While not possessing the fabled green thumb of so many gardeners who'd gone before her -- much like her mother, whose own claim to horticultural infamy lay in the ability to grow rose bushes with anatomically correct thorns and blooms -- Melody Carmichael believed sheer persistence could overcome inherent talent any day. From asters to zinnias, she'd tried every variety, bogging down for quite some time in the 'p's -- peonies, posies, poppies, petunias, periwinkles, pea-blossoms, pansies, violets (well, they were purple, thus the confusion.) Without exception, each plant -- seasonal or perennial or grow-whenever-the-whim-arises -- withered on the stem/bulb/vine. They never quite died but, be it by the subtle droop of a petal or the garish display of a wilted leaf, they made a point of letting Melody know they never quite lived, either.
In hindsight, it was no wonder the garden tried to kill her.
If it weren't for the dog, Melody might never have discovered the plot against her.
Not her dog, of course. Melody felt that animals have certain rights, the chief-most being the right to not belong to Melody herself. While others should feel perfectly free to own pets, Melody preferred inanimate objects. An occasional word to the groundskeeper, say, or a nice few minutes spent phoning in an order to the grocers gave her more than her quota of networking with the sentient world, thank you very much.
She didn't know where the dog came from. She had no neighbors to speak of, thanks to her father's will, some sound investments on her part, and a frenzied land-grab by her grandfather during the Depression. (He'd never trusted banks, bless his avaricious soul.) The nearest human contact resided some twenty miles away, and for the life of her she couldn't remember his name -- if, indeed, it was a he.
Still, when Melody came out early one fine summer morning to offer her flowers the latest organics-free chem-bath, there the dog lay.
Bedraqgled.
The word fit the dog so completely Melody wondered if the beast answered to it. The dog lay on its side, panting. Its fur, mud-caked and striped with greenish filth, stood out in clumps across its body. As she watched, the dog raised its head, let off a half-hearted growl toward the garden, then whimpered as if it heard an answer not fit for human ears.
Melody turned away immediately, intending to call someone from the County to cart this poor sick creature away. Something caught her eye, though, a glimpse of movement among the flora.
One of the snapdragons made a sound strangely like a cough, and a clot of matted fur fell to the soil at its roots.
What a dead giveaway.
Hesitantly, keeping a constant watch on the flowers, Melody managed to gather the dog up in her arms and carry it, thrust as far from her linen summer dress as possible, into the potting shed.
She tied the dog up to a ponderous oak out back -- nowhere near the garden, of course -- sprayed it down with a hose until she finally discerned the motley patchwork of its brown and white coat, then as an afterthought fed it. She didn't stock anything resembling dog food in her pantry, of course, but she found a paté in the icebox that smelled a bit, so she settled for that. The dog didn't complain, so she was pleased with herself -- she hated throwing food away, even if it was of inferior quality.
That taken care of, Melody turned her attention to the garden. In her short absence, the flowers had managed to set up defenses. They'd thrust their roots up from the ground, tangling them together in a nearly-impassable barrier. Thorns poked through the perimeter, razor-sharp and dripping with what could only be poison; the smell and sickly color did much to give them away, not to mention the blackened zone of dead grass beneath them.
The fact that Melody never planted rose bushes -- recalling her mother's failed experiments with the breed -- made the presence of thorns doubly insulting. Who knew these mild-mannered flowers could be pushed to such extremes?
She moved closer, slowly, trying to see what the blossoms were up to behind their root-shield. She just managed to catch a quick glimpse of a black-faced chrysanthemum with needle-like petals when she felt a sharp tug on her dress. The dog, trailing a frayed length of broken rope, stood behind her, the hem of her lovely linen dress clutched firmly between its teeth.
Melody stumbled back, off-balance, just as an amazingly aerodynamic thorn shot past her close enough to leave a smoking trail across her dress sleeve.
Acid? Plants couldn't produce acid, could they?
Melody thought fleetingly of the list of ingredients gracing the 'plant food' packages she tended to buy.
Well, with a little help, perhaps...
The dog whined behind her, then took a step back and growled savagely at the garden. Two more projectile thorns shot out in its direction, then fell to attack the grass inches in front of the dog's nose.
Melody judged the distance, took a quick step backward herself, then stroked the dog's head absentmindedly.
She felt the dog press its head against her palm and realized what she was doing. Ah, well -- I shall have to wash later anyway.
The dog sat patiently under her touch as she considered the problem of the flowers.
Well, really," Melody said as she rifled through her cupboard trying to decide on an appropriate dinner for two, "we need to ask ourselves: what do flowers want?"
Melody did not consider herself one of those people who talk to themselves. The whole idea smacked of insufferable loneliness, and Melody wasn't even sure she understood the concept, frankly. Lonely, loneliness, loneliest...
No, sorry, she knew the concept purely from context.
The dog seemed to enjoy the conversation, though, so far be it from her to torture the poor beast with her silence.
