“So, how long have you lived in Alpine Grove?”
Larry looked over at her and then back at the road. “I grew up here. My parents own the hardware store in town.”
“Really? I need to get a new knob thingie for the shower. Mine broke.” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to get into that whole story. If he was a spy for Louise, breaking the plumbing wouldn’t exactly improve the old woman’s impression of her caretaking abilities.
“I’m sure they could help you with that.”
Kat mentally groaned and tried to resuscitate the conversation. “Did you go to college around here?”
“I went to the UCLA School of Law.”
“You went off to the big city?”
“Yes, but I didn’t enjoy it. I missed Alpine Grove. So as soon I passed the bar, I came back here.”
Clearly, Larry wasn’t a big storyteller. Kat tried to think of something else she could ask that wouldn’t result in a yes, no, or three-word answer. She hoped the restaurant was close by. It could be a long car ride.
“So, what are your hobbies?”
“I don’t really have hobbies. I work and then go home and relax.”
Kat gave up, and they rode the rest of the way to the restaurant in silence. When they got to the restaurant, their table wasn’t ready, so they were escorted to the lounge to wait. The restaurant served Italian food and the air was heavy with the aroma of freshly made spicy tomato sauce, garlic, olive oil and artisan bread. The lighting was cozy and romantic. Quite a few Alpine Grove marriages might begin here with a proposal at the tables that surrounded the huge stone fireplace.
Kat pulled up a stool to the long mahogany bar, and Larry pulled another barstool over next to her, so he was sitting uncomfortably close to her. Kat knew that she probably had an overdeveloped sense of personal space, but his proximity made her anxious. In her family, they weren’t huggers. She leaned away from him, trying to increase the distance. It would be better if she could just have a conversation with him.
Kat cleared her throat and decided to go with a situational question, since asking about Larry’s life had been a flop. “So, what do you like to eat here?”
“I love Italian food” he said enthusiastically. “My favorite dish is the gnocchi con salsiccia. It has homemade sausage and gnocchi in a basil tomato sauce topped with plenty of mozzarella cheese. I also enjoy the scallops, which come in a light cream sauce with fettuccini noodles. The scallops are perfectly cooked, so they just melt in your mouth. The house salad and dressing is also good. It has olives, chickpeas, and carrots. I like to have dinner with a medium-priced, yet bold Chianti.”
Kat raised her eyebrows. Larry certainly knew his food. “I usually prefer vegetarian options. Do you have any suggestions?”
“You might enjoy the Rigatoni al Gorgonzola. It has gorgonzola cheese in a creamy vodka sauce with walnuts on top. It’s just wonderful.”
Larry continued to expound on the various menu options. Kat came to the conclusion that given his encyclopedic knowledge of the menu, he must eat here a lot. Like maybe every night. She was getting hungry and her stomach growled loudly. How embarrassing.
“I guess I’m getting hungry.”
“Yes. I am, too. I’ll check on our table.” Larry lurched off his bar stool, colliding with Kat and pushing her off her stool onto the floor. She landed unceremoniously on her rump, painfully reminding her that she still had the big bruise on her butt from falling on the bathroom floor. Alpine Grove seemed to be hazardous to her health.
With a horrified look on his face, Larry reached down to help Kat up off the floor.
“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”
With as much dignity as she could muster, Kat collected her legs under her and stood up. She moved the bar stool farther from Larry.
“Yes, I’m fine. Could you see about our table?”
“I’ll be right back.” Larry hustled off to the hostess desk and conferred with a tall blonde woman he seemed to know well. Kat could hear them laughing and hoped they weren’t laughing about how she had ended up splatted on the floor. The grin on his face became more subdued as he turned back toward her.
“They’re getting a table ready now.”
The blonde woman, who it turned out was named Traci (with an i), led them to a table near the fireplace. Kat was relieved to be sitting across the table from Larry, instead of next to him.
