Kelly Sofie - Curiosity Thrilled The Cat

“Of course,” I said. “But how will you get home?”

“I can walk,” she said. “I do it all the time.”

“You don’t have to stay, Rebbie,” Ami said from the backseat, but her face didn’t match her words.

Rebecca and I exchanged looks.

“Sorry, sweetie. You’re stuck with me,” she said. “At least for the next couple of days.”

I saw Ami’s shoulders sag with relief.

“Thank you for everything, Kathleen,” Rebecca said.

“Anytime, Rebecca,” I said. “I mean it. Call me if Ami needs anything or if you’d like me to come and get you.”

She nodded, undid her seat belt and got out of the car.

Ami leaned over the seat. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m so glad you moved in behind Rebbie.”

“Me, too, Ami,” I said. “Take care of yourself.”

I drove Rebecca’s car back to her house, backing it into the driveway so it could be easily driven out the next time. Rebecca had left her sweater behind on the seat and it had fallen onto the floor mat. I picked it up. There was a smudge of dirt on the bottom edge. I decided to take the sweater with me and wash it for Rebecca.

I locked the car, stuck the keys in my purse and walked through the backyard to my house. Hercules was in the porch, watching out the window. He jumped down off the bench, looked past me, then at me and meowed.

“What is it?” I said. “If you’re looking for Rebecca, she’s with Ami and Ami’s fine.” Herc followed me into the kitchen. Owen was sitting just inside the door. “Rebecca’s with Ami and Ami’s all right,” I said.

I tossed Rebecca’s sweater over the back of a chair. “I need coffee,” I said to no one in particular.

Once the coffeemaker was doing its thing I turned toward the fridge. Maybe I’d have French toast and fruit instead of crepes. Owen was standing on his back legs, front paws on the seat of the chair where I’d dropped Rebecca’s sweater. He was chewing on one sleeve.

“Owen! Stop that!” I shouted. Startled, he dropped to all fours on the floor and looked at me with the same stupid expression he got when he was chewing on one of his catnip chickens. “What is the matter with you?” I snapped. “That’s Rebecca’s sweater.”

I picked up the cardigan, folded it and laid it on the chair back. Then I went to the refrigerator for the fruit I’d been cutting up when Rebecca had knocked on the door. When I turned around again Owen was in midjump, trying to snag Rebecca’s sweater with a paw. “Hey! Stop it!” I yelled, snatching the sweater before the cat could get it.

Owen hung his head. Hercules appeared in the living room doorway. I bunched up the sweater with one hand and held it against me as I bent down to Owen. “What on earth is wrong with you?” I asked, lowering my voice to normal volume.

Owen looked up at me and then thrust his head into the tangle of Rebecca’s sweater. Before I could push him away he pulled his head back and shook it. If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn there was a Fred the Funky Chicken hidden in the sleeve.

I looked at Owen, who was doing his best not to look at me. Maybe I wasn’t exactly wrong. I reached down and scratched the top of his head. “It’s okay. I’m not mad at you,” I said.

I stood up, shook out the sweater and held the right arm close to my face. It smelled faintly of catnip. I bent down to Hercules, holding out the sleeve to him. He sniffed, made a face and pulled back his head—the same reaction he had to Owen’s collection of catnip chickens. Rebecca had promised she wouldn’t buy Owen any more chickens. The poultice must have had catnip in it, I realized. I didn’t know catnip was a remedy for arthritis. No wonder Owen was acting so weird.

I went downstairs, filled the sink next to the washer with warm water and a bit of soap and left the sweater soaking.

I was just finishing the last bite of my French toast when the phone rang. I padded into the living room in my sock feet, figuring it was either my mother or Rebecca. It was neither.

“Hi, Kathleen.” Lise yawned through the phone at me. “Guess what I found out.”

19

Single Lotus Kick

“Hi, Lise,” I said. “Is this about Gregor Easton?”

“Oh, yes, it is,” she said, and there was a smug gleefulness in her voice. Then she yawned again.

“Have you been to bed yet?” I asked.

Lise’s husband was a jazz guitarist who played regularly in clubs all over Boston and up and down the East Coast. He didn’t keep exactly regular hours, and on the weekend neither did Lise.

“I’m lying across the bed right now,” Lise said.

“So what did you find out?” I asked. “I got your e-mail.” I pictured her sprawled across her queen-sized bed with all the pillows piled under her head.

“Well, as I told you in the e-mail, Easton was born Douglas Gregory Williams. The pulled-himself-upfrom-humble-beginnings story?”

“A fake?” I had to change position because one of my feet was falling asleep.

“Uh-huh. Just like the name. He did his first degree at a small university in Florida. And get this: It was a teaching degree.”

“Easton was going to be a teacher?”

“Apparently,” Lise said. “Hang on a second; I’m losing a pillow.” There were some muffled bumps and then she was back. “There’s a year and a half unaccounted for, as far as I can tell, after he got that degree. Maybe he was teaching, for all I know. Anyway, after that he enrolled in the graduate music program at Oberlin Conservatory. He shaved a couple of years off his age at that point, too.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “Easton went to Oberlin Conservatory?”

“Yep.” When Lise got excited her educated, cultured way of speaking disappeared.

Violet had gone to Oberlin. My heart started to race. “But I thought his graduate degree was from the University of Cincinnati.”

“It is. Easton went to Oberlin when he was still Douglas Gregory Williams—and he was only there for a year. He didn’t graduate.”

“Wow.” I pulled my legs up underneath me. “Do you know why he left?”

“Does a bear have a hairy butt?” she chortled. “Yes, I know.”

A goofy Lise reminded me of the eighteen-year-old girl from northern Maine I’d met in college.

“So?” I prompted.

“Scandal,” she crowed. “Sex, drugs and rock and roll.”

“What?”

“Hang on a sec,” she said. “Yes, babe,” I heard her say. “I’d love a cup.” Then she was back again. “Okay, so there weren’t any drugs that I heard about, and it was classical music, not rock and roll, but the sex part definitely happened.”

“Do I want to hear this, Lise?” I asked, wishing I had a big cup of coffee myself.

She laughed. “Don’t worry. I don’t have any gory details.”

“What do you have?” I heard her take a slurp of coffee before she answered.

“Two things. First of all, Easton was struggling in his composition classes, and then suddenly he got very, very good.”

“He was cheating?”

“That’s the general consensus among people I talked to.”

I stretched both arms over my head. “He could have been homesick or just needed time to adjust to the program.”

“Maybe. But no one seems to think that was it. Apparently he didn’t go from good to better; he went from mediocre to great.” I heard more coffee-slurping sounds.

“So was he kicked out for cheating?” I asked.

“No,” Lise said. “There was a fair amount of talk and a lot of suspicion, but no proof.”

“So, what’s the sex part?”

Hercules wandered over. I stretched my hand down to pet him.

“Easton took some pictures of another student in the program—a female student. Now, by today’s standards they’re pretty tame, but then . . .”