Софи Келли - A Case Of Cat And Mouse

“It’s beautiful work,” Kate said, glancing back over her shoulder at the front doors.

Kate made me think of a princess from a child’s picture book. She was tall and slight and her dark blond curls were loose around her shoulders instead of pulled back in the tight braid she wore on the show. She had pale blue eyes, very fair skin and a perfect oval face. And she was smart as well. The former model was working on a graduate degree in psychology I’d learned. We had started talking after a production meeting when she had noticed I had Ernest Jones’s biography of Sigmund Freud poking out of my bag.

“I’ve always been fascinated by what makes people behave the way they do,” she’d explained in her soft voice. “When my modeling career ended I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I had already taken a couple of psychology courses in high school and I’d done well in both of them. So I enrolled in university. I did think about cooking school, but I had only really ever cooked for myself—just for fun. But now, if I could just make it into the top three, maybe . . .” She hadn’t finished the sentence. She hadn’t had to. It had been written all over her face how desperately she wanted to do well.

Kate had gone on to very matter-of-factly explain that her promising modeling career, along with a lucrative contract with an exclusive line of makeup, had disappeared when five years ago—at twenty-one—she’d had an allergic reaction to a facial mask that had been marketed as being “natural.”

“I didn’t know the word was meaningless when it comes to skincare,” she explained, her voice laced with bitterness. “Anyone can just use one or two natural ingredients in a product and call it natural. I wasn’t the only person who had a reaction, but by the time we all connected with each other and thought about hiring a lawyer the owner of the company, Monique Le Clair, had left the country. Some people think she might be in Asia somewhere or maybe Mexico. No one has been able to find her.”

After the allergic reaction Kate had developed a skin infection that had left her with scars on her face that both the modeling and cosmetics industries couldn’t seem to see past. I looked at her now and all I could see was how beautiful she was.

Caroline Peters was with Kate. Caroline was old enough to be Kate’s mother but the two of them had connected the same way Rebecca and I had. Caroline was a stay-at-home mother, I knew. She was short and round with a head full of black curls and deep blue eyes. She was wearing a blue flowered wrap dress with a jean jacket and white Adidas Superstars with black stripes. She turned in a slow circle to take in the main floor of the building. “What an incredible building,” she said. She gestured to the words over the front door. “This is a Carnegie library, then?”

I nodded.

“So is my library at home. These are great pieces of history. I’m glad this one was restored.”

“A lot of the buildings aren’t libraries anymore,” I said. “I’m glad this one still is.”

Caroline smiled at me. The mom of five was a perpetually happy person. “Right now, we’re looking for a place to hide out for a little while,” she said. “It seemed like a perfect evening for a walk but sadly that means we might possibly be missing a quick get-together for the contestants.”

I laid a hand on my chest. “Your secret is safe with me,” I said. “Librarian’s honor.”

“Is that a real thing?” Caroline asked with a teasing smile.

“As real as wishing on a star,” I said. “How’s the baking going for this week?”

“We’re just baked out,” Caroline confided. “I don’t think I ever want to see another loaf of bread, and believe me, that’s close to blasphemy coming out of my mouth.” She patted one hip. “I have never met a carbohydrate that didn’t make me say, ‘Come to Mama.’”

“I know exactly what you mean,” I said. I gestured at the stacks. “You can see that we’re not exactly busy tonight. I can tell you that the chairs in the reading area are a lot more comfortable than they look. And there are a couple of big, almost leather chairs in the back corner by the windows that are good for curling up in. You can look out over the water from there.”

“That sounds perfect,” Kate said. She was wearing ankle-length jeans and a long cream-colored cardigan over a striped long-sleeved T-shirt in shades of brown and orange. A chocolate-colored scarf was wrapped around her neck. Kate always seemed cold. Her shoulders were hunched, her hands jammed in her pockets. Both of her sleeves were pushed back and I noticed the left one was damp, probably from her last cooking session. She looked frazzled, much more than Caroline did. The pressure was on now that there were only six of the original twelve contestants left. I’d seen with Rebecca how finicky sourdough bread could be and I wondered if the stress was getting to Kate now that the semifinals were so close. Patisserie Week had not gone well for her.

I pointed the two of them toward the quiet back corner. “If you need anything, please come find me or you can ask Susan at the desk.”

They both thanked me and headed across the floor.

I walked over to join Susan at the front desk. She and Mary had switched some shifts and we hadn’t worked together very much in the last couple of weeks. I missed her sense of humor and seeing what she had stuck in her perpetual updo to keep it in place. Tonight it looked like a tiny green plastic trellis.

“They’re contestants on the Baking Showdown aren’t they?” she asked.

I nodded. “They are. They’re just looking to take a break from everything.”

“I don’t blame them.” She checked the number on the spine of the book on the top of a pile in front of her and then leaned back to place it on the top shelf of a cart. “I used to watch the original version of the show and I know I would never be able to handle baking under those high-pressure conditions. First of all, I would be way, way too slow and, second, the cameras there all the time would freak me out. How could I pick up a cake layer after I’d dropped it on the floor and get way with it?”

I gave her a pointed look.

“Not that I’m saying I’ve ever done that,” she added with a mischievous expression on her face.

“I feel exactly the same way,” I said. “Although, if I dropped a cake layer on the floor, it would have two cats all over it before I could even bend down to try to pick it up.”

“Trying to make dinner with the twins on either side of me both talking at the same time about two completely different things is hard enough. And I’d only be able to pick up a dropped cake if the boys weren’t home.”

“Not that you’re saying you’ve ever done that,” I added.

Susan grinned. “Of course.” She picked up another book and turned it over to check the cover for damage. “So do you have a favorite baker? I mean other than Rebecca or Ray. I won’t tell.”

“Honestly, it’s hard to choose,” I said. I did have a soft spot for Kate. She had such a flair for decorating. I’d loved the ginger cookies she’d made, decorated with kitty faces. “What about you? Are you Team Rebecca or Team Ray?”

“I’ll be cheering for both of them, but I think my favorite is Charles. He’s been into the café a couple of times.”

Charles Bacchus was a former boxer in his midfifties. He had been the episode “Hot Shot” the previous week. Stocky and balding with a barrel chest and a deep laugh, Charles’s massive hands had a deceptively light touch when it came to baking.

“Just talking to him has blown all of my stereotypes out of the water and I love his laugh,” Susan said. She nudged her black cat’s-eye glasses up her nose. “What are the other contestants like?”