Ник Сайнт: Purrfect Fool. Purrfect Fitness. Purrfect Setup

Chapter 4

Marge looked at her watch, then up and down the street. Her husband was late. They’d arranged to go shopping together and so far Tex was a no-show. She frowned as she thought about the article she’d just read on the Gazette website. Breaking news, it said. The Chief of Police was getting married to the Mayor, it said. A thousand comments had already been posted, and almost all of them heralded the news and wished the future husband and wife all the happiness in the world.

Marge had tried to call her brother, wanting to ask him what he thought he was doing, letting her find out about his upcoming wedding from the Gazette. But he wasn’t picking up, and nor was her daughter Odelia, who’d written the article in the first place.

What was going on here?

Finally Tex came hurrying up, looking apologetic. “I’m sorry!” he said as he joined her on the sidewalk. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Ten minutes,” she said. “What took you so long?”

“Ida Baumgartner,” he said ruefully, and she smiled. It was just Tex’s luck to get his most faithful patient to pay him a visit just before he needed to be somewhere.

“What did she suffer from this time?” she asked. “Probably some disease that hasn’t been invented yet?”

“Actually this time she was suffering from something real,” said her husband as they walked into Darling’s Dress Code. “A rash. On her face.”

“Probably an allergy.”

“I don’t think so. She did mention she was using a new face cream so—”

But Marge was already making a beeline for the shoe department and forgot all about Ida Baumgartner and her long string of real or imagined illnesses. The store was organizing a big sale today, and she wanted to get two pairs of shoes for Tex, and a pair for her as well. Initially she’d wanted to buy them for their daughter’s wedding, but now that it looked like her brother was getting hitched, too, they’d have to do double duty.

“Read this and tell me what you think,” she said once her husband’s shoe needs had been taken care of and she entered the frantic fray to find a nice pair for herself.

When she returned with a pair of elegant pink pumps—not exactly ideal for a wedding but the price was so right!—he handed her back her phone, looking stumped.

“I don’t get it,” he announced. “Your brother is getting married?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“And you didn’t know about this?”

“Nope. He didn’t tell me a thing.” In fact she’d talked to her brother the night before, and he hadn’t given any indication that he was about to tie the knot again—fifteen years after becoming a widower.

Tex looked as flummoxed as she was feeling. “I tried to call him,” she said, “but he’s not picking up. And then I tried calling Odelia, but she’s not picking up either.”

“So… maybe the article is a hoax?”

“Odelia wrote it,” she pointed out.

“Oh.” Her husband shook his head. “Then I don’t get it.” He answered in the affirmative when she paraded in front of him with a pair of black strappy heels, though his mind seemed elsewhere, and presumably not with Ida Baumgartner’s peculiar rash. “He could have told us,” he said. “If he’s going to get married at the same time as Odelia we should probably organize a double wedding. Two weddings in a row seems silly.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. We’d better make it a double wedding.” Though preferably she would have liked her brother to postpone his wedding. He was totally going to steal his niece’s thunder now, which seemed like a really selfish thing to do.

Unless there was something she didn’t know? Some reason her brother suddenly felt the need to get married?

“Maybe Charlene is pregnant?” Tex suggested, clearly thinking along the same lines as she was.

“Can I help you?” suddenly the salesgirl said, materializing next to her.

“Do you have these in a bigger size?” she asked. She liked the shoes, but they were a little tight.

The girl disappeared, in search of the shoes, and Marge took a seat next to her husband. “How old is Charlene?”

“Your age, right?”

“That’s what I thought. Is it even possible to be pregnant at forty-eight?”

“It’s possible,” said her husband the doctor. “Unlikely but possible. Though I didn’t know they were trying for a baby.”

“No, me neither. Unless…” They shared a look of consternation.

“Unless it was an accident?”

“Could be,” she said. “Though nowadays people don’t get married just because they’re expecting a baby, do they?”

“Not usually,” Tex allowed. “Unless they’ve decided it’s best for the baby if the parents are married before it arrives into this world.”

“But if she is pregnant, wouldn’t she have told you? You are her doctor, right?”

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen her in a while. Ever since she got involved with Alec she’s been seeing a doctor in Hampton Keys.”

“She probably feels weird about seeing you now that you’re practically family.” They let the notion of Alec becoming a father hang in the air for a moment, then Marge nudged her husband. “You could find out though, couldn’t you? I mean, from one doctor to another, and Charlene technically still being your patient and all?”

“I could find out,” said Tex, nodding. “But it wouldn’t exactly be ethical for me to—”

“Call him,” said Marge. “Call him now.”

“But honey!”

“He’s my brother, Tex. I have a right to know. So either you call him or I’ll do it.”

Tex sighed, hesitated for a moment, then took out his phone and placed the call. The conversation was short and to the point, and when Tex hung up the phone he said, “Nope. She’s definitely not pregnant.”

“So then why? Why the sudden haste?”

Chapter 5

Odelia arrived home feeling a little dejected. She didn’t begrudge her uncle his future happiness with his new bride, but she just wished he’d told her the news in person instead of having the Mayor send an email to her boss, who had then forwarded her the email and asked her to write a short article announcing the happy occasion.

She took a bottle of cold water from the fridge and poured herself a glass of the cooling liquid. And as she leaned against the kitchen counter, she saw that four cats were all staring at her expectantly. She smiled.

“Let me guess. Your bowls are empty?”

But when she glanced over she saw that her darlings still had plenty of kibble.

“So tell us already, Odelia!” said Harriet, who had the least patience of all of her cats. “Is it really true that Uncle Alec is getting married? And if so why?”

“And is he pregnant or is Charlene pregnant or are they both pregnant?” asked Brutus.

“Or are they both pregnant and dying?” asked Dooley.

In spite of herself, she laughed. It was just like her cats to come up with these crazy stories. “Frankly I have no idea,” she said.

“But you wrote the story!” said Harriet. “Gran said so herself!”

“Yeah, I wrote the story, but only because my editor asked me to. He received an email from the Mayor’s Office, announcing the wedding, and that’s all I know.”

“The Mayor’s Office?” asked Max with a frown. “You mean Uncle Alec didn’t personally tell you the news?”

She swallowed. “No, he didn’t. And when I tried to call him he didn’t pick up. So at this point I know just as much as you guys. Which is exactly nothing.”

“But… he’s your uncle,” Dooley pointed out.

“Thanks, Dooley,” she said. “I didn’t know that.”

Dooley stared at her. “You didn’t know?”