“Coffee and breakfast coming up.” I got the coffee first, dark and bold. Then I heated her up a sausage, egg, and cheese muffin and a cornbread muffin, both made by Jonathan that morning before he had to head out. He still hadn’t told me what was turning his life upside down, but I was sure that he would as soon as he was ready.
I slid a plate in front of Zoey with a side dish of butter, a honey pot, and a choice between boysenberry, strawberry and raspberry jelly for the cornbread muffin.
She doctored her coffee until it was the way she liked it, took a sip, and sighed. Finally, the huge sunglasses came off. Her eyes were sporting some Cleopatra eyeliner but were otherwise bare.
“Why are you in so early?” Nine AM was practically pre-dawn for Zoey. Then a thought occurred to me. Joel had extolled my virtues in the article he’d written about Hank’s killer being discovered, but he hadn’t even mentioned Zoey. “Have you seen the Sunday paper yet?”
“Mmhm. Nice story,” she said as she drizzled honey over her buttered corn muffin.
“I’m sorry that it doesn’t mention you. Want me to say something to Joel?”
Zoey stopped what she was doing and gave me a stare a zombie could be proud of. “Joel has good survival instincts. It’s why he didn’t include me. You have none.” She squinted. “How is it that nobody’s managed to kill you?”
“I have survival instincts.” I’d meant it as a counter to her statement, but it came out as a wimpy whine. “Tell her,” I said to Brad.
Brad shook his head and raised his palms. “Berry, I adore you, but you have the survival instincts of a blind bullfrog.”
That wasn’t a fair assessment! “But if that’s true, then why am I still here? Why hasn’t somebody knocked me off?”
Brad and Zoey looked at each other, then looked at me. In unison they answered, “Luck.”
Zoey shrugged as she went back to drizzling honey. “Some people win the lottery. You don’t die. Luck.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and tapped my foot. “Well if I’m lucky, then so are you.”
This time Brad and Zoey broke out in laughter together.
“What?” This time petulant snuck in to join whiny.
“If you were my partner, I’d retire early,” Brad said. “I’d fake breaking my leg or needing to go under psych eval.”
I was devastated. I’d thought that Brad believed in me. “You wouldn’t partner with me?”
“Not for long,” Zoey snickered. She hadn’t spelled it out but I got her meaning. She thought I’d get Brad killed if we partnered up.
“Hey, your time’s coming,” Brad said to her.
Zoey’s grin flatlined, and I started to worry in earnest when she didn’t have a comeback ready with which to zing Brad. Maybe Brad was right. Maybe I was being selfish by pulling others into solving my problems. I suddenly felt like Dan, and that made me feel even worse.
“Maybe there’s a proximity effect,” Zoey said.
“What, you mean like being near Kylie protects a person from ending up six feet under?”
It was just the olive branch I needed. “That’s right,” I exclaimed. “You’re both here right now and nothing’s happened to you.”
Sage jumped up on the stool next to Zoey’s and shoved her nose under Zoey’s arm. Zoey complied by stroking her head.
“And look!” I said, pointing at Sage. “Sage has been living with me for weeks and she’s still alive.”
“I suppose,” Zoey said.
“No, no, no,” Brad broke in. “That cat’s a menace. Whatever mojo curse you got working against you, Berry, this cat is right in it with you. We’ve all seen the aftermath…”
“I thought you said it was a blessing, not a curse,” I said.
“No, what we said was that it was luck—as in lucky you haven’t gotten killed by the curse of having people fall over dead around you every other day.”
My bottom lip stuck out in a pout. “You guys haven’t fallen over dead.”
“Give us time,” Zoey mumbled before taking a big bite of her doctored cornbread. She half closed her lids as her eyes rolled back in taste ecstasy. “Mmmm.”
The door chimed and Jack and Agatha came in. She was ancient wisdom personified, graceful with a dream-like, soft and flowing dress. He was tall, dark and imposing in a suit designed to intimidate in high stakes boardrooms, but their differences did nothing to stop the pair from walking arm in arm to take stools at the counter.
“I’ll have what she’s having,” Jack said with an eye toward Zoey.
“Give her time,” Agatha chided him. “Can’t you see she’s in a moment?”
Agatha was right. I was in a moment. It was time to turn the tables and use what Zoey and Brad had been saying about me to my advantage. “You know, if all this is true—that the people around me are at risk of dying—then you two don’t have any time to waste,” I told them. “You’re going to have to seize the day and all that. Live every minute to its fullest.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Zoey said around a mouth full of food. “This is good! You didn’t make it, right?”
I didn’t even dignify that with an answer. Everyone here knew I hadn’t made it. If I’d made it, the muffins could have doubled as hockey pucks.
I put my elbows on the counter and leaned in. “I think it’s time you start dating again,” I said.
“Too much risk of collateral damage. I think it’s time you admit that you still care about Dan.”
Oh! The girl did not pull her punches. And right in front of Brad, no less. Thankfully he was too busy glowering at Zoey to notice the panic in my eyes. I was barely out of a marriage that had taken up one-third of my life. I’d been happy—really happy—until I’d figured out that everything I’d thought I’d known about my marriage had been a lie. Of course I had feelings, but that didn’t mean they were worthwhile.
