The Sagging Orchid
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Second Section, First Scene (1st post)
Gretta and Aaron - German second cousins - joined them at the fairgrounds to find a Christmas tree. The fairgrounds were a mile harness track without grandstand and a five-acre field, all surrounded by evergreens. In exchange for planting a new one and paying a town tax, a family was allowed to pick out a small tree for the season.
Aaron, German in his own way, was the son of a mine switchman. He was born in Revere and started a book business that took four years to yield a profit with. Taylor liked books, but not in the ways Aaron worshipped them. Aaron, though, was damn good at running a business and kept faith in himself. Taylor couldn’t overlook his side. Gretta was Aaron’s bookkeeper for some time, before she got tired of her role and Aaron got tired of her being tired. Nowadays she was playing small-town socialite; she had the charm and the voluptuousness to win over anyone.
They went to the fairgrounds at dawn in Aaron’s roadster, getting there just before the dew-clouds sank into the ground. There was no sunshine, only a dim, gray vesting of the sky. The trees were a well-distributed bundle of columns in silence. They spread out, imagining each one in their living room.
Ten minutes passed with nothing. Then Gretta called out. “Aaron?”
“Yeah?” he returned
“How about this one?”
Aaron couldn’t hear her. “Wait a minute,” he yelled back. He walked his way between trees to a clearing. “Where are you?” he called out.
“Over here.”
“Where?” insistently.
“Over here.”
Aaron picked up the pace and found his mate. Their shouts died to muffled small talks. In the meantime, Clarisse was skitting about, more interested in daydreaming about trees than finding one to cut down. Taylor and Bonnie drifted apart in the rising mist. “Where have you gone off to?” Bonnie shouted.
Taylor answered with only two suitable words. “Over here.”
“Well, I’m going to stay over here.” she returned. They could hear the muted wisecracks of their so-called friends.
“This way,” a nearby voice whispered. It was Clarisse’s musical tongue. Taylor hunted her out through openings.
“Which way?” he said annoyingly.
“To your left.”
“This way?”
“No,” she instructed, “way over more.”
“Here? This one?”
“No, more.”
“Here?”
“No, you passed it,” in a minor cadence.
“You make me dizzy,” he barked.
“Do you know a perfect pine when you see one?”
“I wasn’t raised in the Alps.”
“Neither was I.” She stepped into an opening.
