NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
The first rain in two months has knocked withering leaves out of the willow oaks. A dry front has come in quickly, clearing the sky and sun light flashes from countless puddles making the black top blinding. I am dodging the puddles while walking towards the Safeway across uneven pavement through rows of vehicles parked across my path. First, her voice seemed to come from behind me. Now unexpectedly, I see Diddlie ahead of me in the ally between an SUV and a tall delivery van. It is checkered in large red and black squares. ‘Duchess Bakers’ is written in flowing white script along the sides arching over a steel engraving of a woman with Edwardian décolletage. She holds a basket full of the Baker’s goods becoming a ‘Duchess’.
“Hello Diddlie”
“What’s the hurry?”
“Nothing much.”
“I thought you were running away from me.” She flourishes long stems of golden rod for emphasis and pollen fills the air around the ‘Duchess’.
“Didn’t realize you were there.” We are both sneezing.
“Is that so?”
“Please stop waving that stuff around!” Diddlie holds her weeds still. The leaves droop from the stems while the long flowers bob in a breeze above our heads.
“We need to talk some more.” I sneeze several times. A yellow film has covered the once shiny black hood of the Ford Explorer next to me in the lee of the tall box like van.
“We need to get away from that stuff!” I run a finger across the hood leaving a long black line snaking towards the windshield. Diddlie slowly brings the flowers down, until they brush the ground between us.
“I am challenging you!” Diddlie sneezes again.
“Can’t you leave those things aside somewhere?”
“No there’s nowhere … I mean about … ” She is incoherent with sneezing, and I step back to get away from the pollen.
“Hey hey hey, come back”!
“I am trying to get out of the sneezing zone.”
“Don’t run away okay? This is important.” The toes of my right foot feel cold and wet. Water is lapping over the top of my Chinese-made canvas shoe.
“Let me get out of this puddle too. I am not running away.”
“Boyd Nightingale.”
“What about him? This is no place to talk!”
“Talk to me anyway.”
“Okay what about him?”
“Why is he taking over Fauxmont?”
“What do you mean, ‘take over Fauxmont’?”
“I mean he is vice chair of the Guild.”
“He won in the election along with Bel for chair. I forget the other positions.”
“Yeah, I heard.” Diddlie leans against the side of the van. She looks bored, or is it sullen?
“Diddlie, no one else ran.”
”So now I have to live with that creep in the Guild.”
“Make’s life interesting though.”
“That’s easy for you to say. I don’t need that kind of ‘interesting’. I’ve got to buy chicken for the Red Queen.”
She raises the golden rod as if she had a sword and jabs at me with it.
“Mind what you’re doing! Not so easy really, I have to live with him too.”
“So you don’t support his views?”
“No. I disagree with a lot of what he says.”
“Why did you do it?” She lowers her weapon. The tops of the blooms are dipping in the puddle. The hood of her yellow slicker falls down over her eyes like a visor.
“Do what?”
“Give him a place in the Guild.” She shakes the hood off her forehead with a head-toss and pulls it down from her hair with her free hand.
“Like I said, he won in the election.”
“Like I said, you wrote it that way.”
“Okay Diddlie, let’s not repeat ourselves.”
“You disagree with him right?”
“Yes.”
“It is your story right?”
“So what are you getting at?” With every question she takes another small step towards me through the puddle, in white rain boots with red and black hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. Oily puddle water drips from the golden flowers at about knee height. If she waves it again, I will be splattered.
“I am saying why give him that position? You didn’t have to. You could have put a friendly face on the Guild.”
“Who, for instance?”
“Even Jake Trip would have been better than …” Diddlie slowly lifts her flowers higher but off to the side, away from me. “I don’t believe I said that.”
“You could have nominated him.”
“Very funny Fred. Listen, I don’t think you’re ready to face up to this, but I am sorry, you have to.” Diddlie has balanced her sodden long stemmed flowers on the seat of the open van with the blooms drooping across the steering wheel. The stems are wound with narrow purple ribbon extending about almost a foot like the wrapping of a samurai sword handle.
“Face up to what?”
“Your responsibilities.” She spreads her arms out palms up.
“Can you explain a little further?”
“Look, putting Boyd on the Guild is wrong. I mean why do that?’ She folds her arms. “If you care about Fauxmont, why?”
“If the Guild is a democratic body, what’s wrong with people coming into office with dissenting views? Besides, he was elected.”
“He’s a …” Diddlie puts her hands up to her face. “Excuse me … No I won’t say that … ”
“Diddlie, his day may come, who knows?”
“Get Boyd off the Guild.”
“How can I do that Diddlie?”
“I am sure you can find a way.” Diddlie folds her arms again.
“He’s only vice chair. Diddlie, don’t get so upset.”
“Don’t tell me how to feel.” Diddlie’s hands have become fists clenched at her waist. “I have to live with this.”
“Thanks lady!” Climbing into the driver’s seat the deliveryman admires the goldenrod he picks up off the wet steering wheel. An unlit cigarette projects at a steep angle from his wide frog like mouth under sunken cheeks and bulging eyes.
“Oh they’re not for … Sorry I mean I just … ”
“Sir, are these your flowers?”
“No! They’re not his.”
He sneezes. The cigarette flies into the windshield and drops behind the clipboard jammed between the dash and the windshield. Passing his fist across his face the delivery man wipes his nose on his short red sleeve.
“These yours lady?”
“He hands the flowers down to her, carefully pointing the blooms out the door first, away from her face and then angling the stems towards her. He sneezes. “Those things are worse than pepper!”
“Sorry, I just put them there for a moment.”
“Okay lady. You better wet them down some more! know what I’mean?”
The down cast corners of his mouth rise into a yellow-toothed grin.
She takes the flowers. He wipes his palms on his black pants.
“Thanks, sorry about the pollen.” We retreated from the van and the puddle into the open. The van moves off slowly and the rising pitch of its quiet electric motor runs out of earshot.
Diddlie comes towards me putting her arm in mine.
“We could collaborate on this thing instead of arguing.”
“That gets complicated.” Diddlie tugs on my arm.
“Why are you so hostile?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I am going to write okay and then we’ll see.”
Diddlie has the golden rod over her shoulder as if she were carrying a rake or a pike, and the blooms are behind us as we walk slowly together. “Okay Diddlie, but that’s another story.”
