Kelly Sofie - Curiosity Thrilled The Cat

I stared at her. What the heck was she doing?

“Your phone?” Ruby said.

Maggie nodded her head vigorously. “Uh-huh.” She caught my eye. “Sorry, Kathleen. I didn’t want it to get broken so I tucked it in your bag.” She held up both hands. “Who knew vibrate could be that vigorous?”

“That’s okay,” I said. I cleared my throat. “I’ll, umm . . . I’ll get it for you.”

I scurried over to the table. Keeping my body between the tote and everyone else, I squatted down and looked through the top mesh panel. Two green eyes met mine.

“Cut. It. Out,” I whispered through clenched teeth.

Hercules made a noise that sounded an awful lot like a snort.

“Stay still and stay quiet. We’re leaving in a minute.” I straightened, bumping into Maggie. “‘Who knew vibrate could be so vigorous’?” I said.

“You’d rather be known as the librarian who carries her cat in her gym bag?” she retorted.

“Good point,” I said. I slid the bag onto my shoulder and kept it against my body with an elbow. “I’m going to get you-know-who out of here.”

“Okay,” Maggie said. “I’ll see you in an hour or so.”

Violet and Roma were standing just outside the door. Roma pulled a water bottle out of her backpack as I slipped past them and grabbed my hoodie off the hook.

“Violet, what’s going to happen to the music festival now?” I asked as I tied the sweatshirt around my waist again.

Not a strand of Violet’s silver hair in its sleek French twist was out of place. “I don’t know,” she said. “The committee is meeting tomorrow to try to figure that out.”

“I’d hate to see the festival canceled,” Roma said. Her face was flushed.

“So would I,” Violet said. “But Gregor Easton was a last-minute replacement himself. I have no idea how we could get anyone of his caliber to take over at this point.”

“How did you get him to step in for the original music director?” I asked.

“Actually, he contacted us.”

Roma looked at her with surprise. “Really? I didn’t know that.”

“Oh, yes,” Violet said, brushing invisible lint off of her T-shirt. “He’d heard about Zinia needing emergency surgery—apparently they’re close friends—and he’d had an unexpected cancellation in his own schedule. So he told Zinia he’d step up. He got in touch with us, and that was that.”

“That was convenient,” I said.

“Yes, it was,” Violet said. “Somehow I don’t think we’re going to be that lucky twice.”

I heard the street door below open and someone started up the stairs. After a moment Ami appeared, in denim shorts and a tank top, eating what had to be a container of Tubby’s frozen yogurt. She licked the stubby wooden spoon—at Tubby’s they didn’t use plastic spoons—and smiled at us. “Hi,” she said. “I’m here to get Rebecca.” Her voice went up at the end of the sentence, making it sound like a question, like she wasn’t quite sure if she was at the right place at the right time.

“I’m ready,” Rebecca said from the doorway. I lifted her tote bag down and handed it to her. Thank you, she mouthed. She pulled her scarf out of the top of the bag and held it up. “I found my scarf,” she said to Ami. “I guess I left it here last time.”

“I told you it was probably here,” Violet said.

“Mmmm, good,” Ami said around a mouthful of yogurt and strawberries. “But I would’ve made you another one.”

“I like this one,” Rebecca said, tucking the length of fabric back in her tote. “It’s the first scarf you made.”

Ami smiled at her over the cardboard cup in her hand. “You’re such a mushball, Rebbie. You have everything I ever gave you—every present, every piece of paper.”

“She has every piece of paper everyone ever gave her,” Violet said tartly.

“Violet Cole, are you implying that I’m a pack rat?” Rebecca asked, hands on her hips in mock outrage, eyes twinkling.

“No,” Violet said. “I’m coming right out and saying it. Rebecca, you are a pack rat.”

Rebecca drew herself up to her full five-foot-threeinches. “I prefer to think of myself as an environmentalist and conservator of history.”

Violet shook her head slightly. “And I prefer to think of myself as twenty-five and hot as a two-dollar pistol. Doesn’t make it true.”

Everyone laughed. Hearing the elegant, composed Violet say “hot as a two-dollar pistol” was kind of like hearing a two-year-old repeat an off-color word. Maybe you shouldn’t laugh, but you couldn’t quite help it.

Ami came up the last couple of steps then and took Rebecca’s bag.

Rebecca turned to me, reached over and pushed back a few stray strands of hair that had fallen on my cheek. “I’ll get my scissors out this weekend and just give you a little more shape,” she said with a smile.

I smiled back at her. “Thank you.”

“Are you ready?” Ami asked. She held up her cardboard cup. “I have one of these for you, packed in some ice down in the car.”

Rebecca’s smile got even bigger. “You are a darling girl,” she said, hooking her arm through the younger woman’s. She gave me a little wave with her free hand and they disappeared down the stairs.

I could feel Hercules wriggling inside the bag again. “I have to get going, too,” I said to Violet and Roma. “See you next time.” I started down the steps, holding my bag close to my hip. “Okay,” I whispered. “We’re going.”

I walked quickly to the library. There were a lot of people out in the downtown, but it was deserted at the library. Jason was at the checkout desk.

“Quiet night?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, brushing a lock of blond hair out of his eyes. “Nobody’s been in since suppertime.” He pointed to the book carts behind him. “All those new kids’ books are ready to go on the shelves.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s a big help.” Jason was my summer intern, and a real find. He looked like a teen-magazine heartthrob, with blond hair and an easy smile, but he lived and breathed books. He wanted to be a writer and he was working his way through the classics—Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway.

“Where’s Abigail?” I asked.

Jason pointed over his head. “She’s in the workroom, getting all those magazines ready for the yard sale.”

I headed for my office first and let Hercules loose. He poked his head out of the bag, blinked and sniffed my desktop, then came all the way out and walked over a stack of files to the edge of the desk, where he jumped into my chair. Which set the chair spinning.

I darted around the side of the desk and stopped the chair. Hercules looked woozily up at me.

I reached down to pat his head. “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

I started for the second floor but couldn’t resist detouring over to the computer room. True to his word, Oren had assembled all six carrels and chairs. I ran my finger over the closest table. There was no dust, no dirt on the light wood. That was Oren. A computer box sat next to each workstation. As soon as Larry had the wiring fixed and the new outlets working, I could set up the computers, and after a hundred years the Mayville Heights Free Public Library would be part of the electronic age.

Abigail was in the workroom next door to the staff lounge. She was sitting on the floor, two rows of stacked and tied magazines behind her. “Hi,” I said.

She looked up and smiled. Her gray hair was pulled back in a tight braid and her rimless reading glasses had slipped down to the end of her nose. She’d told me she’d started going gray in her twenties. Now, a couple of decades later, her hair was a beautiful mix of red and silver. Somehow it didn’t make her look old—just smarter. Self-consciously I touched my own mussed hair.