Лори Касс - Gone With The Whisker

“Here.” Kate reached in front of Aunt Frances and picked up my water glass. “Drink.”

At that point I might have taken a drink from the River Styx if it had been put in front of me. I grabbed the glass and drank deep. And like magic, my cough disappeared.

“What was that all about?” Aunt Frances asked.

“Pepper,” Kate and I said simultaneously. This struck me as hilarious, so I laughed, but since my throat was exhausted from the coughing jag, it was a soft and spasm-y sort of laugh.

My aunt looked from Kate to me. “Must be from your mother’s side of the family.”

And there was an excellent sequel opportunity! I thanked Kate for the water, and said, “Speaking of Mom, I talked to her the other day and she asked how Cousin Celeste was doing. You knew that Kate and I were over at the boardinghouse for breakfast the other day, right?”

“That’s what you said you were going to do,” Aunt Frances said, “so I assumed you did it. And I’ve been waiting patiently ever since to hear how it went.” She sounded almost snarky, a completely un-Aunt-Frances-like tone.

I glanced at Otto. He caught my eye and shook his head the tiniest bit. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I added Pull Otto aside to my mental list of things to do before we left.

“Sorry,” I told my aunt. “You’re right, I should have called.”

“Apology accepted. And I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s just . . .” She looked off into the dark green of the trees. “It’s just different.”

“Not as much as you might think,” I said. “At least across the street. A pair of guests made Sunday breakfast and were going to try kiteboarding in the afternoon. Another pair was asking about scenic back roads, and the final pair was looking forward to having the house to themselves. So it looks like the old Saturday breakfast routine has shifted to Sunday.”

I finished with a great big smile, but Aunt Frances just stared at me. “That’s nice,” she finally said. Then she must have heard how she sounded, because she added, “Really nice.”

Rafe glanced from her to me, opened his mouth, shut it without saying anything, then opened it again. “This chicken is great, Frances. What was in the marinade?”

Since he’d barely eaten two bites of chicken, I knew full well he was doing his best to change the subject. It was good timing, though, and I flashed him a grateful smile.

Afterward, I told my aunt that Otto and I would do the dishes. “You three play a game of croquet or something,” I said to Rafe. “If you’re feeling up to it. You looked a little funny earlier.”

“Just thinking about some work stuff.” He patted my head, something I didn’t tolerate from anyone else. “I’m fine.”

I frowned. “It’s July. What work do you have?”

“Work on the house,” he said. “It’s July, silly. Why would I be thinking about school?”

I gave him a gentle push in the direction of the croquet set and carried a pile of dishes inside. Otto loaded the dishwasher and I put the food away in what I hoped were the right places.

“So earlier,” I said, “I thought Aunt Frances would be glad. About Celeste running the boardinghouse the same as she did.”

“Ah.” Otto nodded. “She is. Or she will be. What she’s dealing with now is, if my experience with retirement is any judge, a dislocation of sorts. The old way of living is gone, but the new way hasn’t settled in yet.”

That made sense. Sort of. I filed it away in my head, hoping to remember it when the time came for me to retire, which was at least thirty years off, so remembering was unlikely. “How long will it take her to get used to the new way?”

“Everybody’s different.” Otto looked out the window, where Aunt Frances was relocating the croquet wickets Rafe had haphazardly stuck in the ground. “Could be weeks, could be months. Some people never truly adjust to retirement.”

I must have made a noise, because he turned to me. “Don’t worry, Minnie. She’ll come around.”

“What if she doesn’t?”

“She will.” He smiled. “I have a plan.”

* * *

Otto’s plan, it turned out, was to take Aunt Frances on a tour of northwest lower Michigan. That she’d lived there more than forty years didn’t seem to bother him. And he was probably right, because when you live somewhere, you tend to get occupied by the work of living and don’t get around to doing the fun stuff.

He rattled off Up North summer things she hadn’t done in years. Ride the Ironton Ferry. Pick cherries. Sit on the patio at Legs and watch the sun go down over Lake Michigan. Kayak the Chain of Lakes. “And I don’t want to limit us to the northern lower part of Michigan,” Otto said. “We should tour the Soo Locks. Go up into Canada and take the Agawa Canyon train. Take the circle tour around Lake Superior.”

Ideas gushed forth, and by the time the dishes were washed and put away, he’d described activities to last five summers and I was half convinced his plan would work.

The next morning, standing and watching coffee drip down into the carafe, I wasn’t so sure.

“You look sad. What’s the matter?” Holly had just come into the library’s break room, carrying a small plate of her legendary brownies.

I hesitated, thinking about choices and consequences. Then, shushing the calorie-oriented part of my conscience, I reached for the closest brownie—which was also the biggest, but sometimes serendipity is a real thing—and said, “I’m suddenly feeling much better. What’s the occasion?”

She put the plate on the table and smiled at it. “Brian wanted a care package to take with him. These are what’s left after I boxed up his and the kids ate theirs.”

“Well, thanks for bringing any at all.” I ate a bite and closed my eyes, the better to enjoy the sensory rush. “These are so good.”

“Yep.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. “Sit down with me for a minute.”

“Sure, what’s up? Oh, hey, Mr. Goodwin. How are you this fine morning?”

The white-haired Mr. Goodwin, everyone’s favorite library patron (not that we had favorites, of course), came into the room, sniffing the air. “Does my nose deceive me? Ah, it does not!” He pointed at the brownies with his cane. “Fifty dollars to your favorite charity if I get the last one.”

Holly laughed. “No charge for you, Mr. Goodwin.”

“You sell yourself short, Holly Terpening.” He shuffled to the table and took the smallest square. “Now, tell me that Kelsey brewed the coffee, and then life will be perfect.”

“Sorry.” I smiled. It had been because of Mr. Goodwin’s self-diagnosis of caffeine deprivation that we’d opened the staff break room to the general public. It mostly worked out, except for the one time Mr. Goodwin set up the coffee. He made Kelsey’s version look like tea.

The three of us chatted for a bit, then Mr. Goodwin returned to the reading room and Holly turned back to me. “First off, what’s wrong? For a second you were looking like you did last winter when Fat Boys Pizza closed for a week.”

“Just some family stuff. I’m sure it’ll work out.”

Holly looked at me. “You don’t want to talk about it? No? Well, if you’re sure . . . what I really want to ask about is”—she glanced at the door, which was still empty—“is about Stan’s money for the library. Everyone has been saying what they want left and right, but you haven’t said a word. So I’m wondering. Do you know something we don’t?”

My response was immediate and one hundred percent truthful. “Nope.”

“Really?” Holly’s expression was disappointment mixed with a dash of disbelief and the tiniest sprinkle of hope.

“Really.” I watched the hope vanish, the disbelief fade, and the disappointment swell. “Sorry, but I just don’t. It’s a board decision. Graydon seems as clueless as we are.”