The Audacity of Goats Read online

  “Hello, Stella,” said Fiona steadily. This, she felt, was sufficient interaction, and she turned back to her perusal of picture hooks and fasteners, feeling pleased with herself for managing to be civil, even as she felt Stella’s eyes boring into the back of her neck.

  Under her mask of feigned calm as she picked absently through drawers of wood screws which would serve no purpose in hanging a mirror, Fiona recalled the day that the goat, Robert, had chased Stella into her house, and how, to Fiona’s astonishment, Stella had been wearing pink fuzzy slippers. They seemed, even now, so utterly incongruous with Stella’s personality that Fiona felt they must be important, somehow. Pondering fuzzy slippers, she realized that she could no longer maintain this odd hardware stalemate. No matter how cold or how rude Stella was, Fiona would not be goaded this time. No. She, Fiona, would keep a stoic calm. Stella was a force of nature. Like a tornado. There was no point in fighting. Fiona decided that she would move on, and do so with dignity. “Resistance,” she thought, with a faint gleam of silent amusement, “is futile.”

  With what she hoped was an infuriating smile, she inclined her head slightly and walked past Stella, who was standing intimidatingly in the middle of the aisle. Fiona’s basket of hardware store sundries swung lightly on her arm.

  She was pleased when she heard Stella’s angry huff behind her. “Point won. Advantage Team Fiona,” Fiona thought as she made her way down the aisle to the checkout counter.

  The fasteners aisle was filled with small plastic bins filled with screws and nails of every conceivable size and purpose. They were stacked on metal shelves that stretched the length of the aisle. As Fiona turned the corner into the main path of the store, she didn’t notice when her big, loose-knit cardigan sweater caught the corner of a tall, metal mesh shelf that had a display of light bulbs on the top level, and cans of on-special spray paint underneath. Fiona felt the small tug on her sweater, and thinking it was some new indignity from Stella, she turned swiftly. In one moment, as if watching a movie in slow motion, Fiona saw the teetering movement of the shelf of light bulbs. She tried to reach out her hands to hold it in place, but her movement caused the sweater to pull the shelf harder, and the entire display wobbled in one last moment of final dignity before collapsing spectacularly to the floor. The movement of the display threw Fiona off balance, and she grabbed wildly for something to catch herself. Her hands grasped the only solid thing nearby, the shelving that held the nails and screws.

  As she went down, Fiona watched in a detached way the easy movement of the fastener shelves, swaying gracefully like the Hindenberg on its tether. Then, in a long and fluid arc, they gave way, and with the same grace fell to the floor, carrying their cargo of an entire aisle of plastic bins filled with nails and screws. There was a crash, and then the aftershocks of several cases of spray paint rolling with force along the aisle, as tens of thousands of little metal pieces came cascading from their bins and spinning along the uneven surface of the floor.

  It seemed a long time before there was silence. Helplessly tangled in sweater and metal mesh, her face next to the old linoleum floor, Fiona found herself noticing the little black dents on the floor that had been made by older displays. A dead fly and some old gum that would have been invisible from normal heights were precisely at her eye level. She heard the clerks calling out and running toward the disaster, just as Stella’s sneaker and striped socks stepped without care over Fiona’s carrier basket, crunching broken light bulbs as she went. Mentally noting the striped socks for future consideration, Fiona lay back and closed her eyes, imagining the pleasures of death. Her advantage, she felt, had been extremely short-lived.

  It was not in their family nature for Emily or Jason Martin to allow any opportunity to improve their community to pass them by. They were agreed that teaching Boy Scouts about goats would be a great opportunity for the boys to learn about farming, that it would be good for the Scouts’ long-term health—since goats milk, they felt, was so much healthier than cows—and, between themselves, they privately anticipated a debt of gratitude from the community that might be turned to their advantage. So it wasn’t long before Jason followed up with the Scoutmaster on his idea for a goat farming merit badge.

