Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Sidekick. Purrfect Deseit. Purrfect Ruse [calibre 5.14.0]

Just then, Odelia’s phone chimed ten times in quick succession.

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.

She pointed at the device from hell. “Ten more people who are RSVPing, even though they weren’t even invited. That takes it up to eight hundred and ten—and counting!”

Gran frowned at her daughter. “Did you send out eight hundred invitations?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Mom. “But people keep calling and asking to join the happy occasion, and who am I to disappoint them?”

“But eight hundred people!” said Gran.

“It’s too much!” Odelia wailed. “If this keeps up there will be a thousand, or two thousand, or even three thousand, and it’s going to be complete pandemonium!”

“Honey, honey,” said Mom, “it’s not going to be pandemonium. It’s just going to be…”

“Too damn much,” said Gran.

“Look, can you take me off the list?” said Odelia. “You can go and have the wedding, but I don’t want to come. I’ll just stay in bed and Netflix. Me and Chase together.”

“Chase isn’t happy with this either?” said Gran.

“Not really. He’s just going along with it for my sake. But I can tell he thinks the whole thing’s gotten way out of hand.”

“I just thought you’d be happy celebrating with all of our friends and family present,” said Mom, looking a little flustered.

“I thought I was OK with it,” said Odelia, “but now I’m not so sure.”

Ding ding ding din ding ding ding ding ding

“Can’t you turn that thing off?” asked Gran.

“Not until after the wedding,” said Odelia.

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding

“I think something is wrong with it,” said Mom.

“Nothing’s wrong. Just people wondering why they weren’t invited. Or why their grandmother wasn’t invited. Or their cousins, or aunts and uncles. Or their friends. And how can I say no when they tell me to put them on the list? I don’t have the heart to say nooo-hooo-hoooooo!” She’d collapsed into sobs again.

“Give me the damn phone,” said Gran, and before Odelia could stop her, she had grabbed the gadget. “ Buzz of, buzz off, buzz off, buzz off ,” she murmured as she typed. Lucky for her reputation Odelia managed to snatch her phone back from her grandmother’s grasp.

“Hey! I was solving your problem for you!”

“You’re not helping, Gran! I still have to live in this town. I still have to do my job. If I start pissing people off now where does that get me? Nowhere!”

“But we can’t possibly cater to thousands of people, honey. We’re not the Kardashians. We’re not millionaires. Who’s going to pay for all this?”

Both Gran and Odelia’s eyes turned to Marge, who had promised to pay for the wedding. Marge’s eyes went wide when she realized what all this Ding Ding Ding really meant for her bank account.

“Oh, no!” she said, and slapped a hand to her face.

“Oh, yes,” said Gran, grim.

“This is going to ruin us!” said Mom.

“Can’t you tell them to take a hike?” asked Gran. “Limit the number of people?”

“And piss off half of Hampton Cove?” said Odelia. “I don’t think so.”

When Chase softly knocked on the door five minutes later and carefully opened it, he found three generations of Pooles seated on the bed, all crying their eyes out.

“I’ll come back later,” he said quietly, and softly closed the door again.

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding…

Chapter 26

It had been a trying day, filled with emotion and tragic events, but also with plenty of good stuff, like the reception at Town Hall, which had proved a great triumph for Mayor Butterwick. And to top it all off there was of course Odelia who’d suffered some kind of nervous breakdown, as I think the commonly used term is. Marge and Gran, when they’d returned from their consultation with our human, had both looked seriously teary-eyed, though they’d staunchly refrained from commenting on the patient’s current state.

I felt a little guilty, and so did the others. After all, as far as we could tell it was our refusal to show up for Odelia’s wedding that had triggered this particular episode.

Not exactly our finest hour, I will readily confess.

Gran, who noticed that we were all looking downcast, decided to bring us out of our slump and suggested we ride with her and Scarlett tonight, as part of her usual neighborhood watch routine, and we gratefully accepted her kindhearted proposal.

And so we found ourselves in Marge’s little red Peugeot, which Gran likes to use as her patrol car, cruising along the deserted streets of Hampton Cove, with Gran behind the wheel and Scarlett riding shotgun. Four cats were ensconced in the backseat, and generally I felt that things were gradually returning to a semblance of normalcy.

“Good thing we’re old,” said Gran. “And that we don’t need a lot of sleep. A young person could never do what we do. They’d need their eight hours of uninterrupted beauty sleep.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Scarlett. “I’m not old.”

“We’re exactly the same age, Scarlett,” Gran pointed out.

“Age is in the eye of the beholder,” said her friend.

“I think that’s beauty.”

“That, too.”

Gran turned back to us. “You guys are awfully quiet,” she remarked.

“How would you feel if you suddenly found yourself responsible for your human’s nervous breakdown,” said Scarlett. She turned to face us, which in her case was a lot less fraught with danger because she wasn’t driving the car. “You shouldn’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure it’s just the usual wedding jitters. Nothing to do with you.”

“I think it has everything to do with us,” said Harriet. “If we hadn’t told Odelia that we weren’t going to be present at the wedding, she wouldn’t have had her nervous breakdown. So excuse us for feeling bad, all right?”

“What did they just say?” asked Scarlett, turning to Gran with a smile. “It sounds so cute when they do all the meowing. Almost as if they’re actually talking to me.”

“They are actually talking to you,” said Gran. “They feel bad for telling Odelia they didn’t want to attend the wedding, and they feel guilty about her nervous breakdown.”

“Oh, the poor dears,” said Scarlett, fussing over us for a bit before turning back to face the front and presumably being on the lookout for prowlers and burglars and drug dealers and murderers and those other strange and terrifying creatures of the night.

“You shouldn’t feel bad,” said Gran. “It wasn’t your fault that Odelia suffered that sudden breakdown. It’s not the fact that you said you weren’t going to be there, though it may have expedited things a little.”

“If it wasn’t us, then what caused her breakdown?” I asked.

“Mainly the fact that it now looks as if hundreds of people will show up for the wedding, turning it into the social event of the season, maybe even the year or the decade, and that’s exactly the kind of thing she was desperate to avoid.”

“How many people are going?” asked Harriet, casting a worried glance in my direction. Privately she’d expressed her doubts about Gran’s guarantees in regards to that spot next to the altar. She had a feeling even that spot would be overrun with people. If the worst came to the worst we could always claw our way out, of course, but I don’t think Odelia would appreciate it when we started mauling her guests and ripping them to pieces.

“Well, the way Odelia’s phone kept ringing off the hook… we’re probably looking at a thousand right now? Maybe a little more?”