Free Bodies and Sole by Hilary MacLeod

that?”
    â€œWhy, drive them around the back of the house.” Marlene said it as if it were the most reasonable suggestion.
    â€œOver the grass?”
    â€œOh, yes.” Marlene was reminded. “The grass. There would be no grass cutting, of course. For at least two, maybe three months. After all, we want authenticity, don’t we?”
    A cry of outrage arose, peppered by:
    â€œNo cutting the grass?”
    â€œI’d be ashamed for my family to come visit.”
    â€œNever mind that, what about the minister?”
    â€œOur husbands would have nothing to do. They’d get up to all sorts.”
    And so on. Hy finally raised her arms and called for silence.
    â€œI don’t believe Ms. Weeks means it.”
    â€œI most certainly do.”
    â€œThen I think the husbands must come to the next meeting. This concerns them most of all.”
    When the village women had left, grumbling and complaining their way out the door, Hy turned to Marlene.
    â€œYou can’t be serious,” she said.
    â€œDeadly serious,” said Marlene.
    Hy thought that might be too close to the truth. She was sure she wasn’t the only one who wanted to wring Marlene’s neck.
    It was the ride-ons. They were the deal breaker. No one wanted to let the grass grow for authenticity, the way it used to be. Tidy farmers and homemakers, they couldn’t bear the sight of unruly growth, so used were they to the neat rows of potato plants, fields of wheat, timothy and canola, growing in well-corralled order around them. To let it all fall apart at their doorsteps was unthinkable.
    They were proud of their lawns in The Shores. The whole island boasted neatly trimmed acreage, clipped right down into the ditches and back up, meeting with the provincial government clippers that took care of the roadsides. Some complained that this was killing off the lupins, the tall spikey, multi-bloomed flowers that grew like pink and purple weeds all along the island roadsides in late June.
    Certainly there were fewer of them now the mowing machines sheared their long blades beyond the grassy shoulder. They’d joined snowplows as the scourge of mailboxes and laneways.
    Marlene could do nothing about them, but she wanted the authentic look for the village. How could she ever bring the villagers under control? Invite the men, Hy had said. Marlene suspected that Hy had never delivered her previous flyer. So many told her they’d never received one.
    She would organize another village meeting at the hall. This time, she would deliver the flyers herself.
    She spent most of the morning working on them, nose pressed to the computer screen. She needed glasses but was too vain to wear them, even when alone. So it was no surprise that the flyer had two proofing errors. She stuffed the mistakes into mailbox after mailbox, the Smart car starting and stopping, starting and stopping, and she having to get out each time.
    The Sores Re-enactment Village
Pubic Meeting
Saturday May 30 6 pm
    No one came.
    That was no surprise. Even without the proofing errors, and very few actually noticed them, no one was interested in what Marlene had to say. They assumed that it was more of the same – about not cutting their lawns. Outrageous.
    Marlene leaned up against the hall stage, waiting for people to come and sit on the chairs she had neatly arranged.
    Still no one came.
    Slowly, she gathered up the information sheets she had placed on each chair, and, reluctantly, began to stack the chairs and put them back along the walls of the hall, hoping that someone, anyone would come.
    As she popped the last stack into place, finally someone arrived.
    It was Olive MacLean, Women’s Institute treasurer and the member on clean-up duty that week.
    With a smile, Marlene descended, grabbing one of the information sheets and brandishing it at her.
    Olive reeled back in horror, as if she were at the wrong end of a knife.
    Marlene kept coming