The rest of the meal passed relatively uneventfully, if quietly. Once they had their food, the menu topic was off the table (so to speak) and Kat had run out of ideas for small talk. She’d unsuccessfully covered family, work, and home in the car.
Larry paused in his meal and asked, “So do you think you’ll stay in Alpine Grove?”
“I’m thinking about it, but I’m not sure. I asked my boss about telecommuting, and he wasn’t particularly encouraging about the idea.”
“You could quit your job.”
“I’m not sure I want to do that. I have friends there, and I’m not sure what I’d do instead.”
Kat didn’t elaborate and Larry resumed his enthusiastic eating. She wasn’t sure she wanted to share her decision-making process, since whatever she said to Larry might get back to Louise.
Larry raised his fork and pointed it at her. “Well, if you don’t stay, you need to think about finding homes for the dogs and cats.”
Kat’s heart clenched a bit at the idea of finding a new home for Linus, Lori, and Chelsey. Even Tessa. It had been only a short time, but she was becoming attached to them. She gave herself a mental shake. I don’t have to figure that out now.
After finishing the meal and experiencing another quiet, uncomfortable drive back to Chez Stinky, Kat was more than ready to say goodbye to Larry and end the long awkward evening. They stood on the blue-carpeted stairs as Kat leaned over to unlock the door.
Larry reached out to put his arm around her. “I had a great time tonight. Can we do this again?”
Had he been on the same date she had? She deftly maneuvered herself out of his embrace and opened the door. “Um, we’ll see. I should get in. The dogs need their walk now. Thank you very much. The food was just as good as you said. Really great. I have to go. ’Bye.”
As Kat scuttled into the house and closed the door behind her, she leaned back on it, relieved to have avoided what could have been the most awkward good night kiss of her life. Or maybe the history of the world.
She went down the stairs to see how the dogs were doing. With some trepidation, she had boldly put Tessa inside with everyone else, and everything seemed okay. “Hi guys.”
The dogs jumped up from the various beds they’d been sleeping on, and with tails wagging, the pack ran over to greet her. She used both hands and reached out to scratch the fuzzy ears crowding around her. “You all look fine. Were you good? I missed having someone I can talk to!”
The next morning, Kat sat at the kitchen table eating a piece of toast, reflecting on the prior evening’s conversation, or lack thereof. Although the date with Larry had been arduous, he had asked a good question about the roof. Kat knew she had been avoiding dealing with Bud on construction-related matters. But eventually rain or another weather event could cause the roof to fail in its primary mission of remaining over her head. So she couldn’t ignore it forever.
As she picked up the phone receiver, she considered what she could say to Bud. Because she was still annoyed about the hole in the wall, she was afraid she’d blurt out something like, “So Bud, are you done hunting yet? Are you ever going to fix the wall?” But that probably wasn’t a good approach.
This time when she called, Kat didn’t get the answering machine. After five rings, Bud picked up the phone. “Hiya, this is Bud.”
“Bud, this is Kat Stevens. I left a message the other day about the hole in my wall.”
“Yep. I was out huntin’ in the mountains. I got some food now. It took some time to prep, but there’s going to be good eats at my house. It feels good to have a full freezer!”
“So does that mean you can come out here and fix the hole in the wall? I’d also really like an estimate on how much work needs to be done to fix the roof and an idea of the cost.”
“Yeah, I’ve been working on thinking about fixing that roof. It could be complicated. I gotta talk to the guys at the lumberyard and get out my calculator.”
Kat tried not to think about what lurked in Bud’s freezer. Or about his calculating abilities. Maybe she didn’t want this estimate after all. Never seeing or talking to Bud again was having some appeal. She had an idea. “I was thinking that I’d like to talk to some of your prior clients. Do you have references I can talk to about the quality of your work?”
“Well, I’ll have to get back to you about that. Everyone in Alpine Grove knows me.”
Kat wasn’t sure if those who knew Bud would vouch for his work, but she figured she’d see if she could extract a few salient details. “Who have you worked for recently?”
“Well, I added a porch on my house.”
