Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

“Elaine!”

“Mimi!”

They haven’t seen one another since Alberta.

“I didn’t even recognize little Lisa!” cries Mimi. “You look grand, Elaine.”

“I’m big as a house.”

“What are you, six months?”

“Five!” Mimi insists that Elaine “go get Steve and join us, there’s plenty.” Elaine returns with her husband, a bottle of vodka, a plate of Hello Dolly squares and a snapshot of Lisa and Madeleine in the tub, age one. Madeleine and Lisa are amazed to discover that they have been friends for years. They giggle with mortified delight at the embarrassing photo, and Auriel examines it, flabbergasted. This was all clearly meant to be.

Steve and Jack slap one another on the back and Jack calls his son over. “Mike, this is the man who took your tonsils out in Cold Lake, say hello to Dr. Ridelle.”

Henry Froelich has brought a bottle of homemade wine, and his daughter Elizabeth in her wheelchair. His wife has brought their twin baby boys, and a pot of chili con carne. Mimi takes in Mrs. Froelich at a glance — a man’s old white shirt, faded black stirrup pants — smiles, receives the blackened pot from her and tells her the babies are beautiful — they are in rubber pants and undershirts. There are grass stains on the woman’s sneakers. “Lovely to meet you, Mrs. Froelich.”

“Please call me Karen.”

Jack makes introductions all around. The Bouchers and the Ridelles shake hands with the Froelichs and agree that of course they know one another. The Woodleys appear to be more intimately acquainted. Hal asks Froelich if “their boy” is going to play varsity basketball this year, and Vimy asks Karen about her work downtown. A moment later — in the house, tipping an aluminum mould onto a plate while Jack opens more beers — Mimi says, “She’s a funny one.”

“Who?”

“Karen Froelich.”

“Who? Oh, is she?”

“Well, you can see.” She lifts the mould deftly from the jellied salad — peas and pineapple suspended in a jiggling, faceted green mound.

“She looks all right to me,” says Jack.

“What do you mean by that?” She darts him a look, reaches for her cigarette, taps the ash.

“Well, not everyone’s got your style, baby.” He offers her a glass of beer. She shakes her head no, then takes it, sips and hands it back. Her red sleeveless blouse is turned up at the collar, her black capri pants reveal just the right amount of leg between hem and espadrille. The lipstick stain on her cigarette filter matches the kiss mark on his beer glass.

“Not to mention,” says Mimi, “have you tried her chili?”

“No, but it sure smells good.” He winks and she flushes. Like shooting fish in a barrel, getting her riled.

“Chili con carne, my foot. She forgets the carne”—butting out her cigarette, picking up her jellied salad. Jack grins and follows her back outside.

The grown-ups sit on lawn chairs, with plates on their laps and drinks at their feet. Lisa’s mother, Elaine, laughs at everything Lisa’s father says. Steve is the senior medical officer on base—“and resident golf pro,” jokes Vic. The kids are at card tables placed end to end, Madeleine, Mike, Roy Noonan, Auriel Boucher, Auriel’s younger sisters and Lisa Ridelle. The Froelich babies crawl around on the grass pursued by Auriel’s two-year-old sister, Bea, in a bonnet and sunsuit. Karen Froelich feeds Elizabeth chili con carne — the sight of the food sliding in and out of Elizabeth’s mouth makes Madeleine gag, so she tries not to watch, while trying not to seem to be trying not to watch.

Vic and Mimi argue in French; she swats him with an oven mitt and he cringes elaborately. “Au secours!”

“Vic, parlez-vous le ding dong?” calls Jack from the barbecue, presiding in his apron that says CHEF.

“I speak French, I don’t know what your wife is speaking.”

“Ma grande foi D’jeu, c’est du chiac!” Chiac , Acadian French, the “creative langage local,” with as many variations as there are communities across the Maritimes.

“‘ D’jeu’?! C’est quoi ça, ‘D’jeu’?!” Vic knows she means Dieu —God — but he imitates her in lilting feminine tones with an elaborate rolling of r’s and she’s laughing too hard to swat him again.

“Where did you find this one, Jack?” asks Vic, in his own Trois-Rivières twang. “She talks like a hillbilly.”

“I picked her up in the Louisiana bayou.”

Henry Froelich says, “Really?”

Mimi exclaims, “No!”

Jack says, “I found her in New Brunswick—”

Mimi nods and Jack continues, “on the Indian reservation—”

“Jack!”—using the oven mitt on him— “allons donc!”

Karen Froelich says, “Mimi, are you part native?”

Mimi’s laugh decelerates to a polite smile. “No, I’m Acadian.”

“That’s why she speaks so uncivilized the French,” says Vic in a parody of his own accent.

His wife, Betty, says, “You’re one to talk, cheeky frog, murdering the language of Louis Quatorze”—she pronounces it “cat oars”—“with your heathen patois.”

“Acadian,” says Karen. “That’s really interesting. There was actually quite a bit of intermarriage between the Acadians and the native Indians, wasn’t there?” Her tone betrays no awareness of her faux pas.

There is a pause. Everyone is smiling. Jack knows that Mimi will assume the woman is catty, but he can’t see anything but interest on Karen’s face. She looks like a stranger in a strange land, here among the lawn chairs. Even her husband is recognizable in his way — a bearded, rumpled professor. But Karen is a woman with undone hair and no makeup, talking about the finer points of Canadian history. “That’s how they got out of taking the oath of allegiance to England, right? Before the Expulsion.”

Mimi smiles and shrugs.

Karen continues, “By claiming Indian blood.”

Jack looks at Mimi. Will she roll with it? Tell the story of le grand dérangement? That’s why I’m so good at moving .

Vimy Woodley comes to the rescue. “We know so little of our own history, really, don’t we? I’m afraid I’ve never heard of the Expulsion.”

Jack tells the story of the English forcing the Acadians from their homes two hundred years ago, and Mimi rallies: “That’s why I’m so good at moving.”

They all laugh, and Betty Boucher reaches for Mimi’s hand. She says in her Manchester accent, thick as a good cardigan, “Well I’m English, love, and I’d like to say I’m sorry. There!”

At the kids’ table, Mike stands up and whips his arm round and round like a propeller. When he stops, his hand has puffed and turned red with tiny burst capillaries.

“Wow,” says Lisa, and turns her eyelids inside out.

“Neat.”

Then they all follow Roy Noonan around the side of the house to watch what he can do with his braces and retainer. He leans forward with his hands on his knees and chews his tongue until a waterfall of clear saliva pours from his mouth.

“Kids,” calls Maman, “come get your dessert.”

Mike breaks into song: “Comet! It makes your bathroom clean”—to the tune of the Colonel Bogey March—“Comet! It tastes like Listerine”—leading them back the long way around the house—“Comet! It makes you vomit! So drink some Comet, and vomit today!”

Betty clears the table and asks Vimy if her daughter Marsha can babysit Saturday. Mimi scoops ice cream into cones for the kids and asks Steve his opinion on appendectomies.

“Well,” he answers, “my motto is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Mimi smiles up at him and says, “You sound just like my husband.”