by Laurie Cass
“Minnie, I’m fine.” He looked at me with serious gray eyes. “I wouldn’t put you or the library in any jeopardy. After two weeks, I was fine to lift things up to ten pounds, so as long as you don’t make me tote any big boxes of books, there won’t be any problems.”
I studied him, thinking hard.
What did I know about this man? Next to nothing. The fact that I’d already mentally moved him into the friend category meant zip where the bookmobile and the library were concerned. I had to do what was best for the library and not be swayed by a kernel of friendship.
Then again, what were the risks if I brought him along?
“It was laparoscopic surgery,” he said, “and it was three weeks ago. All I can’t do is lift heavy things, which is why I’m here instead of out hunting.”
That was right: It was the first day of deer season. I tried to remember what people said about snow for hunting, whether that made it easier or harder, but since I wasn’t a hunter, I didn’t try very hard.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. “Let me make a phone call. There’s this doctor I know.” I dug into my backpack for my phone and called Tucker. Having an emergency-room doctor boyfriend was coming in handy. “Hey,” I said. “Got a quick question for you.”
“You’re not canceling our date tonight, are you?” he asked.
“Not a chance.” It had been weeks since our schedules had synced to where we could have a weekend night together. “My question is a general one, about hernia surgery.”
“Don’t do it,” he said promptly.
I laughed. “Not in my future, as far as I know. But I’m wondering about recovery time.”
He started asking all sorts of questions. What kind of hernia surgery, had there been a mesh installed, who was the surgeon, how healthy was the patient, and on and on.
Okay, maybe having a doctor for a boyfriend wasn’t so handy. I waited until he paused for breath, then asked, “If the guy is around fifty, fairly fit, and had laparoscopic surgery three weeks ago, do you think it’s okay for him to work at a desk job?”
“Well, what I’ll tell you,” Tucker said, “is most guys are back at work inside of a week if they don’t have to do any lifting.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Excellent. Thanks.”
Tucker went on about possible complications, said he couldn’t make any real recommendations without seeing the guy, that every case was different, and to get a solid answer the guy should consult with his surgeon.
“Sure,” I said. “I understand. Thanks.” I tucked the phone away. “Well, it sounds like you’re good to go.”
“‘Fairly fit’?” Roger quoted me, lifting one eyebrow.
I grinned and checked the vehicle’s mirrors. The road was still empty, so I took my foot off the brake. “Well, I don’t know your best mile time, do I?”
“Last summer I ran a half marathon in under two hours.”
I tried to do the math. Gave up fast. Anyone who could run 13.1 miles at all had to be a lot healthier than I was. One of these days I’d start eating better and get into working out. This spring, maybe. Winter was no time to start an exercise program.
We spent the ride out to the south central part of the county working through the pros and cons of over- and underestimating people and came to no conclusions. We talked about the library’s renovation project on the way to the second stop, wherein I learned that my office had previously been part of a fifth-grade classroom, and talked a lot about the weather on the way to the third stop.
This was because although I’d already lived through three northern Michigan winters, I’d spent most of those months in town or on highways that had priority for snow clearance. I had never quite realized how varied the snowfall amounts could be in different parts of Tonedagana County.
“Oh, sure,” Roger said, nodding. “Over by Chilson, that’s what we call the banana belt.”
“Bananas?”
“It’s a joke. But over there we got—what?—six, maybe eight inches? Which is a lot of stuff to shovel, sure, but look at that.” He gestured at the snow-laden trees. “That’s ten to twelve inches, easy.”
As Deputy Wolverson had predicted, the roads had been cleared nicely and the driving was fine, but there was indeed a lot of snow. Cedar branches were weighed down with great clumps of the stuff, the few houses were thickly blanketed with white, and the only bare ground to be seen was the roadway in front of us.
“Why?” I asked.
“Does it snow more over here?” He shrugged. “Ask a weather guy. All I know is that it does. Always has.”
Something to do with the Great Lakes, no doubt. That was always the stock answer for any odd weather up here. And it was probably true. Having multiple vast bodies of water—Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and Lake Huron—smush themselves together in basically one location was bound to create strange weather patterns.
At the third stop, I continued what I’d done at the first two and kept an eye on Roger to make sure he limited himself to desk-job duties. No way was I going to allow him to hurt himself on my bookmobile, and even though he seemed like a very nice man, he was still a man and would undoubtedly try to do more than he should.
“Mrr.”
I turned from where I was showing the picture books to a young mother and her small child and saw Eddie jump onto Roger’s lap. Eddie, who had slept most of the morning in his carrier, was typically not a cat to rush to judgment, but he had obviously decided that Roger was his new buddy.
“He’s more than ten pounds,” I cautioned Roger. Thirteen-point-five, to be exact. “If you want him to move, please don’t lift him. Just give him a gentle shove.”
My toddler patron squealed with delight to see a kitty cat. “Mommy, Mommy, can I pet the kitty?”
Mommy looked at me.
“Sure,” I said. “He has claws, but he’s great with kids. Of course, he does tend to shed a lot, so . . .” I spread my hands and shrugged. “Up to you.”
