Swan for the Money(5)
“I think she’d already have opened that shop if she hadn’t been bitten by the rose show bug. And it’s something she and Dad can share. Frankly, I’ve been a bit worried about how much time and energy Dad has been spending on Dr. Blake’s projects.”
“Worthwhile projects, all of them.”
“Yes, but I’m getting tired of having to bail them out of jails all over the East Coast when their protests tick off local law enforcement,” I said. “Not to mention how dangerous some of their schemes can be. Did you hear Dr. Blake’s plan for infiltrating a dogfighting ring?”
“Considering how familiar his face is from all those Animal Planet shows and National Geographic specials, I doubt if even he can pull that off.”
“And even he realizes it. That’s why he wants Dad to do the actual infiltrating, while he stands by with a camera crew.”
“Ouch,” Michael said. “I can see why you’re worried.”
I didn’t mention the fact that my grandfather had been planning to recruit Michael as his undercover agent until I convinced him that Michael’s face was almost as well known as his, thanks to reruns of the various TV shows and movies Michael appeared in before he’d abandoned his acting career to take up the less precarious life of a drama professor at Caerphilly College. I was exaggerating a bit. Most of Michael’s leading roles had been in soaps, which didn’t do reruns. Fortunately Dr. Blake despised television in principle and only turned his set on to watch himself, so my scheme had worked— and then backfired, when he recruited Dad instead.
“That’s the great thing about this new rose obsession,” Michael was saying. “It may be a little annoying for the rest of us, but it’s harmless.”
“You haven’t met the other competitors,” I said. “I’ve been to a couple of the rose society meetings, remember, since Mother stuck me with this project. I’ve met most of them. They’re all very nice, but they make Mother and Dad seem positively sane on the subject of roses. But yes, at least rose growing isn’t dangerous or strenuous. A suitable hobby for people who have reached maturity.”
“Maturity?” Michael echoed. “Is that the new euphemism for people well over sixty-five?”
“Yes,” I said. “Ever since several cousins began snickering when Mother referred to herself as ‘in late middle age.’ Though if they show up for the rose show, the cousins will laugh just as hard at ‘maturity.’ ”
“Then I’m even sorrier to have abandoned you to the mercies of the parents who have managed to reach maturity without becoming at all sedate,” Michael said. “Sounds as if today and tomorrow will be tough.”
“They’ll be hellacious, but you’ll be back to help with the cleanup on Saturday afternoon, and I can survive till then.”
“You’re sure you don’t want me to pretend to go all Neanderthal and insist that you accompany me to New York?”
“Tempting, but no,” I said. “Mother would forgive you, but she’d never forgive me. But there is something you can do. Could you pick up—”
Just then Rob popped out onto the porch where we were standing.
“You’re really coming back tomorrow?” he asked Michael. “Don’t be a masochist. Stay the weekend. Come back when the town’s sane again.”
“I enjoy a bit of madness now and again,” Michael said.
“Then don’t you need someone to go along with you? Would your student’s play make a good computer game? Maybe I need to check that out.”
As founder and president of a Caerphilly-based computer gaming company, Rob did need to keep an eye out for promising game ideas, but lately he’d developed an annoying habit of going off on game scouting expeditions whenever there was useful work to be done at home.
“It’s a four-hour play in blank verse about the political downfall of Millard Fillmore,” Michael said. “Not my idea of a hot game property, but—”
“The rose show is sounding better and better,” Rob said.
“What was it you were going to ask me to pick up?” Michael asked, turning back to me.
Damn. I had been about to ask him to drop into a drugstore and pick up a pregnancy test. Not that the Caerphilly Pharmacy didn’t carry them, but a few months ago, when I’d bought one there, I’d been spotted by several of the most incorrigible gossips in town. By the end of the day, I’d received seven congratulatory phone calls and a dozen e-mails full of pregnancy jokes. Not to mention the three hand-knitted baby sweaters that arrived in the mail at the end of the week. I still wasn’t sure whether the elderly aunt who sent all three had heard a rumor that we were having triplets or if she was just clearing out a surplus of knitted goods.