was cut off by the doorbell.

  “Oh, that must be Tom,” Maggie said, and Paul went to answer it.

  “Tom?” I asked no one in particular.

  “Tom Canby,” Polly said, as a male voice rose in the hall.

  I turned to see Paul usher Robin Hood into the living room.

  CHAPTER 25

  “You know Maggie’s sister, Polly.” Mr. Nelson was doing the honors. “And this is Jo Banks, our new doctor.” His tone of veneration made me want to crawl under the coffee table.

  “Dr. Banks and I have met,” Tom said.

  “Oh? Where?”

  If he said Harry’s Bar & Grill I’d slug him.

  “On the road. She was a bit confused by our lack of road signs.”

  Paul chuckled. “Well, I’m sure you set her straight.”

  Throughout this little exchange, I maintained a fixed smile.

  “Hello, Tommy. Give me a kiss.” Maggie appeared from the kitchen, hair awry, wearing an apron and holding a bottle of wine. “Time for just one more before dinner.” She began filling each of our glasses to the brim.

  General conversation resumed. I didn’t have to speak directly to Tom until we were crowding into the little hall that led to the dining room. He was right behind me.

  “Are you white meat or dark?” He spoke over my shoulder.

  I shrugged.

  “I’d take you for dark.”

  He was right, of course. “Wrong,” I said.

  “I’ll be darned. Full of surprises.”

  I surprised myself. Why had I lied to him?

  The process of squeezing into chairs around the small table absorbed all our attention. The turkey rested in solitary splendor on a platter on the sideboard. Everyone admired its fat legs and glistening brown skin. The other dishes were crowded in the center of the table. Stuffing, sweet potatoes, creamed corn, onions, green beans with almonds, coleslaw, cranberry sauce, applesauce … it went on and on.

  “Pay special attention to my oyster stuffing,” Maggie said. “It’s made with local oysters. This is the first year we’ve been allowed to eat them since the blight of ’seventy-nine.”

  I found myself seated with Polly on my right and Paul’s empty chair on my left. Maggie was at the other end of the table, and Tom sat across from me. This was annoying, because every time I looked up I would catch him staring at me. But it was better than having to make conversation with him. I began talking animatedly to Polly about our forthcoming trip to New York.

  “We can drive over early in the morning—” I stopped.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “No car. All I have is my bike. And I can’t see the three of us making it on that!” I grimaced.

  “You can borrow my pickup,” Tom offered with a wry grin.

  “Very funny.” A pickup in New York would stand out like a yellow cab in Bayfield.

  “Don’t worry,” Polly said. “I have a car. But you have to promise to do all the city driving. I’d have a heart attack.”

  “Jo.”

  I looked up.

  Paul was standing by the turkey, waving his carving knife at me. “White or dark?”

  “Dark, please.”

  As I turned back to Polly, I caught Tom’s triumphant grin.

  Damn him.

  “Then, after we dump the car,” I plowed on, ignoring him, “we can have breakfast at this great deli—”

  “Corned beef and rye for breakfast?” Tom looked askance.

  “—where they have great omelets,” I finished.

  He snorted into his napkin.

  When everyone had been presented with a plate containing his or her meat preference, it was time to hand round the other dishes. Quite a production.

  “Now don’t hang back, folks, there’s plenty more of everything in the kitchen,” Maggie urged.

  By the time we had finished serving ourselves, my pink china plate was completely covered. About to dig in, I was suddenly conscious of an awkward pause. Everyone was looking expectantly at Paul, who had taken his seat at the head of the table. He was staring at his plate, his expression stony. Maggie waited a moment longer before she rapidly said grace.

  Why did I feel this overwhelming sense of relief—as if some dreadful crisis had been averted?

  The “amen” acted as a starting bell, and everyone dug in.

  Completely immersed in the enjoyment of this incredible dinner, I forgot my stupid blunder about the meat. I even forgot Tom. It certainly was different from the diner, even from Manhattan’s most expensive gourmet restaurants. You couldn’t buy food like this. It just wasn’t available.

  During dinner, the story of the twenty-year oyster blight was gone over in minute detail. This led to talk of pollution and the threat of the power plant. “It’s destroying the fish and crabs,” Paul said. “They’re dying every day because of the hot water pumped from the plant into the streams and creeks.” A discussion of Cohansey Creek and its history followed. “Back in Colonial times, these coves and inlets were full of pirates,” Tom said, looking at me. “And they’re supposed to hold buried treasure.”

