Fed Up - By Jessica Conant-Park & Susan Conant Page 0,34

get a master’s degree in anything in order to receive my inheritance. The requirement, which had originally felt outrageous, was finally beginning to make sense. I’d been floundering through my early twenties, and it turned out that forcing me into school was the kick I needed to get me focused. Although a lot of the students at social work school were exclusively interested in one-on-one counseling and mental health, the school pushed us to get involved in what was called “organizational social work,” a field that included politics and larger social issues that trickled down to affect individuals on a daily basis. I’d discovered this summer that the one-on-one therapy tricks I’d acquired this year were incredibly helpful in talking with landscaping clients about their plans. Using my newfound people skills, I engaged clients in discussions about water conservation without sounding like an annoying, pushy salesperson who was just trying to make money.

I leafed through the pending jobs. A few of the clients were going to have prefab rain barrels installed and didn’t mind the large green plastic containers that would catch water from the gutters. Most clients, however, were going to have our new carpenter, Emilio, build encasements to cover the unsightly barrels. I hadn’t yet met Emilio, but from what I’d heard, he could do just about anything. In particular, he worked with eco-friendly materials and was skilled at making the barrels blend in with a house and its garden design. I was meeting up with my mother and Emilio later at my parents’ house, after I dropped Inga off at the Fancy Feline, a nearby cat groomer. The owner, Glenda, had promised me on the phone that she’d try to preserve as much of Inga’s fur as possible.

As I was reviewing the rain barrel projects that needed to be installed first, the phone rang. I reached behind me and blindly picked up. “Hello?”

I heard a man clear his throat. “I’m trying to reach Chloe. Chloe Carter.”

“Speaking,” I said as I scanned the installation requirements for a house in Needham.

“Oh, hi. Chloe, this is Leo. From the other day.” He spoke unsteadily.

I dropped my papers. “Leo. My . . . my gosh, how are you?” Under normal circumstances, I don’t go around saying my gosh. The circumstances of Francie’s death had, of course, been anything but normal. “I mean, how are you holding up?”

“I guess I’m doing the best I can. I’m not sure if the shock has worn off yet.”

“Well, I’m awfully sorry about Francie. I don’t even know what to say. Of course you’re still in shock. Josh said you might call. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Actually, there is. You were with Francie upstairs. You were the last person to see her before she lost consciousness and then . . .” His voice trailed off. “I am just wondering what she might have said. Did she have any . . . ? Did she . . . I don’t know. Did she say anything?”

I shut my eyes and tried to invent something comforting or profound to pass along. In truth, Francie’s last words had been “Oh, shit,” whereas it seemed to me that her poor husband needed her to have said, “Tell Leo I love him,” or, “It’s okay. I’ve lived a long, wonderful, fulfilling life with the man I adore.” Not only would Francie’s actual last words fail to ease Leo’s sorrow, but who in her right mind would want to be remembered for Francie’s real exit line?

I racked my brain for what to say to Leo. The first thing that came to mind was what Oscar Wilde had reputedly said on his deathbed: “Either that wallpaper goes or I do.” I sighed. The walls of the fatal bathroom, so to speak, hadn’t even had wallpaper, and if they’d been covered with some ghastly palm-and-flamingo pattern, Leo would hardly find solace in learning that Francie had departed this life while expressing discontent with the home they had shared. It suddenly came to me that someone—who?—had sat bolt upright on his deathbed and demanded, “Who is that?” Francie had been far too weak to sit up and had shown no sign of perceiving the approach of the Grim Reaper. Even so, I went ahead and attributed the words to her.

“She said that?” Leo asked dubiously. “Wasn’t that what Billy the Kid said?”

Damn. “Maybe she was quoting him. Or maybe she imagined she’d been shot.” I did my best to backpedal. “She wasn’t terribly