Slugfest

Fifteen

“That’s a little harsh,” I said.

“I didn’t mean it. I guess I’m not feeling warm and fuzzy this morning.” I’d just met the woman two days ago. Please tell me she isn’t going to pour her heart out to me.

“Pay no attention to me,” she said. “Momentary lapse.”

We reached our aisle and Nikki got to work, rearranging everything she’d pronounced perfect the day before. David arrived bearing gifts—a Box o’ Joe from Dunkin’ Donuts and an aluminum-foil-covered platter that held a homemade frittata he’d warmed in the microwave in the members’ lounge.

“I could get to like this,” I said, helping myself to a slice. Nikki looked hurt. First I’d refused her crumb cake, then her attempt to get something off her chest, now I was scarfing down someone else’s culinary accomplishment. I’d have to remember to skip breakfast tomorrow and gush over whatever Nikki brought to keep the peace.

Babe had said three more pieces were coming but I couldn’t do much until the final shipment arrived, so I busied myself tweaking my laptop presentation. The computer battery needed recharging, so I crouched down to find the ridiculously expensive power source we’d had to order. I was on my hands and knees, peeling back corners of the rented carpet trying to find it, and half listening to David discuss what some exhibitors were now calling the Javits Curse.

They had decided it was the late New York senator’s way of steering business to the sleek, glass structure farther north that bore his name instead of the building we were in that honored a former mayor. If the flower show’s organizers took the bait and left or, worse, succumbed, it could be the final nail in the coffin for the Wagner Center and it could put a lot of people out of work. And invite the wrecking ball so a newer, bigger structure would take its place. It was prize real estate. Needless to say, there were interested parties on both sides.

“If it’s not the curse,” David said, “and it’s just another mishap, that makes six. The members’ lounge was buzzing this morning. Mostly that viper Allegra Douglas. She’s already pointing fingers.” According to David, more than a few longtime flower show denizens didn’t approve of the new crop of exhibitors, although most weren’t as vocal as Allegra.

“There’s one of the old-timers now,” he said. His voice dropped. “Uh-oh, she’s coming this way. Big pencil at eleven o’clock … and something tells me she’s not looking for pinecone nightlights. Command performance, ladies.”

I hadn’t heard the term big pencil to denote a big buyer since my days in the video business, and from my crouched position I craned my neck to see. The low whirr of a machine was followed by a shaky voice behind me. “Redecorating?” I bolted upright, and made eye contact with … no one until I shifted my gaze downward to Jean Moffitt’s wheelchair.

“Just joking. Don’t get up on my account.”

She wore a cherry red suit tricked out with more gold buttons and braid than a character from a Gilbert and Sullivan production, and her thin, storklike legs were partially wrapped in a luscious shawl I pegged as Loro Piana. Very Italian and very expensive. At the chair’s controls was a young man with watery blue eyes and sandy blond hair cropped in very short, almost military fashion. A light-colored polo shirt stretched across a well-defined set of pecs, and his chinos looked as if they’d been ironed. Definitely military. He was comfortable enough with the old woman to have been a relative but maybe not. There was also a little reserve.

“Rick and I should come back when you’ve finished setting up,” Mrs. Moffitt said.

Perhaps this was how it was done. The on-the-floor business was window dressing; all the big deals were made at off-hours. “No, no, just testing my computer presentation,” I said, kicking into salesman mode. “May I show it to you?” She looked at me as if I’d suggested she view my vacation pictures from the last ten years.

I’d seen the Moffitt name on a dozen items at the flower show from containers to window boxes to specimen plants—each entry adorned with a ribbon. David had told us about her. Jean Moffitt’s late husband was a wealthy industrialist who’d been a big supporter of the show. No one ever said that’s why she always won, but there were some who thought she was guaranteed a certain number of prizes every year. If the show had been around for a hundred years, Jean Moffitt had been there for most of them, and her sitting room was lined with glass cases filled with blue ribbons to prove it.

This year’s theme was “A New York State of Mind,” and Mrs. Moffitt’s entry, A Sleepy Hollow Garden, was the odds-on favorite to take first prize Friday night when the biggest awards were given for best overall display garden. The Moffitt garden was a masterpiece worthy of a Las Vegas theme park. Playing on the Washington Irving short story, it featured marble tombstones, rotting tree trunks, and numerous specimens of Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick, which looked like dead, gnarled limbs but were very much alive. She had planned to have a headless horseman galloping through the Friday night reception but at the eleventh hour had learned it would be a building code violation. Her attorneys were still working on getting the variance, and hoped it would come through before the final judging.

“My gardener was here yesterday,” she said. “He seems to think some of your pieces might suit one of our gardens.” How many did she have?

“They’re not mine,” I said. “They’re the work of a friend.” I launched into my spiel and fidgeted with the flash drive, plugging it into the laptop and continuing my pitch—but I’d never located the power source and my battery was at 20 percent, so nothing much was happening on the screen.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m a little electrically challenged right now.” I dropped down again to check for the outlet and was at eye level with the woman.

“That’s all right, dear. We’ll stop by during the reception.” I saw my sale rolling away and was pressing for a firmer commitment and a specific time to meet when Lauryn Peete and two young girls walked by, balancing three vintage streetlights on a too-small dolly whose casters were being uncooperative. The dolly snagged on a cable, and one of the streetlights teetered dangerously close to Lauryn’s head. Rick sprang into action and averted disaster, although the light did guillotine an amaryllis. The kids cheered, “Hey, the marines are here.”

Mrs. Moffitt and I watched as her companion picked up the fixtures at the middle and carried them like lightweight barbells to the school’s display garden.

“Rick won’t like that at all. He was at the Air Force Academy,” Mrs. Moffitt said, keeping an eye on him.

I didn’t know much about the various branches of the armed forces, but I knew you had to be recommended for the Air Force Academy by a congressman. That bit of information came to me courtesy of a snowboarder in Colorado who thought it would help him get to first base. It did. After a short while, Rick jogged back to us, full of unnecessary apologies to me and Mrs. Moffitt.

“Nonsense. You did what any red-blooded American boy would do—you helped a pretty woman in distress.”

His ears flushed bright red, and I took the brief silence as an opportunity to get back to the business at hand. “Was there any one piece that particularly struck your fancy?” I asked her, while looking at him.

“Don’t ask him,” she laughed, patting his hand. “This child wouldn’t know a weed from an orchid. Rick is my physical therapist, my chauffeur, and frequent dining companion. Mr. Jensen is my gardener. He’s not here now; he’s arranging for our last few accoutrements to be delivered.” I wondered if he was interviewing headless horsemen.

She was describing the pieces Jensen had mentioned seeing, when Jamal Harrington, he of the rubber rat, shuffled by swinging the empty dolly in a manner that could have been considered aggressive. He glared at Rick as if he were trying to burn a hole in him. Rick didn’t flinch.

“We will come back,” Mrs. Moffitt said. “I promise. But now I must go and check out my competition. Jensen says there are one or two quite original gardens that may give me a run for my money this year. He’s always looking after me. Come along, Rick.”

As he wheeled her away I overheard her say, “There certainly is an odd crop of entrants this year.”