by Nic Saint
“Of course Max is a pedestrian,” said Dooley. “He’s never learned how to drive a car.”
“Don’t you see this is the chance of a lifetime?” Harriet continued, ignoring Dooley. “If Odelia sells that stone to the highest bidder we’re set for life. None of the Pooles will ever have to work again, they could spend the rest of their lives on a yacht in the South of France and live the most amazing wonderful fabulous life!”
“I don’t think I’d like to live on a yacht,” said Dooley, striking the discordant note. “I was on a cruise ship and I almost got eaten by a big nasty bird. So I guess I haven’t found my sea paws yet.”
“Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet with a sigh. “You’re almost as pedestrian as Max.”
“More pedestrian,” Brutus pointed out.
“I think I’ll have a word with Odelia now,” said Harriet as she eagerly glanced in the direction of the hedge. “It’s obvious she needs a little guidance from her favorite feline.”
So she and Brutus skedaddled, and Dooley and I were left staring after them.
“I didn’t know Harriet was Odelia’s favorite feline,” said Dooley.
“She isn’t,” I assured him. “It’s just that Harriet wants something from Odelia and she thinks flattery will get her there.”
“Do you really think Odelia will sell the Pink Lady and become a millionaire?”
“No, I don’t think so. She might even refuse a reward if one is offered. She’ll insist that seeing the happiness on the rightful owner’s face is enough reward for her.”
“Well, phew. I really don’t want to live on a yacht, Max.”
“Me, neither, Dooley.”
10
Now that the diamond was safe, and the powers that be were engaged in tracking down its rightful owner, it was time to tackle the problem that really should be at the forefront of our minds: how to save Buster’s human from self-destruction!
And so as we lay there, I rallied my mental faculties and directed them toward solving that seemingly unsolvable problem.
“So how do you convince someone who’s one hundred percent convinced of something that they’re heading down a dangerous path?” I asked, thinking out loud as I sometimes do.
“I think we have to tell Harriet that money doesn’t make you happy,” said Dooley, misinterpreting my question. “And the only way to do that is by making her rich for a day.”
“Rich for a day?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you ever seen that show where two families trade places? A rich family goes to live in the house of a poor family and the other way around. They swap lives for a while, to see how the other half lives. Brutus and Harriet could swap places with a pair of rich cats for a couple of weeks, and I’m sure they’ll see that even rich cats have their problems, the same way we do.”
“Mh,” I said, thinking this over. “You know, there’s something in that, Dooley.”
“I know. It’s a very popular show,” said my friend. “Gran and I watch it all the time. It’s very funny.”
I didn’t see how swapping lives would be funny, but then Gran has a very peculiar sense of humor.
“The only problem is: where do we find a pair of rich cats, and how do we make them want to swap places with Harriet and Brutus?”
“Actually I wasn’t thinking of Harriet and Brutus,” I said.
“You weren’t?”
“No, I was thinking about Buster.”
“Buster? I don’t think Buster wants to be rich.”
“No, but he doesn’t want to go and live in the gutter either. So we need to make sure Fido steps back from the brink before it’s too late. And what better way to do that than to confront him with the consequences of his actions? Only not at some distant point in the future, but right now.” Dooley was staring at me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Don’t mind me. I’m just spitballing.”
“I get that all the time,” he said, nodding. “Only I call it chucking up a hairball. Though it’s been a while since I had one.”
I smiled and then closed my eyes to give this matter a little more thought.
“Odelia?”
“Mh?”
“What are you going to do with that diamond?”
Odelia glanced down at Harriet. She was a little preoccupied right now, what with holding a million-dollar gem in the palm of her hand, and a gem with a long history at that. “What do you mean?” she asked as she deftly opened her mom and dad’s safe and peered inside. It was one of those wall safes her parents had installed in the bedroom. Right now it only held a couple of Dad’s Superman comics, which he bought years ago when he had the idea he wanted to be a comics collector. But since, as hobbies go that had been a costly one, he’d soon switched to collecting garden gnomes instead.
