Guarding Miranda (15 page)

They were standing in line, waiting for their turn to select from the buffet style supper when George got a tap on the arm.

“Ben!” George greeted cheerfully. “Ya nearly scared the bejesus out of me.”

“Is that who I think it is?” Asked the man named Ben, who sported male pattern baldness about his salt-and-pepper hair. 

A slender blond and white haired lady stood next to him, her blue eyes twinkling with friendliness.

“It is.” George replied. “Miranda Fowler, meet your dear neighbor Ben Clarion and his sweetheart of a wife, Mabel.”

Ben held out a hand, so Miranda took it, feeling slightly awkward.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said.

“I’m
very
pleased to meet you.” Ben smiled at her. “We were going to come over today to say hello but when Betty said you were coming over for the potluck, we thought we’d wait until now to introduce ourselves.” He paused and gave a low whistle. “Your uncle never said you were so pretty.”

“Oh, Ben.” Mabel scolded her husband and then turned to smile at Miranda. “Now, don’t you mind him none, Miranda – he’s just an old flirt.”

Miranda laughed with the rest of the people in the lineup. “I’ll keep that it mind.”

The long table of food drew nearer and nearer and with it, the tantalizing aromas of a great number of delicious-smelling foods. 

There were trays of sliced beef and chicken, roasters of meatballs and even a turkey.  There was meat loaf and lasagna, pasta salad, three bean salad, garden salad and three different Caesar salads – one of which was Miranda’s contribution to the supper. 

On top of that, there were three different types of potato: mashed, scalloped and stuffed and at least as many types of gravy.

There was a large roaster fill of small, crescent shaped wedges made of dough, stuffed with a combination of cheese and potato that Mabel claimed were the
perogies
she had made, a dish that was Ukrainian in origin. 

Next to the
perogies
were the cabbage rolls, another Ukrainian dish. 

Ben explained that they were cabbage leaves, stuffed with rice, so Miranda decided to try one, for the sake of her palate’s diversity. 

She was feeling adventurous.

And Hell: she was hungry.

Toward the end of the long table, there were a half dozen different styles of pickles, all homemade, sour cream for the
perogies
butter and margarine and a big metal bowl full of homemade buns. 

With a plate full of sweet and sour meatballs,
perogies
, salad and the one lone cabbage roll, Miranda joined the Tysons at a table on the other side of the divider that separated the kitchen side of the hall from the dance floor side and was joined in turn by Ben and Mabel.

Ben was up in an instant, ready to take their drink orders, “While I’m up, can I get anyone anything to drink?”

Miranda was sitting on a Bench between Tommy and his mother and thus unable to get up to get a beverage, which she hadn’t even thought to grab.

“Some juice please,” she said, remembering the pitchers of Tang she had seen lining the kitchen counter.

With the orders of the others committed to memory, the pleasant grey haired man left the table, whistling as he walked.

“A dollar says he brings you back coffee,” George mock-whispered to Miranda. “Ol’ Ben’s a bit absent minded.”

“George is right and I should know,” Mabel said with a laugh. “I have to live with him.”

“Coffee would be fine, too.” Miranda shrugged, to the good natured laughter of the others. “But I’ll see your dollar bet, George.  I’ve faith in the man.”

A few minutes later, Ben reappeared with a tray of beverages.

“Orange juice for Miss Fowler. Coffee and tea for the rest of us,” he began, as everyone laughed. “And might I ask what’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” said Miranda. “George just owes me some money, is all.”

 “May as well keep the laughs rolling,” Ben decided as he took his seat. “Here’s a joke for you, Miranda. What can a goose do, a duck can’t but a lawyer should?”

“I don’t know.”

“Stick his bill up his ass.” Ben waited for the laughter to stop. “And what’s black and brown and looks good on a lawyer?  A Doberman.”

Shaking her head as she laughed, Miranda remembered a lawyer joke of her own. “Here’s one for you, Ben. What do you call a dozen lawyers buried up to their necks in sand?”

“Got me there,” he replied.

“Not enough sand.” Miranda finished, deadpan. “And what do you call a dozen lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean?”

“Fish food?” Tommy tried.

Miranda grinned. “Not enough lawyers.” 

So began a round of joke telling and leg pulling, friendly and neighbourly humor at its best. 

As she navigated and ate her way around her meal, Miranda was astonished by what the unknown cook had done with the meatballs.

“The tangy sweetness of the sauce that these are drenched in.” She gushed. “These are so good!” She turned to Betty, who sat next to her. “Any idea who made these?  My Aunt Nancee would
kill
for the recipe.”

“That’s Mary Anderson’s famous pineapple sweet and sour sauce.” Betty pushed her glasses further up on her nose. “She’s the grey haired lady in the rainbow-knitted cardigan over there. The one with the purple purse.”

“I see her. I’ll have to ask her for the recipe.”

“I don’t think she’ll give it.  She’s a bit nasty, ol’ Mary.  Great cook but poor company.”

“That’s too bad.” Miranda tried the
perogies
, under Mabel’s patient glance with plenty of sour cream, as instructed. “These are great!” She mused aloud. “Different than anything I’ve ever eaten before but very good.”

