Рита Браун: Claws And Effect

Today she noticed that Susan Tucker's mailbox had Cracker Jacks stuck on the bottom of it.

Mim's gloved hand, a luscious, soft turquoise suede, reached into her box. Murphy couldn't help herself; she peered down, then took both paws and grabbed Mim's hand, no claws.

"Mrs. Murphy. Let me have my mail." Mim bent down to see two beautiful green eyes staring back at her.

"Give me your glove. I love the smell of the suede."

"Harry, your cat won't let me go."

Harry walked over, slipped her fingers into the mailbox, and disengaged Murphy's paws. "Murphy, not everyone in Crozet thinks you're adorable."

"Thank you!" Pewter's voice rose up from the canvas mail cart.

Harry gently placed her tiger on the counter again. A pretty woman, young and fit, she stroked the cat.

Miranda checked the bookshelves for cartons. "Mim, got a package here for you. Looks like your coffee."

Mim belonged to a coffee club, receiving special beans from various world-famous cafés once a month. "Good." She stood at the counter sorting her mail. She removed one exquisite glove and slit open envelopes with her thumbnail, a habit Harry envied, since her own nails were worn down from farm work. The older, elegant woman opened a white envelope, read a few sentences, then tossed the letter and envelope in the trash. "Another chain letter. I just hate them and I wish there'd be a law against them. They're all pyramid schemes. This one wants you to send five dollars to Crozet Hospital's Indigent Patients Fund and then send out twenty copies of the letter. I just want to know who put my name on the list."

Harry flipped up the divider, walked over to the wastebasket, and fished out the offending letter.

"Sister Sophonisba will bring you good fortune." She scanned the rest of it. "There is no list of names. All it says is to pass this on to twenty other people. 'If you wish.'" Harry's voice filled the room. "Send five dollars to Crozet Hospital's Indigent Patients Fund or your microwave will die."

"It doesn't really say that, does it?" Miranda thought Harry was teasing her but then again . . .

"Nah." Harry flashed her crooked grin.

"Very funny." Mim reached for her letter again, which Harry handed to her. "Usually there's a list of names and the top one gets money. You know, your name works its way to the top of the list." She reread the letter, then guffawed, "Here's the part that always kills me about these things." She read aloud. "Mark Lintel sent five dollars and the Good Lord rewarded him with a promotion at work. Jerry Tinsley threw this letter in the trash and had a car wreck three days later." Mim peered over the letter. "I seem to recall Jerry's wreck. And I seem to recall he was liberally pickled in vodka. If he dies he'll come back as a rancid potato."

Harry laughed. "I guess he has to get rid of that old Camry somehow so he decided to wreck it."

"Harry," Miranda reprimanded her.

"Well, I liked your death threat to microwaves." Mim handed the letter over the worn counter to Harry, who tossed it back into the wastebasket, applauding herself for the "basket."

"Two points." Harry smiled.

"Seems to be local. The references are local. None of this 'Harold P. Beecher of Davenport, Iowa, won the lottery,'" Mim said. "Well, girls, you know things are slow around here if we've wasted this much time on a chain letter."

"The February blahs." Harry stuck her tongue out.

"Ever notice that humans' tongues aren't as pink as ours?" Tucker, the corgi, cocked her head, sticking her own tongue out.

"They are what they are," came the sepulchral voice from the mail bin.

"Oh, that's profound, Pewts." Mrs. Murphy giggled.

"The sage of Crozet has spoken," Pewter again rumbled, making her kitty voice deeper.

"Well, I don't know a thing. What about you two?"

"Mim, we thought you knew everything. You're the-" Harry stopped for a second because "the Queen of Crozet" dangled on the tip of her tongue, which was what they called Mim behind her back. "-uh, leader of the pack."

"At least you didn't say Laundromat." Mim referred to a popular song from the sixties, before Harry's time.

"How's Jim?" Miranda inquired after Mim's husband.

"Busy."

"Marilyn?" Miranda now asked about Mim's daughter, Harry's age, late thirties.

"The same, which is to say she has no purpose in this life, no beau, and she exists simply to contradict me. As for my son, since you're moving through the family, he and his wife are still in New York. No grandchildren in sight. What's the matter with your generation, Harry? We were settled down by the time we were thirty."

Harry shrugged. "We have more choices."

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" Mim put her hands on her slender hips. "All it means is you're more self-indulgent. I don't mind women getting an education. I received a splendid education but I knew my duty lay in marrying and producing children and raising them to be good people."

Miranda deftly deflected the conversation. "Don't look now, but Dr. Bruce Buxton is flat on his back coasting down Main Street."

"Ha!" Mim ran to the window, as did Mrs. Murphy and Tucker. "I hope he's black and blue from head to toe!"

Bruce spun around, finally grabbing onto a No Parking sign. Breathing heavily, he pulled himself up, but his feet insisted in traveling in opposite directions. Finally steadied, he half slid, half skated in the direction of the post office.

"Here he comes." Mim laughed. "Pompous as ever although he is handsome. I'll give him that."

Dr. Bruce Buxton stamped his feet on the post office steps, then pushed the door open.

Before he could speak, Mim dryly remarked, "I give you a 9.4," as she breezed past him, waving good-bye to Harry and Miranda.

"Supercilious snot!" he said only after the door closed because it wouldn't do to cross Mim publicly. Even Bruce Buxton, a star knee specialist at Crozet Hospital, knew better than to offend "The Diva," as he called her.

"Well, Dr. Buxton, I gave you points for distance. Mim gave you points for artistic expression." Harry laughed out loud.

Bruce, in his late thirties and single, couldn't resist a pretty woman so he laughed at himself as well. "I did cover ground. If it gets worse, I'm wearing my golf spikes."

"Good idea." Harry smiled as he opened his mailbox.

"Bills. More bills." He opened a white envelope, then chucked it. "Junk."

"Wouldn't be a letter from Sister Sophonisba, would it?" Harry asked.

"Sister Somebody. Chain letter."

"Mim got one, too. I didn't." Harry laughed at herself. "I miss all the good stuff. Say, how is Isabelle Otey?"

Harry was interested in the gifted forward for the University of Virginia's basketball team. She had shredded her anterior cruciate ligament during a tough game against Old Dominion. UVA won the game but lost Isabelle for the season.

"Fine. Arthroscopic surgery is done on an outpatient basis now. Six weeks she'll be as good as new, providing she follows instructions for six weeks. The human knee is a fascinating structure . . ." As he warmed to his subject-he was one of the leading knee surgeons in the country-Harry listened attentively. Miranda did, too.