Читать книгу Little Boy Blues - Mary Jane Maffini - Страница 5

It was one hell of a party. And for once I had something to celebrate. I don’t mean Canada Day in the nation’s capital, although there was that too. No, this was the imminent departure of my office assistant, Alvin Ferguson, for greener pastures. For some reason, everyone in my large, meddlesome family thinks the sun shines out of Alvin’s rear end. That’s why fifty or so people were whooping it up on July 1st in my sister Edwina’s manicured garden.

By ten o’clock the temperature had dropped from the pleasant mid-twenties to seven degrees, and the wind had whipped the trendy market umbrellas out of the tables. Maple leaf napkins swirled across the lawn. Red and white paper cups bobbed in the pool. Even the hardiest Cape Bretoners snatched up their rum and cokes and staggered into the house. I imagine the neighbours felt some relief.

At some point in the evening, after one Captain Morgan’s too many, I had hiked up my long Indian cotton skirt and hopped on one of Edwina’s new dining room chairs to propose a toast.

Everyone hoisted glasses, with the possible exception of Edwina, who was keeping an eye on the brocade seat cover.

“To Alvin Ferguson.” I held my toasting hand high.

“To Alvin!” The room rang with it.

I gazed around with pride at the gathering. My three sisters had outdone themselves with food and drink. Even after the heavy-duty barbecue, we still had to face dessert. The chocolate dipped strawberries and cappuccino crème brûlée would be talked about for weeks. Edwina’s husband Stan was a hit with his favourite joke novelties, if you don’t count a couple of killjoys who’d left early after finding plastic roaches paddling in their pinot noir.

The crowd was now wedged inside Edwina’s home, the ideal place for Alvin’s going-away party. Not everyone has that many Waterford crystal wine glasses. I looked around, mellowed by the event. I smiled at my favourite sister, Alexa. Alexa looked wonderful. Marriage to Detective Sergeant Conn McCracken obviously agreed with her. I felt a twinge of guilt. I’m told I’d behaved like a jerk during the preparations for her wedding the previous winter. Maybe it had been jealousy because my own husband, Paul, had been killed by a drunk driver at the age of thirty-one, and now Alexa was getting a second chance at happiness. Maybe because I am the short, stocky, dark-haired sister misplaced in a family of willowy and elegant blondes. Maybe because I can be a pain in the ass.

Whatever.

Alexa seemed to have forgotten all about it. I raised my glass to her, fondly.

“Speech! Speech!” Who the hell was yelling that? I realized I was three sheets to the wind, teetering on an upholstered chair, feeling unusually sentimental and wearing a pair of borrowed high-heeled mules. So a speech wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

My father looked up at me. He is the only person in the world who scares me. Even when he’s looking up. Even if he’s eighty-one years old. Even if he scarcely remembers my name.

“Um, Camilla. I know you’re terribly upset to see Alvin go, but he deserves a proper send-off.”

“He sure does, Daddy.”

“Then, you should do it. The MacPhees are not afraid to show their deepest emotions when it’s appropriate.”

My deepest emotion over Alvin’s decision to leave was unrestrained joy. I wasn’t sure I wanted to share that with this crowd.

My father said, “You are equal to the task.”

And so I gave it my best shot.

“Alvin Ferguson is surely the most unbelievable office assistant anyone ever had. Justice for Victims will not be the same without him,” I began. That meant, among other things, our utility bills would be paid, the collect calls from Sydney would cease, messages would be passed on, outgoing correspondence would not contain coffee spills, and no topless bathers would be painted on our solitary window. It might also mean no more pilfered library materials would land on my desk.

Alvin had lasted twenty-six long months at Justice for Victims only because my father would never let me fire him. I chose not to mention that.

“Hear, hear!”

“I feel confident the management of the Gadzooks Art Gallery will continue to be surprised, no, amazed, when they realize what kind of gallery assistant they’ve snagged in our Alvin.” And by the time they did, I figured I would have had the locks changed at Justice for Victims.

I swayed on the chair. The crowd gazed on expectantly. I noticed some of them were getting a bit fuzzy. Perhaps they’d had a bit too much hooch.

What the hell. Sometimes you’ve got to let go. Why not tell the truth?

“As many of you know, I owe Alvin my life, and I will always be grateful to him. To Alvin! There’s no one quite like him.”

I was telling the truth. The truth but not the whole truth. Sure, I’d be dead if it weren’t for Alvin. Sure, he could ferret out more information by quasi-legal means than anyone else. But that didn’t mean I wanted to be cooped up in a fifteen by fifteen office with someone who sported nine visible earrings, a fresh tattoo, a fondness for bad music and major attitude.

Al-vin. Al-vin. Al-vin. People chanted and waved their Waterford stemware and sloshed their red wine on Edwina’s new pure wool cream carpet.

I continued, “Alvin, as you know, risked his own life to put a murderer behind bars.”

My seventy-nine year old neighbour, Mrs. Violet Parnell, put down her new high-end digital camera long enough to beat a military tattoo on the frame of her walker. “Bravo, young Ferguson.”

Alvin, splendid in a tuxedo jacket over his skinny lizard-skin patterned jeans, stared at the floor modestly.

I continued, “It has been an astounding experience working with him.” Working might have been stretching it.

Alexa began to cry. People blew their noses. My father stood proud. Edwina blotted the carpet.

I shouted, “After Alvin, we have nowhere to go but down.” They tell me that’s when I fell off the chair.