I lay in traction (strapped into another machine—an irony that was not lost on me) I dropped twenty pounds.
“You’re looking just terrific,” Peter said during a visit. He had brought Lori with him, because, he explained, she felt really guilty about the whole thing. He was careful to reassure me that they were just friends. They worked out together, he said, patting my hand and smiling in a slightly breathless kind of way, as if he’d been running. Lori, as I had expected, was impossibly young and sleek. She wore her gleaming mane of blonde hair in a ponytail, tied with one of those plastic bobbles you see on pre-teens. She seemed genuinely concerned, though, which was sweet of her.
“Thanks for the compliment, dear,” I said to Peter, smoothing my plaster encased arm across my diminished belly. “I feel just terrific, too. We should have thought of this sooner. If I’d done this in January, I’d look like a sixteen-year-old by now.” He didn’t get my point. Lori did, I think. She backed away from my hospital bed, her baby blue eyes going dark suddenly as her pupils dilated.
My love handles were gone, and when I was finally discharged from hospital, I discovered that none of my old clothes fit me any more, which necessitated a couple of trips to the mall. That’s where I discovered the Health Food shop and the interesting book on medicinal plants.
Peter was delighted with my newfound enthusiasm for healthy eating and gobbled up my veggie burgers and eggplant supreme. He especially liked the new green salad I’d invented, the one with a secret blend of herbs and spices. I encouraged him to invite Lori over, so I could get to know his “workout buddy” better.
“I can’t believe you’re being so generous. So understanding,” he said, and invited her at once. Over dinner, she explained that she was serious about retail and one day she would have a Fitness World store of her own.
“Go for it,” I said. “The future is yours, Lori.” In the kitchen, I was very careful to keep Peter’s plate separate from Lori’s and my own. Although he didn’t know it, my husband was on a special diet. When he started to get sick, Lori called me up and asked if I thought maybe Peter should cut down on his workouts a bit. She was really very concerned. So sweet of her. I told her he probably just needed more greens in his diet.
He died in his sleep. The doctor explained that he’d had a massive respiratory shutdown, probably owing to overexertion. “Too much running on an empty stomach,” he’d said, and I’d nodded in agreement. Nobody thought to test for aconite, or monkshood, the pretty flower I had been cultivating in the garden next to the vegetables.
At the funeral tea, I served sausage rolls wrapped with butter-heavy pastry, and smoked salmon on sour cream slathered toast. Horns of phyllo pastry, bursting with fresh berries and kirsch-laced whipped cream jostled for position with profiteroles and drizzled caramel. Everybody we knew came, and everybody said how sad it was that Peter, who was looking so good, had died so young.
Lori was there, dressed in black, her ponytail secured with a black bobble-thing.
“I just knew he was working out too much,” she sobbed. “I forgot how old he was. We were having so much fun together.” She was really so sweet. I patted her thin wrist and offered her an eclair. Over by the stove, Dr. Herb Foote, the fellow who hadn’t thought to test for aconite, stuffed a whole cream horn into his mouth and smiled at me. He had love handles.
H. MEL MALTON is the author of the Polly Deacon mystery series, published by RendezVous Press, including Down in the Dumps (1998), Cue the Dead Guy (1999) and Dead Cow in Aisle Three (2001). She has published numerous short stories, articles and poems in periodicals such as The Malahat Review, Grain and Chatelaine. She is a great believer in the healing power of rich, high-fat food and doesn’t indulge in exercise if she can possibly avoid it. Her two dogs, Ego and Karma, take her for a stagger in the bush twice a day and spend the rest of their time chewing on old manuscripts.
THERE’S A WORD FOR IT
MELANIE FOGEL
On our last Tuesday Scrabble night, Mrs. D. handed me a sealed lavender envelope and asked me to keep it, “in case.” Two days later she was dead.
She was the type who always looked like she was on her way to church: lipstick, permed white hair, twin set and modestly high heels. For years we’d crossed paths in the building, at the mailboxes or in the lobby, never exchanging more than a nod hello. When we finally got into a conversation in the laundry room, she introduced herself as “Mrs. DesRochers.” I countered with “Annie Sapp”—let her figure out my marital status.
“You live in the basement, don’t you?” she asked as she pulled folded clothes from a baby blue plastic basket, shook them out and placed them in the washer.
I answered in the affirmative, upending my green-garbage laundry bag into the machine beside hers.
“I guess you don’t get much light down here,” she commented sympathetically. “Does the traffic bother you?”
“You get used to it.” What the hell was she after?
When she invited me up to her place to wait while Coin-a-Matic laboured for us, I guessed she was lonely. I prefer a limited circle of acquaintances, and nosy old ladies are pretty far outside the perimeter. But I was also itchy for another dose of the computer Scrabble game I’d been playing for six straight hours, so to prove to myself I wasn’t addicted, I said okay.
She lived on the third floor, overlooking the parking lot. As we approached her door, a bird started chirping. “That’s Bijou,” she said, smiling with a pride that could be mistaken for maternal. “He always recognizes my footsteps.”
Her furniture looked like she did: old, solid, highly polished; a Turkish rug for colour and lace antimacassars that probably dated back to the days of hair oil. She greeted Bijou, a turquoise and yellow budgie who welcomed her with an enthusiasm worthy of a Pomeranian, then went into the kitchen to make tea. I took the opportunity to read her bookshelves. Mostly historical romances and royal biographies. And The Official Scrabble® Players Dictionary.
We spent most of the twenty-two minutes talking Scrabble. I discoursed on the delights of playing against a computer, but Mrs. D. wouldn’t take the hint; she wanted a Scrabble date. She preferred afternoons, and I being a self-(i.e. rarely) employed librarian, could have said yes. But I like afternoons for the web, since it’s slow in the evenings, so I lied about wanting to be home should a client call. We decided on Tuesday because it’s a lousy TV night.
Mrs. D. proved an excellent opponent—better, in some ways, than my computer version, whose sound and graphics lacked the charm of her wit and hospitality. Despite the heavy old furniture, her apartment was bright and airy—a nice change from my Goodwill-eclectic pit. At first I went easy on her, but when she played mangabey and flitch back to back, the kid gloves came off.
That last Tuesday, she was distracted. Didn’t bat an eye when I put enquirer on a triple word. During the four months we’d played, we’d rarely gotten personal, so I didn’t ask what was wrong. She gave me the envelope as I was leaving, and I said “sure” without comment. Then, on Thursday, I met the super in the garbage room and he told me she’d died. “Damn!” I said, somehow resentful she hadn’t consulted me. Then, “Who’s going to look after her bird?”
He shrugged. “She was your friend,” he accused.
Acquaintance, I corrected silently. But she had a couple of my books, as well as a key to my
