“Hold on there,” the surprised receptionist said, realizing too late she’d been bypassed.
“Good morning, Magina,” Grace said to an even more shocked Magina, who partially stood up from behind her desk.
“Why, Grace, what a surprise,” she said, giving the receptionist one of her most hateful looks before waving her away. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Today is a new day, Magina,” Grace declared. “I know we’ve not seen eye-to-eye for many years now. For that, I am sorry. I, for one, forgive you of all your transgressions, and I’m starting with a clean slate. I hope you will do the same.”
“Why, uh, yes, I guess...”
“Good. So, there’s only one last piece of business from the past that I wanted to deliver to you.” She opened her purse and removed the paper. “This bill.” She handed the paper to Magina.
“Bill? What bill?” Magina asked, instinctively taking it from her, and glancing down with a confused look.
“I realize you’ve arranged for the town to take the gazebo back. Well, I’ve checked with my attorney and he agrees that this bill needs to be paid in full first.”
Magina reached for her reading glasses, which hung around her neck, and studied the paper in her hand.
“$3,995.49! What in the world is this for?” she asked, looking back at Grace.
“As it says there, for remodeling, restoration, painting, and landscaping,” Grace replied. “I realize that you won’t be able to take the landscaping with you, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the landscaping was done. As you can see, I’ve given the town thirty days to make the payment in full. Barring that, my attorney will see you in court. By the way, my attorney is Mr. Albert Finch, and as you know, he’s very good — rarely ever loses a case. Of course, if you would prefer to avoid either the expense or legal action, you can simply sign this second document...”, she continued as she reached into her purse again and pulled out a second paper, “...that will give full rights and ownership of the gazebo to me.”
Magina sat down in her chair with a deep sigh. “I thought you said you were going to forgive me and that we’d be starting over fresh.”
“Why, yes, I am,” Grace replied. “I totally forgive you. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll continue to be taken advantage of by you or anyone else. That’s not what forgiveness is about at all.”
She dropped the second paper on the desk in front of Magina. “Do you need a pen?” she asked, as she slid the paper towards Magina and reached into her purse.
With a confused look still on her face, Magina nodded as she reached for the offered pen.
Birthing Grapefruit
PERHAPS ONE OF OUR most distinguished inhabitants of Foster Flat was Dr. Alvin Molarity, who found his way to our fine town in the hopes of retiring, some say to write his memoirs. Of course, none of Foster Flat’s born and bred wanted to have a thing to do with him...well, except us kids, of course. We found the doctor to be a source of endless curiosity, especially on those long summer breaks from school.
It just goes to prove, you don’t have to be a born and bred founding member to have your life shaped by the fantastical effects of Foster Flat.
Mimi Rawlins
FOR those gifted with good eyesight, it's difficult to imagine how anyone could overlook such a large object as the pink and white bassinet that lay in the path between the old man and his paper. But Dr. Molarity's nickname, Mole, by which he was known in scientific circles the world over, was an apt one. It's probable that Mole's preoccupation with his thoughts had as much to do with the accident as his poor eyesight. One need only look at his disheveled dress, from the mismatched socks to the layered appearance of two moth-eaten sweaters, to tell that Mole spent much of his life within the world of his own creation.
The born and bred residents of Foster Flat considered the distinguished doctor a new and suspicious implant even though he’d spent the last twenty years of his life in retirement in the quiet mountain town. However, since he was both likable and semi-reclusive, everyone pretty much left him alone.
He was fortunate on this morning that the bassinet lay at the bottom of the porch steps and not at the top. It was this difference in location that resulted in only a sprained ankle after the fall and not a broken pelvis or neck. Mole sat on the sidewalk that led up to his trim, neatly painted and landscaped cottage, cursing quietly under his breath, still too shocked from the fall to attempt to stand. Every joint in his body cried out in pain, but since that was normal for the seventy-five year old retired professor, Mole decided to sit for a few moments more until he could decide if there were any new areas that hurt. Still, he didn't discover the sprained ankle until he tried to stand on his right foot.
