Лори Касс - Cat With A Clue

“You’re like her,” he said. “I mean, you’re short and she’s nice and tall, and you have all that curly black hair and she has that nice smooth blond hair. Plus you read all the time and she’s more fun and—”

“So how are we alike?” I asked, cutting into the brutal blow-by-blow comparison.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at the floor. “You’re both smart. Way smarter than me. And you’re both, you know, going places. I’ll never be anything different from what I am right now.”

I blinked at the naked truth of his words. Who knew that Mitchell was so self-aware? Served me right for thinking that I had him all figured out. Once again I realized that we could never truly know what went on inside someone else, and my heart ached for him. “If Bianca likes you,” I said, touching his arm, “she likes you just the way you are.”

“But will she ever, ahh, you know”—he shrugged and kicked at the floor—“love me. Like the way I’m getting to love her.”

Whoa. I was not qualified to give romantic advice. My previous relationship had fallen to bits in less than a year, and before that I’d fallen out of love with the guy I’d become engaged to in graduate school, so slowly it had taken a total lack of interest in bridal magazines to make me realize what had happened.

“Mitchell,” I said, “there are only two people who can help you.”

“Yeah?” He perked up. “Do you have their numbers? Because I’ll take any advice I can get, even if I don’t like it.”

But I was shaking my head. “The only two people who can help are you and Bianca. Talk to her, Mitchell. Tell her how you feel.”

He sighed. “Not going to happen. I use the L word now, and she’ll run for the hills. I need her to love me before I say anything, see?”

“How do you know she doesn’t?”

“Why would she?”

The conversation was starting to circle around. “Do you two have a good time together?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And she calls you to make dates?” He nodded, and I said, “Then she obviously likes you, Mitchell. If you love her, give her time to fall in love with you.”

“But what if—”

“But nothing,” I said firmly. “Give her some time, Mitchell.”

“What should I do while I’m waiting?” he asked.

That I could answer. “Stay busy,” I told him. “Best way to not think about something is to stay as busy as possible.”

He nodded slowly, then more vigorously. “Okay, yeah. That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense.” A wide grin lit up his face, almost making me forget about the four days’ worth of beard he hadn’t bothered to shave off before going into public. “Thanks, Minnie. I knew I could count on you.”

I watched him saunter off, the swagger already back in his walk, and wondered what I’d done this time.

Two hours later, I hurried through the back door of Cookie Tom’s. On bookmobile days, I had a standing order for two dozen of whatever he had plenty of, and even though I was running late, I didn’t want to show up at the first stop empty-handed.

“Hey, Tom,” I said, standing at the end of the glass display cases. Though it was late morning, there was still a line of people in the bakery’s main room. Which could only mean that, no matter what the calendar said, it was officially summer. Pam Fazio, a tall travel mug of coffee in hand, was in the middle, listening to a sixtyish woman not much taller than me, who was saying how much she’d like it if Pam would purchase her collection of china cups and saucers. Pam caught my eye and toasted me. “Morning,” she said.

Tom nodded my way. “Hang on, Minnie, I’ll be right with you.” His summer helper, a high school girl, was ringing up orders while he was stuffing white bags and boxes with doughnuts, cookies, croissants, and muffins. I averted my eyes from the custard-filled chocolate long johns and dug the appropriate amount of cash out of my wallet.

A twentysomething man who was standing in line looked vaguely familiar, and I gave him a genial nod, trying to remember where I knew him from. The diner? Maybe. Or did he look like someone I’d gone to high school with? Then again, it could indeed be someone I’d attended high school with, even though I’d lived my early years in the greater Detroit area. Or it could be an actor from a hit movie I’d never seen. In a tourist town like Chilson, you never knew who you might run into.

“Mostly chocolate chip.” Tom plopped a bag in front of me. “Some raisin, some oatmeal. Tossed in some broken peanut butters, too.”

“You are a gentleman and a scholar,” I said, handing over my money. “A prince among—”

“Hey,” the sort-of familiar guy brayed. “Why does she get to cut in line?”

I flicked a glance at Tom. In all the months I’d been getting early dibs on cookies, we’d never once had anyone comment. “Sorry,” I said, “if this—”

“No apologies necessary,” Tom said, smiling at me, then turned to face the complainer. “This is my store, and I get to choose how I do business. Ms. Minnie here drives the bookmobile and she buys cookies for the patrons out of her own pocket. Getting her on her way quickly is my contribution to the bookmobile.”

“Yeah,” the guy said, “but—”

His objection was drowned out by the happy chatter and smiles of everyone else standing in line.

“There’s a bookmobile in Chilson? That’s wonderful!”

“Every time my grandson sees the bookmobile, he wants me to read him a story.”

“Someone told me the bookmobile has a cat. Is that true?”

“Is there any way to make a donation?”

I smiled, handed out some business cards, and said I’d be happy to talk to anyone if they called me during library hours. Angry Guy folded his arms and didn’t say a word. “Sorry,” I murmured to Tom as I picked up the big white bag.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Go forth and deliver books.”

So I did.

* * *

Not much later, I was behind the wheel of a thirty-one-foot-long moving library, complete with more than three thousand books, CDs, DVDs, jigsaw puzzles, and games. Also along for the ride were the sixtyish Julia Beaton, and the thirteen-pound, three-year-old Eddie, who was in the strapped-down cat carrier at Julia’s feet.

“Oh, my dear,” Julia, my part-time bookmobile clerk said, when I finished telling her about Andrea Vennard. “What a wretched thing to have in your memory.”

Her empathic reaction made my eyes sting. Then again, if anyone knew empathy, it was Julia. She’d grown up in Chilson, but had hightailed it for the bright lights of New York City to make it as a model or bust as soon as her parents had given the nod.

Bust as a model she did, but her second-choice career, that of acting, served her to the tune of multiple Tony Awards. However, since she’d stuck to Broadway and never set foot in Hollywood, and with Chilson being Chilson, she’d never achieved much local fame. Julia being Julia, she found this extremely funny and welcome. “Why would I want complete strangers staring at me when I’m not onstage?” she’d asked, and I gave her the point.

I’d looked up reviews of plays in which she’d once starred and read that one of her strengths as an actor was in understanding people, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that she had so quickly sensed what kept returning to my thoughts and too-vivid imagination.

“How did you sleep last night?” she asked.

“Surprisingly well,” I said. “Then again, I had some help from our little pal down there.”

Neither Eddie nor the patrons would have been pleased to have a bookmobile absent of its bookmobile cat, so, after leaving the library that morning, I’d carefully driven the extremely expensive vehicle from the library down the narrow road that led to the marina, sat it temporarily in the parking lot, and run in to fetch Mr. Ed.