  Maggie mentioned seeing wild turkeys. A flock of them had crossed the road in front of her, and one of them had been an albino! Tom had seen them, too. Apparently, the area had been full of wild turkeys once, until 1982 when they had suddenly disappeared. Now they were back. Wow! Had anyone wired the Times? When the pumpkin pie appeared, with a side dish of real whipped cream, my stomach groaned. But somehow, I managed to stuff in a piece before we finally rose and moved back into the living room.

  I had made my plans—stick close to Polly—to avoid any more encounters with Tom. What the hell is your problem? He’s damned attractive. Are you nuts? My worries were needless. The party split along traditional gender lines—the men in one corner discussing the merits of the hunting season; the women in the other, discussing everything else.

  “I overheard you talking about Becca Borovy earlier,” Maggie began, settling down with a bag bulging with knitting. “Aren’t her people foreigners?”

  “They’re from Czechoslovakia,” Polly said, “or rather, the Czech Republic now.”

  “They were foreigners,” I inserted. “They died when Becca was four.”

  “Oh?” Polly turned to me. “I didn’t know that. I thought her parents had just sent her over here to get her away from the Communists.”

  “It seems her grandfather is still alive, and when her parents died he sent Becca to live with her aunt.”

  “Poor child. No wonder she’s a bit rebellious. Although her aunt seems decent enough. Have you met her?” Polly asked.

  I nodded.

  Maggie was rapidly slipping stitches onto a new knitting needle. She interrupted her counting to ask, “Isn’t there some man living with them?”

  “Yes. Juri.”

  “Juri? What a funny name.” Maggie went back to her counting.

  “Not really. It’s as common as Jack or … Tom … in their country.” I had no idea if this was true, but it riled me when people talked about “foreigners.”

  “Did you meet him?” asked Maggie.

  I nodded.

  “Who is he? What does he do?” Polly, this time. “I’ve seen him around the Sheffield place, dressed like a farmhand. He’s such a handsome fella.”

  I smiled. It always surprised me when people over forty noticed things like that. But then, Juri was probably about Polly’s age. “According to Becca, he’s a relative and acts as their handyman.”

  “What did you think of him?” Maggie again, knitting at a sixty-mile-an-hour clip.

  “He seemed okay. A bit nosy. But …”

  “Nosy?” Maggie was not beyond nosy herself.


  “Oh, he asked a whole lot of questions about my medical education, my practice in New York, where and how I was going to practice here … I guess I was supersensitive. This was a few days after I’d decided to stay, and I didn’t have all the answers myself.” I was suddenly aware of silence on the male side of the room. Paul was smoking his pipe with a contemplative expression, but Tom was blatantly listening to me. He got up quickly and came over.

  “How is the practice going?” he asked, very politely.

  “Fine, thank you.” Equally polite.

  “I see you now and then. Your red scarf is like a bright flag. It’s nice to see a spot of color this time of year.”

  “There’s always the winter wheat,” I retorted.

  “True.” His smile vanished. He turned to Maggie, “That was some feast you laid on us, lady.” He bent and kissed her. “I’m going to try and walk it off now. Many thanks.”

  I was sure he had planned to ask me to join him on his walk, and was turned off by my rudeness. I was torn between relief and regret. To my dismay, I realized regret had taken the lead.

  After Tom left, the party began to sag. Polly yawned. Paul openly dozed in his chair. Maggie began to collect the dirty wine glasses. I offered to help with the dishes but was quickly rebuffed.

  “Not on your life. That’s what dishwashers are for. I’m not going to touch those things ’til tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Mag, you have to at least rinse them,” her sister said. “And what about the pots? Let us help.”

  “No.” She stared us both down with her most severe, admitting-no-nonsense Mary Poppins glare. We subsided and Maggie disappeared into the kitchen.

  “I’m so glad we met,” I said to Polly. “Maybe you could give me your phone number in case I come up with some new ideas for our trip.”

  “Of course.” She reached in her bag for paper and pen. “We never did set a date,” she reminded me, handing me the number.

  We both took out our date books and settled on December 14.

  “I’ll take care of contacting Becca,” I said. Turning to say good-bye to Paul, I found him still sound asleep. As I started off to find Maggie, I glanced at the picture on the desk once more. Polly caught my glance.