“Perogies are great fried, too,” said Mabel, knowledgeably. “Good for any time of day. Breakfast, lunch, supper.”

“Midnight snack when the ol’ lady’s not looking,” Ben added, earning himself a playful smack from his wife.

Another hour of friendly conversation passed by, with a dessert of pineapple upside down cake and a snack platter brought out later, by one of the volunteers. 

Over the course of the evening, Miranda learned that Ben was not only her neighbor and her uncle Russ’s hunting and fishing guide but the Mayor of Waterhen as well.

He told her countless tales about her uncle’s traipsing through the untouched wilds of Myer Lake and Chain Lakes in a place he referred to as Area Twenty.

Ben also spoke of the one year her father had joined the hunters, in a trip out to Area Fifteen, around Spruce Lake and Crab Lake, not too far from Waterhen. 

Hearing tales of her father’s first and unfortunate attempt to cook game meat over a campfire made her feel closer to the father she had lost, if only for the duration of the humorous tale.

Ben and Mabel were of course her closest neighbors, living a little less than a mile down the North Mallard Road from where she was staying. 

They were insisting on her joining them for supper the following night and looked forward to what Mabel claimed was going to be a venison supper, with more of the perogies they had eaten tonight, to be followed by lemon meringue pie.

At ten thirty Miranda checked her watch and finished her most recent cup of coffee. “All this coffee… I’ll be up reading all night! I guess I should be going soon.”

“You aren’t going to stay for the card party?” Asked Tommy, with a freckle-faced grin.

“Card party?”

“We split into groups of four or five, whoever is left and play a few games of rummy before calling it a night.” Tommy explained. “See, the tables over there are already playing...”

“I think I’ll pass, thank you.” Miranda looked about at the faces of the friendly folk. “But thank you so much for inviting me. You guys really know how to make a girl feel welcome. If you’ll let me out of here, I’ll be going home to bed.”

Collecting her salad bowl from the kitchen, where the volunteers had emptied and washed it for her, she bid the friendly faces goodnight and walked out to her car in thoughtful silence. 

An odd sense of belonging, of community, had settled down on her shoulders, a welcome feeling. 

No wonder her uncle loved it up here: the people were even nicer than she had expected, a very welcoming, very accepting lot. 

Her thoughts lingering on this, she climbed into the Ford Focus and started the small car.

Miranda drove the four miles back to the cabin in perpetual silence, thinking about how much she was going to enjoy her respite here. 

She had the cabin to herself, the use of her uncle’s fishing boat which she more than knew how to use. 

If one could operate a speed boat and other pleasure craft, surely she could operate a small fishing boat. 

Her uncle seemed confident that she could... so long as she didn’t overuse her left arm.

There was also a small two-man canoe, in the boathouse above the marina.

Once her shoulder and arm got stronger, she would take it out on the slow-flowing river and paddle a bit upstream, see what she could see...

She had investigated the boathouse at her leisure that morning and found lifejackets, fishing rods, a spare motor, paddles and a few other items of interest: two coolers, a tackle box, a first aid kit. 

It was all she would need for the fishing outings that Ben had promised to guide her on and she looked forward to those outings immensely.

Yes, she was looking forward to her stay, especially now that she had made a few friends...

She pulled into the driveway and decided against parking the car in the garage. She didn’t feel like fighting with the big bulky door and didn’t even know how to unlock it.

Funny that her uncle – Mr. Technology himself – hadn’t installed an automatic garage door opener…

As last night, the car would be safe outside.

This was Waterhen, Manitoba after all and not exactly the Bronx. 

With the song of crickets and frogs serenading her, she walked to the front door and put her key in the lock. 

Upon opening the door, she thought she caught a whiff of men’s cologne but immediately put it out of her mind.

To her surprise, she hiccuped. 

And hiccuped again.

She turned on the foyer light, kicked off her shoes and walked into the dark kitchen.  In the dim light, she went to the fridge and poured herself a glass of water, as oblivious of the scrutinizing slate grey eyes that watched her every move as she was of the amused smile on the man’s handsome face.

It was in drinking the water that Miranda felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. 

She wasn’t sure what the cause of the sensation was but the scent of cologne was definitely in the air. 

It was a cologne she knew from her phantom visitor in the hospital, the fragrance she had thought well matched to Brian Logan. 

Suddenly, she did not feel alone. 

Her heart beat faster in her chest as she slowly turned to survey the cabin around her.  The only light offered was from the foyer but...

Was that the figure of a man, sitting in the armchair before the fireplace? 

Her breath caught in her throat. 

Hand shaking, she set the glass of water down on the cupboard and wondered what she should do.

She thought she saw the glint of light off of two dark eyes and focused on her intruder with greater attention. 

There was a man there, a large man, from the looks of it.

“Who are you?” She could not keep her voice from wavering as she spoke. “What – what do you want?”

She thought of the knives in the kitchen drawer, knew that she could have her hands on one before the man even got out of the chair.

“Surely you haven’t forgotten me so soon, Miranda.” She relaxed as she heard more of the voice as he spoke, she was able to discern the Australian accent. “Or maybe I didn’t leave that great of an impression?”