by A. K. Klemm
“And it’s been nice. Like a vacation.”
“Well, enjoy it then. You don’t have to join the real world until tomorrow at 4:30. And honestly, no offense, hon, but the work is done. 4:30 will happen—and go smoothly—without you.”
“People will notice I’m not there.”
“They will.”
“They’ll talk.”
“And then they’ll get over it.” Sue went to the kitchen and helped herself to Nancy’s tea pitcher. “On a positive note, Kat called me. She’s so distraught that this illness might be over Book Club and hurt feelings, she has us all set up to read The Count of Monte Cristo next month. She thinks you’ll be happy it’s a classic and everyone else will watch the movie and drool over Jim Caviezawhooley-what-his-name. So it’s a win-win situation. But the month after”—Sue shook her finger at her friend—“it’s Jo Jo Moyes for you, my dear. Throw the kids a bone.”
Sue came back to the living room and bent to kiss her friend’s cheek. She strode to the front door and tossed a mocking look over her shoulder. “Get well soon!” She closed the door behind her.
Nancy put another half sandwich in her mouth and picked up The Burning Land to join a world of rain, wind, ale, and elderly monks. Later, from aboard the Haligast, Nancy looked up at the clock. She was missing Bingo again.
Friday
She went to work on Friday. The mayor steered clear of her as though she were carrying the plague. She made a few necessary phone calls and went to the high school’s courtyard, where she lined the vendor booths along the walkway from the school’s front yard to the stadium. Inside the stadium, the concession stands were firing up their fry machines, and it was already beginning to smell like funnel cakes and fried pickles. The elementary school children were already in the grass enjoying a last-day-of-school picnic.
Sue’s arms and legs were sore from her Thursday-afternoon imaginary-sword-fight fiasco, but she got through the day without regretting it too much, and at 4:30 p.m., she found Charisse standing in front of her with a guitar, asking about the sound system she would be plugged into by six o’clock. Nancy showed her to her stage, and the girl, with the utmost professionalism, set herself up and began doing sound checks.
“Nancy, this is even lovelier than last year,” the mayor said as he walked arm in arm with his wife.
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” he said. He shielded his mouth and nose from her supposedly rampant germs and walked the opposite direction.
Nancy chuckled.
The daisy garlands that were draped from street lamp to street lamp were indeed a sweet touch. The potted lilies at every crosswalk perfumed the town, and everything radiated an air of freshness.
“I love how white everything looks,” a passerby commented to her companion. “This town is so clean.”
Indeed, late May to early June was white-washing season, and the week before Uhtred, all the community and government buildings had been power-washed and freshly painted, courtesy of the St. Jude’s Catholic Church’s annual Easter tithing collection. It was Nancy who kept these habits in place, so it was nice to be reminded that everyone appreciated it.
She hadn’t felt this fulfilled by an event since the Christmas party at the Bookshop Hotel a spell back, and Saturday hadn’t even arrived yet. When she stood back and let things happen after the vigorous planning, it was easier to enjoy her own hard work. Micromanaging during the event itself merely exhausted everyone.
Charisse was done with her sound checks and perched herself on a bar stool in front of the microphone. Dressed as a performer, she looked very different than when she attended Book Club. Today, she was a walking advertisement for various boutiques around town. Her dress was obviously a design from the Rose of Sharon Tailors, and her earrings were from her namesake’s jewelry boutique—under new ownership after Old Charisse passed, but still hand-making beautiful pieces they mostly sold online.
She sang beautifully, and wisps of her songs carried out of the stadium and into the rest of Lily Hollow well into the evening. A few vendors from Briar had set up as well, but there were more Briar citizens shopping and making a date night of it than selling.
Nancy surveyed the crowd. Everyone seemed content and busy without her help or input. She checked her watch. Her stomach growled as she passed Sebastien’s. The smell of beef empanadas and wine wafted over the white picket fence of the restaurant’s courtyard. With all the food vendors on the street, not many were staying in at Lily Hollow’s only five-star eating establishment. Nancy sneaked a peek into her purse. Her wallet and book were there. She ducked in and took a seat in the darkest corner of the bar area.
The beef empanadas melted in her mouth, and the mushrooms cooked in sherry helped it all down a great deal. And as she savored every bite, she poured over Uhtred’s tale. She polished off her red wine faster than she realized, and the extremely attentive server replaced it before she had a chance to say “No, thank you.”
“That must be some book,” he said.
“Oh, it is.”
Her lids were becoming heavy in the darkened restaurant and the wine relaxed her to the point of downright sleepiness. Of course, the fact that she hadn’t had a proper night’s rest all week was equally to blame. Her fork scraped against empty china and she looked down to realize her meal was gone. Her second glass of wine was completely drunk, and Uhtred of Bebbanburg was still in the forefront of her mind, even though it was pushing a quarter of eight and she had barely more than an hour before the town would wrap up the festival for the night.
