by Ryan, Sofie
“He’s a very bad cat,” I said, picking him off the floor. “You’re bad,” I said, sternly, shaking my finger at him.
His response was to sniff it. Behind me Rose laughed.
I set Elvis down just inside the store. I pointed to the steps. “Go upstairs.” I made a shooing motion with my hand for emphasis. He looked at me unblinkingly. Then he made a wide circle around me and went back into the storage room, in search of Mac—or more boxes he could paw his way into.
“Where’s Mac?” I said to Rose.
She dipped her head toward the back of the space. “He’s in the shed.”
I headed for the door along the back wall. Elvis had jumped onto a metal plant stand. He looked a little like some Egyptian cat-god statue.
I found Mac out back in what we called the shed. The outbuilding had most likely been a two-car garage originally. It had been built much later than the house and had had at least two other lives that I knew about—as an appliance repair business and a pottery studio. My long-term plans were to fix the roof, add some insulation and use the space for more formal workshops, along with badly needed extra storage.
Mac was crouched down in front of a long dresser. It had two long drawers, two short ones, and it sat on four squat, curved feet. The wood, which we thought was elm, was in pretty decent shape. Really the only problem was the fact that it had been painted an unfortunate shade of orange that I thought was reserved just for traffic cones.
“What do you think?” I asked.
He squinted up at me. “The joints are all solid. There’s no sign of mold or worms, although it does smell pretty strongly of mothballs and, if my nose is correct, Evening in Paris perfume.”
“Some time in the sun will get rid of a lot of the smell,” I said. I took a couple of steps to the front of the chest so I could get the full effect of the orange.
“What are you going to do for a finish?” Mac asked, getting to his feet and brushing the dust off his hands. He’d rolled back his sleeves and I could see the muscles in his arms. Mac was all lean, strong muscle. A couple of times I’d thought about inviting him for a run but I was a bit afraid he’d leave me behind.
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “I’m going for a distressed look but I’m not sure about the color.”
“That orange is pretty distressing,” Mac said with a smile as he came to stand beside me.
I rolled my eyes. “You’ve been spending too much time with Avery.”
He smoothed a hand over his head. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about Avery.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What did she do?”
“Nothing. I was thinking maybe we should see if she’d be interested in helping me do some work in here.”
“You mean repurposing some of the pieces?” I said. I looked around. Between Mac and me there were probably a dozen refurbishing projects in various stages of completion and maybe eight or nine more waiting to be worked on.
“She has a good eye for color.”
I had been thinking the same thing. “Okay,” I said, rubbing my left shoulder with the other hand. “I trust your judgment.” I squinted at the chest of drawers, trying to picture it in some other—any other—color. Green, maybe.
Mac frowned at me. “Everything okay?”
I blew out a breath. “I’m not sure. One of the women didn’t show up for the workshop. Madeline—Maddie—she’s a friend of Gram’s. I’ve known her since I was a little girl.” I stretched my left arm up over my head trying to work out the stiffness. “Charlotte and I went to check on her.”
“Was she okay?”
“She was. But her gentleman friend wasn’t. He was . . . uh . . . dead.”
“Dead?” Mac said. His brown eyes narrowed with concern. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure.” I headed for the door and he followed. “The police came, and after that I took Maddie and Charlotte over to Charlotte’s house. That’s what took me so long.”
We swung the wide doors shut and I made sure they were both closed tightly and locked securely. “Do you remember that older man who came in the other day with the silver tea set?” I asked Mac.
“White hair, mustache, nice suit. I remember,” he said, bending down to snag a plastic grocery bag that was blowing across the pavement. “Wait a minute. It was him?”
I nodded. “Arthur Fenety. Which reminds me, the police will be by to get that tea set. It’s in my office.”
Mac shook out the bag and dropped it in the recycling bin by the back door of the shop. “So, how did the workshop go?”
“Good,” I said. “Except Avery brought Elvis with her.”
“Why?”
“She says he’s good advertising for the shop.”
He smiled. “What was her plan? Put a little signboard on him and have him walk up and down the sidewalk?”
“Don’t say that out loud,” I said. “It’s just the thing Avery would be apt to try.”
Elvis was back at the boxes propping open the door, trying diligently to work one paw under a flap of cardboard on the top of the box.
“Don’t do that,” Mac said.
Elvis immediately pulled his paw back and sat down on his haunches.
“I’ll start bringing things in from the truck,” Mac said, heading for the front door.
“I’ll be right there,” I said. I looked down at Elvis, who had come to sit by my feet. “So, him you listen to?”
He looked up at me and blinked, all green-eyed innocence.
Rose was showing a customer the little teacup gardens—tiny, hardy Haworthia or chives, planted in odd china cups with saucers. I inclined my head in her direction. “Go help Rose,” I said. To my surprise Elvis headed purposefully across the floor in her direction. Sometimes I got the feeling that cat was messing with me.
