Софи Келли - Faux Paw

“That’s easy. I like talking about the library,” I said. I turned in my chair so I could look out the window at the gazebo at the back of the building.

“And if you can work in what a nice place Mayville Heights is to visit, that would be wonderful,” Lita said. I could hear the smile in her voice.

“That’ll be easy, too,” I promised. I hung up the phone and looked up to see Susan leaning around my office door.

“Knock, knock,” she said.

I motioned at her with one hand. “C’mon in.”

She was holding a small cardboard box. She came over to the desk and handed it to me. “This came in the mail for you.”

The box was heavy. I checked the return address. It was from Lise, my best friend in Boston.

“I have to get back downstairs,” Susan said, pushing her glasses up her nose, “but if that’s food, remember who your favorite staff member is.”

I smiled sweetly at her. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I would never forget about Abigail.”

She wrinkled her nose at me and stuck out her tongue before disappearing into the hall.

I slit the tape on the top of the box and opened the flaps. Inside was something wrapped in bubble wrap and padded with crumpled newspaper. I used my scissors to cut the tape on the bubble wrap and then unwrapped what was inside. It was a small brass cat statue.

Found this in a little shop in Maine and thought of you.

Love, Lise

I felt an unexpected prickle of tears. I swallowed a couple of times and set the little cat next to the photo of my family. Lise had taken that when I’d been home on a visit. I was so lucky that distance hadn’t ended our friendship.

By the end of the day I was happy to be heading home. I was hungry and I had a headache from smiling and nodding so much. I was just shutting off my computer when Marshall Holmes tapped on my open office door. I sighed inwardly and silently and immediately felt guilty for it.

Margo was out continuing her search for the “perfect” light bulbs. I came around my desk and met Marshall in the middle of my office.

“Hello, Marshall,” I said. “If you’re looking for Margo, I’m sorry. She isn’t here.”

He glanced at his watch. “Are you expecting her back soon?” He was wearing a dark sport coat with a pale yellow shirt and black pants, everything casually expensive.

“Not before we close,” I said.

He made a small sound of dissatisfaction. “She had an update on the security system for me.”

“I have her cell number, if that will help,” I offered.

“Thank you. I have it,” he said. He looked down at his watch again, and when he looked back up at me his expression cleared. “You must be tired of us all invading your library.”

I gave him my best professional librarian smile. “I’m happy to have the exhibit in my library. Any inconvenience is worth it.”

He smiled. “That’s very nice of you to say. Will you tell Margo I was here, please?”

“I will,” I said.

He turned to leave and then stopped. “Would you by any chance have a phone book? I mean a real, paper one.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. It was an older flip-phone model. “I’m a little bit of a dinosaur.”

“Yes, I do,” I said. I moved over to the bookshelves and pulled down the Mayville Heights phone book. “We have the books for the entire state, but no one ever used them so we moved them up here.” I brushed a dust bunny off the top of the directory and gave him a sheepish grin. “As you can see, they don’t get used much up here, either.”

Marshall smiled. “I know I should get a smartphone with all the features and apps. I’m just not sure I want to be available all the time.”

He took the phone book from me and flipped through the pages, fishing a pen from his pocket. I reached over and grabbed a pad of sticky notes from my desk, handing them to him so he could write down his number. He stuck the square of paper to his phone and dropped it in his pocket. Then he handed everything else back to me.

“I’ll tell Margo you were in,” I repeated.

“I appreciate it,” Marshall said. We shook hands and he left.

There were no decapitated yellow chickens in the kitchen when I stepped in the back door. Owen and Hercules seemed to have called a truce.

“I’m home,” I called.

After a moment there was a distant answering murp from Owen. The basement door was open a crack. I had no idea why he liked to prowl around down there, but I suspected what he was doing was napping in the laundry basket. Maybe there was some way to teach him how to push the buttons with a paw and at least start the washing machine.

The fact that for a fleeting moment I’d actually considered the possibility proved how tired I really was. Still, I couldn’t help laughing at the mental image of the little gray tabby dragging towels over to the washer in his teeth.

Hercules peeked around the living room doorway.

“Hi,” I said, kicking off my red boots.

Hercules came over to me and I reached down and picked him up. “How was your day?” I asked. “Did you have coffee with Everett again?”

His whiskers twitched. I knew that was a yes.

I yawned and he turned his head to one side and studied my face. “Long day,” I said.

He gave a soft murp of sympathy. I stroked his fur and padded into the living room. There were two banker’s boxes of files sitting beside my coffee table. It was all paperwork pertaining to the exhibit. Margo and I had spent an hour and a half organizing it all a few days before. Strangely, the cats seemed to like her. They were less enthusiastic about Gavin Solomon.

“I should take those boxes down to the library.”

Herc looked at the two cartons and then back at me. “Merow?” he asked. Or maybe I was imagining the question in the sound.

“Okay, I guess I don’t have to take them tonight,” I said.

He nudged my hand with his head and I began to scratch the space just above his eyes where the white fur on his nose met the black fur on the top of his head.

Hercules sat by the bedroom closet and I told him about my day as I changed into my tai chi clothes and brushed my hair back into a ponytail. He trailed me into the bathroom when I went to wash my face, making occasional murping comments as I talked. When we came back out into the hallway, Owen was waiting. They exchanged looks and soft meows that made me think of people making polite conversation in some awkward social situation.

I crouched down and gave Owen a scratch behind one ear. His eyes narrowed to slits and he began to purr. “I don’t suppose you threw in a load of towels while you were in the basement?” I asked. One golden eye fixed on me for a moment as though he were saying, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“How about some meatball soup for me and some sardine crackers for you two?” I asked, straightening up.

Hercules had been cleaning his tail, but he lifted his head when I said, “sardine crackers.”

Owen opened both eyes and gave an enthusiastic meow.

They followed me downstairs, where I put a bowl of soup in the microwave for myself and set a tiny stack of my homemade crackers in each of their dishes. Hercules immediately ate the top cracker off his pile without knocking it over. Owen, as he always did, picked up one little square, set it on the floor, and sniffed it cautiously before he took a bite.

Roma and I had speculated about why he always did that. She thought that he’d probably eaten something he shouldn’t have and gotten sick from it in the time before I found him and Hercules as kittens out at Wisteria Hill. She was probably right, but sometimes I thought it was just Owen’s skeptical personality that made him check his food like some paranoid despot.