Софи Райан - Two Tall Tails

I’d glanced over at the professor’s house and found myself wishing, selfishly, that Jason Bates would go home. I knew, if anything, he’d probably be staying longer this visit. The day after Jason had arrived, Angie had caught her foot on a loose edge of carpet at the top of the stairs and fallen, dislocating her shoulder and breaking her collarbone. The broken clavicle had required surgery. She should have been home by now, but she’d developed an infection after the operation—a bug the doctors thought she’d brought home from her last dig in the Honduran rain forest—and was still in the hospital.

I was standing with my arms folded across my chest and my shoulders hunched, I realized, muscles tight from the memory of Tom’s altercation with Jason Bates. I took a breath and let it out, feeling some of the tension let go.

Tom was still eyeing the mangled section of grass. I touched his arm. “I’m going to see Angie as soon as they’ll let anyone who isn’t family visit,” I said. “Once she’s home, things will settle down.”

“I think you have a higher opinion of human nature than I do,” the old man said. “I hope you’re right.”

Rose and I headed back to the house. She went inside to get her sweater and pack one of the tote bags she carried to work. Her bags reminded me of those little clown cars in the circus—the amount of things she could stuff inside seemed to defy the laws of physics sometimes.

I took a seat on the veranda in one of the two wicker chairs that my best friend, Jess, and I had found at a flea market. Jess, with her with her eye for space and orientation, had insisted both would fit in my SUV and she had, in fact, managed to wedge them both into the back of the vehicle. I’d cleaned the chairs and painted them a sea foam green. Jess, who was a talented seamstress, had made seat cushions from some navy canvas.

I slid down in the chair and propped my feet on the veranda railing, pulling the elastic from my dark hair and letting it fall loose to my shoulders. Jess was away in Vermont teaching a weeklong sewing workshop. I missed her. I remembered how she’d helped Tom fix the trellis on the side of his garden shed the previous fall, while Matilda, who generally disliked strangers, had followed her around the yard with a look of adoration on her furry face.

“I like Tom, he reminds me of Pops,” Jess had said, referring to her late grandfather.

I tried to imagine what would have happened if Jason had tried to bully the old man when Jess had been around. I couldn’t help smiling. It wouldn’t have gone well . . . for Jason.

Rose invited Elvis and me for supper that evening. Cooking wasn’t my strong suit at the best of times; one-handed was beyond my limited skills. We moved out on to the veranda for dessert: Rose’s berry cobbler for the two of us, and a chopped sardine for Elvis. He licked his whiskers and seemed to smile at her as she set the bowl on the railing in front of him.

I had just eaten the last spoonful of berries when Katie Burns came around the side of the house. She lived across the street from Tom with her husband, Matt, and their four-year-old, Molly.

“I just wanted to bring this back,” she said, holding out a blue bubble glass plate to Rose. “And say thank you again.”

“You’re welcome, my dear.” Rose took the plate and set it on the floor next to her chair. It had held two dozen peanut butter chocolate chip cookies that Rose had made when the pregnant Katie had confided that she was craving peanut butter cups but they gave her heartburn. “Did they help with the cravings?”

Katie smiled and put a hand on her belly. “Yes. Thank you.” Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her bangs pushed to one side. With her glowing, creamy skin and bright eyes, she looked like an advertisement for having a baby. “Have either of you seen a pink and purple striped foam ball about this big?” she asked, holding her rounded hands about three inches apart.

I shook my head.

“No,” Rose said.

Elvis cocked his head to one side and crinkled his nose, which I decided to interpret as him not having seen the ball, either.

“My mom got it for Molly, and now it’s disappeared,” Katie said.

“We’ll check the yard,” Rose said. “And I know sometimes Molly plays with Matilda in Tom’s backyard. “The ball could have ended up over here.”

Elvis immediately jumped down from his perch and started down the veranda steps. When he reached the grass, he stopped, looked over his shoulder at Rose and meowed loudly.

Rose got to her feet. “And as Elvis has just pointed out, there’s no time like the present.” She followed the cat across the yard. “Let’s check the flowerbeds first,” I heard her say.

Katie watched them and grinned. “Sometimes I’d almost swear your cat knows what we’re saying.”

“Rose says he’s smarter than some people she knows.”

Katie’s grin got a little wider and she nodded. “You know, I believe that.”

I didn’t add that the cat also seemed to be able to tell when someone was lying. Of course, being a cat, he only demonstrated that skill when he felt like it.

We watched Rose and her furry sidekick make their way to the far end of the yard. She was checking out the wild rosebushes while he walked along the top of the rock wall sniffing the ground almost as though he were trying to sniff out a clue.

Katie rested a hand on her baby bump. “I’ve always wondered, why did you name Elvis, Elvis?”

“That wasn’t me,” I said, getting to my feet and moving off the veranda to join her. “Sam named him.” Sam was Sam Newman, owner of The Black Bear Pub and my late father’s best friend. “He claims the cat is a fan of the King.”

“Hey, me too,” Katie said.

Katie told me all about Molly’s upcoming role as a daisy in the Spring Fling concert at the four-year-old’s preschool while Rose and Elvis checked the yard. There was no sign of Molly’s ball.

“Thanks for looking,” Katie said.

Elvis bobbed his head and made a soft murp sound, almost as though he was saying, “You’re welcome.”

The next morning right after he’d had his breakfast, Elvis went to the door, meowed insistently and looked over his shoulder at me. Translation: “I want to go out.”

I let him into the hall and he moved purposefully toward the back door, almost as though he was going back out to look for Molly’s ball again. I shook my head. Elvis was a very smart cat, but not that smart. I opened the back door for him. “We’re leaving in a little while,” I said.

A soft “Mrrr” was the only answer I got.

A half an hour later I was back at the door. Elvis was sitting on one of the wicker chairs. When he lifted his head, I realized there were two burdocks stuck in the fur just below his left ear. The cat had come home once before with the prickly things stuck to his tail. It had taken an hour, an entire can of sardines and a lot of grumbling on both our parts to get them out.

I sighed softly. We were going to be late getting to the shop.

Elvis shook his head as though he was trying to shake the burdocks away. Then he lifted a paw and swatted at one of them.

“No, no, don’t do that,” I said. “Stay there.” I held up a hand, feeling a little foolish because, well, I was talking to a cat.

However, Elvis seemed to understand. He dropped his paw and made a sound a lot like a sigh.

I went back to the apartment and got two sardines from the can in the refrigerator, along with the wide-toothed comb I used on Elvis when something got knotted in his fur, the gardening gloves my brother Liam had given me as a joke and a little peanut butter, just in case.

The cat hadn’t move from the chair on the veranda. I crouched down next to him and set the plate holding the little fish on the seat cushion.