Mac and I unloaded the truck and put everything back in the storage room. Rose sold four teacup gardens and I helped her wrap them while Elvis entertained the customer. By the time we had finished it was five minutes past store closing time. Rose walked around tidying up the displays while I ran the vacuum over the floor and Mac swept the storage room.
“If you talk to Jess tonight tell her those boxes of clothes are ready, please,” Mac said, pulling on his denim jacket.
“I will,” I said.
Jess was my closest friend in North Harbor—closest friend of my age, anyway. I’d known her casually when we were teenagers, but we’d gotten close after we became roommates in college. She had a great sense of funky style, and with a sewing machine and a pair of scissors she could make over just about any piece of clothing. Everything she restyled ended up in a little used and vintage clothing shop on the waterfront. She’d also started making one-of-a-kind quilts from recycled fabric. I’d had two of them in the shop and they’d sold within a week.
Mac picked up Rose’s canvas tote bag. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. Now that sailing season was over I wondered what Mac would do with his free time. In the four months we’d worked together I’d learned very little about him. Any questions about his private life usually got only a one- or two-word answer.
Rose stopped to give me a hug. “Thank you for taking care of Maddie today,” she said. “Give Isabel my love when you talk to her.”
“I will,” I promised. I felt in my pocket for the little piece of paper Mr. P. had given me to write down the names of the women who had passed on messages to Gram. It was still there.
I locked the door behind Mac and Rose. Then I did a circuit around the store, trailed by Elvis, looking to see what was selling and what might need a little more tweaking. There were only three of the teacup gardens left. I knew there were cups in the storage room and more tiny plants upstairs in my office.
“Wanna help me do some planting?” I said to Elvis. He tipped his head to one side as though he was con
sidering the question and then meowed. I took it as a yes.
I set up outside on an old, paint-spattered table we kept by the back door. Elvis jumped up and immediately began poking his whiskers in everything. He had to sniff the cups and the plants, and when I took the lid off the pail of potting soil he stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the edge and pushed his face down inside before I could stop him.
And immediately sneezed. And sneezed. And sneezed. He shook his head vigorously, meowed indignantly and swiped at his nose with one paw.
I struggled to keep a straight face. Even though Elvis was a cat and not a person, it seemed mean to laugh at him.
“Let me see,” I said. I reached for him and used the hem of my shirt to wipe some of the dirt from his black fur. He sneezed one more time and glared at me as if somehow this whole thing was my fault. I fished in my pocket for a Kleenex to try to clean his face a little better.
“I don’t think he’s going to blow his nose,” a voice said behind me. I turned around to see Michelle standing a few feet away, hands in her pockets, a small smile on her face.
“He’s pretty smart,” I said.
“Oh, it’s not that I think he couldn’t. It’s just from his expression I don’t think he’s going to.”
Elvis was leaning sideways, watching Michelle intently as she crossed the space between us. He still had a slightly sour look on his face. I took advantage of the fact that his attention had shifted to clean his fur. He shook his head and took a swipe at my hand with his paw, but his claws weren’t out so I knew he wasn’t really that mad.
“What’s his name?” Michelle held out her hand so the cat could sniff it.
“Elvis.”
He sniffed a couple of times and seemed to like what his nose told him.
“What happened to his nose?” she asked, gesturing to the long, ropy scar that almost bisected the cat’s nose.
“Nobody knows,” I said with a shrug. “The best guess the vet could give is that he got into a fight with something that was probably a lot bigger than he is. The cat, I mean, not the vet.”
Elvis butted her hand with his head, kitty shorthand for “Give me a scratch.” Michelle obliged, stroking the top of his head, brushing away the last bit of soil and peat moss clinging to his fur. His eyes narrowed into slits and he began to purr.
“You have a friend,” I said.
She smiled. “I like cats. Is Elvis the cat that was wandering around downtown for a while?”
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“How did you end up with him?” Elvis was leaning against her arm, rumbling like a well-tuned motorboat engine.
“Sam,” I said, brushing potting soil off my shirt.
“That explains a lot,” she said, her smile widening. “The animal-control officer tried for weeks to capture this cat. He set up a cage in the alley by Sam’s place. All he ended up catching was one very pissed-off seagull.”
I laughed. “I’m sure Sam had nothing to do with that.”
Michelle rolled her eyes. “I’m sure.” She smiled down at Elvis, who was nudging her hand because she’d stopped scratching behind his ear. “Well, I’m glad he ended up with you.”
I didn’t know what else to say to her. Silence settled between us like a large rock. Then I remembered the silver service. That was probably why Michelle was here. “You came for the tea set that Arthur Fenety wanted to sell,” I said.
“I did,” she said
“It’s in my office,” I said, gesturing at the back door. “Come in and I’ll get it for you.”
Elvis jumped down and followed us. To be more exact, he followed Michelle. When we stepped inside the store she stopped in the middle of the room and looked around.
“This is really nice,” she said. “I should have come in before now.” She looked at me and it was hard to read her expression. Was that guilt I could see in her eyes? I felt as if that rock had just landed in the middle of the room between us.
