had the sense to give him a wide berth, and anyway, the two-legged person throwing food around in the kitchen was far more interesting to them than the malevolent creature by the fire.
“There’s some snail-mail for you as well, today,” Susan said, getting up suddenly and going out to the bureau in the hall, where the day’s post was stacked in a wicker basket by the door. She had been completely bewitched by the computer age and seemed to take great delight in dissing Canada Post, which I found rather unfair. After all, getting an email message from somebody isn’t half as much fun as receiving a mysterious envelope, bedecked with stamps (especially if they’re foreign) that you have to open physically before you can find out what’s inside. For me, real mail is like getting a Christmas present, all wrapped up in sparkly paper and lots of tape, whereas email is like someone saying “here” and handing you an unwrapped widget with the price tag still on it. No comparison.
Susan returned with a large manila envelope, a fat one. “Looks like it’s from the U.K.,” she said, obviously intrigued. It would have been mean to wait until I got home to open it, so I didn’t. I knew what it was about, anyway, though I hadn’t told anybody yet.
As I’ve mentioned, I’m a puppet maker. That’s my job, or at least that’s the way I make my living, which perhaps doesn’t mean the same thing, these days. I don’t do the nine-to-five dance, I spend a great deal of time staring off into nothingness (we artists call that “conceptual development”), and my skills, though specialized, allow me to squeak by with the minimum of mainstream interference. I build commissioned puppets for theatre companies, mascot costumes for sports and corporate organizations, and marionettes for fun and profit. All this is one of my main reasons for living as I do, in a log cabin in rural Kuskawa with little in the way of modern conveniences—I don’t need ’em, and I can’t afford ’em. It’s a fine life, although it had occurred to me since acquiring a passenger that my income needs might be due for re-examination. Maybe I’d have to start churning out cutesy, mass-produced hand-puppets and selling them at Kuskawa craft fairs to help pay for diapers and strained carrots. O joy, o bliss.
Back in June, I’d seen an article in The Puppetry Journal, a trade magazine I subscribe to, about a big, international puppetry conference planned for February, taking place in Canterbury, England. It sounded truly amazing—with speakers, workshops, displays and performances, a whole week of it, and I had fantasized about going. The article had mentioned that there were a few subsidized spots available for those professionals in the field who might have something unique to bring to the event but didn’t have the cash to make the journey. Normally, I don’t go in for stuff like that, my theory being that my work, while adequate and solid in its way, wasn’t of the calibre to win any awards, so why set myself up for disappointment? However, in this case, I’d felt a weird surge of High Self Esteem, and acted quickly before it went away. I called up my friend Dimmy Cox, a photographer, who had agreed to prepare slides of some of my best pieces, in exchange for the construction of a slightly risqué puppet-portrait of her ex-boyfriend. I’d packaged up the slides, along with my resumé, written a fulsome letter explaining why I simply had to attend the conference and sent it off to the organizers in Canterbury. It had been a busy and difficult summer, and by the end of August, when I hadn’t heard back from the conference people, I’d assumed that I hadn’t made the grade.
I explained all this to Susan and George, while holding the heavy envelope in my lap, weighing it experimentally and tapping it with my fingers as if I might somehow divine what it contained by osmosis.
“So—why don’t you go ahead and open it?” Susan said.
“It’s probably just a bunch of promotional material,” I said. “You know—sort of ‘sorry we can’t sponsor you, but here’s some incentive stuff to make you feel even worse about not being able to afford to come.’ ”
“Blessed are they who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed,” George intoned.
“Well, considering that you’ll be seven months gone by February, and as big as a house, you shouldn’t be travelling, anyway,” Susan said. Uh-oh. She’d just used the dreaded “s” word. Shouldn’t. Ought not. Mustn’t. Can’t. May not. Prohibited—not allowed. She recognized her mistake at once as my eyebrow shot up into my hairline and George made a little wincing sound, as if he’d been pinched.
I refrained from comment and opened the envelope.
Congratulations, Ms. Deacon, the covering letter said.
On behalf of the organizing committee for the Canterbury International Puppetry Festival (CIPF), I am delighted to inform you that you have been selected as the recipient of the Mary Chambers Memorial Bursary, an award which will cover your flight, registration and accommodation at this year’s event.
We were enormously impressed with your work and hope that you will be able to bring a few samples with you and perhaps facilitate a workshop on construction techniques. Please let us know as soon as possible whether you will be attending, and we can work out the workshop details, arrangements for your flight and so on.
I do look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Phyllis Creemore,
Special Guests Committee Chair
“Hot damn,” I said. “I’m going to Canterbury.”
Four
Stress and worry do not in and of themselves harm a developing baby, but if you are not taking proper care of yourself, it could potentially be harmful. If you are so stressed you are not eating properly, then you may not be able to supply all the nutrients baby needs to grow properly.
-From Big Bertha’s Total Baby Guide
All the retailers in Kuskawa manage their holiday decorating themes according to the principle of persistent overload, and it had been Hallowe’en at the Cedar Falls FoodMart since they took the Thanksgiving turkeys down on October 9. On the 31st, my friend Ruth Glass and I were there, buying last-minute ice and Clamato juice for Rico’s Hallowe’en party. My friend Rico Amato runs an antique and collectibles place out on the Cedar Falls highway strip mall. The party was a new thing—Rico had in years past gone in drag to a local gay-friendly resort to howl at the Hallowe’en moon, but the place had gone belly up during a booming tourist summer (go figure), so this year he was having friends over.
“That cute Brent seems to be working out,” Ruth said, referring to Rico’s new roommate. We were wandering in the bakery aisle, whose shelves were bursting with jack-o-lantern cupcakes and bat-shaped cookies. Ruth brushed away a fake spider’s web, which was dangling from the “Scary Bargains” sign and tickling her nose. She was enjoying the quiet of being back home, I think. Ruth’s band, Shepherd’s Pie, had been on tour to the Maritimes to promote their fifth CD, Clear Cut Laundromat, and she looked tired.
“Well, they’ve only been sharing the place a month, and the Royal Doulton’s still in one piece, so that’s a good sign,” I said. “You think we need more candy?” I was hefting a big bag of miniature chocolate bars that I’d scooped from a bin marked “Last Chance, Mom and Dad!” I’d already seen one harried parent-type rush towards the bin, make a grab and rush away again, like a seed-frenzied sparrow at a backyard feeder. But I wasn’t thinking of trick-or-treaters, to tell you the truth. It was just that I wasn’t drinking or smoking, so dammit, my baby was gonna have to put up with a night o’ chocolate.
Ruth shot me a sympathetic grin. “We could always
