Charlaine Harris - A Bone To Pick

“Come in.”

“I just thought I’d drop by and see the new house,” he said hesitantly. “Is that okay?”

“Sure. I just found out today I have kittens, come see them.”

And I led Aubrey into the bedroom, telling him Madeleine’s saga as we went.

The proximity of the bed startled him a little, but the kittens entranced him.

“Want one?” I asked. “It occurs to me I’ll have to find homes for alt of them in a few weeks. I’ll have to call a vet and find out when they can be separated from her. And when I can have her neutered.”

“You’re not going to take her back to Jane’s cousin?” Aubrey asked, looking a little amused.

“No,” I said without even thinking about it. “I’ll see how I like living with a pet. She seems pretty attached to this house.”

“Maybe I will take one,” Aubrey said thoughtfully. “My little house can get lonely. Having a cat to come home to might be pretty nice. I do get asked out a lot. That’s where I’ve been since church, as a matter of fact; a family in the church asked me to their home for lunch.”

“I bet it wasn’t as good as my lunch.” I told him about Sally’s roast beef, and he said he’d had turkey, and we ended up sitting by the kittens talking about food for a while. He didn’t cook for himself much, either.

And the doorbell rang.

We had been getting along so cozily, I had to resist an impulse to say something very nasty.

I left him in the bedroom staring at the kittens, all asleep and tiny, while I scrambled into the living room and opened the door.

Marcia Rideout, wide awake and gorgeous in white cotton shorts and a bright red camp shirt, smiled back at me. She certainly wasn’t drunk now; she was alert and cheerful.

“Good to see you again,” she said with a smile.

I marveled again at her perfect grooming. Her lipstick was almost professionally applied, her eye shadow subtle but noticeable, her hair evenly golden and smoothly combed into a page boy. Her legs were hairless and beautifully brown. Even her white tennis shoes were spotless.

“Hi, Marcia,” I said quickly, having become aware I was staring at her like a guppy.

“I’ll just take a minute of your time,” she promised. She handed me a little envelope. “Torrance and I just want to give a little party on our sun deck this Wednesday to welcome you into the neighborhood.”

“Oh, but I-” I began to protest.

“No no, now. We wanted to have a little cook-out anyway, but your inheriting the house just makes a good excuse. And we have new neighbors across the street, too, they’re going to come. We’ll all get to know each other. I know this is short notice, but Torrance has to travel this Friday and won’t be back until late on Saturday.” Marcia seemed like a different person from the indolent drunk I’d met a few days before. The prospect of entertaining seemed to bring her to life.

How could I refuse? The idea of being honored at the same party with Lynn and Arthur was less than thrilling, but refusal would be unthinkable, too.

“Do bring a date if you want, or just come on your own,” Marcia said.

“You really won’t mind if I bring someone?”

“Please do! One more won’t make a bit of difference. Got anyone in mind?” Marcia asked, her brows arched coyly.

“Yes,” I said with a smile, and said no more. I was just hoping with all my might that Aubrey would not choose this moment to emerge from the bedroom. I could picture Marcia’s eyebrows flying clean off her face.

“Oh,” Marcia said, obviously a little taken aback by my marked lack of explanation. “Yes, that’ll be fine. Just come as you are, we won’t be fancy, that’s not Torrance and me!”

Marcia seemed very fancy indeed to me.

“Can I bring anything?”

“Just yourself,” Marcia responded, as I’d expected. I realized that the party preparations would keep her excited and happy for the next three days.

“I’ll see you then,” she called as she bounced down the steps and started back over to her house.

I took the little invitation with me when I went back to Aubrey.

“Could you go to this with me?” I asked, handing it to him. I thought if he turned me down I was going to be horribly embarrassed, but I had no one else to ask, and if I was going to a party with Arthur and Lynn present, I was damn sure going to have a date.

He pulled the invitation out and read it. It had a chef on the front wearing a barbecue apron and holding a long fork. “Something good is on the grill!” exclaimed the print. When you opened it, it said, “… and you can share it with us on Wednesday, 7:00 at Marcia and Torrance’s house. See you then!”

“A little on the hearty side,” I said, as neutrally as I could. I didn’t want to seem uncharitable.

“I’m sure I can, but let me check.” Aubrey pulled a little black notebook out of his pocket. “The liturgical calendar,” he explained. “I think every Episcopalian priest carries one of these.” He flipped through the pages, then beamed up at me. “Sure, I can go.” I blew out a sigh of sheer relief. Aubrey produced a little pencil in disgraceful shape and wrote in the time and address, and, to my amusement, “Pick up Aurora.” Would he forget me otherwise?

Stuffing the book back into his pocket, he got to his feet and told me he’d better be going. “I have youth group in an hour,” he said, checking his watch.

“What do you do with them?” I asked as I walked him to the door.

“Try to make them feel okay about not being Baptists and having a big recreation center to go to, mostly. We go in with the Lutherans and the Presbyterians, taking turns to have the young people on Sunday evening. And it’s my church’s turn.”

At least it was too early in our relationship for me to feel at all obliged to take part in that.

Aubrey opened the door to leave, then seemed to remember something he’d forgotten. He bent over to give me a kiss, his arm loosely around my shoulders. There was no doubt this time about the jolt I felt clear down to the soles of my feet. When he straightened up, he looked a little energized himself.

“Well!” he said breathless. “I’ll give you a call this week, and I look forward to Wednesday night.”

“Me, too,” I said with a smile, and saw past his shoulder the curtains in the house across the way stir.

Ha! I thought maturely, as I shut the door behind Aubrey.

Monday turned out to be a much busier day than I’d expected. When I went in to work to put in what I thought would be four hours, I found that one of the other librarians had caught a summer cold (“The worst kind,” all the other librarians said wisely, shaking their heads. I thought any cold was the worst kind). The head of the library, Sam derrick, asked if I’d put in eight hours instead, and after a little hesitation I agreed. I felt very gracious, because now I had it within my financial power (well, almost within my financial power) to quit my job completely. There’s nothing like patting yourself on the back to give you energy; I worked happily all morning, reading to a circle of preschoolers and answering questions.

I did feel justified in taking a few extra minutes on my coffee break to call the phone company and ask them if the number I had at the town house could also be the number for Jane’s house, at least for a while. Even if that wasn’t possible, I wanted Jane’s phone hooked back up. To my pleasure, it was possible to get my number to ring at Jane’s, and I was assured it would be operational within the next couple of days.

As I was hanging up, Lillian Schmidt lumbered in. Lillian is one of those disagreeable people who yet have some redeeming qualities, so that you can’t write them off entirely-but you sure wish you could. Furthermore, I worked with Lillian, so it was in my interest to keep peace with her. Lillian was narrow-minded and gossipy, but fair; she was a devoted wife and mother, but talked about her husband and daughter until you wanted them to be swallowed up in an earthquake; she knew her job and did it competently, but with so much groaning and complaining about minute details that you wanted to smack her. Reacting to Lillian, I sounded like a wild-eyed Communist, an incurable Pollyanna, and a free-sex advocate.