Buy a Whisker (3 page)

“I can't,” she said. “You're young. I'll cramp your style.”

I laughed until I realized she was serious. Then I gave her a hug. “Rose, I don't have a style. I work. I run. I go home. Say yes. Please. It'll get Liz off your case, and it will put my mind at ease.”

She hesitated. “All right. Yes.”

Charlotte and Liz beamed. Avery cheered. Even Elvis gave an enthusiastic meow.

I glanced back at Mac, who smiled at me as well.

It really was the best solution. And really, what could go wrong?

You'd think I'd know better than to ask that question.

Liz came back just before five to pick up Avery. It had turned out to be a busy afternoon, not Canadian skiers this time, though. We'd had a busload of Japanese tourists on a snow tour through New England. They'd taken great delight in posing for pictures next to the snowbanks in the parking lot, and they'd bought every refurbished quilt and vintage tablecloth in the shop.

Avery was vacuuming and Rose was out back with Mac. I walked over to Liz, put both hands on her shoulders and rested my chin on them. She smelled like lavender talc.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked.

I knew she meant letting Rose have the apartment.

“I'm sure,” I said.

“I'll pay for whatever you need to get the place ready.”

“No, you won't,” I said. “I already have everything. Liam got me a great set of kitchen cabinets for a song from a rehab he did. They were only a year
old and they're just like new. Mac's going to do the work, and we'll work out some kind of compensation.”

My brother, Liam—who, strictly speaking, was my stepbrother; our parents had married when we were little—was a building contractor. He was very involved in the small-house movement.

“I think you're going to have to be creative about that,” Liz said.

I nodded, making my chin bounce against my interlaced fingers. “I know. So thank you for the offer, but I have it all covered.”

“You're a stubborn child,” Liz said. She turned her head and narrowed her eyes at me, but I could hear the affection in her voice.

I stretched forward and kissed her cheek before I dropped my hands and straightened up. “That's because I spent my formative years with all of you.”

“Well, at least let me take you out to Sam's for supper,” Liz said. “Avery is going over to Rose's to bake.” Unlike Liz, Rose loved to cook. Not only was she teaching Avery to bake, but she was trying to teach me some basic cooking skills. So far Avery was the better student.

Supper with Liz or my specialty, a scrambled-egg sandwich with the two cardboard tomatoes from my fridge. It was an easy choice.

“Okay,” I said.

We agreed on a time, and I went to cash out.

Liz left with Rose and Avery.

“Would you like a ride?” I asked Mac.

“I'm good,” he said, pulling up the hood of his parka. He gestured at the large chandelier that was sitting on a tarp in front of a section of shelving. “What do you think? It's pretty much cleaned up.”

The chandelier was cast bronze, an Art Deco–style from the 1920s, according to my research. The circular body of the light was about two feet across, with a cutwork design of four phoenixes rising from the ashes. Behind the cutwork was a red glass shade. We'd bought it from a department store in Portland that was closing. And Jon West had expressed interest in buying it. If the harbor-front project went ahead, the beautiful old light could end up in the lobby of the proposed hotel.

I walked over for a closer look. “Oh, Mac, it looks good,” I said. What I'd been afraid was patina caused by aging had turned out to be just dust and grime. Now that both the metal and the glass were clean, the beauty of the light was even more apparent.

“Glad you like it,” he said. “We should be able to turn a decent profit. And you might want to thank Avery. She spent a lot of time working on that glass shade with a toothbrush.”

“I will,” I said.

I locked up my office, and when I came back downstairs, I found Elvis was sitting by the back door, waiting for me.

“Looks like it's just you and me,” I said. I opened the door, and he stuck his furry black nose outside and promptly sat down.

“Let's go,” I urged.

He looked up at me and meowed.

I knew what he wanted. “You can walk,” I said.

He craned his neck around the door for another look at the parking lot. Then he looked at me again, tipping his head to one side so I couldn't miss the ropy diagonal scar that cut across his nose.

“Just because you have that battle scar doesn't mean I should carry you,” I said.

The vet had no idea how Elvis had gotten his war wound. “I'll bet you the other guy looked worse, though,” he'd said.

