The Case of the Roasted Onion

by Bishop, Claudia

  “Sir?”

  “It is obvious that you are here to apply for the locum tenens. What do you see?”

  He followed my gaze. Andrew stood with his head down. His flanks heaved. His nostrils flared and he blew noisily in and out.

  “May I, sir?” Mr. Turnblad nodded at the stethoscope I keep in my jacket pocket. I withdrew it and handed it over. He looped it around his neck and (rather nimbly) climbed the fence. Keeping a wary eye on Pony, he walked up to Andrew and applied the correct end of the ’scope just behind Andrew’s elbow. He listened intently for a moment. Pony sidled next to him, extended her neck, and drew her lips back, exposing long yellow teeth. They were, I noted, in need of floating. Beside me, I felt Madeline draw breath. I closed my hand over hers in warning. Mr. Turnblad continued his examination unaware, his left elbow millimeters from Pony’s teeth. She chomped. Mr. Turnblad jumped a foot. He shouted and rubbed his elbow. There was, I was pleased to see, little or no animus in his demeanor, and he did not attempt retaliation. Pony snorted, backed up, blinked at him in her deceptively innocent way, and started to graze.

  Mr. Turnblad straightened up and folded the stethoscope into his pocket. He put two fingers under Andrew’s lower jaw and concentrated on his watch. Andrew turned his head and nibbled lightly at Mr. Turnblad’s cheek. Mr. Turnblad stroked the horse in return. He then exited the pasture the same way he’d entered.

  “His pulse rate’s sixty-five. That’s pretty rapid. And he’s sweating some. Unless he’s been racing pretty hard, that’s not normal. The heartbeat’s definitely irregular. There’s a cardiac condition of some kind. But that’s all I know, sir.” He smiled, suddenly adding, “Except that he’s a very nice guy.”

  “Andrew’s a sweetheart,” Madeline said.

  “You wouldn’t know much more without an ECG to confirm a diagnosis,” I said. “He has atrial fibrillation.”

  “That’s a shame. You’ve tried to convert him?”

  “Twice.” I cleared my throat. “It didn’t take.” All three of us looked at the old boy, who stood patiently in the sun, waiting for the captured bird in his chest to settle. “He was born here, and here’s where he’ll stay,” I said. “What are your thoughts on that, young man?”

  Mr. Turnblad drew his breath in between his teeth. “Well. I guess . . .”

  “Guesses are not good enough.”

  “Okay. Then I’ll tell you straight out. You owe animals a good life and a good death. If he starts to lose weight, if his lungs fill up, if he has trouble breathing, if he can’t stand for more than an hour or so at a time, then it’s time to put him down. Before that?” He leaned on the fence and looked at the peaceful scene. Andrew moved to Pony’s side, his breathing calmer now, and began to graze. “Before that, I’d say old Andrew has it pretty good.”

  I was forced to let the sloppy locution pass, not out of tenderness for Joe Turnblad’s feelings, but because a small red sports car sped smartly down the drive and pulled up in a spray of gravel.

  “Nice car,” Joe said, for it was a Mercedes 450SL, I believe, and then, “Whoa,” a command not directed at Andrew, but to the very pretty girl who unfolded herself out of it. She was slender, with hair the color of Hershey bars.

  “We’ve missed lunch,” I said to Madeline. “If this goes on much later, we’re going to miss dinner.”

  “There’s a low-fat turkey sandwich in my purse, if you can’t stand to wait.” Then, to the young lady, she said, “Hi.”

  “Hi!” She wore a pair of fawn-colored breeches and a greenish-brown sweater that matched the color of her eyes. She smiled prettily at Madeline, and said, “Dr. McKenzie?”

  Madeline smiled back. I was aware that some silent message passed between them. Had the young lady been a filly new to the herd, I would have said that the message was to acknowledge the lead mare. I cleared my throat. “I am Dr. McKenzie.”

  “How do you do, sir.” She extended her hand and I shook it. There were calluses on her palm. “I’m Allegra Fulbright. Dr. Bergland posted a message at school. You’re looking for an assistant? Well, sir, I’m your woman.”

  “I’m Joe Turnblad,” the young man said. “And Dr. Bergland spoke personally to me. And shouldn’t have you called for an appointment?”