"Damnation," he cried out as much at growing old in general as to the specific injury. He tested the foot again. Finding he could still put some weight on it, he decided that, considering everything, he had been most fortunate. The ankle would be tender for a few days, but nothing appeared broken. He had managed to avoid falling into the flower bed, so the well-manicured daffodils were safe. As he glanced behind him, he noticed for the first time the large bassinet that appeared to be filled with grapefruit. For most people, a bassinet would seem to be a most inappropriate container for storing grapefruit, but when one circulated among the eccentric world of highbrow professors and scientists as Mole did, one became accustomed, indeed rather nebulous, to such apparent eccentricities. Mole limped painfully out to the end of the walk, peering through squinted lids for the morning paper and found it lying on three squashed daffodils.
"Damn paperboy. He's trying to wipe out every living plant on the face of this earth."
He stooped over with some difficulty and picked the paper up, trying unsuccessfully to coach the fragile daffodils back to attention. Failing that, he snipped the flowers off with his thumbnail and carried them back to the house. At least they would give him a few days of pleasure sitting in a vase before succumbing to the paperboy’s negligence. At the steps, he stooped to pick up the bassinet and struggled one step at a time back into his house.
Immediately inside the house, the trim appearance of the outside world came to an abrupt and shocking halt. A cacophony of animal noise arose from an assortment of wire cages and perches, and a musty odor permeated through Mole's inner sanctuary. Intermixed with the menagerie of small pets were stacks upon stacks of books, magazines and newspapers. Atop all of this was yet another layer of life, this one in the form of plants. To most, it would have appeared that someone had taken as many discarded items as possible, tossed them into the cottage, then shaken it violently until well mixed. To Mole, it was warm and cozy.
Mole half carried, half dragged the heavy bassinet into the kitchen, finally managing to push it with his good foot into the pantry. As he struggled with the package, he wondered to himself who could have placed it on his doorstep.
“Possibly Mrs. Ingram, my old secretary,” Mole muttered. “She's a dear sweet soul and would probably remember my fondness for grapefruit. No, no, not her. She's been dead for two years. Maybe, Dr. Pascal. Perhaps we had a bet going and he's finally paying it."
That's possible, Mole thought, but he couldn't fathom even his old friend being so eccentric as to wager a bassinet of grapefruit.
"Perhaps one of my students trying to pay back a debt or feeling sorry for their old retired professor. Yes, that's possible, but which one?” During Mole's long career, he had had hundreds of students in his genetics classes and dozens of graduate students. But there had been one, in particular, that he still remembered with mixed feelings.
"What was his name? Oh, an odd fellow. He was a grad student. Yes, that's correct. It was a noble sounding name, as I remember. Weird duck, he was. I mean, really, weirder than most. We had quite a love-hate relationship. Abram...no. Aldram. Yes, that was it. Marcus Aldram. I wonder if he would play such a joke. If so, I best be careful about eating them. They could as likely be poison. I wonder what ever happened to
ol' Aldram. Such a genius he was and in some ways so demented. Possessed incredible potential in genetics, though. I wonder. . . "
Mole stood in the pantry for several moments reminiscing, until the pain in this foot brought him back to the present.
"Must find my glasses," he mumbled to himself. Having lived alone most of these last twenty years, he seldom questioned his one-sided conversations anymore. His sight had been deficient for most of his life, as had his memory for where he left his glasses. For that reason, he had managed over the years to collect a large assortment of spectacles and was not particular as to which he used. The ones he uncovered today under the parakeet food next to the hamster cage were the horn-rimmed ones given to him some eighteen years earlier by his dearly departed wife. He was glad they had been the ones he found. Wearing them always gave him a warm feeling, as though Annie were still around somewhere, maybe in the next room. By the time Mole entered the kitchen to get a bag of ice for his throbbing ankle, he'd forgotten about the basket of fruit.
IT WASN'T UNTIL THE next morning that Mole remembered the fruit, as he considered his options for breakfast, but by this time, he had misplaced his glasses again.
