Cemetery Silk

by E. Joan Sims

  The next morning I woke up at ten o’clock, rested and raring to go. I grabbed an apple and some grapes from the bowl on the kitchen counter and a Coke from the fridge and headed to the library.

  I had on jeans and a big sweater but it was frost on the pumpkin weather, just the day for a nice warm fire. Dad had some amazingly real looking gas logs installed the year before he died, after forty years of totin’ logs and haulin’ ashes. All I had to do to make a big beautiful fire was push the magic button. Thanks, Dad!

  I had left my wonderful little Toshiba laptop computer on his desk when I first arrived. It sat there, still patiently waiting for my literary input. I would need some more floppy discs and maybe even a laser printer before I was done, but the Toshiba and an extension cord were all I needed today.

  A “Do Not Disturb” sign from the Excelsior Hotel in Rome always hung on the inside of the library door. I draped the cord over the outside knob and sat down to work.

  Four hours passed before I moved a muscle, and then I could hardly stand up. I hobbled to the door and opened it to find Cassie and Mother sitting cross-legged on the floor in the hallway, a half-eaten plate of sandwiches between them.

  “Wow, are those for me? Thanks, I’m starving.”

  “There’s a price,” said Mother.

  “Yeh!” Cassie grunted as she uncrossed her legs and stood up in one motion.

  I had always wanted to be able to do that.

  “You have to let us read,” she continued.

  As she and Mother pushed past me into the library, I heard Cassie say, “You sit and I’ll read. I know how to use Mom’s computer and you might mess things up.”

  Surprisingly, there was no sharp retort. Mother must be really dying to know what I had written.

  I sat by myself on the floor in the hall and munched on the sandwiches they had passed over. No roast beef or chicken salad left, only tuna and cheese. Mother had made some very good potato salad which Cassie did not like, so I had plenty of that; but I had no fork, and I wanted something to drink. I tried to get up with the same graceful motion that Cassie had used and fell like a lump back down on the plate. I finished off the potato salad and the last tuna sandwich with one blow of my behind.

  “Damn and double damn!”

  Mother called from her toasty spot in front of the fire, “What’s that, dear? Your book seems very interesting, dear.”

  “Rats!”

  I scraped what messy potato, mayonnaise, and tuna glop, I could off of my jeans and picked the rest up from the floor. Too bad we didn’t have a dog. I would have to mop.

  When I finally cleaned myself and the floor and changed clothes, my erstwhile luncheon companions had finished what I had written. They were ready for a critique session.

  “Paisley, I know you’ve been a writer for some time, but don’t you think…?”

  “Mom, you missed the point here. You have to be more specific.”

  “Far be it from me to criticize your work, dear, but don’t you think…?”

  “Mom, you totally screwed.…”

  “Don’t you think…?”

  “GET OUT!”

  “Gee, Mom, you don’t have to be so sensitive.”

  “Yes, dear. We only want to help.”

  “Then please fix me dinner in four hours and don’t eat it before I get there.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” asked my mother, innocently.

  “PLEASE GET OUT!”

  I sat back down to work, but my thoughts were scattered. I could not focus. What if Cassie and Mother were right, and I had screwed it up. A crime novel was a long way from sweet little morality tales told by charming mice to good little boys and girls.

  I got up and lay down on the sofa in front of the fire. I thought and thought “like a bear of very little brain”: good old Winnie the Pooh. Finally, I came to the conclusion that my story was at heart a morality tale and needed to be told, not just to satisfy myself or my family, but to warn others of the wolf in the field. I had to send up a signal about the unscrupulous ones who were out there eager to take advantage of the aged unwary. The older population was growing as people were staying alive longer. There were countless of thousands like William. I had to warn them. I had a mission.

  A tapping noise woke me up late in the afternoon. The sun had gone down. Only the light of the fire illuminated the room. The tapping started again. I had slept soundly and was too fuzzy-brained to tell where it was coming from until I heard,

  “Mom, please, can I come in?”

