Canterbury Tails: Countess
It was snowing heavily, and the temperatures were in the single digits. Worse, the dreaded wind chill was below zero. Dominique Trudeau, who had been visiting an old friend who lived just north of Bangor, Maine, was driving south to Boston to catch a plane for L.A. Several times the car she rented—which had front-wheel drive because all the four-wheel-drive vehicles were taken—slid on the slippery interstate. Luckily, there were no cars in the oncoming lane. In fact, there were few vehicles on the road at all.
I hate this weather! she thought. Why anyone would want to live in New England is beyond me!
Normally, the trip would have taken less than four hours since it was a direct route via I-95. However, the treacherous road conditions made traveling at high speed dangerous. Most people paid attention to the winter storm warnings and stayed off the roads, but Dominique was not most people.
The pretty girl from Little Falls, New Jersey, had been born with more than a beautiful face and a perfect body. She had a keen mind beneath that head of lush natural blond hair and an even keener sense of ambition behind those dazzling blue eyes. At the age of two, she was put in front of a camera, and her face appeared in ads for a bestselling brand of disposable diapers. From that moment on, there was no looking back. By the time she was ten, she was already making more money than both her mother, a teacher, and father, an accountant. At sixteen, the attractive blonde appeared on the cover of Vogue for the first time, successfully completing her gradual transition from toddler to teen, from diapers to Dior and from Playskool to Prada.
When her modeling career reached its peak, the astute businesswoman considered her options. From that point, she realized, it would all be downhill. The fall would not come immediately. It would be a gradual slide, but modeling was a slippery slope. Newer, younger faces were always waiting on the horizon.
Is that what I want? she asked herself. To be slowly pushed aside by teenage girls still in high school?
Dominique was not bitter at the prospect. She was wise to the ways of her profession. Hadn't she herself started her career as a child and replaced more experienced models? That's simply the way it was.
Hollywood, of course, was always eager to add another stunning face to its roster of beauties. For years, she had been offered roles as eye candy opposite several of the industry's most popular leading men. Acting, however, was not something that appealed to her. Posing in front of a camera was one thing; having to memorize lines and recite them was another. Of course, there was always TV. A producer who had several hit programs on TLC offered her a reality show of her own. But the idea of having a film crew follow her around, expecting her to behave "normally" for the viewers was even less appealing than acting in films.
"Maybe I should just retire," she told her mother, who was, since the death of her father, not only her sole living blood relative but also her best friend and confidante.
"You're not even thirty yet, and you're talking about retiring?"
"Thanks to Daddy's keen investment strategies, I have more money than I'll ever need."
"It's not a question of money. What will you do with all that free time on your hands?"
Dominique shrugged her shoulders.
"I could always get married, start a family."
"I know you better than anyone else does. You'll never be happy sitting home, changing diapers and cooking dinner."
"I suppose you're right," her daughter conceded. "I would be bored out of my mind. What do you think about my going back to school and getting a degree?"
"In what?"
Again, she shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh, Mom," she said with a sigh, "I don't know what to do with my life. Ever since I was a kid growing up in Little Falls, all I've ever known is clothes, makeup and hairstyles."
Sylvia Trudeau suggested her daughter stick to what she knew best.
"You could start your own fashion or cosmetics line."
"If there's one thing the world doesn't need, it's another celebrity selling perfume!"
It was Dominique herself, not her mother, who eventually came up with the idea of mall-based beauty shops that offered inexpensive makeovers and beauty consultations to the masses. Laughingly referred to as a poor man's Elizabeth Arden Red Door Salon by her detractors, the idea took hold and grew rapidly across America and then around the world. The shops offered services from a simple haircut to a full makeover. Seminars in fashion were offered for a modest price. Women of all ages and income brackets who wanted to look their best for a big date, a job interview, a wedding, a social event or even an ordinary night out on the town flocked to her salons.
"Now who's laughing?" she asked her mother when the company grossed its first billion dollars.
Oddly enough, her role as a CEO brought her not just more money, but also greater fame and a deeper sense of pride than her career as a supermodel had.
