Creature Discomforts

mental cobwebs. One by one, the membranous curtains of oblivion heretofore draped over our heroine’s eyes drew apart, revealing mist-shrouded visions to her startled gaze. In real life? Wham! I collided with a rock-solid object that had gone missing and was inexplicably back where it belonged. My reaction may, of course, be idiosyncratic; not everyone’s father is a gigantic ruminant mammal. One thing to be said for Buck is that he is a solid figure in my life. Hence the collision?
    As I was starting to say, my father stood apart from the recriminations and nastiness, as did Steve Delaney, who had distanced himself by unobtrusively ascending four or five steps of the Homans Path. Malcolm Fairley, I remind you, had just accused his daughter, Anita, of betraying him, and in response, she’d told him to cut the shit.
    Once again, it was Effie who spoke up. She seemed a peculiar person to assume the role of Anita’s defender. What fitted her for it, I suppose, was her willingness to give voice to opinions that other people kept to themselves. “Anita is not the only one who’s been fraternizing with the enemy,” Effie announced.
    Gabrielle took her to task. “Effie, you have said more than enough! If you are referring to me, I want you to know that I do not believe in letting politics dictate my friendships, and that includes the politics of conservation. And if your remark is directed at Malcolm, you know perfectly well that ten minutes of hands-on experience is worth a million hours of being subjected to diatribes about the environment. If there’s anyone here who really does think globally and act locally, it’s Malcolm! He is deeply involved in efforts to save the rain forests, and we know what he does here! Furthermore, I might remind you of the old saw that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.”
    “Flies!” Opal flung the pair of loppers to the ground. My dogs eyed her with interest. Her arms flew upward. “Flies? So much for friendship, Gabbi! Wally and I are not flies! We have not done anything wrong, and we do not need to be caught! Gabbi, I am very hurt by that remark.”
    “I did not intend to call you a fly,” Gabrielle responded, “or Wally, either. I simply meant that in general, if you want to persuade people of something, it’s more effective to be nice than it is—”
    “Who says we need to be persuaded of anything?” Opal interrupted. “What arrogance!”
    Quint said, “Opal, please do not—”
    “Quint,” Gabrielle told him, “leave this to me! We’re among friends here, and—”
    “Friends,” Opal insisted, “do not refer to friends as flies! Flies in the ointment, I suppose! Gabbi, I knew you were a hypocrite, but I never dreamed—”
    Quint again tried to defend his aunt. “Who is calling whom a hypocrite?” That’s a direct quote. Quint was the kind of person who, even in rage, gets the cases of his pronouns right.
    “I don’t know who you’re calling a hypocrite, you miserable little parasite, living off your aunt instead of getting a real job,” Wally charged, “but if you want my opinion, I’m sick to death of listening to this holier-than-thou horseshit about the goddamned charitable purposes of the goddamned Pine Tree Foundation, which I know goddamned well everyone else invested in for the same reason Opal and I did, except that we never said we did it for anything but profit. And Gabbi, I don’t know where you think you get off calling us flies, for Christ’s sake, and hypocrites—”
    “I didn’t!” Gabrielle protested, so vehemently that Molly’s white curls shook.
    “When,” Wally fumed, “you and your family and your guests can hardly wait for your personal nature preserve to close for the day so you can swarm all over it breaking every one of your own rules. You know, Gabbi, that’s one thing Norman Axelrod was dead right about! The whole setup is a tax dodge, and you know it’s a tax dodge and a royal opportunity for nepotism, just like Norm always said.”
    Gabrielle was regal. “Wally, you have time and again accepted my hospitality, my lobster, my champagne, and my friendship, not to mention my personal invitation to Opal, and incidentally to you, to invest in the Pine Tree Foundation, and now you dare to turn on me! You barbarian! I have never understood why Opal married you to begin with! Wally, in accepting hospitality and then turning on the person who offered it, you are breaking the most fundamental