Лори Касс - Wrong Side Of The Paw

I shook my head sadly. “At some point you’re going to realize that you’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“Oh, I know I’m not funny,” he said cheerfully. “But can I help it if other people think I am?”

“Yes.” Then, before he could ask how, exactly, he was supposed to help it, I quickly said the first thing that popped into my head. “I moved up to the boardinghouse last night.”

“Figured that when I didn’t see any lights on in your boat this morning. I had a late meeting last night; otherwise I would have helped.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know what your version of help is like. Supervision from a distance with a beer in one hand.”

He grinned. “Someone’s got to do it. I have to say, though . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Go ahead,” I said, dramatically standing tall and jutting out my chin. “Whatever you have to say, I can take it.”

Rafe smiled. “This may be too much for you.”

“Hah. I come from a long line of strong women. I can take anything.”

“Okay, then.” He shifted his gaze away, and when he looked back, his face was clear of fun and laughter. He looked sincere and serious, which was so unusual that I steeled myself for anything from the worst joke in the world to the news that his mom had been diagnosed with some incurable disease.

“I’ll miss you,” he said quietly.

“You . . . what?” I stared at him, and the world around me shifted.

There was a slight pause, then he said, “Mostly Eddie, of course, but you, too. Who’s going to hand me tools?”

The world righted itself; Rafe was back to joking. “Try thinking ahead,” I suggested. “I hear it can work wonders.”

He grinned crookedly. “Like you’d know?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but a car was coming, so I stepped away from Rafe’s car and waved him away.

Rafe drove off and I watched him go. He missed me. He hadn’t been joking about that; he really missed me. “I miss you, too,” I whispered after him. Because I realized that I did. We spent a lot of time together in the summers, living so close, and I would miss his banter and laughter and . . . him.

“Don’t be stupid,” I muttered. Rafe and I have been friends for twenty years. If there had ever been anything more, we would have figured it out years ago.

With that settled, I took one step in the direction of lunch, then came to a sudden halt. For some reason, meeting up with the McCades had reminded me of a small task that needed doing, and since there was no time like the present, I reversed direction and went into the toy store, the bells attached to the front door jingling merrily.

“Hey, Minnie.” Mitchell, who was standing too close to the top of a stepladder for my comfort, waved at me. “What’s up?”

I tipped my head back to look at him. “You, it looks like.”

“Me? What . . .” Then he laughed. “Oh, I get it.” He reached, readjusted the large hanging model airplane to a slightly different angle, then clambered down the ladder and looked up at his handiwork. “Bet no one dusted that thing in years.”

I could see why, since it was snugged up next to a tall ceiling and no one would ever notice the amount of dust on it, but I was glad Mitchell was taking such a proprietary interest in the store he was managing. “You did a nice job,” I said.

“You’re the second person who said that to me in six months.”

No one should get that little encouragement, and I made a mental note to compliment the library staff more often. “Who was the other one?”

“The contractor I worked for last summer.” He grinned. “The county building inspector was doing his thing, and it was my framing he was looking at. My boss said he couldn’t think of a time when that inspector walked away without writing him up for something.”

My attention went sharp. “Was that Ron Driskell?”

“Yeah, that’s him. My boss couldn’t stand him, but I always figured he was just doing his job. Kind of a crappy one, if you ask me, but I suppose someone has to do it.”

“How did Driskell feel about your boss?” From Mitchell’s puzzled expression, it was clear he had no idea what I meant, so I kept going. “Did they get along? Were they friendly? Did they argue on job sites?”

“Oh, I see what you’re saying. No, they were good, far as I ever saw. Talked about sports a lot. Driskell’s a Lions guy and my boss is a Packers fan, but they were both fans of the Tigers, so it was all okay.”

“Was Driskell like that with most contractors? Get along with them like that?”

Mitchell shrugged. “I only worked for that one builder. All I know for sure is that he’s a black and white kind of guy.”

So Dale Lacombe and Ron Driskell might have had a special—and acrimonious—relationship. Interesting.

“Doing any shopping today?” Mitchell smiled down at me from his six-plus feet of height. “Something for Sally’s birthday next month? If she’s still into horses, I have the perfect thing.”

Another astounding by-product of Mitchell’s new job was the realization that his memory for arcane facts and figures was being put to productive use. My older brother, my only sibling, had two daughters and a son, and Mitchell already knew not only their names but also their birthdays, favorite colors, interests, and current career indications.

“She’s all about horses,” I said, “but I’ll stop by some other time to talk about presents. I wanted to tell you that we have a small stack of books for you. I know Donna called a couple of times and I wanted to make sure you’d received the message.”

Mitchell made a face. “I don’t see myself coming in there for a while.”

“But your fines are all paid up.” I frowned. “You can check out anything you’d like. I even found a copy of Philip Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? for you.”

“Yeah, well.” He blew out a breath. “It’s that new director. Jennifer what’s-her-name. She’s . . . she’s not from here, if you know what I mean.”

Ash’s mother had said something similar about Carmen. “She could be from Timbuctoo and still be a good library director.”

He shrugged. “Don’t care where she’s from. She just doesn’t belong. All she wants to do is change things. Like everything we were doing before was wrong.”

I did agree, actually, but felt compelled to defend my boss. “She’s new and she’s trying to impress the board, that’s all. I wouldn’t take her need to change things as a true criticism.”

“Yeah?” Mitchell’s hands flexed. “Then why did she tell me I shouldn’t be reading stuff like Robert Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy ? That I was a grown man and should be reading things to improve myself, not reading science fiction written for fourteen-year-olds.”

“She did?” I asked weakly.

“And she said there was no reason for anyone over the age of ten to spend their time on a jigsaw puzzle, not when there were so many things in the world that needed doing.”

The library’s reading room had a table that was practically dedicated to the assembly of jigsaw puzzles. There was a tall stack of the puzzles up in the Friends of the Library book sale room, and they seemed to wander downstairs on their own.

I couldn’t think of a time when there wasn’t a puzzle going on that table, and there was almost always someone sitting there, putting in a piece or three. It was quiet entertainment for dozens of people and I’d seen everyone from third-shift workers at a local factory to a state legislator doing their bit.

“Well,” I said uncomfortably, “that’s just her opinion. She’s entitled to thinking whatever she wants about jigsaw puzzles. Maybe she had a bad experience as a kid, or something.”