“Coming,” Grace said as she ran over, bent down, and began untangling the hissing cat from the tablecloth. It was not an easy task, since Natasha had managed to get her nail caught in three of the loops.
“Hurry up,” Susie ordered.
Grace briefly glanced up. Bernie could see a spot of blood on her forehead where one of Natasha’s nails had connected with Grace’s skin.
“I’m doing the best that I can,” she replied.
“Well, do better,” Susie told her.
A moment later, the cat was free.
“You should have been paying better attention,” Susie chastised Grace as she pressed Natasha to her chest. “She could have torn a nail.”
“A tragedy,” Grace whispered under her breath as she took a tissue out of her dress pocket and dabbed at the blood, which was now slowly dribbling down the bridge of her nose.
“What did you say?” Susie demanded, looking, Libby reflected, as if she could kill.
“Nothing,” Grace muttered. “I didn’t say anything.”
“That’s better,” Susie said, and she went back to concentrating her attention on the cat. “There, there, my precious,” she murmured, stroking Natasha’s fur. “Mumsy won’t let anything happen to you.”
After a minute, the cat calmed down and Susie put her on the table with the gifts. She did the same with Boris. Then she turned to Grace and Ralph. “Really,” Susie said. “I expected better from both of you.”
“Sorry,” Ralph said.
Grace didn’t say anything.
“Grace?” Susie prompted.
Grace continued blotting.
“Don’t you have something to tell me?” Susie asked. “Well?” Susie said after a minute had gone by. She was tapping her foot. “I’m waiting.”
Ralph gave Grace a nudge. She ignored him. He gave her another nudge. This time she looked at him. He gave her a tiny nod, and after a moment she nodded back.
“I’m sorry,” Grace told her in a grudging tone.
“And?” Susie prompted.
“And it won’t happen again,” Grace answered, looking as if she was going to explode.
“No, it won’t,” Susie said. “The least you can do after everything I’ve done for you is do your job,” she continued. “God only knows, it’s not that difficult. All you have to do is pay attention.”
Ralph flushed and looked down at the ground.
Susie pointed at him. “And that applies to you, too, Ralphie.”
Ralph took a deep breath and let it out. “You’re right,” he muttered after a minute had gone by. “We should have been more careful. It won’t happen again.”
“Let me put it this way,” Susie said. “If it does, there are some changes that will be made, big changes. Understood?” she asked, turning to Grace.
“Understood,” Grace muttered. “We won’t let them out of our sight.”
“Good.” Susie smiled. The storm was over. She clapped her hands. “Now let’s get Ivan, Vladimir, Serge, Anya, Olga, and Katya up on the table. That way they’ll be able to see Boris and Natasha’s presents. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she asked, bending over the cats. Then she turned to Grace and Ralph. “Well, lift them up. What are you waiting for?” she demanded.
Neither Grace nor Ralph answered. Instead, they picked up the six cats and put them on the table. Now there were eight altogether. Too many kitties for the space, in Bernie’s humble opinion.
Susie lowered her face until it was even with the cats. “Are we excited?” she cooed at them.
Boris meowed, while Serge swatted at the table decorations and Vladimir tried to tear the wedding veil off of Natasha, who reciprocated by going for his bow tie.
“No, no, no, Natasha,” Susie said, separating the two cats. “Let Vladimir see. He’s just jealous.”
Bernie watched as Charlene Eberhart sighed loudly and looked at her watch.
Susie shot Charlene a look. “Do you have a problem?” she asked Charlene in a sickly sweet voice.
“What makes you say that?” Charlene replied.
“You keep looking at your watch. Is there somewhere else you have to be?”
“Well . . .”
“Are we boring you?” Susie said.
“As long as you’re asking,” Charlene replied, in spite of the warning tone in Susie’s voice. Libby groaned as she listened to Charlene say, “Well, even you have to admit this is ridiculously . . .”
“Ridiculously what?” Susie asked, her voice rising.
“Ridiculously . . . wonderful,” Charlene said, thinking better of what she was about to say.
“How nice of you to say that,” Susie replied, looking inordinately pleased with herself, as Libby cleared her throat and tapped Susie on the shoulder.
Susie whirled around. “What do you want?”
“Sorry to bother you,” Libby said, “but my sister and I have a question.”
“Can’t it wait?” Susie demanded. “We’re in the middle of something important here.”
Bernie stepped forward. “Actually, it can’t.” And she explained about the caviar and the swans.
Susie dismissed her concerns with a wave of her hand. “My God! Do I have to take care of everything?”
“We’re just—” Libby began, but that was all she managed to get out before Susie said, “Just incompetent. If you knew anything, you’d know that the caviar will be fine. Which, obviously, you don’t.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m paying you two for. For all the help you’ve been, I could have done everything myself.”
Bernie felt herself flush. “We’re also concerned about the swans melting. I need to know if we should put them back in the freezer or not,” she said, forcing herself to continue. This was one person she was never going to work for again, she decided. Ever. Despite what Libby had said, the money just wasn’t worth the aggravation. No amount of money was. She wondered how Ralph and Grace did it.
Susie frowned. “Fine. We’ll do half the presents now and half later. Now please. Don’t interrupt again. Haven’t you heard that caterers should be seen and not heard?”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Libby said.