Elvis was still watching me. He didn't even twitch a whisker.

I pulled on my gloves. “Anyway, I can't carry you. I already have a load.” In addition to my purse, I had a large tote bag full of table runners that I was hoping my homemade stain fighter would work on.

Elvis got up, walked over to the canvas carryall and put a paw on top.

“No. You can't ride in there. I don't want cat hair all over those runners.”

He dipped his head, licked his chest several times and then shot me an expectant look.

I blew out an exasperated breath. I was arguing with a cat. A cat! And who was I kidding? He was winning.

I'd had Elvis for the past seven months. He'd just appeared one day, down along the harbor, mooching from several different businesses, including The Black Bear. He had shown up at the pub about every
third day for a couple of weeks. No one seemed to know who owned the cat. That scar on his nose wasn't new; neither were a couple of others on his back, hidden by his fur. Sam had managed to con me into taking the cat. I was pretty sure Elvis had been in on the scam, too.

He was very social, I'd discovered. He'd quickly made himself at home in the shop, charming customers who could easily get distracted by his war wounds and end up spending more than they'd intended. I'd quickly realized that Elvis's skill at sales wasn't his only ability. Strange as it sounds, he had an uncanny knack for figuring out when someone was lying. When someone was stroking his fur, if they were not being completely honest about whatever they happened to be talking about, he somehow knew, the knowledge evident in the disdainful expression on his furry face.

Mac had pointed out that researchers had discovered dogs had a part of their brains devoted to decoding emotions in people's voices, so why couldn't Elvis decode lies from the truth? Jess's theory was that Elvis was the feline version of a polygraph. Somehow he was responding to changes in a person's heartbeat, breathing and skin. It was as good an explanation as any. The problem was the kitty lie detector acted as one only when it suited him.

I slid the strap of my purse over one shoulder, put the tote bag over the other and bent down to pick him up. “This doesn't mean you've won,” I said. “It just means I don't want to stand here all night.”

“Murr,” he said. He looked up at me, a guileless look in his green eyes. We both knew who had won.

“Why do I even have these . . . discussions with you?” I said to him. He regarded me thoughtfully, as though he couldn't figure it out, either.

Juggling purse, bag and cat, I managed to get the door locked and hurried across the lot to the SUV. I put everything, including Elvis, on the passenger side. The cat shook himself and then got settled on the seat. As I pulled out of the lot, he looked both ways. Whoever Elvis had belonged to before me had clearly driven around with him a lot. He'd look both ways at an intersection or a stop sign, and he'd even turn to check over his shoulder when I backed up. Once he'd meowed loudly at me when I'd run a yellow light. It was like having a little furry backseat driver.

Once we were home, I got Elvis some fresh water and a little something to eat. Then I went into the bedroom to change. It was cold, but I wanted to walk downtown to meet Liz instead of taking the SUV, so I put on leggings under my jeans, along with a lavender turtleneck and a heavy cable-knit sweater over that. I stuck my feet into my favorite fleece-lined booties and went out to the kitchen.

“Want to go take a look at the apartment?” I said to Elvis. He was washing his face, but he took a couple more swipes behind his ear and came over to me.

“Merow!” he said with enthusiasm.

I'd ended up with my house after a series of trades that had started when I'd cleaned out an old barn
and the owner had told me I could have the rusting Volkswagen Beetle I'd discovered inside just for getting it off the property. Eventually I'd ended up with the chance to buy the old Victorian plus a pretty decent down payment for it. My apartment was on the main floor at the front. Gram had the second-floor unit. I wasn't sure if she and her new husband, John, would keep it, or if they'd eventually want something bigger. At the moment they were in New Orleans for the winter, building houses for the charity Home for Good. I missed Gram, but I hadn't seen her so happy in a long time.

The apartment Rose would be taking overlooked the backyard. Like Gram's place, it had a covered verandah. I let myself into the unit and stood in the kitchen, looking around at all there still was to do. It was the room that needed the most work. The bottom cupboards were in place and so was the countertop, but the doors hadn't been hung, and there was no sink or taps and no upper cabinets at all.

The walls were going to need to be touched up as well. Elvis was nosing around in the living room where the cabinet uppers were stacked on a tarp. The walls and the ceiling in there needed a couple coats of paint.