* * *
It was late afternoon when Dominique crossed over from New Hampshire into Massachusetts; it would be dark in another hour or so. She looked down at the gas gauge and saw she was down to less than a quarter of a tank.
"I should have rented a hybrid instead of this gas-guzzler," she groaned, realizing she would have to pull off the highway and get gas.
It was three miles until the next exit. As she drove down the ramp, her car slid again and almost went off the road entirely. Swearing she would never again venture into New England during the winter months, she turned left and headed for Canterbury, a town so small it did not appear on most maps. Thankfully, though, it had a gas station. There was also, surprisingly, a country inn, next door to one of those white, steepled churches that seemed to pop up like weeds throughout the Northeast.
The thought of a hot meal and a warm bed appealed to her much more than the idea of driving over the icy highway in the dark.
I should see if they have a room, she thought as she pumped fuel into her gas tank. I don't imagine there'll be many flights going out in this storm. I might make it to Logan, only to have to spend the night in the airport.
After paying for her gas, she drove down the road and pulled into the inn's parking lot. The soft light shining through the windows gave the place the warm, welcoming appearance of a Thomas Kincade painting. Dominique entered the lobby and rather than head directly to the dining area, she stopped at the front desk.
"I don't suppose you have any vacancies," she said, returning the innkeeper's friendly smile with a haughty look of disdain.
"As a matter of fact, we do," Agnes Stowell, the neatly dressed elderly woman behind the desk, replied. "We don't get many visitors in January."
"Good. I'll take a room for one night."
There was no need for the guest to ask the nightly rate since she could easily afford to buy not just the inn, but mostly likely the entire town of Canterbury.
"I have a bag in the car," she announced, handing over the key to the rented vehicle. "Have someone take it up to my room."
There was no please or thank you. These were phrases that had vanished from Dominique's vocabulary once she gained fame and fortune. She was somebody, you see, and she saw no reason to show politeness or deference to nobodies. As far as she was concerned, the woman was there only to serve her.
To those people in New England and the tourists who drove up from the mid-Atlantic states who ever had the occasion to visit, the Canterbury Inn was a charming place to stay that offered an excellent meal for the price. A small establishment, it was one of those rare, undiscovered jewels along the East Coast known only to its regular clientele and those travelers who occasionally came off the interstate and stumbled upon it. Dominique, used to five-star accommodations, considered her overnight stay "slumming it."
"You call this a salad?" she asked the waitress when the dish was put on the table in front of her. "Iceberg and romaine? I can't believe you don't have any arugula, endive or radicchio."
She was equally disappointed in the main course options on the menu.
"Meatloaf? Yankee pot roast? Pork chops? Don't you have anything vegan?" she complained.
"There is the salad. It doesn't have any meat in it, and we have French onion soup."
"Made with beef broth, no doubt."
"I can see if there's any Campbell's tomato soup in the kitchen."
"Soup in a can? Really? Forget the soup! I'll just take the salad."
At the end of the meal, the waitress came back to the table and inquired, "Can I get you anything for dessert?"
The former fashion model, who kept careful watch on her weight even though she no longer strutted down the Paris runways, had not had a piece of cake, slice of pie or dish of ice cream since she was five years old. There was no reason for her to want one now.
"I'll just take a cup of coffee. What kind do you have?"
"We have regular and decaf."
"That's all?" she asked, rolling her captivating blue eyes in frustration.
"If you prefer, I can bring you a cup of tea."
"Tea sounds good. Do you have a list of flavors?"
"We only have Tetley."
"Grocery store teabags. It figures. Very well, I'll take a cup with a slice of lemon."
After finishing her after-dinner beverage, Dominique signed the check, leaving only a ten-percent tip for the waitress. (Like many one-percenters, she did not believe in sharing the wealth.) When she opened the door to her room, she was not at all impressed by the Queen Anne four-poster bed, the handsewn quilt or the quaint colonial décor.
This place is enough to give someone nightmares! Oh, well, it's only for one night.