"Why in the world I don't just get one of those strings to hang the blasted things around my neck, I'll never know."
"Yes, you do, you ornery cuss," he answered himself. "That would be admitting you're getting old and can't take care of yourself. You'd rather be blind the rest of your life then admit that."
As Mole argued with himself, he opened the pantry door and felt for one of the grapefruits. Politely changing the subject on himself, he said, "Whooee, these are monster fruits. Must be from Florida. The biggest ones always come from Florida."
Mole closed the pantry door and shuffled over to the counter next to the sink. The drip-drip from the faucet went unnoticed. It was one of the small benefits of being a little hard of hearing. He opened the drawer under the counter, being careful not to pull it out too far. For some reason, that particular drawer had a nasty habit of falling out, particularly when it knew it had Mole at the disadvantage of not having his glasses.
Feeling gently in the drawer, Mole finally found the knife of choice. Before cutting the fruit, he held it out in front of him at arms length, then closer to his face to see it better. Something was unusual about the fruit besides it size. He set it on the counter and placed both of his hands on his temples and pulled the skin tight. This improved his vision slightly, but still the fruit remained just a large yellow blur.
He picked it up again, debating if it was worth hunting for his glasses. Then it dawned on him what was different. The texture of the fruit was much rougher than he was accustomed to. The pores seemed larger and more pronounced.
"Must be a new strain of grapefruit. Wonder if the scientists who decided grapefruits weren't large enough thought to leave any taste in them. Probably not."
Mole set the fruit on the counter but continued to hold it. Strange. The fruit felt warm like it was generating its own heat. But he had placed the bassinet in the pantry specifically because the small closet stayed cooler than the rest of his house. Perhaps it had been lying in the sun on the counter long enough to become warm.
"Okay, tasteless giant fruit. Make your peace with nature, for you are about to meet your Maker." Mole lifted the knife from the counter and, with great care so as not to severe a finger in the process, sliced the fruit in half.
But the two pieces did not immediately separate. They hung for a brief second as though fighting to remain as one. Mole stared at the fruit, a strange feeling of suspended animation taking hold of him. He watched as the left half pulled slowly away from the right, then stared as a viscous green slime fought to hold the two pieces together, lost the battle and oozed onto the counter.
Mole dropped the knife, backing up as he did so, placing too much weight on his bad ankle. He felt the wincing pain and nearly lost his balance again. Two more steps from the counter and still the green ooze spread. Mole continued to back pedal from the counter. Suddenly remembering where a pair of glasses was, he limped from the kitchen into the den, reached on top of one of the five-foot piles of books and drew down a pair of wire-framed spectacles. His sight restored, he returned to the kitchen. He found himself trying to walk on tip toes, as if to sneak up on the strange fruit lying on the counter.
As he approached, it quickly became obvious that the object he had bisected was not a grapefruit. Although it was yellow and of the approximate size of a grapefruit, there the resemblance stopped. The surface was much more irregular, with no visible sign of a stem. In fact, the sphere was much too round to be a grapefruit or any other type of fruit he had ever seen. But it was the insides that marked the true distinction.
Mole carefully lifted the knife from the counter where he had dropped it and probed gently at the insides. In the left half, a small pale green embryo lay gasping for air. With each gasp, a small viscous bubble formed around the lips, expanding and contracting. The small amphibian-like legs lying in the right half kicked slightly in time with the gasps. Mole continued to watch, his breathing matching the rhythm of the bubbles. It continued for what was probably no more than thirty seconds, though time seemed suspended to Mole as he watched the small creature fight for a life that was already over.
When at last the gasping and kicking ceased, Mole removed his glasses and, using the sleeve from his tattered outer sweater, wiped the tears from his eyes. "I didn't know. God, I didn't realize...I'm so sorry," he mumbled over and over to himself.
THE MORNING DEW WAS still wet on the grass when Mole opened the door to his backyard. It was one of his favorite sanctuaries, as immaculately groomed as the front yard, with a high brick and iron wall that gave it the feel of a securely hidden retreat. This feeling was heightened by the tall oak trees on either side of the yard that formed a partial canopy over the small court.