  Allegra ignored Mr. Turnblad. I tugged at my mustache. Newcomers to the herd spend a certain amount of time kicking the bejesus out of lower-ranking horses until the new hierarchy is established.

  “You’re a veterinary student, dear?” Madeline asked.

  “Yes.” An attractive pink suffused her cheeks. “That is, I will be in the fall. I’m, um, sort of pre-vet, right now.”

  “Pre-vet,” Joe said, in an “ain’t it wonderful” tone of voice. “So what’s your pre-vet major? Sociology?”

  “Music,” she said. “With a major in voice. But I’ve had a lot of experience with horses.”

  “Music,” Joe said. The scorn is his voice was palpable. “This is a farm practice, Miss Foolbright. It’s not limited to horses. As a matter of fact . . .”

  “It’s Fulbright,” she responded testily.

  “Have you had a lot of experience with cows?”

  Miss Fulbright smiled: “As a matter of fact, I have.”

  “On daddy’s estate, I bet.”

  I waited with interest. A filly will show her teeth, squeal, and pin her ears back before she actually whirls and smacks the victim a good one. But no such activity was forthcoming. Allegra did not kick young Joe in the shins.

  “Yes. Black Angus, as a matter of fact. We raised them for show.”

  “What about hogs? Chickens? Sheep? You show those, too?”

  “Dr. Bergland said that Sunny Skies was a . . . a new practice, and it was limited to cows and horses.”

  I noted the ellipses. I wondered just what else that old goat Bergland had said and I opened my mouth to inquire.

  I was forestalled by my spouse.

  “That’s it, everybody,” she said briskly. “Into the house for lunch.”

  Three

  MADELINE has long maintained that good food will stop just about any kind of squabble right in its tracks, if the offer is made quickly enough. Lunch that day would have diverted Eliot Spitzer from a lawsuit: Zweigle’s hot dogs and Madeline’s homemade cashew chili with sweet onions and shaved aged cheddar.

  I, of course, was doomed to cantaloupe, turkey, and fat-free cottage cheese. When Madeline saw the polite way Allegra Fulbright took little, nibbling bites of her chili, she gave her cantaloupe and turkey and fat-free cottage cheese, too. It was no wonder the child looked thin.

  Everybody settled down to eat, and both applicants reclaimed their manners.

  “You have an absolutely amazing home, Mrs. McKenzie,” Allegra said. She cut her cantaloupe into small squares that wouldn’t keep a fruit fly alive, much less a one-hundred-and-zero-pound “almost-pre-vet student.” “The colors are just amazing.”

  Madeline receives that comment from a lot of people who see our house for the first time. She smiled warmly.

  Joe swallowed his chili in three huge gulps, all the while rolling his eyes in apparent disdain. This may have been a reaction to Allegra’s sucking up. Or perhaps he didn’t like the chili. Which would mean more leftovers for me. The prospect of a midnight scavenge into leftovers cheered me considerably, and I reconciled myself quite happily to the turkey. But when Madeline nodded at the stove to tell Joe he could obtain more, if he desired, he shot up like a hungry owl after a shrew. So I suppose it was Allegra that was giving him mental indigestion, and not Madeline’s chili. I half rose from my chair to follow Joe’s example. Madeline stuck her foot out to prevent this. I sat back down rather suddenly.

  Madeline continued to smile warmly at Allegra; “I do like a lot of color in my house. That peachy sherbet color on the walls scared the painter half to death. If Austin hadn’t spayed his cat for free, I don’t think he would have done it.”

  “Sunburn,” Joe said through his second hot dog. “It looks just
like a sunburn.” He shrugged at Allegra’s scowl. “I like it.”

  “It’s a beautiful color,” Allegra crossly. “You know very well I think it’s gorgeous, too.”

  “And how would I know that? Amazing, you said. Like, ‘what an amazing baby,’ when it’s the ugliest kid you’ve ever seen, or ‘what an amazing haircut,’ when it sucks, or . . .”

  “I wanted a pinkly sort of brown,” Madeline said, loudly, in an apparent effort to keep the squabble from blowing up into a gully washer. “Or maybe a browny sort of pink. Whatever you call it, it turned out rather well, I think.”

