Софи Келли - Cat Trick

I stopped and put both hands on my hips. “Oh, c’mon, Mags,” I said. “Liam is funny, he’s smart, he’s working on a PhD and this proposal for Legacy Tours, he’s still tending bar and he’s majorly cute.”

“Majorly cute?”

“We had a ninth-grade class in this morning for a tour,” I said. “I picked up a few phrases to expand my vocabulary.”

She pulled her keys out of her pocket. “Yes, Liam is smart, and he makes me laugh, and he is, as you put it, ‘majorly cute,’ but we’re just friends. You’re wasting your time if you’re trying to play matchmaker.” She opened the studio door and I followed her inside.

“Why is it that all the times I told you that you were wasting your time playing matchmaker with Marcus and me, you just ignored me?”

The high worktable in the center of the room was set with two place mats and cutlery. I pulled out a stool and sat down while Maggie plugged in the kettle and started taking food out of her little refrigerator. “That’s different,” she said, moving between the table and the fridge.

I leaned an elbow on the paint-spattered tabletop and propped my head on my hand. “Why? Because it’s you?”

“No,” she said. “Well, yes, at least partly.” Her expression turned serious. “I’m good at this kind of thing. I got Roma and Eddie together.”

“That was an accident,” I protested. “People saw Roma with the mannequin you made and thought she was dating the real Eddie. He never would have gotten in touch with her if it hadn’t been for that.”

Maggie set a large bowl on the table between our plates. She’d made her pasta salad with sun-dried tomatoes. It was one of my favorites. “Exactly,” she said. “Roma ended up with the real Eddie because of the Eddie I made. The universe was working through me.”

I would have laughed at that, but I knew she was serious. “You said ‘partly,’” I said. “What’s the other part?”

“You and Marcus are perfect for each other. You’re yin and yang.” She added hot water to her teacup and brought it over to the table.

I groaned. “Oh, please don’t say we’re soul mates. I don’t want to lose my appetite before I’ve even had one bite.”

Maggie slipped onto the stool opposite me. “I’m not saying that,” she said.

I knew that didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking it. “I’m officially changing the subject,” I said. “Let’s talk about the art show or the food tasting or the Gotta Dance reunion tour. They’ve added three more stops to the schedule.”

I glanced over at the Matt Lauer doll perched on a chair by the windows. I’d found the eight-inch-high knitted doll wearing a dark blue suit and a gray fedora in the same store where I’d bought the I Matt Lauer T-shirt. It seemed as though the Today Show host had a lot of fans in Boston.

“There are rumors that as a former Gotta Dance champion, Matt’s going to join the others for a few dates to show off his moves,” I said.

“I know.” Maggie made a face. “But they aren’t coming anywhere close to here, and so far Matt hasn’t said for sure that he is going to be part of the tour.”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” I said.

“You’re just saying that because the beefcake didn’t win the crystal trophy.”

The “beefcake” was Kevin Sorbo, aka Hercules from the syndicated TV show Hercules: The Legendary Journeys , and Gotta Dance runner-up to Matt Lauer. I shook my head. “No, I’m saying it because I’m pretty sure if we went to see Matt Lauer in person, you would rush the stage and end up in jail, and I’d have to call my so-called soul mate to pull some strings to get you out.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Maggie said. Then she laughed.

I grinned at her across the table. “Okay, let’s talk about the art show and the food tasting. Things really are going okay?”

She set down her fork, and a shadow slid across her face. “Uh-huh. They’re just better overall. I’m sorry to say it, but Mike rubbed people the wrong way. Now Liam’s basically in charge. Alex isn’t going to have his fingers all over everything the way Mike did.” She shrugged. “Liam says it’s far from a done deal, though.”

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” I said. I speared another corkscrew of pasta. “I met Georgia Tepper this morning.”

“You’re going to love her cupcakes,” Maggie said, taking a sip of her tea.

“She said Mike told her chocolate was ‘last year,’” I said. I waved my fork at her. “This is good, by the way.”

Maggie smiled. “I’m glad you like it.” She frowned at her tea, got up and rummaged in the old pie safe until she found a small container of honey. “Yeah, Mike wanted Georgia to make some kind of ‘in’ cupcake with chili peppers or jalapeños. He told Mary white tablecloths were a throwback to the fifties, and I don’t know what the heck he said to Burtis to aggravate him.”

“Burtis is not someone you want to be on the bad side of,” I commented.

“True,” Mags said, drizzling a little honey into her tea. “But it was Georgia who almost took a swing at Mike with a serving tray.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

She twisted her mouth to one side. “I’m not.”

Before I could ask her for more details, there was a knock on the half-open door and Ruby poked her head in. “Hi,” she said. “Got a minute?” She was looking directly at me when she asked the question.

“Sure,” I said, setting my fork down again.

“Could I paint Owen?”

“You mean the same way you’re doing with Hercules?”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“That’s a great idea,” Maggie said, putting a little more pasta salad in her bowl. “Are you thinking of letting them go to auction as a set, or as two individual paintings?”

Ruby wrinkled her nose in thought. “I’m leaning toward listing them separately just because I think that’ll bring in more money for Cat People. What do you think?”

“Oh, definitely,” Mags said, waving her fork like a flag. “Are you going to do a frame?”

I leaned sideways so I was a little more in Ruby’s line of vision. “You can paint Owen. It’s fine with me.”

Ruby nodded and waved her hand absently at me. “I went with metal the last time, but I’m thinking about a black floater frame.”

Okay, so she wasn’t talking to me.

Maggie frowned. “What about charcoal instead of black?”

Neither was Maggie.

Ruby nodded slowly. “That might work. I don’t want a frame that screams ‘Look at me!’”

I leaned a little farther sideways and waved my arms in the air, kind of like I was a flag person on a highway construction crew. “Hello,” I said.

They both looked at me then. “Do you need something?” Maggie asked.

“Yes,” I said, sinking back on my stool. “I need to tell Ruby that she can paint Owen.”

Ruby and Mags exchanged glances. “I did get that,” Ruby said. “Thank you.”

“Anything else?” Maggie said. I might have been imagining the tiny hint of impatience in her voice.

“I could bring Owen down first thing tomorrow morning before the library opens, if that works,” I added.

“That’ll work,” Ruby said.

I turned to Maggie and made a move-along gesture with one hand. “I’m done.”

“Thank you,” she said. No, that wasn’t impatience I was hearing; it was a tiny bit of sarcasm.

Mags and Ruby went back to discussing possibilities for framing the cat portraits, and I went back to my pasta salad. By the time they had settled on a charcoal frame, I was done eating. I stretched my arms up over my head, which caught Maggie’s attention.