  Ben’s Boy Scout troop was a particularly active one, led by a man whose experience in the woods was extensive. He was a native Islander, and had spent his life relying on his own wit and skill to take care of himself and his family. When his own expertise did not apply, he happily sought out someone else to teach his Scouts, and the result was a broad exposure for the boys in the traditional arts of outdoorsmanship, survival, and citizenship.

  Since the Scoutmaster had no real objection to Jason’s proposal, at least nothing he could say aloud, he gave way to the Martins with, if not enthusiasm, then, at least, resignation.

  One chilly Saturday afternoon, the Scouts met for the first time at Windsome Farm. Jason and Emily greeted them with gusto, and led them to the goat pens. Their young son, Noah, joined his troop with the earnest sweetness that was his natural disposition, and hung back so the others could see what was so completely familiar to him.

  Boys and goats regarded one another with curiosity as the adults spoke about the care of goats and goat personalities. Some of the herd came toward the fence hoping to be fed, and Jason distributed a handful of pellets to each boy. The boys hung over the fence laughing and exclaiming as the animals pushed against one another greedily to get closest to the fence and the eagerly proffered snacks. Inevitably, there was an attempt to mimic the goats’ voices. The boys’ calls seemed to inspire the goats’, and soon the air with filled with the voices of both species, to the evident enjoyment of both.

  After a graphic discussion of the necessity for farm hygiene and a vigorous hand washing for all, Emily served hot chocolate and sloppy joes in the kitchen. Everyone left feeling that it had been a most successful beginning for the Animal Science Merit Badge.

  At her next trip to Mann’s it was immediately evident to Fiona that the news of her hardware store disaster had traveled quickly. She noticed some sly smiles and the quick, stolen looks of her fellow shoppers just before they innocently looked away. With a deep sense of humility she made her way through the small store, stopping, when conversation seemed inevitable, to immerse herself in reading without comprehension the labels of random items on the shelves.

  Just as she was approaching the checkout, she ran into her friends Jake and Charlotte in the dairy section. Charlotte was extremely solicitous about her well-being.

  “We heard about your fall at the Mercantile,” she said kindly. “I hope you weren’t hurt.”

  Jake’s eyes sparkled as he looked Fiona up and down. “Hope there aren’t any bruises in inconvenient places. These digital cameras pick up every flaw these days, don’t they?” He leaned closer and spoke confidentially. “But I’ll bet you have a few special tricks of the trade to cover up things like that.” He looked at her expectantly, filled with curiosity. Charlotte nudged him hard with her elbow and changed the subject.

  It occurred to Fiona that this remark indicated a shift, and possibly an escalation, in the illicit rumors about her. Hadn’t her activities been said to have been limited only to writing pornography? Was she now supposed to be making videos? Had Stella upped the ante?

  But this was not a topic Fiona felt equal to discussing with Jake, or, in fact, with anyone. With what dignity she could muster, she extricated herself hastily and moved toward the checkout line before the topic of harbor dredging could even arise.

  Emily had not forgotten her encounter with Stella at the grocery store, and it was with shock that she realized one afternoon, that all those purple signs for Town Chairman had Stella’s name on them. Surely the Islanders would not want that woman to run the place? It was unthinkable. Emily acknowledged to herself that she did not have time for such a job. But someone needed to run in opposition. If only she knew the area better, she was certain she could have found someone suitable. Someone wh
o could hold the office and run it with reasonable competence until she, Emily, or, in a pinch, her husband, Jason, could take over. “Oh, well,” she thought to herself. “I can’t do everything.”

  It was this reflection that reminded her that the Scouts would require poster board for tonight’s planned activity. Each boy was expected to produce a chart showing the components of goats’ milk. She shifted her thoughts to determining when she would have time to run into town to purchase the necessary supplies.

  The day of Fiona’s party was cool, crisp, and sparkling, and she was hoping for a cold evening so she could use her newly repaired fireplaces.

  Not normally a superstitious person, Fiona had waited until the year had been completed before celebrating, lest she somehow jinx herself. But once the date had come and gone, she felt it was time to acknowledge this small milestone.