  All four of us interrupted the meal to gaze about the room. Our farmhouse is old, and the rooms are small, with high ceilings. There is a comfortable saddle-colored sectional against the south and west walls. A brick fireplace occupies the north. The kitchen is on the east end. Our large, old mahogany table is right in the middle. Madeline had chosen whitish drapes for the windows in some heavy fabric and liberated several old Oriental rugs from the local estate sales when we first married. The rugs covered the pine floors. All in all, it was quite a cozy room.

  “This must have been two rooms in the old days, though,” Allegra said. “If those crown moldings are authentic, this house must date from the mid-1800s. And those old houses were nothing but lots of little rooms. To conserve heat,” she added.

  “I suppose you’re used to twelve thousand square feet of McMansion?” Joe said. The young man achieved quite a creditable sneer through his mouthful of chili. “Or, nope, let me guess. You live where the Foolbrights have lived for the last three hundred years in an authentic Greek Revival that hasn’t been touched by the wrecker’s ball.”

  Allegra gave him a look that would have taken the fur from the cat, if she’d been in its way. I judged it prudent to intervene. “Three.” I set my knife and fork crosswise on my plate. “It was three rooms, not two. And Madeline took the walls out with a sledgehammer. We didn’t need a wrecking ball.”

  “You took the walls down, yourself, Mrs. McKenzie?” Allegra asked.

  “I did indeed.”

  “Madeline is capable of anything,” I said, with justifiable pride.

  Madeline rose from the table. “Now,” she said briskly, “You three need to talk about the job here. I’ll just take care of these dishes. You all go right on ahead.” She began to clear the dishes from the table.

  “Certainly, Mrs. McKenzie,” Allegra said, just as briskly. “Joe, is it?”

  Joe looked startled at the sound of his name.

  “Joe, you’re not going to just sit there and let Mrs. McKenzie do all the dishes herself, are you?”

  “Oh! Sorry!” And the poor kid blushed sunburn pink. “Please, let me, Mrs. McKenzie. And thank you for the lunch. It was great.” He jumped to his feet, grabbed the Fiesta ware right out of Madeline’s hands, and set to work at the sink.

  Allegra, of course, having neatly diverted the competition, pulled a crisp white folder from her Hermès briefcase, set her résumé before me and got down to business.

  “Swarthmore,” I said, after reading through her vita, “with a junior year abroad in France.”

  “Yes,” she said eagerly. “So if any of your clients are bilingual, I’m ready to roll.”

  I looked over the rim of my spectacles at her. There were very few cow-owning Parisians in Summersville, New York.

  “I’ve got a little Spanish, too,” she added, as if confessing. “Just enough to get by.”

  “And your bachelor’s degree is in voice?”

  “Yes, sir. But you’ll notice that I’ve spent most summers since I was thirteen on the A circuit. I’ve just had tons of experience with horses. Dogs, too.”

  The A circuit was hunter-jumper territory. One needed a great deal of money to subsidize seven years of activity in that arena.

  “And I see you have some eventing experience.”

  “Yes, sir. At Earlsdown. Last year.” Her voice was subdued. I glanced up. Her cheeks were flushed. She straightened her chin and her eyes met mine. “I had to withdraw my horse.”

  “Happens to the best of us,” I said mildly. I resumed my perusal of the paper. She had not listed her parents, nor a residence address other than her dorm at Cornell. I found that a bit curious. But after forty years in the classroom, little surprises me about students.

  I enclosed the résumé into its folder. “Thank you, my dear. Perhaps you could relieve Mr. Turnblad at the sink.”

  Joe dried his hands on his jeans, flopped, rather than sat, into the chair opposite me, and pulled a single sheet of paper from his shirt pocket.

  I knew that Madeline would be prejudiced in favor of the young man. He was young, strong, and able to handle all the arduous tasks that she thought I couldn’t do anymore. Hah! We would see about that. Joe was definitely wet behind the ears as far as practical experience with large animals. Any farm kid would have been way ahead of Pony and her big, blunt teeth. On the other hand, he did have a sound academic background. And his thoughts about owing an animal a good life and a good death were congruent with Madeline’s and my beliefs. Not only that, Joe had not smacked Pony up the side of the head when she’d bitten him. A smack is a logical reflex action under those circumstances, and it wouldn’t have accomplished a thing. Except to annoy me considerably.