“Did I undersell how much there still is to do?” I asked the cat.

He looked around the room and made a sound halfway between a burp and a snort. I bent over and scooped him up. “Thank you for that vote of confidence,” I said.

He leaned over and licked my ear.

Elvis was contentedly ensconced in front of
Jeopardy!
when I headed out, the TV set on a timer to shut off when the game show was over. He watched the show faithfully, Monday through Friday. I had no idea why he liked it so much. Maybe it was the theme music, maybe it was host, Alex Trebek, or for all I knew, maybe Elvis was playing along at home.

I got to The Black Bear about five minutes before Liz. The place was only about a third full, typical for a Tuesday in January, I knew. Sam gave me a hug and showed me to a booth along the back wall. He was tall and lean. His shaggy hair was a mix of blond and white, and he was usually wearing a pair of dollar-store reading glasses.

“Is Jess meeting you?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. Liz.”

“What can I get you while you wait?”

“I'm not driving,” I said. “So maybe a glass of wine.”

“I have this new hot-toddy recipe,” Sam said, running his fingers over his beard. “Want to try it?”

I eyed him suspiciously. Sam's drink concoctions had a tendency to lead to a person waking up wearing a sombrero, with their cheek drool-stuck to the table and no memory of the previous twelve hours.

“What's in it?” I said.

“Cranberry juice, apple cider, Patrón, Drambuie and some fresh lime,” he said, ticking off each ingredient on his fingers.

“Tequila and apple cider?” I shook my head. “I think I'll just stick with a glass of white wine.”

Sam leaned over to plant a kiss on the top of my head. “Good choice,” he said. “I'll send someone right over with it.”

Liz arrived just as my glass of wine did. “I'll have a cup of coffee, please,” she said to our waiter. “And it's one check. Mine.”

He nodded. “I'll be right back.”

Liz tossed her coat onto the seat of the booth and slid in next to it.

“What are Avery and Rose making?” I asked.

“Some kind of five-layer lemon cake with the raspberry preserves Rose put up last fall. Avery picked all the berries for her.”

“It sounds good,” I said, rubbing my hands, which were still cold, together. Maybe I should have ordered the hot toddy after all, I thought.

“It probably will be,” Liz said as the waiter came back with her steaming mug of coffee. “I don't have the patience to teach Avery how to bake. Not that I bake anyway.”

We both ordered the hot turkey sandwich. I knew the turkey would have been roasted earlier in the day, the gravy hadn't come out of a can and the thick slices of multigrain bread had come from Lily's in the morning order.

Liz looked around. “It's quiet,” she said. “I was hoping we'd have a few more buses of tourists from that snow tour.”

“I talked to the bus driver from today's group,” I said. “There should be a couple more buses through on the weekend.”

“And if we get a little more snow, we should see more skiers,” Liz said, reaching for the tiny pitcher of cream the waiter had brought when he'd brought her coffee.

“Were you at the meeting about North Landing last night?” I asked.

“Oh yes.” She tapped one peach-hued nail on the table. “You know, even with the Japanese tourists and the Canadian skiers, off-season revenue for most of the businesses in town is down close to ten percent.”

I wasn't surprised. Although I hadn't been in business last winter, my profits were off about eight percent from my estimates. Luckily, the online store was making up the difference.

I traced the rim of my wineglass with a finger. “Do you think there's any way the town can force Lily to sell the bakery?” I asked.

“No,” Liz said with a shake of her head. “I don't see how they can make eminent domain—or anything else for that matter—work. A good lawyer could argue against the public-use clause.”

I exhaled loudly. “Is there a chance that Lily can be persuaded to change her mind?”

Liz laughed, but there wasn't any real humor in the sound. “Name someone who hasn't tried. A couple of people spoke to Caroline, for all the good it did—which was none.”

Caroline was Lily's mother. I sometimes saw her running at the track when I was there. I had no idea how she felt about the development project. I did
know that Caroline was the kind of person who'd support her daughter no matter what her own opinion was. My own mother was the same way.

The waiter arrived then with our sandwiches. They came with a side of cranberry chutney and another of apple carrot salad.