“Well, are you going to sell the diamond or what?”
“I can’t sell a diamond that’s not mine, Harriet,” she said as she placed the envelope with the stone inside the safe, then closed the little door again, and gave the dial a couple of turns.
“But if you sell it, how much do you think you’ll get for it?” Harriet insisted.
She frowned as she took in the question. “I just told you the stone isn’t mine to sell. So what does it matter how much I would get for it?”
“I think you should sell it,” Brutus piped up.
She glanced down at the twosome, and saw that they were both eyeing her a little feverishly.
“What are they saying?” asked Chase with a smile.
“They want me to sell the diamond,” she said with a shrug.
“We can’t sell it,” Chase pointed out. “It doesn’t belong to us.”
“So what if you sell it back to the owners?” Harriet suggested. “How much do you think they’ll pay? Millions? A billion?”
She now recognized the look in her cats’ eyes. It was the same kind of look gold diggers get when they’re on a riverbank sifting through the mud. Or the kind of feverish fervor some of those bitcoin miners experienced when the value of their bitcoin suddenly hit the roof.
“Look, the stone isn’t mine to sell,” she repeated. “And besides, you can’t put a value on a stone like the Pink Lady. Its value is an emotional one. It was a gift from Sheikh Bab El Ehr to his wife, a symbol of their love. How do you put a price on something like that? You can’t.”
“So how about a finder’s fee? How much do you think these people will pay for the privilege of getting their treasured diamond back?”
She took a seat next to Chase on the bedroom bench and regarded her cats sternly. “I have to confess I’m a little disappointed in you right now, Harriet. You, too, Brutus. For you even to suggest such a thing is just… I mean, really?”
Harriet looked surprised by this. “What do you mean?”
“We don’t go around trying to make a fast buck, Harriet. That’s not who we are. We try to do the right thing, not get rich off other people’s misery.”
Harriet had the decency to look embarrassed, and so did Brutus.
She rubbed the Persian’s head. “Look, I know the notion of possessing a fabulously precious stone like the Pink Lady can make your head spin. But we can’t let it affect us. There’s more to life than money, you guys. We can’t let this diamond change who we are: decent human beings… and cats,” she added with a smile.
“I’m sorry,” said Harriet, and Odelia noticed how that dangerous gleam had disappeared from her eyes. “I don’t know what came over me. I just…” she shook her head, as if trying to rid herself of a pesky flea. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” said Odelia. “I think you caught a bug, honey, and so did you, Brutus.”
“A bug?” asked the pretty Persian, looking horrified. “What bug?”
“The diamond bug. And now scram, will you? Chase and I have some stuff to discuss.”
She watched as Harriet and Brutus disappeared through the door, then closed it.
“So why didn’t you want the cats to know about
Johnny and Jerry gunning for that stone?” asked Chase.
“Because I don’t want to get them involved any more than they already are. Petty crime is one thing, but this diamond…” She darted a glance at the portrait of a gnome, which Dad had hung in front of the safe, and which swung on a set of hinges to obscure its presence. “It scares me, you know. You saw what happened with Harriet and Brutus just now. Somehow the presence of the Pink Lady brings out the worst in people, and I don’t want my cats to get hurt.”
“They’ll be fine,” said Chase as he placed an arm around her shoulders. She leaned in and her husband’s embrace felt good, as did the kiss he placed on her temple. “We’ll find out who this gem belongs to, give it back to them, and that’s it.”
She sighed deeply. Somehow she had a feeling it wouldn’t be quite so simple. She just hoped she was wrong.
11
Marge was frowning before herself as she locked up the library and started on her way home. She’d googled the author of the book she’d been reading but had unfortunately drawn a blank. It seemed as if there wasn’t much of an internet presence for Loretta Gray, which was unusual in this day and age. The woman didn’t even have a website, which was even more surprising, or even a Facebook page.
