Slugfest

Forty-three

I’d forgotten that I’d already met the Bagua Lady. She’d been the one lingering on the show floor the other night, loading up on handouts at the information booth. It was hardly the stuff of CSI, but all the spiritual merchandise on her shelves made me think she wasn’t the type to bitch slap a guy who had followed her into the ladies’ room. Then there were the Birkenstocks. Also inconclusive, but I gave her points because of them, although it was certainly possibly to own old-fashioned, hippie shoes and stilettos.

I’d already spent almost sixty dollars on honey, so I was not inclined to drop any more dough on chimes or lucky Chinese coins strung together with red twine just to get a few answers. I took the simple approach.

“How’s the show been for you?” I asked. It was the standard, innocuous trade show or convention exchange. You never wanted to hear it was fabulous—especially if it wasn’t going well for you—but occasionally it opened the door for other, more practical information like, “Way better than Poughkeepsie.” Or “Not as good as Poughkeepsie.”

“Oh, you know,” Terry said. “It’s more expensive than the flea markets or craft shows but there’s less driving and not as much fun.” I took that to mean she hadn’t run into any old flames—probably a good thing, given her track record. “I’d rather be outdoors than in all this reconditioned air. Last night was good.” Then she shared the details of every sale over fifty dollars. I was sorry I asked and struggled to keep the glazed-over look out of my eyes. I could only assume today had been slow and I was the first person she’d spoken to for any length of time. The more she talked, the less I saw her as Garland’s contact. People with something to hide didn’t volunteer much, and Terry Ward was the opposite, even drifting off into a personal sidebar about her route selection to the convention center (“I started with MapQuest, but you can never trust them and the GPS told me to turn left but I knew the GW would be crowded…”). It was mind-numbing. I needed to change the subject.

“Good idea wearing those shoes. It’s brutal standing on these concrete floors all day.” That I knew from personal experience. I still had the shin splints from my first Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to prove it.

“You’re so right. I even wore them last night for the reception instead of heels. Who could see under a long black skirt? Besides, I’m not here to look sexy. I’m past that. It’s all about the sales. And most of the attendees and buyers are women, anyway. We don’t need to dress up for each other.”

Hers was a philosophy I didn’t totally agree with. Was she a killer? Only if you could bore someone to death. It was unlikely Terry Ward was the woman in clacking heels who had preened and reapplied war paint while verbally abusing some poor schlub in the ladies’ room. I put Terry Ward on the Probably Not list, then I took pity on her and sprung for two sets of lucky Chinese coins.

The woman at the Bambi-no booth looked haggard. Show life didn’t seem to agree with Lorraine Shepard. Traveling from one city to another, sleeping in strange beds and just being away from home and all the familiar things that make it home—your sheets, your soap, a coffeemaker you can trust is clean—took its toll. After a few days, I was even feeling it, but it showed on Lorraine Shepard’s face as if she’d been out in the fields picking cotton. She put on a tired smile for the three or four people at her booth, but her pitch had no energy and they smiled politely and then drifted away.

The booth was bare-bones—an umbrella stand filled with baseball bats and two tables covered with a stretchy cloth preprinted with the word Bambi-no! in large, bright blue type. Next to the name was the image of a deer about to be brained by a baseball bat. Even to a seasoned gardener with no love for deer, it seemed a tad angry. On the tables were half-gallon bottles of the magic potion. From a distance, they looked as benign as jugs of apple cider, like those stacked in any supermarket once October rolled around. As you got closer the smell became overpowering. Perhaps that’s what was responsible for the look on Lorraine Shepard’s face and the deep marks etched on her forehead that resembled the pause button or the number eleven.

I hovered, listening to the woman speak with other prospective customers. It was a tough sell. At Primo’s booth, people were either intrigued by the art or they kept walking. Here, Lorraine and her husband—the directory listed a partner named Marty—had to constantly battle the skeptics and the naysayers, or worse listen to people recite their own homemade recipes for a concoction that would repel deer. When she did find a receptive ear, two out of three times the listener balked at the price. I found myself hoping her husband was a better salesperson or at least had had a caffeine jolt to combat the afternoon lull.

When it was my turn, I tried asking a question unlike the same few I’d heard repeated in the last fifteen minutes.

“So, Bambi-no—does it have to be reapplied after it rains?” My delivery was perky. I was a real gardener, not a cop pretending to be a gardener. It should have gone well. It didn’t. “You are the one millionth person to ask that same question this weekend. Give that woman a kewpie doll.” I half expected bells and buzzers to go off.

Lorraine Shepard didn’t completely snap, but it was a pretty athletic bend. She shook her head as if it were the dumbest question she’d ever heard, then launched into her prepackaged reply. “Yes. After every rain. Same thing for areas near the sprinklers.” She was practically gasping for breath.

“I don’t mean to pry,” I said, “but are you okay? You seem a little out of sorts.”

Lorraine thanked me. Her husband had been called to a meeting and she’d been on her own all day. She was just tired. I offered to bring her a cold drink or a chair—they hadn’t sprung for the chairs either—but Lorraine said her husband would be back soon and anyway the floor was almost closed. No sooner did she say it, than Marty Shepard appeared, staring at my badge and barely masking his irritation that his wife would use what little energy she could muster on someone who wasn’t a buyer and who couldn’t possibly do them any good.

I jokingly asked if he thought the name Bambi-no would be a problem for gardeners who were Red Sox fans. He was not amused. I spared him the trouble of answering by leaving on my own but not without making eye contact with his wife, who nodded as if to say, Yes, he’s a jerk, but he’s my jerk.

The next name on Garland’s short list was BioSafe, the company selling SlugFest. I rushed to their booth just in time to see the last salmon-clad employee flinging off her ugly shirt and tossing it behind a meeting room door, then dashing off.

Everyone else was gone. The door was slightly ajar. I was just your average gardener, hoping to keep the slugs at bay. That was my rationale for entering the SlugFest meeting room.