She looked down at her Cartier watch and noticed it was not yet six o'clock.
What the hell am I going to do all evening?
There was a small television hidden in an armoire, but it only offered the basic cable channels.
No HBO. No streaming channels. It's downright medieval!
She phoned Agnes Stowell at the front desk and asked if there were any magazines available.
"We have a few copies of Yankee in the lobby. If you want something else to read, there's a bookstore across the street."
"Good. Send someone over to pick me up a fashion magazine. Vogue, if they have it, but I'll settle for Elle or ...."
"I'm sorry, Miss Trudeau. I'm the only one here at the moment, and I can't leave the front desk."
"That's absurd! You can't possibly be that busy that you're unable to walk across the street and buy me a magazine."
"I have to be here to answer the phone. I can't leave."
Dominique slammed the phone down on the cradle and cursed the inefficiency of small-town businesses. She never had such poor service at the Four Seasons. Faced with the prospect of having to watch an insipid reality show on television or stare at the hideous wallpaper in her room, she put on her coat and, passing by the front desk with her nose high in the air, walked out the door and across the snow-covered street.
It was no great surprise to her that the store was a far cry from Barnes & Noble. Hell, it was not even a Books-A-Million. The sign above the door said THE CANTERBURY TAILS. (Didn't they know how to spell in this godforsaken town?) A smaller sign, placed inside the display window, identified the shop as "a seller of rare and used books."
"Good luck finding a fashion magazine in this place!" Dominique told herself as she opened the door and went inside.
The celebrated fashionista blanched when she saw the young woman at the counter. If ever someone needed her professional help ....
"Hi, my name is Jerusha," the store owner said, looking up from the screen of a Dell laptop. "Can I help you find something?"
Jerusha Bromwell—who might be extremely attractive if she changed her "look"—had short-cropped black hair with purple streaks, apparently dyed to match the hideous purple dress she wore.
"Do you have the latest issue of Vogue?"
"I don't normally carry magazines, but I may have some back issues around somewhere."
Dominique suddenly felt something brush against her leg and cringed. She looked down and saw it was a white Persian cat.
"Ugh!" she exclaimed, quickly pulling her leg away from the animal.
"That's just Countess, one of my cats," Jerusha said with a laugh. "Don't worry. She doesn't bite."
"A cat? It looks more like a cotton ball with eyes."
Countess, seemingly offended by the insult, jumped up on the counter where she sat and glared at the customer.
"I suppose I'll just look around and see if I can find something."
"Be my guest," the shopkeeper replied, returning her attention to her computer.
There were books everywhere. Some were on shelves, others were lying on tables and the rest were stacked on the floor. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to their order. She could not imagine how Jerusha would be able to find something in all the mess. As if the chaos of disorganized piles of books was not bad enough, there seemed to be cats wherever Dominique looked. An orange tabby cat was sleeping on an array of paperback novels spread out on what appeared to be an old dining room table. Sitting on the windowsill, cleaning her paws, was a Siamese. A black domestic longhair was digging its claws in a carpet-covered scratching post. Looking through an open doorway into what appeared to be an office, she could see a calico eating food from a plastic dish.
How many of them are there? she wondered with revulsion.
Moments later, a Russian blue descended the staircase from the second floor, followed by possibly the ugliest animal the former model had ever seen: a long, skinny, hairless black cat with oversized bat-wing ears.
"Are you running a bookstore or an animal shelter?" she called to the woman behind the counter.
"I like cats. Don't you?" Jerusha replied.
"No. I was never one for pets, not even when I was a child. Dogs, cats, hamsters, goldfish—I can do without all of them."
Jerusha, who with very few exceptions preferred cats to people, took her hand from the keyboard and affectionately petted Countess's long white fur. The Persian immediately began to purr, but her large green eyes never stopped glaring at the customer.
Dominique gingerly made her way through the cat-crowded rooms, her eyes scanning titles of books along the way. A Barbara Cartland romance here, an Ann Rule true crime book there, a biography of JFK on the table, a Julia Childs cookbook on the floor. Nothing interested her. Just as she was thinking she ought to go back to the inn and watch the weather channel for the remainder of the evening, the white Persian jumped down from the counter and headed in her direction.
