Slugfest

Four

Connie Anzalone stared down the few remaining bystanders with a slightly less friendly look than she’d given the Zen gardener and they wisely scattered, leaving just Rolanda and me. Rolanda was paid to stick around, but what was my excuse? In addition to being mesmerized by the outfit, I was drawn to the spectacle of a grown woman throwing a tantrum over a few dead plants. Her veronicas had gone to that great compost heap in the sky. It happened: the little suckers don’t always do as they’re told. You feed them, you water them, and do they thank you? No. Sometimes they gave it up to pests, bacteria, fungus, or a good stiff wind and they didn’t even say good-bye. I kept silent while Rolanda tried to do what the Zen gardener couldn’t.

“Calm down, ma’am. I’ll alert someone from show management, and I’m sure they’ll mount a complete investigation.”

I couldn’t tell if the guard was joking, but within minutes a frosty woman of about thirty arrived to defuse the situation. She introduced herself as Kristi Reynolds, director of the Big Apple Flower Show.

She had a Bluetooth implant in her head and I would have bet there were two larger implants farther south. I could visualize her standing in front of a weather map, making sweeping motions with her arms and maintaining the same manic smile whether she was forecasting sunshine or tsunami.

Much like the kid who’d tried to sneak in, Kristi was a smooth talker. She assured the woman that should anyone be found responsible, they would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“For what,” I muttered. “Herbicide?” Kristi glared in my direction. Her eyes traveled to the name on my badge but all the while she kept the same smile, the smile facial expression.

Either another emergency call had come in or Kristi had perfected the artful exit. She tilted her head and nodded to an unseen speaker, fluttering her eyelids—the only sign that the caller was delivering bad news.

“Oh, dear. I’ll be right there,” she said. “Seems someone has borrowed a baseball bat from the Bambi-no booth and decapitated a gnome. I must fly. And you, Rolanda, need to get back to your post. Those fanatical protesters could be pouring in right now, ready to do more damage. Let’s get Otis to clean this up.” The two women exchanged forced smiles before Kristi turned on her heels and clacked away.

“Otis works at night,” Rolanda said, under her breath and out of earshot. “She doesn’t even know who’s on duty at her own event.”

“Bambi-no?”

“Another one of you lunatic vendors. The man’s dressed like Babe Ruth. What the hell that has to do with gardening I don’t know.” I nodded sympathetically.

I trailed Rolanda back to her post, still holding the gatecrasher’s bag. I could tell she was disappointed in herself for abandoning her station, so I waited for an appropriate moment to give her the boy’s bag. At the door I saw that my exhibitor’s directory had been placed on Rolanda’s chair. The Happy Valley kid was long gone, presumably inside the hallowed halls without the all-important exhibitor’s badge. Whoever it was he needed to reach, he’d do it without my help.

“You see why I can’t let unauthorized people in?” Rolanda said. “People like you think I’m a martinet, checking papers like I’m the border patrol, but the rules are the rules. The minute anything goes wrong, you got hysterical people like the Fish Lady and Ms. Reynolds screaming conspiracy.”

I silently agreed and moved to hand her the bag.

“I don’t want that thing,” she said, pushing my hand away. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Isn’t there a lost and found?”

“It doesn’t open officially until the show does. Just hold on to it. You’ll probably see the little peckerwood before I do, wandering around, stealing stuff. My job is to stand here for eight hours with one forty-five minute lunch break and two informal bathroom breaks, so that’s what I’m going to do. You tell your friend if I see him again, I’ll bounce him out on his Happy Valley butt.”

“If he comes back looking for the bag, my booth number is eleven forty-two.”

“Wait—let me write that down. Don’t you think I can find you if I need to?”

I said nothing, but retrieved my directory and headed to the curtained thirty-by-ten plot that would be my home until the show closed.

Another shriek split the air, but this time I didn’t bite. Given the high-strung nature of the flower show participants, it could have been a slug or a leaf miner. I had the luxury of ignoring it and going for coffee, but Rolanda didn’t.

Now what? she muttered.