  Her other key reason for delay was that she couldn’t imagine a party without Elisabeth and Roger, and she wanted to give them a chance to breathe after their return from their honeymoon. As for Pete, well, Fiona had already learned that she could not postpone events waiting for his availability. This, she felt, was a flaw in the relationship, but one for which she had no solution.

  Pete’s work travels were unpredictable, remote, and prolonged. Sometimes she heard from him every day, but then he would go off the grid for weeks at a time, and although he tried to give her warning, it was still difficult to be always wondering where he was and how he was. Today, however, she had a distraction.

  Fiona approached the preparations for the party with the sense of both accomplishment and nostalgia. She could not help feeling that circumstances were not propitious for her future on the Island.

  “But when,” she thought wryly, “had they ever been?”

  It was not as if the whole sojourn had been a festival of joy. She considered Stella, the terrible rumors she had spread, and which—as she recalled Jake’s recent remarks—seemed to have taken root, even among people who should have known better. She thought of the winter, the demon goat Robert, and the fire. And yet, when she thought about her life in Chicago, of the crimes she had reported on and the ugliness she had witnessed, the stress of daily deadlines, and the pace of city life, she couldn’t help appreciating the contrasts. Fiona looked at herself and saw a fundamental change, and it was one she wasn’t willing to let go.

  In preparation for the evening, she had made dozens of stuffed mushrooms and tiny cheese turnovers, and arranged—if she said so herself—some spectacular trays of canapés, none of which included mango salsa or cilantro—two food fads whose tenacity Fiona felt, had defied explanation.

  She had noted, on a recent trip to Chicago, a new culinary fascination among the fashionable: that toast had been elevated from mundane to the forward edge of chic. This, she felt, was an unfortunate development. Toast would now be following in the culinary footsteps of meatloaf, macaroni and cheese, cupcakes, sliders, and grilled cheese sandwiches—all fine in their way—but all of which had been snatched from delicious domestic routine and ruined by fame.

  They had had their turns passed on elegant trays at parties, and tinkered with on the menus of celebrity chefs with additions of goat cheese, fennel, shaved coconut, fresh sea salt, avocado, chipotle, or heirloom tomatoes, and occasionally all of the above—even with the cupcakes. Fiona supposed that this series of comfort food elevations was the price of modern cuisine’s obsession with weirdness; its peculiar flavor combinations, and the same mad hunt for the new that despoiled modern art.

  But food trendsetters quickly abandoned their stars and moved on seeking another innovation, leaving some perfectly respectable food forgotten in fashion’s dust, as unloved and purposeless as bustles or spats. It wasn’t that grilled cheese was any less delicious than before—although Fiona preferred hers without truffle oil—it was simply that it was no longer beloved of the in-crowds.

  Toast, she knew, was fated now to a future worse than obscurity: it would become a shameful relic, one of popular culture’s has-beens, as forgotten and unbeloved as a fading Hollywood idol. Fiona felt sorry in anticipation. She was fond of toast.

  Shaking off this rumination, Fiona continued with her preparations.

  She had invited more people than the little house could hold, and ordered candles and vast quantities of wine and beer. If she had learned one thing over the past year, it was her neighbors’ capacity for alcohol. She had noticed more than once that she rarely saw any of them drunk, but she had concluded that it was related more to tolerance than abstemiousness.

  She could imagine the smooth voices of her Chicago friends making comments about there being nothing else to do on the Island, and in this imaginary conversation she rebuffed them. “In the first place, there’s more to do here than you could handle in a day, and in the second, you drink just as much.”

  She caught herself muttering irritably as she unwrapped cellophane from candles—an exceptionally frustrating task—and then, laughing at herself, shook it off. Had she gotten to the point where she had to invent annoyances? Remembering Stella’s gaudy sign, she recognized the lack of necessity here. But—and this was more pertinent—why was she feeling defensive about the Island and its ways? And to whom was she actually defending it? Having caught herself in this little exercise in self-awareness, she fell again into her quandary.

