Practical Jean by Trevor Cole Page A

poem. And it wasn’t something that had to come by chance. That was the revelation. It could be guaranteed. Jean breathed deeply, deeply, and felt her muscles relax. This always happened when she was sure of her vision, before she started work. She became calm.
    And it was an added joy for Jean to know that this vision she had, this gift, this plan, wasn’t ridiculous or scoff-able at all, but entirely practical. Exquisitely practical. Had she not been dead, had she not been buried and beginning to rot, Marjorie Horemarsh would have been so proud.

Chapter 6
    J ean gave her mind over to thoughts of blood. It was the morning, and she sat drinking English Breakfast tea across from Milt in their bright dining area, with a daisy light from the bay window painting the far wall and the antiqued china cabinet. She watched him eat his crusty toast with marmalade—an oddly bitter taste with which to begin the day, she’d always thought—and knew that blood was not going to be a problem.
    This was the great benefit, the singular one, really, of having been raised by a veterinarian mother wholly oblivious to a young daughter’s sensitivities. Watching Marjorie in her white coat cut into tabbies and Labradors, even once a Great Dane—anaesthetized and splayed out larger than either of her little brothers on the kitchen table—had inured Jean very early on to the sloshy, lurid aspects of organs and vessels and bodily fluids. She was more accustomed to it, at the age of seven or eight, than the first-year veterinary students who were sometimes assigned to work with her mother, who would often observe Marjorie slicing open a pink, shaved belly and faint with a crash at the first scarlet trickle.
    â€œThat was nice last night,” said Milt. “Everyone seemed to have a good time.”
    â€œMmmm,” said Jean. Her eyes were set without seeing on the first done button of Milt’s Lacoste golf shirt, which had been purple when she’d bought it for him twenty or so years before and had since faded to a lavender-tinted gray. Milt wore this shirt when he had no substitute teaching assignments and planned to idle the day away in the house, reading how-to books he’d bought at the hardware store, as if reading about how to do something forgave never managing to do it.
    And he had never once golfed.
    â€œWhat are you thinking about?” he said.
    She wiped splashes of red out of her mind and lifted the teapot to freshen her cup. “Nothing to concern you.” He was still nervous about the night before, Jean could tell. Worried about her mood or her attitude regarding his encounter with Louise. Husbands, she thought, or hers at least, monitored their wives for trouble the way pioneers once watched their dry goods, checking for mold in the wheat flour, weevils in the corn. But the fact was that she couldn’t have been less concerned about anything happening between Milt and Louise. She almost wished something would happen, if that’s what would make Louise happy. Because that was all that mattered to her now, the happiness of her closest friends. That was the vital thing. That was the point.
    â€œYou’re not thinking about Louise, are you?” said Milt.
    â€œNo, not Louise. Not specifically.”
    â€œI mean Louise and me. Because there’s nothing to think about there, Jean. That’s all over. That’s history. The whole Mojito thing was just a total, weird coincidence.”
    â€œStop worrying about it, Milt. It’s not even in my mind.”
    â€œOkay.” Frowning, he began to spread marmalade on a second piece of hard toast, dry, the way he preferred it lately. “So is it to do with your work? That kudzu piece?”
    She lifted her tea. “It’s an idea. Something a little different.”
    He bit into his toast, watching her, and began jabbing at the air with his half-eaten slice. “Yeah. I should’ve figured it out.