Perfect
Linda S. Cambier © 2007
It was a perfect day, her day.
Millicent Cooper lifted her chins and ample bosom leading the way like the prow of a ship, guided her esteemed guests on a tour of her garden. A light breeze tickled the baby's breath and the phlox bowed their ruffled heads as she passed by. She imagined even the larksong hailed her triumph.
The three executive board members of the East Myles Gardening Society followed in Millicent's considerable wake, scrutinizing every petal, each leaf for imperfections. If the garden passed muster, they would elevate Millicent to the pinnacle of their Society, naming her a Venus de Milo. A goddess of the garden. After all, Venus was the original goddess of the garden before she took up with that love nonsense.
And her garden was perfect, a work of art. Each bush symmetrically trimmed, each blossom lovingly tended by her. Well, many of them, anyway. Harold had done some of the work. But the vision, the plan was all hers.
With her precious toy poodle Mitzi tucked under one meaty arm, Millicent pointed out the highlights of her masterpiece with a chubby bejeweled finger. “Note how the Russian sage provides a striking backdrop to the rainbow of annuals and the rabbit...”
Rabbit?
Millicent's jaw dropped. Her rainbow of flowers ended not in a pot of gold, but in a patch of bare dirt surrounding a fluffy, ravenous rabbit. And the rainbow was receding under the bunny's attentions even as she watched.
Mitzi yipped and wriggled out of Millicent's grasp, launching herself with canine abandon after her long-eared prey. The rabbit scampered away and disappeared, leaving its horticultural and human devastation behind and Mitzi whimpering and barking in frustration.
Trembling, Millicent turned to her guests. “I...I don't know what happened.”
Agnes (never Aggie) Harcourt-Smythe, president of the Society, raised one eyebrow. “Well, Milli dear, it was a rabbit.”
Millicent flushed as the other members of the board tittered. “It looked perfect yesterday. If only you could have seen it then...”
Agnes patted Millicent's arm. “These things happen, dear. Perhaps next year...”
Next year!? She'd worked for twenty-five years to get to this point. Every year, she had reworked and improved her garden, enriching the soil, dividing old plants, adding new. Okay, Harold had helped, but she'd directed it all. Finally, this year everything had been just right, her garden a crowning jewel that would ensure her that highest Society honor. No, it had to be this year.
“Wait,” she said, grabbing Agnes's arm as she turned to leave. “Give me another chance. I can make this right.”
Agnes glanced skeptically at the bare patches. “I suppose you could replant quickly, but what would stop the rabbit from coming back and eating it again?”
“I'll get rid of it. It's just one silly bunny. How hard could it be?”
“Very well, Milli. We can come back tomorrow morning. The deadline for determining this year's inductees is tomorrow noon.”
“Oh, thank you! You won't regret it. I know you'll be impressed by what you see.”
“Remember, though, you may use only organic methods for ridding yourself of the rabbit,” Agnes said. “No poisons or killing traps.”
“I remember.”
*******************
“Harold, carry those flats out to the garden,” Millicent called. She pored over her gardening books at the kitchen table, flipping pages in a frantic search for organic pest controls. “Ah ha!” She lurched out of her chair and hustled to the pantry, emerging moments later with a tin of spices.
She waddled out to the garden and hovered over her husband's crouched form. Her shadow eclipsed Harold and the small plot of ground in which he dug. Narrow shoulders hunched, he patted soil around the base of a new transplant. He sat up and swiped his arm across his damp reddened forehead, the grey wisps of his comb-over hardly able to protect his bald pate, much less his face, from the sun.
“Look,” Millicent said. “My book says that chili powder sprinkled around a garden will deter rabbits. The scent and taste drive them away.” She moved a few feet away to the edge of the bed. “I can just start here...” She opened the tin and started to sprinkle out the chili powder.
“Wait!” Harold held up his hand, but it was too late.
A gust of wind picked up the chili powder and blew it in a red cloud straight into Harold's face. He stumbled to his feet, a fit of sneezing, coughing, and tearing eyes wracking his gaunt frame.
Millicent, owlish eyes blinking behind thick glasses, watched him zig-zag toward the house, still coughing and gagging. “I guess that didn't work so well.”
**********************
By the time Harold emerged from the house, eyes puffy and bloodshot, Millicent had moved on to her next plan of attack. She backed around the periphery of the garden, her well-padded posterior leading the way as she sprinkled a brownish powder on the ground.