  I regarded him over my spectacles, a tactic that has disconcerted the most unruffled student in the past. He was taller than I and probably weighed less, despite the muscle in his hands and forearms. He shifted a little nervously, and a cup and saucer that had remained on the table fell to the floor and chipped. Madeline’s Fiesta ware is pumpkin colored. The chip was pretty obvious. Joe turned scarlet. “Sorry, Dr. McKenzie. That must have been one of a set. Just let me know where you got it and I’ll get Mrs. McKenzie another one.” He picked the cup up and attempted to mash the chip back into place. “Really, Dr. McKenzie. At least let me pay for a replacement. Or I can muck out for you for a couple of days.”

  The young man was serious. Did he think I hadn’t seen what was in the back of his car? A sleeping bag. A cardboard box of peanut butter, dried soup, and a ten-pound bag of pancake flour. Two boxes of vet texts. He was living rough—in central New York winters—and too proud to forget about a chipped cup. I had little doubt he didn’t have the money to replace it and mucking out it would have to be.

  On the other hand . . .

  I continued my unwavering stare. What if he had dropped the cup on purpose? The obligation to work would certainly give him an edge over Allegra. Well, well.

  “Mucking out it is. I always appreciate a hand with the manure,” I said. I unfolded his résumé and dropped my gaze to the paper. “About your undergrad degree?”

  “Columbia. Biochemistry.”

  “You’re from New York, then? That’s where your parents are now?”

  “I grew up in the Bronx. With my grandmother. She died a few years ago.” He glanced back over his shoulder. Allegra had both hands in the air and was talking to Madeline nineteen to the dozen, as my own grandmother used to say. Madeline looked a little bemused.

  I turned my attention back to young Joe. He was what, twenty-two? Maybe twenty-four. He would have grown up before the Bronx part of New York became gentrified. So he’d grown up poor, undoubtedly, which might explain the chip on his shoulder as far as Allegra Fulbright was concerned. It might also explain his evasiveness. “Not too many farms around the Bronx when you were growing up,” I said.

  “You mean how did a city kid like me get interested in being a vet? No, sir. There weren’t too many farms in my neighborhood.” He grinned suddenly. “I got to the library a lot, though. You ever read Larry McMurtry? Lonesome Dove? Or the book by Jim Kjelgaard, Big Red?”

  I had to smile back. “Indeed I have.”

  “And there was an animal clinic down the street from Harriet’s place.”

  “Harriet? You called your grandmother Harriet?”

  “Her choice.” He shrugged. “Anyhow, I worked there
summers when I was a kid. Just sweeping out, cleaning the cages. Stuff like that.”

  A small-animal practice in the city. And a city pound. From that to Cornell and its sweeping acres. Hm.

  Before I had a chance to delve into the matter further, Allegra called out from her post by the window and said, “Somebody’s headed into the yard.”

  I rose and looked out the window myself, Madeline at my side. A large stock truck bounced down the lane toward the clinic. Orville DeGroote was at the wheel. There was a horse loaded in back. Then—because he was Orville DeGroote and a cranky so-and-so—he laid his hand on the horn as if we were an English village being invaded by Messerschmitts and he was an air warden. “It’s Orville and that horse of his, Madeline,” I said.

  Madeline clapped her hands together. “Excellent! This is a typical case for our clinic. Orville couldn’t have brought that horse at a better time.” She slipped her hand in mine. “If both of them give you a hand with the horse, Austin, you’ll have a chance to see them in action. It’s perfect!”

  Madeline is usually right. It was with a great deal of satisfaction that I shepherded my flock into the yard to greet the test patient. The choice Madeline and I faced was a difficult one: two appealing youngsters, both ready to learn. One position available. Like Solomon before me, I must be both judicious and wise. It’s fortunate that I am a man particularly suited to the challenge.

  DeGroote pulled up his battered, ill-kempt stock trailer with a shriek of brakes badly in need of pads. He left the motor idling—an annoyance related to diesel engines to which I have never accustomed myself—and eyed me through the smeary windshield with the manner of a captive baboon.

  He jerked his thumb at his passenger. His oldest daughter jumped out of the truck and trotted obediently around to the rear of the trailer. DeGroote stuck his head out of the driver’s window, spat a wad of tobacco onto my neatly mown grass, and said, “Figured I save myself cost of a barn call if I bring the horse to you instead of t’other way round. So you can’t stick a farm call on the bill, doc. Understood?”