“Can I take a look at it? I’d like to see an example of your work.”
“I’m not quite done. It just needs a few finishing details. I can call you when I got it all straightened out. I have some car repairs that I’m working on right now, too. I got a race car in my yard that I’m fixing up. The wife says that if I don’t get it running, she’s going to have it towed to the scrap yard, along with the rest of my other cars I’m restoring. So that’s been taking my priority right now. And I can only work a few hours before my back starts to hurt and then I need to rest.”
“It sounds like you’re busy. I plan to get a number of estimates before I make a decision. Thank you for your time.”
As she hung up the phone, Kat decided she was done with Bud. There had to be other contractors in Alpine Grove. Or somewhere nearby. All she needed was someone with tools who knew about building. Of course, Joel had tools. Maybe she should call him again. Her mind drifted. He’d had such a cute half-smile when she was babbling at him while he was removing the cat from the wall. But he probably thought she was a complete nutcase. Or even worse, just another woman who breaks things like his sister.
After making the command decision that Bud and Martha were never going to touch Chez Stinky again, Kat was ready to attack the house again. The next step in her marathon cleaning program would be to deal with the living room. After walking the dogs and settling them back in their hallway downstairs, she donned her grubby clothes, ready to wage another battle with the dust dinosaurs.
The process of cleaning was by turns bittersweet and disgusting. She swept the rough-hewn floors and discovered old pennies, thousands of dead bugs, and even a desiccated gold fish that had been lurking in a corner behind a shelf. As she went around the living room and carefully dusted the knick-knacks sitting on the various cabinets, dressers, and shelves, she was hit with a bout of nostalgia. She remembered playing with them when she was a little girl. Her favorite had been a little ceramic woman wearing a hoop skirt, which actually was a bell.
Ever the literal one, Kat had named the little musical figurine Belle. As she rubbed the damp cloth over the web pattern of cracks in the ceramic, a tear ran down her cheek. In all the confusion of dealing with the inheritance and the house, Kat hadn’t had much time to think about the fact that she wouldn’t see her Aunt Abigail again.
Abigail had always been the weird, fun aunt who liked to get out and do things. Whether it was hiking in the forest or deciding that it was time to jump in the car and go get an ice cream cone, she was often in motion. And unlike a lot of grown-ups at that time in Kat’s life, Abigail talked to her like an intelligent (if small) person. The sum total of her conversation didn’t consist of “Oh, look how much you’ve grown!”
Abigail had always seemed interested in Kat’s little-girl life. She wanted to know about Kat’s friends, school, and what she liked to do. Knowing Kat liked creating crafty things, Abigail always had some type of embroidery or craft kit for her to work on whenever she visited. In fact, Kat had discovered a worn woven-loop potholder with crispy edges that she was pretty sure she had created years ago with a loom kit.
After she dusted the surface of an old credenza, she pulled out the drawers and discovered a cache of CDs. Kat hadn’t seen a CD player anywhere, so she opened up the double doors on the front of the battered piece of furniture to discover a remarkably modern-looking stereo system. Bose speakers? Now that was a surprise. She riffled through the CD cases and learned that apparently Abigail had a fondness for rock and roll, with the occasional foray into heavy metal. Who knew?
Although Kat had been enjoying the quiet of her little corner of forest, the idea of blasting a few tunes to help her regain cleaning momentum was appealing. She opened up the door of the CD player and put in an old album from Electric Light Orchestra. As the sound of “Tightrope” filled the house, rustling sounds of dogs waking up came from downstairs. Canine nap time was over.
She went down the stairs and opened the gate to let the dogs upstairs. The four-pack, as she’d come to think of them, launched up the stairway and wandered around the kitchen and living room, sniffing to find out what had transpired since they’d last been there. Tessa raced around the living room and kitchen area twice and then screeched to a halt and stared at Kat expectantly.
“Hi, you guys. You all be good. I still have a lot of cleaning to do.”