I cleared my throat. “You’re welcome anytime,” I said. “If I’m not here, Elvis usually is.”
The cat gave an enthusiastic meow at the sound of his own name. We both laughed and it seemed to chase away some of the awkwardness.
I took Michelle upstairs to my office and gave her the box with the silver tea set. She looked quickly at each piece and then wrote me a receipt.
“You know this place was briefly a private smokers’ club,” she said as we headed back downstairs.
“That would explain the smell and the window boxes full of cigarette butts,” I said.
“I’m glad you’re giving the place a new life.” She gestured at the sign by the door. “A second chance.” Her expression grew serious. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable before, when I brought up your show.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It was just a job.” I held out a hand. “And now I have this.”
“Not everyone bounces back as well as you did, Sarah,” Michelle said. “Believe me. I’ve seen people at their worst.”
I brushed my hair back from my face. “I’m lucky. I had a lot of people helping me. “
She nodded. “You are.”
I walked her out to the small parking lot. She shifted the box with the silver from one arm to the other and bent down to stroke Elvis’s fur. “Bye, puss,” she said. She straightened up. “I’m glad you’re back, Sarah.” She turned then and headed toward the street.
I watched her go, and then I walked back over to the table. Elvis jumped up again, made a wide berth around the bucket of potting soil and ended up sitting down in the middle of the collection of little plants—the second-most inconvenient place for him to be. Even with him pretty much in the way the entire time I still managed to get all the plants transferred into the cups.
I was just coming back from putting the last teacup in the front window when Nick Elliot walked up the driveway. “Hi,” he said. “I was hoping I’d find you here.”
“Well, you did.” I realized how lame the words sounded as soon as I’d said them.
Elvis was eyeing Nick the same way he’d checked out Michelle.
“Elvis, right?” Nick said. “Mom told me you’d taken the cat that had been hanging around downtown.”
“More like Sam and Elvis”—I gestured to the cat with the tray of plastic pots I was holding—“conspired to trick me into taking him.”
Nick reached for the bucket of soil. “Sam tricked you?” he said, eyebrows raised.
“Yes,” I said.
He smiled. “Yeah, I can see him doing that.”
Nick followed me in the storage room, and I took the bucket from him and set it up on the shelf next to my pile of pots. He looked around. “You’ve done a lot of work here. How about a tour?”
“All right,” I said. I held up both hands. “This is part storage room, part workroom. Anything that’s really messy we do out in the old garage. It still needs some work.”
I led him over to the doors that led into the shop.
“This is great,” he said as he stepped into the space. “Are you using both floors?”
I shook my head. “No. I have an office upstairs and some more storage.”
He nodded but one of the guitars on the wall had caught his eye. “That’s a Rickenbacker,” he said. “A ’sixty-five.”
“Uh-huh. Sparkle inlays. All original.” I walked over and lifted the guitar off the wall. It was the deep russet color of an autumn leaf. “Try it,” I said.
His eyes narrowed. “Seriously?”
“Yes.” I held out the guitar. “You still play, don’t you?” I asked.
He gave me a wry smile. “Not as much as I used to, but yeah, I still play.”
“So play something for me,” I said.
Nick took the guitar from me and sat down on the steps to the second floor. I leaned against th
e wall while he tuned the strings and played some chords. Then he looked over at me. “I don’t know,” he said a little self-consciously, “but maybe you remember this.” He bent his head and started to play.
I did remember. It was the first song Nick had taught me to play on guitar. “Comin’ Back to You.” He played the bridge and then he started into the first verse, singing along softly with the music:
I’m comin’ back to you,
Somehow I always knew
No matter what I do,
All roads lead back to you.
For a moment I was fifteen again, it was summertime and the night sky was filled with stars. The memory wrapped around me with the music. Nick played through to the end of the chorus, then looked up at me and smiled a bit sheepishly. “I’m a little rusty.”
“You sounded great to me,” I said.
“Do you play much?” he asked.
I pushed away from the wall and shook my head. “I’ve been a little busy.”
“That’s too bad.” He got to his feet again and his gaze darted to my face for a moment. “Mom told me about your radio show being canceled,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Nick didn’t say anything for a moment, as though maybe he was waiting for me to say something more. Then he held out the guitar. “It’s a nice instrument, Sarah. Thanks for letting me play it.”
I raised an eyebrow at him as I took it, trying to lighten the mood a little. “You know, you qualify for the family discount.”
He shrugged. “It should go to someone who would actually play it once in a while. I don’t have a lot of time these days.”
“That’s too bad,” I said, copying his words and the tone of his voice from before.
He smiled. “Touché.”
I smiled back.
“Speaking of family,” he said. “How’s yours?”
“Good,” I said. “Dad’s teaching journalism now and still doing some writing, mostly longer pieces for magazines. Mom has a new book out next month.” My mother wrote a series for elementary school kids about a talking gerbil named Einstein. “And Liam’s pretty much focused on passive solar design now.”