Софи Келли: A Tale Оf Two Kitties

He held out his hand and I shook it. “I’m Leo Janes,” he said with a smile. “I’ve heard a lot about you from my granddaughter.” He looked so much like his brother and yet he didn’t. The color in Victor’s hair and beard had been touched up, I suspected; Leo had more gray. He also had a few more lines in his face but also far more warmth. And he and Simon had the same smile.

“Sweetie, there’s a tin of oatmeal-raisin cookies upstairs in the staff room for you. If you don’t go get them now I can’t promise they’ll be there by the end of the night,” Mary said. “Heaven knows the cinnamon rolls I sent over this morning with Rebecca seem to have disappeared.” She eyed me and I tried to look innocent, hoping I didn’t have any crumbs on my clothes to give me away.

Mia narrowed her eyes at Mary. “Are you going to talk about me while I’m gone?”

Mary put a hand on her chest in mock outrage. “I can’t believe you’d ask that,” she said. She paused for dramatic effect. “Of course we are!”

Mia laughed. “I’ll be right back,” she said to her grandfather.

“Thank you,” Leo said to Mary. “She loves working here.”

“We love having her,” Mary said. She looked at me. “Kathleen, could you watch the desk for a minute?” She pointed at a man over at the card catalogue. “I don’t think he understands that our computers don’t have touch screens. He’s going to poke his finger right through the monitor.”

“Go ahead,” I said.

She came around the desk. “It’s good to see you,” she said to Leo, patting his shoulder.

He nodded. “It’s good to be back.”

Mary hurried across the floor and I turned to Leo Janes. “Mia and Simon both speak highly of you,” he said. He’d been studying me, I’d noticed, since I walked over to join them, watching me in much the same way I’d seen his son do. Something else they had in common.

“They’re both special people,” I said. “Simon probably didn’t tell you that he made a very generous gift to our Reading Buddies program.”

Leo gave his head a slight shake. “He didn’t. But Mia told me.” A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “She also told me she called him an ass.”

I remembered how Simon had walked into the library several days after a disastrous fundraiser for the literacy program. He’d handed me an envelope with a very large check inside. When I’d thanked him, he’d told me the person I should be thanking was his daughter. She had pointed out that he could easily afford to help fund Reading Buddies and called him out because he hadn’t.

I laughed. “She did. And yes, that probably had a lot to do with the first donation. But he’s made two more since then.”

I could see the gleam of approval in the older man’s eyes.

“And Mia is so good with people. The little ones love her. She gets down on the floor with them at story time and when she reads she does all the voices.” It had only taken a little encouragement to nudge Mia out of her shell. “She actually put orange streaks in the hair of a couple of the seniors from the quilting group for Halloween.”

Leo smiled and once again I saw the resemblance with his son. “She thinks of you all as family and that means a great deal to me, Ms. Paulson. She only has Simon and me.”

I noticed he didn’t mention Victor.

“Please call me Kathleen,” I said.

“Then you’ll have to call me Leo,” he countered.

I nodded. “I can do that.”

A burly man in a dark overcoat and sunglasses came in the main entrance then. He stopped to remove the glasses and I automatically smiled in his direction. Leo followed my gaze and it seemed to me his expression hardened a little, his jaw tightening.

The man’s eyes seemed to slide over Leo. He turned left and headed for the stacks. Mia’s grandfather watched him go. “Is that someone you know?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “The man just looked familiar for a moment. That’s all.”

Mia returned then, hugging the tin of Mary’s cookies to her chest. “Grandpa, can I trust you to take these home and not eat them all?” she asked.

“I can’t believe you’re asking me that!” Leo said, echoing what Mary had said earlier, his eyes widening in surprise. “Of course you can’t.”

Mia made a face at her grandfather but I could see the sparkle in her eyes and I knew she wasn’t really angry. “I’m serious,” she said, frowning at him.

Leo gave her a guileless look. “So am I.”

Mia shook her head and laughed. “You and Dad could at least save me one,” she said, passing over the tin. She leaned forward and hugged her grandfather. Then she looked at me. “Kathleen, Grandpa is the reason I roll left. He’s a lefty.”

“That explains it,” I said.

Leo looked uncertainly from his granddaughter to me. “Excuse me,” he said. “What does ‘roll left’ mean and why am I being blamed for it?”

“It’s not a bad thing,” I said with a smile. “I promise. Yesterday Mia and I and someone from the fire station were teaching a group of kids to stop, drop and roll. Everyone rolled to the right, except Mia.”

She laughed. “I told them you were the one who taught stop, drop and roll to me and I’ve always done it that way.”

“You’re left-handed,” I said. “That’s why you roll left and that’s what you taught Mia. Most right-handed people will roll to the right.”

Leo held out his hands. “I’m in here for five minutes and I’ve learned something new.”

I grinned at him. “I should tell you the source of that information is my mother.”

He smiled back at me. “I’m sure she’s an unimpeachable source. However, in the interest of full disclosure I should tell you that I’m actually ambidextrous.” He turned to his granddaughter and gave her a hug. “I’ll see you later, kiddo,” he said as Mary rejoined us. “It’s good to see you again, Mary,” he said to her. “It’s been too long. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Good to see you, too, Leo,” Mary said.

He turned to me. “And it was a pleasure to meet you, Kathleen.”

“You as well.”

He raised one hand in good-bye, and with that he left.

Mia moved behind the circulation desk just as the phone started to ring.

“I’m going to start shelving,” Mary said.

I nodded. “I’ll be in my office.”

I went upstairs and detoured into the staff room long enough to get yet another cup of coffee. In my office I turned on my laptop and then went to stand in front of the window behind my desk. I expected to see Harry Taylor out there, working on the broken gazebo seat.

Harry was outside at the gazebo but he wasn’t repairing the broken seat. He was having a very heated conversation.

With Leo Janes.

chapter 2

As I watched, Leo said one last thing to Harry and walked away. Harry in turn slammed his hand down hard on the top of the rain barrel that sat next to the gazebo. I couldn’t help wondering what the two men had been arguing about. Harry was easy to get along with and slow to anger, and although I’d just met Leo Janes he seemed like a pleasant man. So what had been going on? I turned away from the window and sat down at my desk.

I managed to get the staffing schedule finished up through the holidays and to make a start on going over the circulation stats for the various magazines we offered.

I did a circuit of the building before I left for the night. Mary was at the front desk going over what I was guessing was a reading list of some kind with a couple of teens I didn’t remember ever seeing in the library before. I found Mia shelving books in the young adult section, humming softly to herself.