And she’d just reached the sidewalk and took a left to head in the direction of home and hearth, when suddenly the door of a car that stood parked at the curb opened and that very same Loretta Gray stepped out!
Marge immediately recognized the author from her author picture, in spite of the sunglasses the writer was wearing. Her blond hair shone like spun gold, and she was dressed in an expensive green suit, her feet clad in equally expensive high heels. All in all, she looked like a million bucks. Exactly like what Marge would have expected the authoress of The Sheikh’s Passion to look.
“Marge Poole?” asked the woman as she took off her sunglasses.
“Yes?” said Marge, highly surprised by this sudden turn of events. “You’re Loretta Gray, aren’t you?”
The author smiled. “Have we met?”
“No, but I’ve just been reading… Wait, here it is.” She reached into her canvas bag and took out the book. “I’ve been reading your book,” she said, holding up her library copy.
The woman’s smile vanished. “Oh,” she said. “I see.”
“I love it,” said Marge. “I think it’s an amazing story, and it so vividly describes what happened it’s almost as if…”
“Yes,” said the woman, glancing down at the book with a strange look in her eyes.
“Almost as if it’s autobiographical,” Marge finished, and the moment she spoke the words, she regretted them, for a hard look appeared on the woman’s face.
“Look, I’m not here to discuss my book,” she said, her voice clipped and her demeanor businesslike. “I saw on the news that the Pink Diamond was found on the beach yesterday, and I was hoping to talk to the person who found it.”
“Oh, but that wasn’t me,” said Marge, wondering why an author would resent discussing her work. Then again, writers are a strange breed, of course. Maybe she’d once wrote it and now regretted it. Or it reminded her of a time in her life she’d rather forget.
“No, I know it wasn’t you,” said Miss Gray. “But I called the TV station and they said they couldn’t divulge the identity of the finder—even though they interviewed her live on the air—and so I asked if I could speak to someone with knowledge of the situation, and they referred me to the Mayor. But when I called Town Hall, a secretary said the Mayor couldn’t take my call, since she was busy, and referred me to the police station. And when I called there…”
“They foisted you off, too.”
“So I asked the woman who answered my call if she could put me in touch with Olivia Wynn, the little girl who found the diamond, or if there was anyone in this town who would talk to me about what happened, and she gave me your name. She literally said, ‘If there’s anything you want to know about what goes on in Hampton Cove, you gotta talk to Marge Poole. She’s the town librarian, and we all know what librarians are like: a bunch of nosy busybodies!’” She smiled. “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but in a sense she does have a point, however crudely expressed. When I was little and I had a difficult school assignment or an essay to write, the librarian was always the first person my mom told me to go and see.”
“And did it work?” asked Marge, happy that the initial awkwardness between them had dissipated.
“Sure. We had a very nice librarian in the town I grew up in. Her name was Hildegarde Procak, and she always had all the answers. Of course my questions were probably not that difficult, since I was only nine.”
“Oh, but you would be surprised by how difficult kids’ questions can be,” Marge said with a laugh.
“So what can you tell me about the Pink Lady?” asked the authoress.
“I’m afraid I don’t know all the details. Only that the diamond was found on the beach yesterday, quite by accident, by a little girl who was playing in the sand with her little brother—”
“Olivia Wynn.”
“See? I didn’t even know that. All I know is she gave it to her mom, who immediately realized this was not a piece of colored glass and took it to a jeweler in town to have it appraised.”
“And the jeweler recognized it as a precious stone and called the police,” said the woman with a nod. “Any idea how a diamond like the Pink Lady ended up on a beach in the Hamptons?”
“No idea,” said Marge truthfully. “But if I may ask: why are you so interested in this diamond? Is it connected with your book?” She held up her copy of The Sheikh’s Passion. And watched as the author immediately stiffened again.