If that thing tries to rub up against me again, I'm going to either give it a kick or step on its tail!
"Go away! Shoo!"
Countess's green eyes narrowed and, as though on purpose, it bumped into a stack of books and sent them falling across the floor.
"Damn cat!" the customer said under her breath, wondering if the board of health had rules restricting the number of animals a business could have.
"Find anything?" Jerusha called.
"No. I ...."
Dominique's eyes were then drawn to one of the books Countess knocked over. It was not the title that drew her attention but the photograph on the cover. It was a face well-known to her. It belonged to Maurice Berdan, a celebrated photographer and a man she had known intimately. She leaned over, picked up the book and read the title: My Life in the Scandal-filled World of High Fashion.
I wonder if he wrote anything about me, she thought as she opened the cover.
In the middle of the book, there were sixteen pages of photographs. Several were of her. It was not surprising that Maurice chose to include her in his memoirs. She was, arguably, the most beautiful woman in the world—at least in her own mind. Dominique imagined he still carried a torch for her, even though she considered their relationship nothing more than a brief fling. To her, men were expendable. Like paper plates, they were meant to be used and discarded. There had been many men in her life—and several women—none of whom she actually cared for. There were so many that she lost count of them all. She hardly remembered the names and faces of those who once made love to her—or, as she saw it, worshipped at the altar of her beauty.
She was so startled by the fact that her former lover had written a tell-all book that might possibly contain embarrassing accounts of their affair that she failed to notice the white Persian rubbing up against her leg.
* * *
After a quick shower, Dominique put on her Natori silk pajamas and crawled under the hand-sewn quilt. Anxious to read what Maurice may have written about her, she did not care that her body was resting on cotton sheets from Kohl's rather than her custom-made luxury bamboo bed linens. With a mounting sense of dread, she turned on the bedside lamp and opened the book to the first chapter.
If there's anything written in here evenly remotely derogatory, I'll sue Maurice's sorry ass for every cent he has!
She had just finished reading page eighteen and was moving on to nineteen when she felt an annoying itch on her right calf, near her ankle. She used the heel of her left foot to scratch it. By page twenty-four, the itch had traveled closer to her knee.
It must be something in the laundry detergent they used to wash these sheets, she thought as she reached her hand down to scratch.
Dominique made it to the end of the first chapter when her right thigh began to itch.
This is getting ridiculous!
When she felt that annoying tingling sensation on the skin of her hip, she reached for the telephone, next to the lamp on the night table.
"Front desk. May I help you?" Agnes Stowell answered.
"There's something in your sheets that's making me itch. Do you have any Benadryl down there?"
"I'm sorry, we don't. But I doubt the sheets are the problem. They're hypoallergenic as is the laundry soap they're washed in."
"Well, something here is making me itch! Isn't there any calamine lotion or something to ease the discomfort?"
"I'll see what I can find in the first aid kit."
As she hung up the phone, Dominique idly wondered if there might be bedbugs in the mattress. Then she remembered the white Persian cat in the bookstore.
I hope that damn animal didn't give me fleas.
When her stomach began to itch, she raised her pajama top and noticed the red rash on her skin. Maybe it wasn't the sheets or fleas; perhaps she was allergic to cats. While she examined the skin on her torso, she noticed the red bumps on the back of her hand. The rash was spreading rapidly.
A moment later there was a knock on the door.
"You found something?" she asked, as she pulled it open.
"There's no calamine lotion, but here's aloe vera gel. That might help."
Dominique grabbed the tube from Agnes's hand and promptly shut the door in the woman's face. But even as she spread the lotion on her stomach and legs, the itching sensation spread up her arms and onto her neck.
"Ugh! I can't take this anymore!" she cried, trying to scratch and apply the aloe vera at the same time.