  It was too late to pretend that I had been working so I just uttered a hoarse, “Okay.”

  Cassie opened the door, closed it behind her, and sat beside me on the sofa.

  “Fell asleep, huh?”

  “I guess I didn’t sleep as well as I thought I did last night.”

  “Me neither, but I don’t want to talk about Deep, anymore, ever.”

  “Okay, Hon.” I tried to clear the sleep from my voice.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “Danny Hall called this morning and asked me to go out with him this weekend.”

  “Who?”

  I pulled myself up to sitting position and leaned back against a pillow.

  “Oh, yeah, the deputy. What did you say?”

  “I said that I was busy this weekend, but he could call again. That’s my standard answer to a first time caller.”

  I laughed with delight.

  “Cassie, you are a heart breaking she-devil.”

  “But that’s not really what I want to talk about.”

  “Well, then?”

  “Mom, I think we need a dog.”

  “Funny, I was thinking the same thing just this morning.”

  “Really? That’s terrific, because Mabel came by this afternoon and said her dog just had the cutest puppies. She’ll give me one if you say it’s okay.”

  “Hold on. It’s not really for me to say. Right now, we’re living in your grandmother’s house, a very particular grandmother I might add. I think it should be up to her whether or not you get a dog who might pee on her Kilems and chew up her Chippendale.”

  “But it won’t be for long. I’ll finish school in a couple of years and get a job and my own apartment. I’ll have my very own watchdog, so you won’t have to worry about me. Until then he can live here and take care of you and Gran. That way I won’t have to worry about any of you, including my dog.”

  “Oh, well, in that case,” I laughed, “let’s go see the puppies.”

  “Hooray!”

  Mother was much easier to win over to Cassie’s new whim than I ever imagined. I was a little surprised that she agreed so quickly. The only thing she made Cassie promise was to crate train Sherlock—the name we chose—so he wouldn’t ruin her floors.

  Her famous last words were, “Oh yes, Gran, I promise.”

  Mabel Jones and her husband, Apollo, lived in a doublewide trailer two miles out of town on the same road we lived on. The trailer was set back from the highway a half a mile and surrounded by a rolling green lawn and a white picket fence.

  Apollo had fathered Mabel’s three grown children, as well as the three younger ones still at home. He adored her and had done every job known to man to have the money to care for his family. He was five feet four inches tall, a little bantam rooster, as tough as they come.

  As soon as we turned off the engine we were besieged by dogs, children, a guinea hen, two chickens, and a turkey. The noise was deafening.

  Apollo opened the front door of the trailer and whistled. Everybody, even the turkey, came to attention.

  “Hi, Miz Sterling, welcome, welcome, come on in. Children, this here’s Miz Sterling and her daughter Paisley, and her granddaughter, Cassandra. Mind your manners and say ‘hello’ and then scat.”

  There were three very soft, very shy greetings and a lot of giggles from the little ones. They were so bundled up in sweaters and scarves I could not tell if they were male or female. They ran off toward
a tree house in the backyard. The animals followed the children, all gobbling or cackling joyfully.

  We stood there for a moment in a vacuum of silence, then went inside. The whole place smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg. Mabel came bustling out of a small kitchen alcove wrapped in a big white apron and a smile.

  “Sure glad you folks decided to let Cassie have one of Queenie’s pups. I’d be awful sorry to see them all go to strangers. We’d never get to see how they turned out. This is her first litter, you know. Come on, Cassie, they’re over here in the kitchen where it’s warmer.”

  Cassie tiptoed to the kitchen like she was walking into a nursery and knelt down by a big box on the floor.

  “Ohhh, Mabel, they’re sooo cute.”

  “Aren’t they just?”

  “Come look, Mom, but be careful, don’t scare them.”