She didn't want the dog inside -- she didn't want the dog at all, when it came right down to it -- but the flowers were getting more rambunctious. In the space of only one evening, the flowers had managed to send feelers all the way to the great oak itself. The feelers were very hard to spot, choosing to lie in wait nestled in the grass until disturbed. Then they'd uncurl themselves from the lawn and wrap themselves around the unwary foot, say, or paw, if given the chance.
The groundskeeper had quit this morning, after five years of quality service. He'd come to the servants' door hobbling, one pants leg shredded, his ankle bruised and swollen. He carried the dog with him, its new rope cut with edging shears.
He dropped the dog in the vestibule, tipped his hat and said goodbye, then limped away, muttering loudly about unruly foliage.
As she watched him go, Melody noticed a multitude of hand-like creepers rise from the lawn and wave him away. Taunting him, it seemed to her.
His truck still sat in the driveway, so Melody assumed he hadn't made it past the philodendrons.
Still, the dog was safe. Small comfort, perhaps, but Melody learned in childhood to work with what she had.
She settled on a lunch of beluga caviar and toast-points for herself, and a tin of anchovies for the dog. "Dogs enjoy fish, don't they?"
The dog stared at her. Raised an eyebrow, perhaps?
"Of course, I might be thinking of cats. Hard to tell the difference, truth to tell. You're all sort of, well, fuzzy, aren't you?"
She laid out the anchovies for the dog, who attacked them voraciously, not seeming to mind the whole dog/cat comparison.
"So what was I saying? Oh, yes. What do the plants want? Or, more precisely, what do they need? Sunlight and water, yes? I shouldn't expect they desire much more than that. It's not as if we could carry them out for a night on the town, nor would they appreciate it, I imagine. What do you think?"
The dog mulled it over, licking the last bit of anchovies from its muzzle.
"I suppose I could try not watering them. Of course, by the looks of their roots, they would probably just break into the plumbing under the house, and then where would we be? I simply cannot do without my evening bath."
The dog shook its head, in agreement, Melody concluded. "Or I could try to cut off their supply of sunlight. No, no, perhaps not. I have many connections in high places, but Sol is not on my list of flunkies, I'm afraid. If I only knew about thirty pilots who could fly a large tarp over the grounds..."
The kitchen door bulged inward, and several green shoots thrust themselves through the lintel.
The dog howled, a low mournful note that echoed through the mansion.
Melody clapped her hands. "What a wonderful idea! You know, I might not have thought of it so soon if you hadn't spoken up!"
She rushed off, leaving the dog to wonder where the water bowl hid itself.
Melody Carmichael felt that the telephone reigned as the greatest single triumph of science, despite whatever technological advances might have occurred since its invention. Were it not for the fact that Mr. Bell no longer lived (and if he had lived, he'd be far too old to waste her time on), Melody would gladly marry the man.
He obviously knew a thing or to about getting along with the rest of the population.
Melody used the phone in the same offhand manner that most people used their lungs, say, or their endocrine system. The task required no thought on her part, and very little time. She merely called the right people (and she made it a point to know the right people), made certain demands, mentioned the proper price, and the gears ground into motion.
Usually very large gears, moving at a speed directly proportionate to the amount of oil she'd greased them with.
After making three calls, Melody waited. Within a matter of minutes, the phone rang. She answered the caller, as she would others for most of the evening, with three curt replies: Yes, this is she. Yes, this is not a joke. Yes, I do have a controlling share, and I can guarantee you employment there -- feel free to ask around.
And her final words, uttered one-hundred and sixty-two times that evening: Just don't be late, or you're immediately disqualified. Goodbye. Followed by one hundred and sixty-seven resounding clicks, which she knew every caller heard before they felt safe to hang up on their end.
Melody looked at the dog, smiled, and stretched her telephone arm luxuriantly. "Well, I'm utterly done in. It's a long warm bath for me, and then on to dreamland."
The dog pawed the carpet, gave her a pained look, and tried to cross its hind legs.
"Oh, how rude of me! Look, don't trouble yourself, dear -- mi casa es su casa. I'm sure you'll find plenty of food in the fridge, and feel free to make yourself at home. We don't stand on formality here! Well, we do, I suppose, but I wouldn't expect you to know all the rules on your first night. Anyway, job well done and all that, and I'm off. Ciao!"
Melody retired to the bath, leaving the dog with two unmet desires at this point. Water. Toilet.
Showing a semblance of breeding, the dog curled up on the carpet and waited for the odd woman to leave the bathroom unguarded, thus giving avenue to both its needs.
At precisely two-thirty-four the next afternoon, Melody lounged in a well-padded lawn chair placed at the nether edge of the flowers' territory. A pitcher of lemonade perspired freely on a tea-tray beside her, while the dog snacked on something that looked suspiciously like veal piccata beneath her chair. The plants, openly hostile, occasionally lobbed a dripping thorn in their direction. Every now and then, Melody swore they hissed at her.