“What's that?” Harold asked.
“Blood meal, the perfect solution. It does double duty, both repelling the rabbit and fertilizing the plants.”
“Is Mitzi supposed to be—“
“Never mind what I'm doing, Harold.” She waved her hand at him dismissively. “You just finish with the ageratum and I'll handle this.”
Harold shrugged and turned his attention to planting.
Afternoon gave way to early evening, and the warm summer air cooled to a comfortable degree. Harold finished replanting and stood up, hands going to the ache at the small of his back. The garden was lovely even in the waning light, the heady scent of thousands of blooms more potent with the dimming visual splendor.
Millicent completed her circuit of the garden and returned to her starting spot. She stared at the dirt and frowned. “I'm almost certain I already put blood meal here, but there seems to be only a little smear of it left.”
A small groan preceded Mitzi's appearance around the corner of the garden. She waddled, eyes glassy and flanks bulging, and headed for Millicent and Harold. Making gagging sounds much louder than anyone would expect from a creature so small, Mitzi heaved, her rounded sides contracting in violent spasms. With a final lurch, she turned to Harold and upchucked all over his shoes.
As Harold stared at what must have been the dog's weight in foul-smelling vomit blanketing his feet, Millicent swooped down to pick up the relieved pooch. “Oh, my poor naughty little baby! Did that upset your widdle tummikins?” She carried Mitzi inside, cooing to her along the way.
Harold sighed and went to the gardening shed to clean off his shoes.
***************************
“Do you think it will take the bait?” Millicent peered out the breakfast room window to where she had set the live trap between the peonies. The trap was barely visible, twilight casting the entire garden in deep shadow. “It's a good thing there was some leftover vegetable loaf from dinner. Guess you weren't very hungry tonight, were you, dear?”
Harold made a noncommittal sound from his chair in the adjoining room.
“Harold, you don't have your feet up on the table, do you?”
Rustling paper. “No, dear.”
The familiar tick of the ancient grandfather clock in the foyer gave way to the quarterly chimes and hourly gongs as she maintained her vigil.
“Oh!” Millicent heaved herself to her feet, sending Mitzi into a frenzy of barking. “The flag is up. Something is in the trap!”
Harold appeared in the doorway and followed her out to the garden, Mitzi close on their heels. They skidded to a halt in front of the trap, eyes wide with disbelief.
The trap had, indeed, been sprung, but it lay empty. No rabbit. No bait.
They stepped back, perhaps expecting Houdini to appear and show them how he had pulled the rabbit out of the trap. Houdini didn't appear, but Harold crouched down to examine a small brownish lump a few feet away from the trap. Up close, its contours were unmistakable: it was the still-uneaten slab of vegetable loaf.
Mitzi dashed in, snatched it into her tiny jaws, and raced off with her prize.
Millicent sniffed. “At least someone appreciates good cooking.”
*****************************
Harold scraped dog vomit from his shoes for the second time that evening and followed Millicent outside. Shoulders stooped even more than usual, his wiry frame was lost in a baggy old shirt and pants, a floppy hat shielding his grim countenance from view. He peered up at the full moon which cast a gentle light over the garden and wondered again what more lunacy he would have to endure that night.
“It's been scientifically proven,” Millicent said. “Predator urine frightens rabbits away. It's like marking territory.” She glanced at Harold. “Of course, you may not be much of a predator, but the rabbit won't know that.”
He ground his teeth and walked out to the garden, hat pulled low over his face.
A few minutes passed. Millicent called out. “How is it going?”
“Fine.”
A few minutes later: “Did you get enough to drink tonight?”
Mumbled reply.
“Are you getting the entire periphery?”
Growl.
Another few minutes: “What in the world is taking you so long?”
“For God's sake, Milli. I'm sixty-seven years old. We're not talking the Mighty Mississippi here.”
An hour later, back inside the house: “How was I to know Mrs. Henshaw would call the police to report a vagrant flasher?” Millicent said. “It was probably the first willie the old bat had seen in fifty years. You'd think she'd be grateful.”
********************************
Millicent pointed to where she wanted Harold to put the patio chaise. “There. That should do it.”
“Are you sure about this, Milli?”
“Definitely,” she said. “The garden looks wonderful and if I have to stay out here all night to make sure that rabbit doesn't ruin it, I will.”
“What happens next year if you are named a Venus de Myles tomorrow?”
“I keep working on the garden. Can't afford to let things slide.”