  Fiona had never belonged anywhere, but at least in the city, no one else really belonged either. To settle here would be to cast herself forever into outsider status. She recalled a recent conversation at an Island event in which a thirty year resident had been referred to, though affectionately, as a newcomer. Was this how she wanted to live? Never fitting in? Never feeling at home?

  And then there was the house. A money pit, she fully acknowledged, but one beloved. She looked with pleasure around the cozy little rooms as she placed dishes of nuts and olives at strategic points and set up the bar. The house was charming, mostly untouched by the hazards of bad remodeling.

  Charm, however, was not a substitute for structural integrity, as Fiona had quickly learned. The bills for the repair of the porches, the roof, the foundation, and fireplaces had been staggering, and had stretched Fiona’s meager finances to the limit. The floors needed to be refinished; the upstairs bathroom’s ugly laminate vanity and, dreadful peel-and-stick floor needed to be replaced; and the refrigerator was doddering. She still had frequent visits from the nighttime crunching animal, doing God Knows What to the infrastructure of the attics. There were clearly many more expenses to come. And then there was the question of whether to rebuild the barn.

  Beginning to feel overwhelmed, Fiona chose to set these thoughts aside. “Just for tonight,” she told herself, knowing full well her propensity for midnight angst.

  By the time the first guests began arriving, Fiona had shifted the focus of her thoughts to more pleasant things. Everyone she knew, no matter how remotely, had been invited. Terry and Mike and their wives had come from the mainland, along, of course, with Elisabeth and Roger, and, separately, The Angel Joshua. Nancy, Jim, Pali and Nika, and their circle had come, along with Jake and Charlotte, Young Joe and many of the ferry crew. Even Eddie the bartender, who normally felt that he had had sufficient professional encounters with Island society, had promised to stop by after closing.

  Lars Olafsen and his wife, Katherine, were the first to arrive. Fiona heard their steps on the porch, and hastened to receive the beautiful iced cake they carried. It was a homemade cardamom cake, a Swedish tradition, and one of Fiona’s favorites. She set it carefully on the side table, and offered them both a drink. Before long, the other guests began to arrive, and soon the little house was filled and overflowing onto the porch. Fiona’s favorite Billie Holiday songs were mostly inaudible amid the din.

  Stella had not been invited to the party, but she was an invisible presence. Her yard signs had been noticed by almost everyone almost immediately, and the first question out of nearly every guest’s mouth to Fiona and one another was:
“Have you seen them?”

  The resulting conversations were by turns hilarious and grim. It was too early to take Stella’s candidacy very seriously, but for those who had thought it out, like Nancy and Pali, the prospects were unpleasant indeed.

  Fiona had chosen to take the high road. She would not think of Stella tonight; it was her celebration. She laughed off the questions about her plans to stay or go, deflecting the need for any serious response. But she knew that tomorrow she would have to come to grips with some decisions about her future. A future, she fondly hoped, unmarred by the activities of Stella. Unfortunately, as Fiona was well aware, this would also mean a future off the Island.

  Circulating among her guests, Fiona was having a good time. The party had reached a pitch of enthusiasm that generated a fair amount of noise, and there were a number of people there she could not remember having seen before. She was silently and, she hoped, subtly checking out a group by the fireplace and trying to identify them before approaching when Young Joe came rollicking into the kitchen from the back porch.

  “We have Northern Lights tonight!” he called out in a voice accustomed to shouting over ferry engines. “Best I’ve seen in a while.”

  The Islanders, while no strangers to this phenomenon, were blessed with a genuine appreciation for their surroundings, and almost everyone flowed out into the back yard, drinks in hand, to observe.

  Fiona followed her guests outside. She had been too busy even to have poured herself a glass of wine. Her new high-heeled Italian short boots had proven unequal to an evening of standing and moving, so she was now barefoot. The dew on the grass was cold, but the autumn air was still balmy. She looked up at the sheets of green and blue and deep red lights that shifted in the night sky as if they were raining onto the earth without touching it. The red became purple and deep rose, and the green gleamed at the edges closest to the earth and to the sky. The universe seemed to hum with color.