Kevin leans up on one elbow. “What’s going on?”
“Nigel. He’s out there in the garden. His car is right up on the lawn.” I pick up the clock and hold it close to my face. “It’s two-thirty. What can he be doing now?”
Kevin climbs across me and draws back the curtain. “He’s unloading something out of his car. He wouldn’t be burying a body or anything, would he? It looks like he’s got one wrapped in a blanket.”
“Oh, who knows. I just wish he’d quit clanking around. Why can’t it wait ‘til morning?”
“D’you think I should go down and see?”
“No. Especially if it is a body.”
“Maybe he hit a dog and he’s burying it. It’s about that size.”
“Well, he is a terrible driver. Oh, hell, come back to bed.”
The next morning I wake up late. Downstairs, there’s a note stuck on the cupboard above the coffeepot:
I pour a cup and wander into the front room. Kicking a pile of newspapers away from in front of my favorite chair, I sit and sip and try to wake up. Car doors slam out front, and I can hear Lyle’s businessman’s voice, a blend of officiousness and conciliation that I’ve heard him use at City Council meetings. “So glad you could come early, Mrs. Farnsworth. Reverend Bleat, how are you? I’ve got the forms all filled out. As you can see, the work is well under way.”
A woman’s voice murmurs a reply. This must be the screening committee. Lyle had said something about a selection process for the contest. Mary Farnsworth--“Mrs. Dr. Farnsworth,” as she likes to refer to herself--is a Martha Stewart wannabe. She’s always organizing chocolate festivals and garden awards and tours of people’s houses. Reverend Bleat is the pastor of the Presbyterian Church and president of the Pocatello Gardeners’ Club. We’ve never heard him preach, but Kevin and I like to joke about his name reflecting his oratorical style.
Lyle is giving them a tour of the grounds. Maybe I should go out. After all, half of it is my yard, too, and I’ve done part of the work. I don’t hear Nigel out there. Probably Lyle has scheduled the committee’s visit for when he knows Nigel has something else to do. Maybe he doesn’t want either of us out there. I don’t know if Lyle has told the committee who’s doing the work. Surely, he’s not pretending to have done it all himself. I check myself in the hall mirror. I look presentable. I’ll just wander out as if I don’t know what’s going on.
I step out the front door, coffee cup in hand. Lyle has discarded his usual t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops in favor of a grey-green polo shirt, tan slacks, and loafers. He’s wearing his toupee, of course, and he’s leading Reverend Bleat and Mrs. Farnsworth around the first low berm. He indicates the location of the pond. “Ahh,” says Mrs. Farnsworth.
“Very nice,” says Reverend Bleat, making a note on the clipboard he carries. Lyle nods to me over the committee members’ heads, and I step closer. Mrs. Farnsworth turns and smiles politely, but without much interest. Rev. Bleat glances my way and returns his attention to a flowering quince that Nigel has planted in the space between the pond and the second, higher berm. I can tell that Lyle has already explained my status as his tenant. I’m not going to figure in the contest as either land owner or gardener. I smile and nod politely and drop back behind the group.
“This is quite a dramatic treatment,” says Mrs. Farnsworth. I wonder what errand Lyle’s sent Nigel on.
“Step around here, Mrs. Farnsworth,” Lyle says unctuously. I notice that Nigel’s tires have left faint marks on the grass at the side of the larger berm, but it looks as if it’s been raked over, so he must have been here earlier this morning. I wonder what he could have been doing out here last night.
I look up, suddenly aware that the committee has stopped its appreciative murmuring. Lyle, Reverend Bleat, and Mrs. Farnsworth are standing just on the other side of the high berm. Mrs. Farnsworth is breathing hard, as if she’s been running. Lyle looks apoplectic; his face and neck are so tightly strained that his toupee rides high on the top of his head. His mouth opens wide, but all that comes out is a strangled “Erk.” Reverend Bleat jerks his clipboard up in front of Mrs. Farnsworth’s face, grazing her nose. I remember Kevin’s note.
The trio whirls about and begins stumbling toward Reverend Bleat’s car, Lyle and the Reverend hustling Mrs. Farnsworth along between them. Reverend Bleat is still trying to keep his clipboard in front of Mrs. Farnsworth’s eyes. Mrs. Farnsworth begins to laugh, and Lyle and Bleat hurry her faster toward the car. As they brush past, Lyle glares at me over Mrs. Farnsworth’s head.
I turn away from them and step around the corner of the berm. At first, I think that the animal, a large grey dog, is real and has wandered into the yard by accident. Then I realize that this dog is unlike any other dog that will ever stray into this or any other garden. About three feet tall, solid cement, rearing up on his back legs, he paws the air playfully. He grasps a cement bone far back between his jaws, and his smooth grey eyes stare blindly. A happy dog, a rambunctious dog, a virile dog. A very, very virile dog, I think, as I identify the likely source of the committee’s embarrassed retreat. The penis of this dog is not a regular-sized doggy penis; it appears to have been modified by the sculptor. No, not modified, augmented. This dog is rampant in more than just stance.
“I’m going to kill him!” Lyle stands beside me, hands on hips, toupee swiveled over one ear. “Is this his idea of a joke? Did you know he was having this made?” Without waiting for my reply, he turns and lurches into the shop.