That aside, I wasn’t going to let Zoey’s magician’s trick of distraction get me off course. I slid Zoey’s plate of food back across the counter to my side, then delicately took the half-eaten corn muffin from her hand.
“Hey!” she complained after swallowing the bite that had been in her mouth.
“You’ll get it back after you talk to a boy,” I declared.
“Sweetheart,” Agatha said, “I spotted a lovely one right back there. He has hair like the morning sun.”
“Aggie,” Zoey lamented, “You too?”
“I did not get to be as old as I am by simply sitting on my backside waiting for the next day to come. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll do something with today. Now go talk to the boy or I’ll eat your breakfast myself. It’s clear that Kylie’s refusing to get me a plate of my own until you do.”
“I’m impatient,” Jack said. He reached in front of Agatha and plucked Zoey’s cornbread muffin out of my hand.
Zoey glared at him. “Hey! I just got that perfect! It has just the right ratio of butter to honey.”
“Thank you,” Jack said with his mouth full and half of Zoey’s muffin gone. “You do excellent work.”
Scowling, Zoey pivoted on her seat and looked at the young man Agatha had pointed out. He was sitting at a table that was next to the wall. Sun streamed in through the window nearest him, making his blond hair shine like spun silk. His body was athletic and lean, and his head was bent as he read a book. An actual book. Not something off of his phone. And a hard shell guitar case leaned against the wall behind his chair. “How’d you even notice him? You walked in like two seconds ago.”
“There is always time to appreciate beauty, young lady. Besides, I’m old, not blind.” She turned and looked at him, then sighed. “Reminds me of someone I toured with in my fifties.” She then took the rest of Zoey’s muffin from Jack and took a bite before licking the tips of her fingers free of the dripping honey.
Someday I really was going to have to ask Agatha about her life.
Zoey turned back to me. “I want a new muffin waiting for me when I get back, al
ready buttered. I’ll add the honey.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We all watched Zoey go. She was like apples to his oranges. Everything about her said harsh and brash while everything about him said laid back and easygoing. If someone had asked me to bet against Zoey having a knife stashed somewhere on her body, I wouldn’t have done it. In contrast, I was willing to bet that the cute guy’s guitar case actually held a guitar. I would never make that assumption about any guitar case Zoey had. Ever.
“She’s talking to him,” I whispered. “I wonder what they’re saying.”
“Mmmm,” Jack said. “She just told him how his book ends.”
“How can you tell?”
“Read lips. Handy during business negotiations. He’s annoyed that she told him how it ended.”
My hopes flagged and guilt inched its way in. I’d pushed Zoey to do something she wasn’t ready to do, and she was going out of her way to alienate herself because of it.
“Ohh… That’s interesting,” Jack said.
“What… What?” I had to know!
“She just told him that he doesn’t have the mettle to ask her out on a date.”
“Nooo…” I needed popcorn!
I watched as the young man sat back in his chair with a smug smile of overconfidence on his lips, then it disappeared to be replaced with uncertainty.
“Jack! What did she say?”
“Mmm, something about needing to make sure he has a burial plot selected and having all of his affairs in order.”
Ugh! She really was trying to tank it.
Then something amazing happened. Cute guy stood up… and up. It was all I could do not to bite my knuckle. He had the face of an angel on gold medalist Michael Phelps’ body. And he was smiling again. He said something and then reached behind him to pick up his guitar case. He didn’t even use the handle. He just palmed the top nob and lifted it to set it back down in front of him.
“What’s happening?”
“He’s playing a set at a bar downtown tomorrow. He’s asked her to come and… oh. Yes. He wants to take her out on a proper date afterward.”
“Yes!” I yelled.
Everyone—and I do mean everyone—stopped what they were doing and turned to look at me.
I waved at Zoey and her new friend before doing my best to shrink away to nothing.
“Smooth, Berry,” Brad teased, and then added, “Hey, I’ve got it on good authority that there’s gonna be a show downtown tomorrow. I want to take you… on a date.”
I opened my mouth to say that I couldn’t, but when I looked at Brad, I saw my whole speech to Zoey reflected in his eyes, and his own smug grin told me that he knew it.
Seize the day…
“You’re not afraid?” I asked.
“Of being with you? Never.”
He was either a brave man or a fool. Considering he’d very recently broken down a killer’s door to get to me, I’d give him credit as the former. But if he were brave, that also meant that he knew there was something worth being afraid of. Only a fool didn’t recognize when he was in danger.
“And if Dan shows back up?” I asked.
Brad smiled. “Dan who?”
“And if someone falls on a fork fifty-seven times at the show?”
“It’ll leave more space for me to get you out on the dance floor.”
“No downsides?” I asked.
“Not a one—not with you.
I slipped my hand into his. “Even with Zoey there, too?” He’d just invited me out to the same show that she was going to.
His eye twitched. “Nope,” he said in a voice a full octave higher than it had been a moment before. “Even with Zoey there.” He shot her a side glare.
I heard the words again—seize the day—and thought about what Agatha had said about not simply waiting for a string of tomorrows to come.
“Is it a date?” Brad asked with a gentle nudge.
I held my breath while waiting for lightning to strike somewhere in the near distance, or at the very least a minor earthquake. Nothing happened.
I smiled. “It’s a date.”
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A Berry Home Catastrophe Page 20