When she felt the first stirrings on the skin of her face, Dominique's anger turned to fear. She ran to the bathroom, turned on the overhead light and looked into the mirror. Her flawless complexion, a source of great pride to her, looked as though she suffered an acute attack of poison ivy or chicken pox.
Don't scratch it! she told herself. They say it only makes it spread more.
But unlike any other rash she had ever seen, she could watch it spread, covering her face inch by precious inch.
"No! No! NO!" she screamed.
Without bothering to get dressed, she ran down the stairs in her silk pajamas and bare feet and demanded Mrs. Stowell call an ambulance.
"The paramedics are out on a call right now," the woman at the desk explained after contacting the hospital. "There's been an accident on the interstate. They won't be able to send an ambulance for at least another hour."
"Are you telling me there's only one ambulance in this town?"
"This isn't Boston, Miss Trudeau."
"You certainly don't need to tell me that!"
Had she not feared that every inch of her body was being taken over by the insidious rash, she would have told Agnes preciously what she thought of the town of Canterbury, using explicit language when doing so; but she had no time for vulgarities now.
"Just give me directions. I'll drive there myself."
"That won't be possible. The highway is closed because of the accident. It involved a jackknifed truck."
"I need immediate medical care! Is there a doctor in the area?"
"Yes, of course. There's Dr. Livingstone. He lives about two miles from here."
"Good. Get him over here—NOW."
Agnes placed the call, but the doctor, although he occasionally made house calls to his regular patients when necessity demanded, was not willing to go out in the storm to tend to a stranger. A rash, he reasoned, no matter how much it itched, was not a life-threatening condition.
"Of course, if you want to drive to his house, he'll take a look at you."
"Can I get there without using the highway?"
"Yes. Stay straight on this road for about a mile and a half and then turn right on Ipswich Road. His is the big place on the corner of Ipswich and Gloucester."
Returning to her room to put on a coat and shoes, she grabbed her purse and car keys. The rental car was covered with snow, which was only partially swept away by the front and rear wipers.
Shivering from the subzero temperature, Dominique fought the urge to scratch as she tried to keep the vehicle on the road. She was nearing the intersection with Ipswich when she saw what she believed were two green eyes staring at her from the middle of the street.
"Oh, shit!" she cried and turned the steering wheel to the right to avoid hitting the animal.
The car plowed into a snowbank, and since it did not have four-wheel drive, she was unable to get it out. She shifted into reverse and floored the gas pedal, but the wheels spun, failing to get traction on the icy surface.
The rash, meanwhile, continued to spread. Her head began to itch. When Dominique reached up her hand to scratch it, a large clump of blond hair fell out.
"Oh, God, no! Not my hair!"
Itchy arms and legs were one thing, but the possibility of having her face marred and losing her hair was too much. Desperate for the doctor's help, she opened the door and proceeded to trudge through the deep snow in her Jimmy Choo heels, ignoring both the cold and the itching. She had no feeling in her feet when she finally knocked on Dr. Livingstone's front door.
"Come right in," the doctor's wife said.
The startled look on the woman's face frightened Dominique. She could see the disgust and horror in her myopic brown eyes.
I must look frightful!
When the doctor came down the staircase, he had a similar expression on his face.
"What happened to you?" he asked.
"I must be allergic to something."
Dr. Fordham Livingstone took Dominique to his den, which sometimes had to serve as a makeshift examination room.
"I'm not an allergist, but I've never seen such a severe allergic reaction. Have you ever experienced anything like this before?"
"No."
After questioning her about what foods she had eaten and what possible chemicals she might have come into contact with, he had no idea as to the cause of the rash.
"I'm going to give you an antihistamine and a tube of corticosteroid cream. I'd prefer it if you stayed here so that I can keep an eye on you through the night. My son is away at college, so you can stay in his room."
"All right," she said, not eager to walk all the way back to the inn.
"My wife can find something for you to wear, and you can get out of those wet pajamas."