The mom gave the go-ahead, and the child rushed forward to pet Mr. Ed. The kid kept petting Eddie, Eddie kept allowing it, and poor Roger was stuck, caught between a cat and a kid.
Not that he seemed stuck. He seemed to be enjoying himself while Mom selected books, I checked them out, and we chatted as she slid them into a tote bag. When all was ready, Mom turned to her child and said, “Okey-dokey-kokey, kiddo. Zip up your coat—it’s time to go.”
The kid immediately started to wail. “I don’t wanna go! I wanna pet the kitty some more!”
The kitty in question didn’t look as if he cared for the wailing, but he didn’t move a muscle, submitting, with bizarre acceptance, to the kid’s clutching of his fur. If I’d done such a thing, he would have howled and taught me a quick lesson with his extended claws.
“Now, now,” Roger said calmly. “There’s no crying on the bookmobile.”
The kid’s wails slowed. “I ca-can’t cry?”
Roger shook his head. “Not here. We have rules about it, right, Miss Minnie?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Bookmobile rule number one is No Crying.” I visualized an imaginary list of rules and saw that the second rule was No Cats. Well, at least we weren’t violating rule number one. “The books don’t like to hear crying,” I added.
The kid’s eyes went wide. “They . . . don’t?”
Roger nodded seriously. “They don’t like crying a single bit, so you see why we have a rule against it.”
Sniffing, the kid patted Eddie’s head. “Okay.” Sniff. “Will the bookmobile kitty be here next time?”
Roger looked at me. So did the kid and the mom. “Count on it,” I said.
A few minutes later, Eddie was back in his carrier, and Roger and I were buckling our seat belts.
“Now where?” Roger asked.
I glanced over at him. “You were real
ly good with that kid. Do you and Denise have children?” It seemed odd that I didn’t know, but conversations with Denise tended to focus on whatever her current project might be.
“Two,” Roger said. “Girl and a boy. Both are grown and gone. One lives in Texas; the other’s in Arizona.”
I started us rolling forward, heading back north in the direction of Chilson. “Not fans of the snow?”
“More like they’re fans of getting jobs,” he said, smiling. “But, yeah, neither one seems interested in moving back. They come up in the summer; we visit them at Christmas. It works out.”
We headed to the next stop, chatting idly about topics from Thanksgiving (he and Denise were eating with her extended family, while my parents were headed to my brother’s in Florida, and I was staying with Aunt Frances and an assortment of guests) to the chances of the Detroit Lions making it to the Superbowl (slim to none, we agreed) and the annoyance of political signs cluttering up the roadsides a week and a half after the November election.
“Just look at that.” He pointed through the windshield.
I glanced at the busy cluster of signs that included people running for a variety of offices, from seats in the US Congress to the state legislature, local townships, and even one for the Chilson City Council. VOTE FOR ALLISON KORTHASE, it proclaimed with a professional design in red, white, and blue. Why there was a Chilson sign all the way down here, I wasn’t sure, but it must have worked, because I remembered that she’d won the seat.
“It’s as bad as seeing Christmas advertisements after Christmas,” I said.
“Take another foot of snow to cover up those buggers,” he said morosely. “Bet most of them are still there come spring.”
I laughed, but he was probably right. “Lunch stop coming up. I usually pull in at that township park, but I’m sure it’s not plowed. There’s that gas station over on the county highway. I was thinking about stopping there. We can use the facilities, and you could grab something to eat.”
“You don’t have to stop for me,” Roger said. “I’m fine.”
For the zillionth time that day, I wondered how this laid-back, easygoing, no-cares-whatsoever man had stayed married to the high-frequency, pay-attention-to-my-problems-because-they’re-more-important-than-yours Denise for so many years. But, as my mother had once told me, every marriage is a mystery.
“Well,” I said, “I could use a break, and we have a little time.”
I’d cut each stop short by a few minutes, just in case of slippery conditions on the way to the next one, but the roads were fine. One car, a dark blue multi-bumper-stickered SUV kind of thing, had even passed us a few miles back.
Roger shrugged. “Works for me. I can grab a sandwich, if they don’t look too scary.”
“Eddie?” I peered into the cat carrier. “Is there anything you want?”
He opened his mouth to say “Mrr,” but no noise came out.
“Nothing, you say?” I asked. “I had no idea you could be so accommodating. You’re okay, pal, no matter what Aunt Frances says about you.”
“Mrr.”
Roger laughed. “It really does seem like he knows what you’re saying.”
It was frightening, actually, how Eddie and I could carry on conversations. Almost all of my brain knew there was no way a cat could understand human speech, but I had a few brain cells, tucked somewhere in a back corner, that were convinced Eddie understood everything I said, and even some of the things I didn’t say.
We pulled into the gas station—with two wide entrances, it was my favorite kind of place—and came to a stop in a vast parking lot behind the building. I went in first, while Roger stayed on the bookmobile.
In short order, I returned, laden with a bottle of water and a PowerBar, because I would have felt guilty about using the restroom without purchasing something. I clambered up the steps and said, “It’s colder over here. Wind’s up, too.”
“Told you,” Roger said. “Chilson’s the banana belt. Warmer near the lake and all that, just like they say.”
