Лори Касс - Wrong Side Of The Paw

It was early enough to go home and crawl back into bed with Eddie for a nap and still wake up before the hour hand on the clock came around to double digits, but now that I was up and nicely caffeinated, I was wide awake.

I could do essentially the same thing, but stay awake and read the next book on my To Be Read pile, but that was my plan for the afternoon. Not that I had a problem reading all morning and all afternoon—I’d done it before and would do it again, happily and with no guilt whatsoever—but I was feeling the need for some human companionship.

Kristen would still be in bed, and I was going to see her in a few hours anyway. I could stop by Rafe’s house, but now that it was October, it was bow season and he’d be sitting up in a tree until noon. I toyed with the idea of using the key he hid on a nail underneath the back porch. I could let myself in and . . . and do what? Move his minimalist furniture around? Find his current set of plans and red mark it with suggested changes?

It was tempting, and if Eric Apney, my nearest boat neighbor and a new friend of Rafe’s, was still around, I might have gone ahead, but practical jokes weren’t much fun by yourself, and Eric had pulled his boat out of the water a couple of weeks ago.

I thought about walking over to Holly’s house. Or to Josh’s. Or to any number of other friends. Or up to the Lakeview Medical Care Facility, where I knew a number of elderly folks through the new outreach program I’d been developing at the library, but it wasn’t even nine o’clock—a little early on a Sunday morning for a drop-in visit.

I grinned into the morning air and started walking. Because there was one place where I’d always be welcome any time of the day or night and that was suddenly the place I wanted to be.

• • •

“Minnie!” Aunt Frances wrapped me up in a big hug. “I didn’t expect to see you this morning. If I’d known, I would have laid another plate.”

“Top of the morning.” Otto, who’d stood when I’d walked into the boardinghouse’s big kitchen, smiled at me. “Have you been out walking? You have a nice rosy tint to your cheeks.”

“Had breakfast with Ash at the Round Table,” I said. “But I will take some coffee . . . No, you sit. I’ll get it.” I waved them both back into their chairs and opened the mug cupboard. “What’s new with you two?”

The silence that followed felt heavy. I turned and looked back at them just in time to see a long, communicative glance be exchanged.

“What’s the matter?” A sudden fear jumped into my skin. Aunt Frances and Otto were both in their mid-sixties, which didn’t seem nearly as old as it used to be, but it was also an age where things could start to go seriously wrong.

“Nothing’s the matter,” Otto said. “We were just making some decisions, that’s all.”

Silent relief sang in my ears. “Oh? About what?” I poured my coffee and sat at the round table that filled one corner of the kitchen.

“The wedding.”

“About time,” I said, nodding. “I can’t believe you haven’t tied the knot yet.”

“No need to rush into these things,” Aunt Frances said.

“If you’re going to do it at all, you might as well do it right,” Otto murmured.

I squinted. “There’s a right way?”

“In any given circumstance, yes,” my aunt said. “And we’ve concluded that what’s right for us is for me to move into Otto’s house after we get married.”

“The wedding is set for April,” her fiancé said.

“In Bermuda,” Aunt Frances said.

I’d been turning my head from one to the other, like a spectator at a tennis match, but I stopped and stared at my aunt. “Bermuda?”

“I’ve always wanted to go,” she said.

“You have?”

“For years and years.” She looked at Otto with so much love that I could almost see it in the air.

“A destination wedding.” The more I thought about it, the more it sounded like an excellent idea. I wasn’t so sure I liked the idea of her moving out of the boardinghouse, but I’d think about that later. “I like it. I like it a lot.”

“Good. And now it’s time to get to church,” Aunt Frances said, pushing back her chair. “Would you like to come along?”

I blinked. Church? For years, the only times my aunt and I had attended church was Christmas Eve and Easter, if we were in town. I glanced at Otto, who must have been the reason behind this change.

He smiled at me, and I felt a rush of affection for this man who was making my aunt so happy. After all, sometimes change could be good. Sometimes even very good. I pushed away my concerns about the future of the boardinghouse and smiled back.

“Sure,” I said. “That sounds nice.”

• • •

That evening, Leese whooped with delight. “It’s the blond bomber!” She threw her arms around a grinning Kristen. “As skinny as ever and I bet just as sassy.”

Kristen hugged her back. “Sassier every day, just ask my staff. And I hear you could have been partner at that multi-name law firm downstate. Nicely done.”

The two former competitors slapped each other on the back one more time, then the three of us pulled around stools to sit at one of the stainless steel counters in the Three Seasons kitchen. Out in the dining room, we heard the distant grumble of the vacuum cleaner being run by Kristen’s maintenance guy.

It was a standard part of Sunday evenings for me to stop by Kristen’s restaurant for dessert, and though we’d never expanded beyond the two of us, that didn’t mean we couldn’t. I’d called Kristen in the afternoon, asking if she objected to me bringing along a visitor.

“Male or female?” she’d asked.

“Female.”

“Is she fun?”

“Do you seriously think I’d bring someone who wasn’t?”

She’d acknowledged my point and readily agreed. Now, I watched the two of them catch up on fifteen years of life events.

“Could have made partner,” Leese said, nodding acceptance at the glass of red wine Kristen held out, “but that would have meant having to, you know, work downstate. I was tired of all the traffic and the lights and the noise.”

It was a familiar story for people who’d been raised in the north country. Young people often headed downstate to Grand Rapids or the Detroit area to find jobs and to get away from a place where everyone knew—and expected to know—everyone else’s business. After a few years of expressway rush hours and half-hour waits in line at the grocery store, many yearned to return, but only a fortunate few were able to do so.

I looked at two of those lucky ones, reached for my wine, and kept listening.

“You couldn’t talk them into opening a branch up here?” Kristen poured her own glass and pushed the cork back into the bottle.

Leese sipped her wine, made appreciative noises, then shrugged. “If I’d tried hard enough, maybe. But I was tired of the office politics and the quest for billable hours. I went to law school so I could help folks, not to make a huge pile of money.”

“Hear, hear!” Kristen toasted Leese. “I wish you good luck and a small pile of money. And if anyone asks me for a lawyer recommendation, I’ll send them your way.”

“She specializes in elder law,” I said.

“And cottage law,” Leese added. “It’s like estate planning with a twist.”

Kristen grinned. “You’re in the right place, my friend. Half the talk I overhear in this restaurant is about how the kids and grandkids will be able to afford the property taxes on the family cottage. Get me some business cards and in the spring I’ll start handing them out like dinner mints.”

I read Leese’s slightly puzzled look and explained. “The name of Kristen’s restaurant is also a descriptor of when she’s open. Three seasons.”