Hardly Working. Betsy Burke

too tough and stringy for anybody’s tastes.”

      “Ida,” gasped Lisa, “you’re not suggesting cannibalism, are you?”

      Ida pontificated. “I figure it like this. With the agricultural society going at it with all those nitrogen fertilizers, it’s going to be hard to return to being hunter/gatherers. What’s going to be left for us to gather or to hunt? You can’t even be a decent vegetarian anymore. I figure a nice roast brisket of fat arms dealer is a good place to start.”

      “Here, here,” everybody agreed.

      Cleo said, “Okay now, forget saving the world. I’ve got a headline.”

      Now that we’d all given up pretending we didn’t fritter time away surfing the Net during working hours, we called our surfing Headline Research. At the end of the day we’d throw them at each other and play True or False. Losers paid for the pastries.

      Cleo started with, “Delays In Sex Education, Education Workers Request Training.”

      Jake’s was “Girl Guide Helps Snake Bite Victim In Kootneys.”

      Ida gave us, “President Urges Dying Soldiers To Do It For Their Country.”

      Lisa’s was “Cougar Terrorizes Burnaby Dress Shop, Trashes Autumn Line.”

      I finished off the round with, “Scientists Say Oceans’ Fish Depleted By Ninety-Five Percent.”

      Everyone turned on me, protesting.

      Cleo said, “Ah, Dinah, there you go again. You’re being an awful bore. I know you’re an eco-depressive but couldn’t you just play it close to your chest for once.”

      Lisa said, “Don’t focus on those negative things, Dinah, or you’ll draw them to you like a magnet. Life isn’t as bad as you think it is. Your glass could be half-full if you wanted it to be.”

      I thought this was good coming from a woman who had been used all her life by professional navel-gazers and full-time fresh air inspectors she called “lovers.”

      Ida sat back and contemplated her rum baba then said, “Be as negative as you like, Dinah, because by the time they really heat this planet up I’ll either be six feet under or too gaga to care.”

      “Idaaa…” said Jake.

      “There are worse things,” said Ida.

      I held up my hands. “I come by it honestly, guys. I have an illustriously cynical mother. Now you all have to vote. Which is the fake?” I asked.

      “Cougar,” said Cleo.

      “I agree. Cougar,” said Ida.

      “Girl Guide. Jake, you’re a fake,” said Lisa. “It’s an old joke, that one.”

      “You nailed me, Lisa,” said Jake, his hands in the air.

      “News for all you fish eaters, and that means you, too, Cleo,” I said. “The ocean’s fish stocks are only depleted by ninety percent and most of what you get these days is fish farm stuff. You should know that. That’s the other fake.”

      “Oh friggin’ great. Big consolation. But you and I win, Dinah,” said Lisa, “which means the rest of you guys are paying for our cream puffs. The cougar headline was in the Sun this morning. I’m surprised you guys missed it. He’s been roaming around Vancouver and they just can’t seem to catch him.”

      “We’re getting these cougar sightings around here from time to time,” said Jake, “but it’s been a while now. Then there’s the coyote situation. Damned forestry practices. They cut down the damned forests, these big cats lose their damned habitat, have no damned place to go, so what does anybody expect? They come into town on the log booms, stir up trouble.”

      “If I didn’t know better I’d say you were making it up,” said Cleo.

      “No way,” said Lisa, “and these are not happy animals. They’re feeling pretty crazy mad by the time they hit town. Look behind you when you’re walking down the street.”

      “I knew about the coyotes. But cougars,” said Cleo. “Who would have thought it?”

      I said, “The only wildlife you’ve had your eye trained on lately, Cleo, is homo sapiens, the male of the species.”

      “True, true.” She smiled.

      “There hasn’t been a cougar sighting since you’ve been here. Not in the last two years,” I said.

      “There’s a whole variety of urban critters out there, believe me, Cleo. Our building was skunked last week,” said Lisa. “Little stripey guy got into the basement bin under the garbage chute. Quite the distinctive odor is skunk.”

      “And speaking of distinctive odors,” said Ida. “How come the new CEO, Mr. Ferrari, isn’t here stuffing his face with butter cream bons bons like the rest of us? Boy, does he smell good.”

      Jake polished his bald spot nervously and gave his mustache a little good luck tug. “Time management thing.”

      “Yeah. The management ain’t got no time for us, eh?” joked Lisa.

      “And what about the new girl?” Ida went on. “What’s her name again?”

      “Penelope,” said Jake, perking up.

      “How come she isn’t here either?” asked Ida.

      Cleo said, “You have to make a choice, Ida. It’s Penelope or Dinah. The office virgin has taken a disliking to poor Di.”

      “I thought Ash was the office virgin,” piped up Ida.

      “We don’t really know anything about Ash,” said Cleo, grinning and wiggling her eyebrows.

      “Just to change the subject slightly, I wonder how Ian Trutch is going to go down with our Indian volunteers?” Lisa pondered.

      “Lisa!” We all pounced. “You can’t say that. It’s so politically incorrect.”

      “Oh jeez, you guys. Dots not feathers.”

      We all sat back. “Oh…okay then.”

      Dinah Nichols the eco-depressive. It was another one of the reasons I was seeing Thomas. And again, I liked to blame my mother for forcing me to absorb a lifetime of scientific data that promises nothing good.

      At night when I closed my eyes, the vision came to me on schedule. I could see the whole planet from a distance, the way the astronauts must have first seen it. But I saw it with an eagle’s eye, first hovering way off, out in infinity, and then honing in and zooming to all the trouble spots. The Chernobyls, the devastated rain forests, El Nino, the quakes and mudslides, the beached whales, the factories everywhere pumping and flushing out their toxins, cars, a gazillion cars studding the planet, and a brown sludge forming around the big blue ball like a sinister new stratosphere. It was only headline overload, but sometimes it got me down so low, it was hard to get out of bed.

      Tuesday

      By 8:00 a.m., I had learned that Ian Trutch was damaging our grassroots image even further by staying in a plush suite on the Gold Floor of the Hotel Vancouver. After a brilliant example of minor urban infiltration, I also found out very brusquely that nonguest people like me weren’t allowed to wander its corridors, not even with the lame excuse of having to deliver business-related papers. No siree.

      When I got back out to the street after the nasty run-in with the Gold Floor receptionist, there was a parking ticket shoved under the windshield wiper of my battered red antique Mini. I swear, even to this day, that they moved that fire hydrant next to the car while I was inside.

      I drove fast back to Broadway and the Green World International office. I was twenty minutes late for work because I had to play musical parking spaces for half an hour and then run ten blocks to the office. Of course, Ian Trutch was there to see me arrive late and all sweaty and flustered. He gave