As Mrs. Livingstone led Dominique to her son's bedroom, her husband made himself comfortable in his recliner. He intended to remain awake, with a shot of epinephrine nearby, in case Dominique's throat muscles began to close up. The antihistamine and corticosteroid cream helped with the itching but did not lessen the swelling. The patient's face was covered with red bumps as though she had a severe case of acne.
"Are you staying up?" his wife asked when she entered the room.
"Yes. She ought to be in the hospital but in this storm ...."
"I'll go make us some coffee."
While the doctor and his wife were preparing for a sleepless night, their guest was staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. As she put on the flannel nightgown Mrs. Livingstone leant her—one way too large for her slight frame, tears coursed down her face, taking a circuitous route through the ugly red bumps on her skin.
How could this happen to me?
She recalled the moment when her car left the road as she was driving to the doctor's office.
It was that cat! The same one I saw in the bookstore. What was her name? Countess? I should have run the damn thing over! She's probably the one that gave me this rash.
Dominique buttoned the nightgown at the neck and leaned forward to examine her face more closely.
My perfect complexion! This rash better not leave any scars. Someone will pay if it does! I'll sue that purple-haired freak who owns the bookstore.
No sooner did the thought come to her than she noticed the bumps were larger and filled with pus. The itching faded, replaced by pain.
Oh, God! They're becoming infected!
"Dr. Livingstone!" she shouted, unable to tear herself away from the mirror. "I need ...."
She was unable to complete her sentence. The oozing sores around her mouth caused far too much pain for her to speak. As she gazed into the mirror in terror, the rash—if that was what it actually was—took on a life of its own. It was as though tiny insects were running races just beneath the surface of her skin. Then the pain became so unbearable that her appearance took a back seat to her agony.
She reached for the handle of the bathroom door just as the doctor opened it from the other side.
"Miss Trudeau!" he cried as the former model fell forward.
He caught her before she hit the floor. She tried to speak but was unable to utter a word. As she slipped into unconsciousness, she saw what appeared to be a white Persian cat looking down at her from the bathroom mirror.
* * *
The following morning, as snowplows were clearing the roads, Jerusha Bromwell was sitting in the dining room of the Canterbury Inn, drinking coffee with Agnes Stowell.
"I'm glad I sent her to see Dr. Livingstone," the innkeeper said, reaching for a freshly baked blueberry muffin. "I'm thankful she didn't die here. Too bad she couldn't get to the hospital. Maybe she'd still be alive, but the ambulance wasn't available and the road was closed."
"Don't fret. There's nothing you could have done."
"I wonder what she died from."
"What did the doctor say?"
"He doesn't know. He said there's going to have to be an autopsy, but he thinks she had an allergic reaction to something."
"Too bad," Jerusha said without much conviction or sympathy.
"I don't know what to do with her belongings. I don't know who to send them to."
"Why don't you store them in the attic for now? If no one comes forward to claim them, then donate them to Goodwill or the Salvation Army."
"Seems a shame to give those things away," Agnes said. "She had some very expensive clothes in her suitcase."
"Then why don't you keep them? After all, she died before she could pay her bill."
"I'd never fit in her clothes. She was as thin as a rail."
"Oh, well. It's been nice chatting with you, but I've got to go open up the shop," Jerusha announced as she rose from her chair.
"Do you have to go? Why don't you have a second cup of coffee with me? I doubt you'll be getting many customers today."
"Thanks for the offer, but customers or not, I've got to get back. The cats will begin to miss me."
The seller of rare and used books then buttoned her coat against the cold and walked across the street. Her seven cats greeted her at the door, all vying for attention. She bent down and scooped up the white Persian who purred with contentment.
"Good girl, Countess," the black-haired woman said. "Well done. We're making the world a much better place, one awful person at a time."
Then, with the other six cats following close on her heels, she headed toward the back room where she opened up seven cans of Fancy Feast for their breakfast. Lastly, she went to the front door and turned the CLOSED sign over to indicate that The Canterbury Tails was open for business.
Salem once visited Canterbury Tails, but he didn't stay long. Being a creature of comfort, he prefers the soft furniture in my saltbox to sleeping on piles of hard books.
