Ruffly Speaking

the plates and cups were real china, white with a pink rim. Need I add that the silverware, although doubtless not sterling, was not plastic, either? Every table had fresh flowers.
    Doug ignored my praise. “And you never can tell when SHE might appear, and Morris always dealt with HER himself. I couldn’t manage it. Whenever SHE’s here, I’m all nerves.”
    Cambridge is highbrow Hollywood. I was at Winer & Lamb once when it actually happened. This was last winter, so I was indoors. A friend and I were having lunch at the café when Julia Child walked through and up the little half-flight of stairs to the book section. She acted just like a normal person, and the rest of us tried to do the same, but everyone at the tables began discreetly whispering to everyone else so that no one would miss seeing her, and then one of the waiters, maybe the erring Victor, broke the spell by dropping a tray. Crockery smashed on the floor, and coffee splattered all over. I suppose that it was exactly the kind of incident that Doug didn’t want repeated.
    “She probably just wants to wander around and look at the books like everyone else,” I told him. “She isn’t going to need advice. If she finds a book she wants, she’ll just need to pay for it. You can handle that, Doug.”
    “I can’t! The last time she was here, I was so nervous that when she finally left, I was bathed in perspiration.”
    “Did she buy anything?”
    Doug’s sigh whooshed across the phone line. “Irony of ironies. A book on edible flowers.”
    The irony was lost on me. “Uh...?”
    “You didn’t know? Morris poisoned himself with them.”
    “But if they were—”
    Before I had a chance to say edible, Doug went on. “But they weren’t. We think he was creating a mesclun.” Doug must have remembered that I was one of Morris’s dog people, not one of his food people. “Mixed baby greens—”
    “A salad,” I said. “I know.”
    “You know how random Morris was,” Doug said affectionately. “And he hadn’t even read the book, of course—he never did; he created—and he must’ve traipsed around the yard snipping here and there, and then tossed it all with a chèvre vinaigrette.” Doug paused. I had the sense of time passing. “I found him in the bathroom.” As an afterthought, he added, “Naked.”
    “Doug, how awful for you. Was he...?”
    Perhaps because Doug had spent so much time surrounded by recipes, he gave a nauseatingly graphic account of Morris’s death, almost as if I’d requested directions on how to re-create it myself right in my own kitchen—and bathroom, too, I guess—as I assume that you don’t. The gist of Doug’s story was that although Morris lived on Highland, only a few blocks from a fancy greengrocery on Huron, he’d spared himself the walk and the expense, too, I suppose, although Doug didn’t say so. In Cambridge, and probably elsewhere, tiny greens cost more per pound than lobster. Maybe they’re worth it. They taste good, and the ones you buy won’t make you sick. Anyway, when Morris finished harvesting a variety of infant salad greens from the raised bed garden that Doug had built for him, he’d foolishly added the leaves of what turned out to be a lot of poisonous plants.
    Because of dog writing, I know a little about poisonous plants. Grass is harmless, but to be safe, don’t let your dog eat the leaves, stems, or flowers of any houseplants, shrubs, perennials, or annuals. A few—nasturtiums, for instance—are fine, but watch out for an alarming number of harmless-sounding things like azalea, rhododendron, lupine, delphinium, hydrangea, and foxglove. Foxglove? Digitalis. So make Rover stick to his Purina, and if you get in a creative mood and decide to make a really exotic salad, toss a few Pro Plan croutons on your lettuce, and leave the hydrangea—especially the hydrangea—out in the yard where it belongs.
    According to Doug, however, Morris didn’t die of poisoning, at least not directly. As Doug explained in detail I didn’t want to hear, the plants made Morris so sick that he became dehydrated. Sometime on Friday night, he passed out. Then he aspirated his own vomit. Sorry. Compared with Doug’s description, mine is appetizing.
    The part about spicing up the salad sounded like Morris. Also, in spite of the Bedlingtons, Morris wasn’t the kind of owner who reads up on all the latest news about canine diseases and household hazards. Morris ah most certainly knew not to