  Thus admonished, I tiptoed as well, and peeked in the box lined with clean newspaper and a big soft towel. The three little puppies were nursing but apparently had their fill because they found us more exciting. They pulled away from momma to examine us. Their mother was a very pretty, longhaired bitch that looked remarkably like a Lhasa Apso. The three puppies waddled towards Cassie’s outstretched hand. All three started licking and nibbling her fingers. She was in love. If I were not careful, we would have three dogs instead of one. I would have to watch Mother, too.

  “Oh my, they are pretty, Cassie. Which is which, Mabel? Are they all boys?”

  “No, two boys and one girl; that little one with the tan ears, she’s the girl.”

  The female was the one Cassie had gone for immediately. Oh boy, a girl meant more puppies some day, or spaying and.…

  “Oh, Mom, can I have this one, please?”

  “I thought you wanted a boy? I mean ‘Sherlock,’ and all.”

  “Agatha! We can call her Agatha, for Agatha Christie, Aggie for short. Oh, isn’t she just the sweetest thing?”

  The puppy was nuzzling Cassie’s neck. She was completely lost under her long hair.

  Mother leaned over the kitchen counter and watched Cassie with interest.

  “Paisley, a female is really easier to care for, isn’t that so, Mabel?”

  “Well, I guess you’re right, Miz Sterling. They do tend to hang around the house more, and Queenie here is real affectionate.”

  I was very curious about Queenie’s provenance.

  “Where did you get Queenie, Mabel? Do you know what kind of dog she is?”

  Mabel called out to Apollo who had waited in the living room.

  “Honey, what kind of dog did you say Queenie is?”

  He got up and came back to the kitchen.

  “An oriental name, I got it written down here.”

  He pulled a notebook out of his pocket.

  “Here it is, but I don’t know how it’s pronounced.”

  I tried to decipher his hurried scrawl.

  “Lhasa Apso! Well, I’ll be. Where’d you get her, Apollo?”

  “Miz Harrington gave her to me last summer. She has a fine dog like this, and Queenie was the runt of the litter. She thought the pup was gonna die and told me to take her away so she wouldn’t have to watch it. I brought her home and me and Mabel took turns staying up all night for three weeks. We nursed her back to health. She’s a pretty little thing.”

  He caressed Queenie fondly as she licked his hand.

  “She is indeed,” agreed Mother. “Do you know who the father is?”

  Mabel and Apollo looked at other and laughed.

  “No idea,” said Mabel. “This is pure potluck. We kept her in the first time she went in heat, but this last time she got out and, well, who knows. But they are cute.”

  Oh boy, I thought, cute now, but Mabel was right, who knows. It was already too late. Cassie was totally and completely head-over-heels in love with Agatha. It was a done deal. She would be weaned in another week, and we could take her home then.

  We rode home with Cassie chatting all the way about Agatha and her divine looks and temperament. Mother suggested we stop at the hardware store and get a dog crate, but Cassie wanted to get her a basket with a pillow.

  Their new endless argument had begun.

  When we got home, Cassie went up to the attic in search of a basket, and I went back to the library in search of peace.

  Mother followed me.

  “Your daughter is impossible!”

  “I know, Mother. But in all fairness, you did agree to this puppy. By the way, why in the world did you?”

  She was quiet for a moment, reflective. She sat down on the hearth and pushed the starter for the fire. It came on instantaneously in all its glory. She warmed her hands by the flames.

  “Cassandra is terrified, Paisley. Don’t you see it?” She went on. “She probably thinks like I do, that some very nasty things have gone on very close to us, and she’s scared. She wants the dog for our security. That’s why I agreed. Though heaven knows, it’s the last thing I need in my life! But I love her, Paisley, very much. No matter how much we squabble, she’s the dearest thing in the world to me,” she quickly added, “next to you and Velvet, of course.”

  I smiled. “Yes, Mother, of course.”

  I got up from the sofa and sat down beside her.

  “You’re very perceptive. I should have seen it for myself. I think you’re right. Cassie is scared. Maybe we should can all this talk about murder and mayhem; and now with poor Rae Ann’s death.…”

  “Nonsense! We cannot avoid life for her, Paisley. We cannot change human behavior. She sees the evening news every night whether we talk about murder or not. What we can do is make her feel as secure as possible.”