Mole trudged slowly towards the rear corner of the yard, in part because of his sore ankle and in part in honor of the occasion. In his hands, he carried a shoe box, tied neatly shut by a yellow strand of bailing string. Mole walked along the straight rows of flowers and shrubs that made up the landscaping of the right corner. As he passed each shrub or clump of flowers, he remembered the small bodies that lay under the soil—a small rabbit, found outdoors during the winter, unsuccessfully nursed for exposure—the two hamsters buried together since they died on the same day, cause unknown.
Mole found his small pet cemetery peaceful and relaxing, like someday he, too, might lie down in it and sleep the deep eternal sleep. He was particularly sad on this morning, though, for the small body he was about to bury had never actually had a chance to live. More sorrowfully, it had been at his hands that the tiny flame had been prematurely snuffed out. All the rest of the tiny animals had died from old age or some unfortunate accident or illness, with Mole attempting to hold off death in each instance. The small embryo would be the first victim of murder, and his sin weighed heavily on his conscience.
Mole placed the box down on a flat rock reserved for such purposes and picked up the shovel that rested in the corner against the wall. He selected a spot at the end of one of the rows and began to dig—slowly, deliberately. His heart was heavy, and his thoughts held him fast within himself, and so it was not surprising that he didn't notice the two small boys staring down at him from the neighboring oak. They were barely noticeable anyway, no more than a pair of squirrels darting from branch to branch would have been. One must be consciously looking up to notice such activity.
"What's he doing?" the taller of the two boys asked quietly.
"I don't know, Alex,” the smaller boy with thick glasses whispered, but even as the words hissed from his lips, he knew it was a lie, and he knew that it wouldn't help Mole. The gang would find out about Mole's secret cemetery and they just might find out that he was lying.
"Looks like he's burying something," Mikey tried to correct his mistake.
"No shit, Sherlock. That's a brillia
nt deduction,” Alex responded sarcastically. "The old man's got a box and a shovel and a hole. I know he's burying something, but what? Must be buried treasure. Yeah, that's what it is. He's burying a fortune in his back yard. You read 'bout it all the time."
Alex twisted himself in the fork of the tree that held him and glared at his companion. "Private, I'm sending you on a dangerous mission. Go back through enemy lines and report what we've found here to the commander. We'll meet back at the post."
Mikey squirmed a little in his hiding spot, sending a rustle of leaves vibrating through the tree. "It might not be treasure..." he began.
"Of course, it's treasure. The old man is looney as a bed bug. No way would he trust a bank, so he's buried all his money back here. Bet ya there's thousands, maybe millions, back here. Besides, you're a private, and it's not up to you to think. You've got an order and ya got to obey it."
Mikey sighed. Well, he had tried to tell Alex. It wasn't his fault they were going on a wild goose chase for buried treasure that didn't exist. Wouldn't Buzz be pissed when they dug up the box expecting to find treasure and all they came up with was a rotten mouse skeleton. Alex would catch hell for sure, but then, Mikey was only a private, so he'd just keep his mouth shut.
Mikey started to skinny down the tree, watching Mole as he did so in case his old friend looked up. He doubted he would. Mole always got very distant during a burial. Mikey knew. He'd been honored to take part in a couple of them.
Shouldn't tell Buzz anything, Mikey thought, as he climbed from the tree. It was none of their business what Mole did in his own back yard, anyway. But iffen he didn't tell, that would be disobeying an order and would surely get him kicked out of the gang. It wasn't much fun being on the bottom of the totem pole, but at least they had finally let him play with them. He didn't think he could stand the loneliness he'd felt when he'd first moved into the neighborhood. Mole was a good friend, but he was too old to play with every day. And the fact that the other kids in town considered Mole to be the weirdest duck around only jeopardized Mikey's friendship with him further.
Fantastic Fables of Foster Flat Page 14