By two-fifty-two, one hundred and sixty-two opera singers stood gathered around Melody's chair, each of them looking longingly at the lemonade.
"Good for the voice," she told them as she took a long sip, then gave the rest of the glass to the dog. "Clears up all that nasty phlegm, you know."
Melody quickly proceeded to arrange the singers -- basses, baritones, tenors, countertenors, contraltos, mezzo-sopranos, sopranos, and the odd coloratura -- into a wide arc around the outskirts of the recalcitrant garden.
At two-fifty-nine, she instructed them to breathe in, deeply. One hundred and sixty-two sets of highly-trained lungs inflated at an astounding rate, using up the oxygen in the air as if it were produced solely for their benefit.
The flowers shuddered as one, their roots, shoots, and petals undulating in confusion.
At three o'clock exactly, Melody picked up a pitch-pipe, blew a "C"-note, and shouted, "Sing!"
One hundred and sixty two amateur opera singers hit the note at the same time and held it in whatever octave they felt most comfortable with (although the coloraturas tended to ad-lib with extended arpeggios).
A great blast of carbon dioxide, tainted with a hint of garlic, hit the foremost defenses of the garden-guard. Scrambling to counter this bold offense, the plants tried to convert the CO2 to pure oxygen as quickly as possible.
Initially, the flora fought a losing battle. Individual blooms succumbed first, plumping up with the infusion of needed energy, then bursting apart in drifts of brightly-colored petals which littered the ground like severed limbs.
The opera singers, following the instructions they'd been given while Melody lined them up, moved forward a step at a time, closing their half-circle around the enemy. Roots shrank back into the ground before them. Thorns dribbled off their stems to fall, smoking pitifully, onto the lawn. The garden drowned under a sea of operatic gasses, falling back, retrenching, trying desperately to regurgitate oxygen as they went.
"Bravo! Allegro, allegro!" Melody clapped loudly, knowing what fuel show-folk fed on. "Con spiritu, people!"
Then the tides turned. One by one, the singers ran out of breath, their faces shading from red to purple to a disturbing shade of blue in the case of the coloraturas. A rail-thin tenor fell first, still trying to choke out a last few seconds of a 'C' that he really shouldn't have attempted, given his range. As if he were the first domino in a chain, the others tumbled, one by one.
"No, no! Not andante, people! You still have a lot of hot air left in you!"
Melody watched, terribly disappointed, as the advance on the garden slowed, then stopped completely. By her count, only eighteen singers still held their notes.
The remaining flowers looked decidedly cocky.
"Ah, so close, so close. What are we to do, then?" She addressed this to the dog who, after sitting for far too long in ardent denial of the horrible caterwauling going on, rose at once, scurried out from under Melody's chair, and gave a grunt that sounded, to Melody's sharp ears, very much like the end of a long period of frustration.
Taking a last lick of lemonade, the dog charged to the forefront of the remaining divas, faced down the overconfident array of veteran flower-warriors...
And let loose.
Even the opera singers took pause.
To say the dog howled would be along the lines of saying Michelangelo dabbled in paint and sculpture. The dog didn't just hit 'C', as far as Melody judged these things -- it hit a C-plus. The über-C, of which all others are mere echoes.
Heartened, the few opera singers left standing found a hidden reservoir of air in their much-abused lungs and did their best to match the dog's pluperfect pitch.
Flowers exploded in firework patterns. Leafy plants swelled, trying to stem the tide of unconverted carbon dioxide, then gave in to the inevitable, bursting at root-level with the strain.
Eighteen singers, then fifteen -- they seemed to collapse in well-balanced trios -- until eventually three still stood, augmenting the dog while the last flowers fought in vain to survive the onslaught.
The final trio fell gasping to the ground, leaving the dog alone against --
-- one belligerent daisy.
The dog ceased howling. The daisy gathered itself up, rose high on its stem, and shook its stamens in defiance.
With a visible shrug of its shoulders, the dog ambled over to the daisy and ate it.
Then it sauntered past one hundred and sixty-two unconscious opera singers and lay down at Melody's feet.
"Bravo!" Melody clapped daintily. "Or, perhaps, brava, depending on the circumstances."
The dog didn't seem to care about the whole male-female question. It merely wriggled a bit until the grass felt comfortable and proceeded to fall asleep. Smiling.
"Well, I suppose you've won the contest, then. Although how I'll convince the Met to allow a dog to take a lead role in Carmen I'll never know. Not that it hasn't been done before..."
Melody watched the dog sleep beside her, sighed. "Well, I don't suppose I should keep calling you dog. It's just not proper, if you'll be living here."
She looked across her property, waiting for one hundred and sixty-two exhausted opera singers to wake up.
"I think I'll call you Bespoke."
The dog rolled over, satisfied.
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