She read one more chapter and then saw that the sun was deciding whether or not to start ducking behind the magnolia tree out the front window. It was surely time to pay her tab and head outside.
Everyone closed up around nine o’clock, pouring back into their homes to get rest before the even bigger day tomorrow. Nancy rushed when everyone else meandered, because she had something at home they did not—a Saxon warrior trained as a Dane, fighting for a religion he didn’t believe in. But fifty pages in, she forced herself to set it down. Tomorrow was a big day and Uhtred must wait.
What on Earth would she do when she had him no longer?
Saturday
Fletcher’s opening dance routine went off without a hitch. Well, mostly. One little girl tripped and scraped a knee, as little girls with little dancing experience will do on their first performance, but she got right back up again, and the audience cheered. Gerbera daisies, stargazer lilies, and amaryllis minerva were passed to the crowd. Twenty-three students were enrolled in summer session one at Fletcher’s School of Dance; three would be commuting from Briar and one from even farther, so that was a success.
The main drive of nearly all Lily Hollow events was, at its core, financial. Local economy was important, but even more important was bringing outside money into that local economy. Tourism was at an all-time low, with families less likely to plan road trips these days. But with that unfortunate bit of modernization came the balance of the Internet and the ability of all the businesses to sell online. Festivals and events resulted in tweeting and Facebook posts or an occasional news article or blog feature, and with those things came more interest and online sales.
There wasn’t as much cash flow at the actual events anymore, but they still resulted in Lilyhollowans making much-needed income. And when budgets fell short, fundraisers for specific needs filled in. Those fundraisers wouldn’t be nearly as successful if the neighbors didn’t know each other so intimately, and part of that intimacy was built on weekends like these.
Summer festival Olympics took over Rhys Stadium’s field. The Baptist church busted out a potluck and pie-eating contest. The sisters of St. Jude’s had orchestrated a storytime event on their front lawn for the smaller children. If she kept walking down the lanes and family garage sales littered the circle drives. The Bookshop Hotel’s doors were wide open and advertised free iced coffees with the purchase of a paperback.
“You’ve come out of the closet, I see,” he said.
“Indeed.”
After her rest was up, she closed the book and tucked it back in her bag.
See, she told herself, you can read in healthy spurts.
She’d gotten to the point in the series where she realized that at this rate, she’d use Uhtred all up and he wouldn’t be around anymore. She couldn’t keep up this sort of reading habit anyway—she was too old and far too exhausted—but most of all, she wanted Uhtred to last. She wanted to have mornings in the future where she could wake up and learn a new story about her wayward warrior, find out where her nomadic adventurer had been. She knew from experience that re-reading books was never exactly what you expected it to be. You might discover something deep and riveting in the text that you missed, but the trip had an element of old hat to it.
As she strolled her way back to Rhys Stadium, she found herself met with a vet clinic banner. The local veterinarian set up a booth at town events about twice a year, offering inexpensive vaccinations for pet owners and an opportunity for Lilyhollowans to drag local strays to an examination.
“Nancy,” Joy called over a German Shepherd she was injecting, “don’t you have a cat I need to see?”
“No, I really don’t.”
“Nancy, if he’s really feral and you’re not going to take care of him, I need to neuter him and tag his ear.”
“I know, I know.” Nancy watched as Joy and her staff worked. They efficiently processed the pets waiting in line, gave them shots, passed off paperwork, and sent the owners on their way.
A few boys brought a box of kittens to the table, and the vet, rather than take their money, gave them each a few dollars to go get cotton candy. Nancy knew from past experience that those kittens would be carried to the vet’s office at the end of the day, fed properly, and scheduled to be fixed. Farmers looking for barn cats would be called on Monday, and most of the cats would have homes by Wednesday. The ones that didn’t would have their ears tagged and be released in the woods after their surgeries and vaccinations. Joy kept a purposeful watch on the animal population, and Lily Hollow was a carefully balanced ecosystem.
As Nancy continued her walk, Joy called out to her again, this time over a pit bull. “If you don’t bring me that cat, I’ll go get it myself.”
Nancy nodded.
She was warm again, sweating. She went back to the house to change blouses; she’d sweat through the silk. At the door, the cat meowed.
“Joy is going to come get you,” she said, “so if you don’t want to be gotten, be on your way.”
“Mew.”
“I don’t love you.”
“Mwah mew.”
“Look here. I don’t like cats.”
“Meowwwwww.”
Truth be told, she was lonely. Despite the events, despite the family atmosphere Lily Hollow provided, this cat was the only being she saw every day. Well, other than the fish. She opened the door and let the cool air blow over her face. The cat tried to nudge its way in.
“No.” She shooed it away and shut the door.
The house was dark, but she liked the house dim in the mid-afternoon. Her little cave, a haven. She pulled off her blouse and threw it over the couch. Looking down, she saw that the fish was dead, belly up in the bowl.
“Well, I guess it really is just me and the cat.”