  She stood up and brushed the nonexistent ash from her Ralph Lauren slacks.

  “And just for the record, I don’t mind having the security of a watchdog myself.”

  And so Aggie, the fearless, the wonder dog, the mighty hunter, became part of our little family at Meadowdale Farm.

  Mother learned to curse in the next few weeks. She spouted forth with increasing vigor and expanding vocabulary. I could even hear her through the closed door to the library as I worked steadily, safe from the puppy fray, in my little writer’s ivory tower.

  I watched through the French doors of the library as late autumn turned to early winter and the leaves magically went from tree to ground almost over night.

  Vast armies of high school students came to rake and burn leaves after class. They appeared one or two at a time. The same ones never showed up twice. Mother was General Patton with garden gloves.

  Puppy Aggie and her slave, Cassandra, romped in the leaves and played wild and rambunctious games of tag and frisbee every day. Aggie had more sweaters than I, and a bright red collar with a heart shaped nametag.

  She grew rapidly. She had an enormous amount of soft, fuzzy white hair. Aggie was really the cuddliest thing I had ever seen. You could not look at her without wanting to squeeze her and hold her and pet her. The problem was if you even dared, she would bite the hell out of whatever part of you she could reach. She was a moppet with the disposition of a cobra. We all had the scars to prove it.

  Each night she would curl up in whoever’s lap looked the warmest and the softest. When that person dared to touch her, she would hop down with a snarl and a curled lip and go to her basket or maybe someone else’s lap. But she followed Cassie everywhere she went and I had never seen my daughter have so much fun.

  I worked all day and many times late into the night. Mother or Cass would bring me a tray for lunch and dinner. Mother made clucking Mother Hen noises about the dangers inherent in my never seeing the light of day and having no exercise. She mumbled darkly about my getting osteoporosis from lack of sunshine and activity. She even mentioned the possibility of my getting scurvy. I worked on.

  Finally, the week after Thanksgiving, I felt that I was ready to send what I had written to Pamela in New York. She could tell me right away if I was on the right track. I was scared to death.

  We all
drove downtown to the Rowan Springs Post Office in absolute silence and mailed my manuscript. We sat in Watson afterwards not really knowing what to say or do.

  Aggie clambered over the seats and licked and nuzzled everyone in turn. It was all right to be affectionate if it was her idea and no one touched her. She whined to go for a walk. Cass put her leash on carefully, getting nipped only once. They got out of the car and Cassie took her in back of the post office to a grassy area to do her duty.

  Mother and I sat and watched like department store dummies, hardly moving a muscle.

  “What in the world is wrong with us, Paisley?”

  “It’s creative inertia. It happens.”

  “Well, it simply cannot be tolerated.”

  “Well, fine,” I laughed. “Fix it.”

  “I will!” she declared. “Call Cassie.”

  I leaned out of the car window and whistled, an ear piercing, New York cab hailing whistle. It turned every head within two miles. Cassie and Aggie came running as fast as they could.

  “What in the world?” questioned Cassie breathlessly. “Is Gran all right?”

  She picked up the dog, who still could not jump high enough to get in Watson, and climbed back in the back seat.

  “Gran’s fine and dandy. She’s getting us out of inertia.” I told her.

  “Oh, is that what it is. I was wondering. You never acted this way after you finished a Bartholomew story.”

  “I did after the first one. You just don’t remember.”

  She unhooked the leash from Aggie’s collar.

  “Ouch! Dammit dog!” Cassie sucked another wounded finger, “Well, Gran, what have you in mind for de-inerting us?”

  “Does anybody know what time of year it is? What is going to happen in just three short weeks?”

  I had honestly forgotten. “Christmas!” I shouted.

  “Wow, since we skipped Thanksgiving, I lost track of the time.”

  “Yes, my dears, Christmas is upon us, and we have nothing prepared. What say we go shopping!”