The weather folks said it was cooler near Lake Michigan in the summer, when that great mass of water acted as a big refrigerator, but in the winter the big lake kept the lakeshore warmer than the rest of the state. Not always by very much, but every degree counts, especially in January.
Roger gave the side of Eddie’s face a scratch, stood, and zipped up his coat. “I’ll just be a minute.” He took two steps, then stopped, muttering, “Almost forgot.”
I started to turn, assuming he was talking to me, but he was moving again and out the door. “Talking to himself,” I told Eddie, nodding. “They say that can be the first step toward insanity. Of course, they say the real danger is when you answer yourself.”
“Mrr.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t know who they are, either. Sounds like a bunch of hooey, doesn’t it?”
Eddie rubbed his face up against the door of the cat carrier. The wire caught on his kitty lips, pulling them back to reveal sharp, pointed teeth and pinkish gums.
“Not a good look, bud,” I said. “You’re cute and adorable in many ways, but your gums are just not attractive.” I thought about that. “Then again, probably no one’s are. Maybe a periodontist would have an opinion on good-looking gums, but I bet everyone else would just as soon—”
Bang!
Eddie and I both jumped as the echo of a rifle shot bounced back and forth across the hills.
We blinked at each other; then I remembered. “It’s the first day of hunting season,” I said, nodding authoritatively. Of course, it was technically the first day of the Michigan’s two-week-long deer rifle season, but nobody called it that. It was Opening Day, spelled with capital letters, and if you didn’t know what that meant, you were either from the depths of a large city or from another solar system. There were other deer seasons—bow season, black-powder season, and who knew what else—but rifle season saw the most action.
All day long, Roger and I had seen trucks and SUVs parked in odd places; on the sides of roads, a short ways down narrow dirt trails, and in parking lots of long-abandoned homes. Hunters. Some of them, no doubt, were looking for that elusive trophy buck with a huge rack of antlers, but for the most part, hunters—male and female—were trying to fill their family’s freezers with venison.
I’d grown up in the Detroit area, where the only thing I’d learned about hunting and fishing was that it was something my family wasn’t ever likely to do. “A lot easier to buy meat and fish at the store,” my mother had said more than once.
My city-bred father was more likely to sprout feathers than he was to venture into a boat (the poor man couldn’t even watch Titanic without getting seasick), and he had so little sense of direction that he could get lost in a large wooded park. Basic survival arts weren’t something my older brother and I had ever been taught.
“Not that it’s likely I’ll need to build a fire out here,” I said to Eddie. “All I need to know, I learned from Jack London, which is to stay out of the wilderness if you don’t know what you’re doing.” I smirked, but I didn’t think Eddie got the joke.
I started to explain the short story, but my cat yawned at me. “Fine,” I said, sitting back. “I can take a hint. What should we talk about instead?” I hummed a few nonsense notes. Eddie looked at me sideways, then closed his eyes.
The perfect topic presented itself. “I know. Let’s discuss the rising price of cat food. It’s going up fast, so you might want to consider getting a job.”
The idea of Eddie becoming part of our household revenue stream amused me, and I considered the possibilities. What could a cat do to earn money? The most likely possibility was pest control, but since Eddie hadn’t seemed the least bit inclined to do anything about Aunt Frances’s basement mouse problem, why would he do the job at someone else’s house?
“I’ll take any suggestions,
” I said.
One feline eye opened, then it shut again.
Right. I was on my own. What else could Eddie do to earn a paycheck? I tapped the steering wheel and tried to think. Bookmobile-goers of all ages seemed to like him, but the idea of renting him out was just too weird. And although he was photogenic, since there were so many free pictures of cats available on the Internet, I couldn’t see much of a market for Eddie photos.
“Too bad you don’t really talk,” I said. “Now, that would make us some money. Just think if—”
Bang!
I sat up straight, feeling a tingle crawl up the back of my neck. “That one was close,” I said, staring out the window, looking up into the woods. Every hunter was required by law to wear bright orange, but I couldn’t see a hint of it anywhere.
I’d heard there was a law about how far you had to be from a house to shoot, but I had no idea whether that law included other kinds of buildings. Or how much time was spent enforcing the law.
“It was probably a lot farther away than it seemed,” I murmured. At least I hoped so. While my knowledge about firearms was limited, I had a pretty good idea that the bookmobile’s walls wouldn’t be able to stop a speeding bullet.
“Mrrr.”
I looked at Eddie, trying to decide if he’d been agreeing or disagreeing, but he wasn’t paying any attention to me. He was on his feet, pacing around the interior of the cat carrier like a caged tiger.
“What’s the matter, pal?” An agitated Eddie wasn’t a good thing. Because if he was upset, the next thing he was likely to do was—
“MMRR!”
My ears tried to plug themselves, but, as usual, it didn’t work. The howl of an agitated Eddie could probably pierce the thickest sound protection, anyway. Maybe the muffs that airport workers use would work, but I doubted it. His mouth started to open again, and this time I slapped my hands over my ears.
“MMRR!”
I leaned over the console and unlatched the carrier’s door. “Are you okay? You’re not sick, are you?”