Kat grabbed her damp dusting cloth from the sink with a flourish in time to the music. Spotting the movement, Lori perked up her ears, wagged her tail, and ran over to Kat and Tessa to join in the fun.
“So do you like ELO?”
Tessa leaped around joyfully, and Lori jumped backward a few times in front of Kat to indicate her musical enthusiasm. Linus came over to the kitchen and the three dogs followed Kat around as she danced around the living room and kitchen, dusting various surfaces as she went. By the end of the song, even Chelsey had joined in the parade. All four dogs were panting happily as the next song began. As she sang along to the music loudly and way off-key, Kat was glad that even though dogs have great hearing, they aren’t music critics.
By the time the album was over, Kat and the dogs were exhausted. Kat collapsed on the sofa, and Lori leaped up and curled up next to her. Tessa and Linus settled down on the floor in front of her feet, and Chelsey crawled under the sofa, settling in for a snooze. Kat rested her hand on Lori’s back and leaned back on the sofa. Closing her eyes, she listened to the quiet snuffly sounds of dogs snoring around her.
For Kat, the next few days consisted of more cleaning, memories, reflections, and dog walks. She settled into a comfortable routine and most of the time was able to handle Tessa, Chelsey, and the rest of the canine crew with relatively few problems. No parts of Chez Stinky fell off or disintegrated during her cleaning and no cats ended up trapped anywhere, which she regarded as a great step in the right direction.
Although she had caught only a few glimpses of the outdoor cats Butch and Sundance, those fleeting moments of flying fur, along with the food consumption, assured Kat that the pair were okay and enjoying barn-cat life. Kat also found a number of rodent body parts that indicated the felines were taking their jobs as Chief Mouse Officers seriously.
Even Murphee was slowly starting to adjust to life at Chez Stinky. One afternoon after she had patrolled the upstairs area for other cats and secured the dogs downstairs in their hallway, Kat let Murph out of the bedroom to explore. Murphee wandered around the living room and kitchen, sniffing and rubbing against furniture. Eventually, she curled up with Kat on the sofa and enjoyed some quality lap time while Kat read a novel.
Kat was still worried about the roof, but the weather had been gloriously sunny and it was easy to ignore the problem for the time being and just enjoy what was left of her vacation. Next week, she’d have to return to her cubicle and the rest of her real life. But for the time being, she wanted to relax and enjoy herself.
Now that the house was somewhat more habitable, maybe sh
e could invite Maria up for the weekend. She could get the dirt from her friend on what was going on at the office before she had to face the world of technical writing again. She’d been completely alone for the last couple days, and it would be nice to see another human being.
Kat picked up the phone and dialed Maria’s number at the office.
“Hello. This is Maria.”
“Wow, you sound so official!” Kat said with a smile.
“Hey, girlfriend! I thought maybe you’d been chewed up by a rabid chipmunk out there in the forest. How’s it going? Have you found the man of your dreams lurking behind some big pine tree yet?
“No. Mostly I’ve been dealing with a guy named Bud who is very attached to a power saw he named Martha. I didn’t want to horn in on their relationship.”
“Sounds sexy. Things are kinda different out there in the woods.”
“Definitely. Do you want to come see for yourself? I was thinking we could do a Wine and Whine up here so you can fill me in all the fun stuff at work before I have to go back there.”
“Well, that won’t take long. Fun has not been the word of the day around here. I think Mark might be insane. What is wrong with that dude?”
“I couldn’t tell you. I don’t think he likes me much right now, either. We can talk about that when you’re here.”
“I’ll have to cancel that date I have with Brad Pitt. But for you, anything. I think I might just take a four-day weekend, too. I need to get out of this place for a while.”
“I definitely know that feeling. Before I went on vacation, I wanted to commit serious bodily harm to Mark. I think I was getting wound a bit too tight. Oh, one other thing about coming up here. You might want to bring casual clothes. And comfortable shoes. It’s a little more rustic than you might be used to. Also, you know about the dogs and cats here. They have fur. It falls off. They shed a lot. Just keep that in mind.”
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