She flushed the fish down the toilet and placed the bowl in the sink to clean later.
Once she was dressed again, fully hydrated, and all around freshened up, she stepped outside to make her rounds at the festival again.
Opening the door, she saw the cat. He blinked, rolled over, and exposed his overly large testicles to her.
“You are a mess!”
“Mwahhhhh.”
She leaned over, scooped him up, and marched him toward Joy’s booth.
For a stray cat, he was strangely cooperative. He didn’t scratch at her or try to get away, but instead rested his head on her shoulder and purred.
“Here,” Nancy said, approaching the vet’s table. “I’ve brought him.”
Joy smiled and handed Nancy a clipboard. At the top of the sheet were two boxes:
Check One:
__ I am surrendering a stray.
__ This is my pet.
Below the boxes was basic information to be filled out:
My name is ______________________
My pet’s name is __________
My pet is ____ years old.
Nancy stared at the page.
“Nancy, you can just check the top box and hand him over. Done and done.” Joy was skillfully soothing a Yorkshire terrier and administering a heartworm test at the same time.
Nancy set the cat down and picked up a pen. The cat wrapped himself around her legs and mewed at her. Her pen hovered over the boxes.
She looked at the cat.
She looked at the clipboard.
If she were the crying sort, she might have been teary-eyed, but instead her heart simply caught in her throat for a second while she imagined this creature not greeting her at the door every day. What sort of evening would it be if she didn’t have to put fresh food and water on the porch? Who would look for her to come home?
This is my pet, she checked.
My pet’s name is Uhtred, she scrawled without batting an eye.
She filled out as much as she could about the cat and handed the board to Joy when it was her turn at the table. Joy took the board and said, “Thank you.”
Uhtred got his shots. He hissed and cursed her all the way home, but he stayed in her arms.
“Oh hush, you. It will be worse next week when I have your balls chopped off,” she told him.
Sunday
Sunday, at church, Nancy revisited the urge to pull out her book and read through the service. Why had she even dropped the silly thing in her purse in the first place?
Sue noticed Nancy’s personal Bible absent and thumped her friend and raised her eyebrows. Nancy wrinkled her nose back as they turned to Hymn #336.
“I can’t believe you,” Sue said after the service was over.
“It was an accident!”
“Was claiming that cat an accident too?”
“Oh hush, it was about time. Anyway, someone’s got to feed the darn thing.”
“Oh, no argument there.”
Nancy watched her friend’s eyes dance.
“So, does the cat have a name?”
“He does.”
“And?” Sue asked.
Nancy shifted her gaze.
“Never mind, I think I can guess.”
Sue and Nancy walked side by side to the end of the church’s driveway. Before parting ways, Sue took her friend’s shoulders and said, “Nancy, it’s okay to want more. To want an adventure or even a companion. You’ve been alone a long time.”
“I enjoy being alone. I miss Richard, I do, but I have a lovely life too.”
“Yes, exactly,” Sue said. “So vacationing with a few good books and inviting a cat into your home—these are good things. Don’t deny yourself a few simple, healthy pleasures. Just next time, maybe schedule the vacation so the mayor doesn’t debate a quarantine of a potential plague.”
Both women laughed at this.
Sue headed to the fellowship hall for potluck, and Nancy went home and found the cat lazily sleeping in the garden near the lemon balm.
“Uhtred,” she told the cat, “I’m going shopping.” She patted the cat’s head before leaving the house again.
At the Bookshop Hotel, she walked up the grand staircase to the second floor. It was an area she rarely visited, as almost all the fiction books were on the lower level between the front doors and the cash reg
ister.
Matthew stuck his head into the history room, where she was peering closely at each and every title.
“I thought I saw you sneak in,” he said.
“Matthew,” she said, “I think I want to be a historian when I grow up.”
Her gray hair was pulled tightly into its bun, her clothes neatly pressed and in order. For the first time all week, she felt refreshed and alive. It wasn’t just about being freshly showered or having gotten the right amount of sleep, either. She had rediscovered some joys. Uhtred of Bebbanburg had reignited her sense of adventure and her love of knowledge. Uhtred the Cat reminded her that it was good to be home and that some responsibilities could be emotionally fulfilling.
“It’s never too late to fall in love with something new,” Matthew said and handed her a biography on Emma of Normandy. “Or old, rather.”
That evening, she opened the biography and read aloud to Uhtred, her cat, who sprawled out on the living-room floor in complete contentment and purred.
After they finished reading, she let him outside into the garden. In the morning, he would bring her a dead field mouse and tell her what he’d been up to all night.
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About the Author
A. K. Klemm is an avid book blogger and event coordinator. She lives with her husband, daughter, and three hounds near Houston, Texas. The Bookshop Hotel is an ode to her years spent shelving fiction and creating displays at Half Price Books, as well as to one of her favorite stores, called Good Books in the Woods, located in the Spring/Woodlands area of northern Houston.