The Blue Ribbon by Ron Hevener

Author:Ron Hevener [Hevener, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780967951492
Publisher: Pennywood Press
Published: 2012-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

Miles to Go … Funny, how we can be in one place, totally unaware of what anybody is thinking about us, somewhere else. Have you ever wondered if we can mutually feel such moments on some level? While Blanche and Esmeralda sipped tea and nibbled on crackers, surely Robert was asking himself what had gone wrong.

Why had he ever left Canada? Robert wondered, as he hiked through the woods that day. Was the sky really more blue here? Were the people in those houses of the village below kinder, gentler somehow? From here, on the trail that wove itself across this side of the mountain, he could see as far as a lifetime. Why had she done it? he asked himself, as he had asked so many times before. She didn’t have to; it was, after all, an accident.

The sable Collie at his side, Ch. Sheffield Excaliber, caught the sound of a startled deer spinning in the leaves and took up the chase. Deer and Collie, different creatures sharing the same world, and, for the moment at least, rushing in the same direction. Follow that dream, he thought. Go for it. Maybe you’ll call me when you get there.

What about his own dreams? he wondered now. He was forty, in his prime, with no prospect of a family. Most of his friends, those he had grown up with outside of Montreal, were celebrating anniversaries, buying cars, and paying mortgages. He was still renting.

What was he afraid of? Catching those dreams?

He thought about his prospects of earning a living. Things had been good before the accident. During the week, there was enough work painting houses to pay the bills and set money aside. On weekends, there were shows—lots of them. He liked a good show dog. He liked the feel of being around perfection. He understood what it took to guide the development of a bloodline, and bring forth beautiful animals.

The Collie came back to him now, panting and falling into step at his side. Reassured that Robert was still here, he looked up at the man standing between him and life’s uncertainties.

“She got away?” Robert asked about the deer. With his mind somewhere between Pennsylvania women and Canadian solitude, he said, “It’s OK, fella. We’ve got miles to go.”

Robert wasn’t the only one with a few miles to go. In a sudden flurry of bulging steamer trunks lashed with VH Belting straps from the factory, alligator-skin suitcases, fur coats, and high heels, the two power-mongers had joined forces once again.

Swearing off men on Valentine’s Day, armed with enough lipstick, cigarettes, false eyelashes, and lingerie to make even Jayne Mansfield blush, Blanche and Esmeralda asked what in the world had come over them and booked a cabin on the very next departure of the Queen Mary. As they waved bon voyage from the highest deck, through a blizzard of confetti and a forest of streamers, bidding farewell to no one in particular, but everyone who mattered, there are those who say Blanche was seen winking at a well-dressed passenger who slipped her his stateroom key.

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