“Why do you bother trying to please those old Garden Society biddies? What ever happened to gardening just for the fun of it?”
She glared, chins quivering with outrage. “How can you say such a thing? You know that nothing in the world is more important to me than becoming a Venus de Myles.”
He sighed. “Yes. I know it all too well.” He bade her good night and went inside.
The chaise bowed and creaked as Millicent settled herself in, Mitzi on her lap. She strained to listen past the cricket chirps and the whisper of the night breeze for sounds of the rabbit foraging. The lamb's ears glowed like living velvet and the shasta daisies like clustered stars in the soft moonlight, but she was blind to such beauty, intent only on spotting the bunny. As the moon set and its light faded, though, so did Millicent's vigilance and she fell into an exhausted slumber.
She awoke the next morning with her chins resting in a puddle of drool on her chest. Her stirring woke Mitzi, who hopped to the ground and initiated a series of elaborate doggie stretches and yawns. As she slowly took stock of her surroundings, Millicent recalled her mission and sat up straight, suddenly alert.
“No!”
All of Harold's newly-planted flowers and a large swath of established ones had been razed to the ground, a gaping black hole in the heart of her garden.
Millicent tried to stumble to her feet, but the arms of the chaise dug into her sides, and she tumbled to the ground, chaise still attached. With a throaty roar, she shoved the arms loose, lumbered to her feet, and flung the offending chair to the ground. Mitzi whimpered and dove for cover under the porch.
Pulse pounding in her temples, breath hard and fast, she headed for the garden shed and fetched her scythe. She returned to the scene of the crime and, vision narrowed by rage and hate, thought she spotted a fuzzy tail.
“Okay, furball. I'm the bloody grim reaper and you're my next harvest!” She screamed, a war cry worthy of Braveheart, and started swinging.
Harold watched, coffee cup in hand, from the breakfast room window as she lopped the lobelia, decapitated the dahlias, and beheaded the bee balm. He took a sip of coffee. Won't need to deadhead those this year. At one point, he winced when he thought he saw some fur fly, but, while there was blood in Millicent's eye, none was on the blade.
Her path of destruction wove erratically through the garden, and she finally ended up near the front gate. Body still trembling in geriatric Berserker rage, she stopped to catch her breath. Swiping one chubby wrist across her sweat-streaked forehead, Millicent looked up to see her defeat was complete: Agnes Harcourt-Smythe and her Garden Society cronies stood at the garden gate, mouths open in identical shocked O's.
**************************
Harold went to the sideboard and poured two fingers of his favorite single-malt scotch into a tumbler. With a contented sigh, he eased into his well-worn chair, put his tumbler on the side table sans coaster, and, kicking aside some fussy furbelows, plunked his feet on the coffee table. The telephone rang just as he pulled a fat cigar from his jacket pocket.
“Hello.”
“Harold? It's Reggie. I just heard about Millicent. What a shock that must have been. Are you okay?”
Harold leaned back in his chair and settled one ankle on the other. “I'm managing.”
“Gertie wanted to know if she could bring over something for you to eat, maybe a nice casserole.”
Glancing back to the kitchen, Harold thought of the leftover vegetable loaf in the garbage and the thick steak marinating in the icebox. “Tell her thank you, but no. I've plenty to eat here.”
“You just let us know if there's anything we can do.” Reggie paused. “Any idea what could have made her go off the deep end like that?”
“I really can't say.”
“Who can ever say in something like this,” Reggie said. “Where did they take her?”
“Shady Acres Sanatorium. I've been assured she's in very good hands.” Harold lit the cigar and took a deep puff. “They have a number of programs designed to calm frazzled nerves, including individual, group, and occupational therapy ... though I imagine in her case they may skip the gardening therapy.”
“How long will she need to stay?”
“It depends on how well she progresses. I'll be allowed only minimal visitation for a while.” He took a sip of scotch, inhaling the woodsy bouquet. “But at least she has Mitzi with her.”
“That'll be some comfort. I'm sure all she needs is a good rest and she'll be back to normal in no time.”
“Yes,” Harold agreed. “Some nice quiet time is just what's needed.”
“I'm glad to hear you're holding up so well,” Reggie said. “How's the rest of the family? Seen the grandkids lately? Oh, and did you ever look into ordering a pet bunny for them from that place I told you about?”
“Sure did.”
“How did it work out?”
“Oh,” Harold said, holding his scotch up in a silent toast. “I'd say it worked out perfectly.”
