Софи Келли - A Tale Оf Two Kitties

I stepped into my red Keds and bent down to tie the laces. “You’re wasting your time,” I said in the general direction of the last place I’d seen Owen. “You can’t go with me in the truck because I’m going to walk.”

I counted silently to three and he appeared again.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m going to a meeting. You’d be bored.”

Owen made grumbling noises in the back of his throat and turned his head, pointedly looking away from me.

“I think you left a Funky Chicken in my closet,” I said.

One gray ear twitched but he still didn’t look at me.

“Look in my black pumps.”

Owen shook himself and started across the kitchen floor. “Mrr,” he said softly when he got to the living room doorway.

“You have a good day, too,” I said.

It was a gorgeous morning as I started down Mountain Road. The sun was high in the sky over Lake Pepin and it was already warmer than the typical high for a day in early November.

It had been a while since I’d walked to the library. It was something I used to do every day. When I’d discovered everything I wanted to do was within walking distance, I hadn’t bought a car. Eventually, Harrison Taylor had gifted me with a truck that could make it through even the worst Minnesota snow, a thank-you because I’d discovered some papers that had helped him find his daughter. Harrison’s son, Harry Junior, took care of the yard work at my small house. The old man and I had met when he’d accompanied his son one day. I’d stepped into my backyard and for a moment thought Santa Claus was sitting on one of my Adirondack chairs. Harrison and I had quickly become good friends.

Mountain Road curves in toward the center of town, so as I headed down the hill the roof of the library building came into view. The library sits just about at the midpoint of a curve of shoreline, protected from the water by a rock wall. The two-story brick building has an original stained-glass window at one end and a copper-roofed cupola, complete with the restored wrought-iron weather vane that had been placed on the roof when the library had been completed more than a hundred years ago.

The Mayville Heights Free Public Library is a Carnegie library, built in 1912 with money donated by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. I’d originally come to town to supervise the restoration of the building for its centenary, as well as update the collections and set up Internet access for the library’s patrons. Very quickly the town and its people began to feel like home and when I’d been offered the chance to stay I’d said yes.

At the bottom of the hill I waited for two cars to pass and then crossed over to the same side of the street as the library. My friend Maggie, who was an artist, had created a collage map of the hiking trails in the area for the new Tourism Coalition that would be ready to hand out in the spring. Now Everett Henderson had her working on some ideas for a similar map of Mayville Heights. Everett had financed the repairs to the library as a gift to the town. The self-made businessman knew how to get things done and I felt confident that we’d have a town map by spring.

Ella King drove past me, waving when she caught sight of me. I waved back. I was guessing that she had just dropped her husband, Keith, at the library for the same meeting I was headed to.

Several weeks previous, a crew working on renovations to the main post office had torn down a wall and discovered a small cache of photos and undelivered mail. No one had any idea how it had all ended up there. Based on the postmarks, the mail had been behind the wall a bit more than twenty years. Some of the photos were of the same vintage; others were much older. The letters and cards had all been delivered, but no one was quite sure what to do with the photos, and before I knew what was happening the library board had offered to take them. Several days later a small cardboard box had been delivered to the library.

Mary Lowe and I had opened the box at the front desk and looked through the photos. Mary was my most senior employee. I’d hoped she might recognize some of the people in the pictures. In the end she’d taken seven photos to give to, if not their original owners, a family who’d probably be happy to have them.

As far as the post office was concerned the photos were now the property of the library. I hated the thought of them sitting in a box on a shelf in our workroom. What I wanted to do was reunite the pictures with the people in them or at least a family member. I thought of how much fun my sister and brother and I had gotten from looking at old photos a friend of our parents had unearthed from early in their acting careers. I knew there had to be people who would treasure these images if I could just find them. That’s what this meeting was about.

Maggie was coming because I knew whatever we ended up doing would benefit from her artistic eye. Rebecca Henderson and Keith King were on the library board. Rebecca was a longtime member, while Keith was the newest addition, and I felt both of them would have some good suggestions. I’d also asked Sandra Godfrey, who was a mail carrier now but who had worked in the main post office at one time, to join us.

It looked like I was right about Ella having dropped off Keith. He was standing on the walkway in front of the building, talking to Abigail Pierce, another of my staff members. She was wearing a chocolate-brown sweater coat she’d knit herself, which went well with her red hair streaked with gray. Abigail was also an author and I was hearing lots of great buzz about her new children’s book.

Keith caught sight of me and smiled. He was about average height, wiry and strong with dark hair and a pair of black-and-stainless-steel-framed glasses. The glasses were new in the last month. “Hey, Kathleen,” he said, nudging one corner of the frames.

“Good morning,” I said. I pulled my keys out of my pocket and started up the library steps. “Why don’t you come wait inside?”

“You sure?” he asked.

I nodded. “You can have a cup of coffee before the meeting starts.”

“I can’t say no to that.” He grinned.

I unlocked the doors, shut off the alarm system and we stepped inside.

Abigail had switched on the main floor lights. She started for the stairs. “I’ll put the coffee on,” she said over her shoulder.

“You mind if I take a look at the magazines?” Keith asked.

I shook my head. “Go ahead. I’ll let you know when the coffee’s ready.”

I went upstairs and dropped my things in my office. It only took five minutes to get set up for the meeting since I’d gotten the room ready before I’d left the previous day.

“Napkins,” Abigail said, poking her head around the doorway.

“Thanks,” I said, taking them from her. I looked around the room. There were enough chairs around the long table, I’d brought down a whiteboard and there was a carafe of coffee along with another of hot water for tea.

Maggie arrived about five minutes after we opened. I was at the circulation desk sorting the books from the book drop when she walked in. She smiled when she saw me and walked across the mosaic tile floor to join me.

“Good morning. Is this really November?” she asked, unzipping her jacket. “I think it was colder in September than it is today.”

“According to the forecast we could hit close to seventy this afternoon,” I said.

“Global warming or something else?” Maggie cocked her head to one side and eyed me. “I know you know.”

“A weak La Niña that developed in October,” I said, feeling a little like that kid back in elementary school who had liked to read the encyclopedia for fun—which was exactly the kind of kid I had actually been.

Maggie grinned, playing with the fringe of the multicolored scarf she’d wrapped twice around her neck. “You’re better than Google!”