“No, nothing to do with the book,” she said, almost snappishly, as if Marge had said the wrong thing. Then she abruptly turned on her heel and strode back to her car. But before she opened the door, she seemed to have a change of heart, and returned on her steps. “Do you… do you know where the diamond is now?”
“No idea,” Marge lied. Convincingly, she hoped.
The woman nodded, then shrugged and plastered an unconvincing smile on her face. “Oh, well,” she said. “At least it was found. That’s the main thing.” And she started to walk away again.
“Wait,” said Marge, then realized that the question she wanted to ask the woman probably would go unanswered, but decided to ask it anyway. “Do you… the book you wrote, it’s real, isn’t it? It all happened the way you describe.”
“No,” said the woman after a moment’s hesitation. “No, I just…” She seemed on the verge of saying something, but then thought better of it. “I have a very vivid imagination, and the story of the Pink Lady simply captured that imagination, that’s all. It’s fiction, Mrs. Poole, nothing more. You being a librarian should recognize a piece of fiction when you see it.”
“Oh,” said Marge, feeling slightly disappointed.
She watched as the authoress got back into her car, and quickly drove off.
12
Dinner that night was a collective affair, with the entire Poole clan gathered around the table, set up outside on the deck.
Odelia and Chase were there, of course, and Marge and Tex and Gran, but also Uncle Alec, along with his girlfriend Charlene, and even Scarlett had decided to drop by and keep us company. So it was safe to say that things proceeded in a lively way, as they usually do when the entire extended family comes together to share a nice meal.
Tex had done the honors, which was the kind of news no one likes to receive when sitting down for dinner, but the doctor had done his best, and with a little help from Chase the two men had managed to cook up a nice batch of… spaghetti bolognese, which happens to be Chase’s specialty, and also just about the only dish he’s mastered in the thirty-two years he’s been a guest on this planet.
“I think you really should try to expand your culinary skillset, Chase,” said Gran as she tried in vain to eat the spaghetti while still looking like a lady. I could have t
old her that spaghetti is one of those dishes it’s not very pleasant to eat in the company of others, since it not only involves a lot of acrobatics of the mouth but also slithers about to such an extent you can’t eat it without the use of a bib. And we all know that a bib makes any person, unless he’s an infant, look like a complete fool. Lucky for us, cats don’t eat spaghetti. We limit ourselves to the meatballs Chase likes to serve with his signature dish.
“What are you talking about?” said Uncle Alec, whose lips were a bright glistening red from all that bolognese sauce. “The man is a genius.”
“Actually it was Dad who took care of the main food prep today,” said Chase modestly. “I just stood by to lend him a helping hand.”
“Nonsense,” said Tex magnanimously. “You did most of the work, and I can’t thank you enough… son.”
“Thanks,” said Chase happily as he pronged a string of spaghetti and started working it into his mouth then chewing it down with visible and audible relish.
“I mean, you don’t expect your wife to eat spaghetti all her married life, do you?” Gran continued laying out her argument, undaunted by these interludes. “You should buy him a good cookbook, honey,” she told her granddaughter. “Make it a birthday gift, so he can’t claim he didn’t get it, or miraculously ‘lost’ it.”
“I already have all the recipes I need on the internet, thank you very much,” said Chase, “and I intend to start going through them one by one. Isn’t that right, babe?”
“Absolutely,” said Odelia, who was clearly not yet tired of her hubby’s spaghetti making skills.
“I found this YouTube channel called ‘Top Chef in Thirty Days’ and I’m starting with the first video tomorrow. I’ll be preparing a different dish every day. I’m calling it my thirty-day challenge.”
“Well, I just hope you’ve got an ambulance on standby,” said Gran.
“Oh, but Chase is going to get a helping hand from me, isn’t he?” said Tex cheerfully as he raised his glass of wine in honor of his son-in-law—the future ‘Top Chef.’