Susie waved her arms in the air. “It was a joke! Can’t you tell a joke when you hear one?” Then she turned back to the kitties before Libby could answer. “Right, my sweetums?”
At which point Allison Hardy rolled her eyes. Libby thought she heard her mutter, “They’re not people, you know. They don’t deserve to be decked out in ridiculous clothes for your entertainment.” But she couldn’t be sure, because she and Bernie were in the middle of walking back to the cooler.
“I thought she was in jail,” Bernie said, indicating Allison with a shrug of her shoulder, once they’d gotten there. She fought the urge to open the cooler’s cover and check on the four swans, because that would only let the warm air in. On the one hand, she wanted the swans to melt out of pure bloody-mindedness, but on the other hand, she didn’t want to have to deal with the repercussions.
“She was in for just a couple of months,” Libby replied as Boris launched himself at Olga, who in turn sidestepped, leaving Boris to overshoot his mark and land on the ground. He was furiously grooming himself in a fit of embarrassment when Grace picked him up and put him back on the table.
Susie reached for a present and showed it to Boris and Natasha. “Let’s open this one first,” she suggested. She held it out, and Natasha swatted at the silver wrapping paper. “Clever girl,” Susie cooed as she took over the rest of the job. She tore off the remainder of the wrapping paper, which Boris immediately started batting around. “It’s from Tiffany,” Susie announced. She read the card. “Humbleness is a gift no one wants but everyone needs. Best, Marie.”
“A fortune cookie quote,” Susie exclaimed. “How sweet.” Then she took the top off the box and looked inside. A small silver toothpick sat nestled among layers of pale blue tissue paper. “Oh, Marie,” Susie cried as she lifted the toothpick out. “A litt
le knickknack. How . . . unusual. Where did you ever get this? You really”—Susie emphasized the word really—“shouldn’t have.”
Marie smiled frostily. Bernie thought she had all the warmth of an anaconda.
“I wanted you to have something to remember this day,” she replied as Natasha climbed into the box and peed in it.
“Bad girl, bad girl,” Susie cried. She looked up. “Ralph. Grace. Fetch me some towels immediately.”
Bernie looked at her watch again. Five minutes had passed. She was just about to make a snotty comment to Libby when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She jumped and spun around. A teenage boy was standing behind her. He was dressed in jeans, a green T-shirt with a picture of the Brooklyn Bridge on it, a lightweight beige jacket, and sneakers. A baseball cap and sunglasses completed his outfit.
“Sorry I scared you,” he said.
Bernie waved her hand in a gesture of dismissal. “No problem. Don’t worry about it.”
“Is this Boris and Natasha’s wedding?” he asked.
Bernie nodded.
The boy’s phone buzzed. He ignored it. “Are you Susie Katz?”
Bernie pointed to the table in the tent that everyone was clustered around. “The lady in the gold caftan is. Why?”
“I have a package for her.”
“I’ll take it,” Bernie told him. Then she asked him where it was, because he wasn’t holding anything.
The boy gestured down the hill, toward a beat-up Honda Civic that looked as if its next stop was going to be the junkyard. “It’s in there. I’ll go get it.”
He was back a couple of minutes later with it. “Here you go,” he said, holding out a shoe box–sized package wrapped in gold paper with a big blue bow on top of it. Then he drew it back. “Maybe, I should give it to Susie Katz,” he said, having a sudden change of heart.
“It’ll be fine,” Bernie assured him. “Honestly.” She held out her hands. “Give the package to me.”
“Are you sure?” the boy asked.
“Positive,” Bernie replied, thinking of Susie’s reaction to the last interruption.
“Because I was told to put it in her hands,” the boy continued.
“Believe me when I say that you don’t want to do that,” Bernie told him.
The boy cocked his head.
“I’m doing you a favor here,” Bernie added. “She is not in a good mood, and the farther away you stay from her, the happier you’re going to be.”
The boy shrugged, handed Bernie the package, and left.
Lucky you, Bernie thought as she watched him walk to his car. She checked the time on her phone. One hour and fifty minutes to go before they could get out of there.
Chapter 6
“What’s this?” Susie asked, looking at the package in Bernie’s hands. She’d spotted the Honda driving away and charged over to see what was going on.
Bernie explained.
“Who’s it from?” Susie demanded.
“He left before I could ask. I assume there’s a card in the box.”
“I’m not paying you to assume things,” Susie snapped. “I’m paying you to find out.”
Libby deflected. “It’s probably from an admirer,” she suggested, although she couldn’t imagine Susie Katz having one of those.
The idea pleased Susie, and she smiled. “You’re right. It probably is,” she agreed after a moment had gone by. “Of course it is. My cats have lots of admirers, you know.”
“I’m not surprised,” Bernie said. A lie. “They’re quite pretty.” Which was the truth.
“Pretty?” Susie yelped indignantly. “They’re more than pretty. They’re magnificent.”
Magnificent was a word Bernie reserved for things like the Sistine Chapel or Michelangelo’s David, but she didn’t say that. Why make things even worse than they already were? Instead, she apologized for her word choice. “You’re right,” she said while she repeated in her head, The customer is always right.
Susie snorted. “Of course I’m right. That’s how I got where I am today.” Susie pointed to the eight Russian blues, which kept on jumping off the table as soon as Grace and Ralph put them back on. “You’re looking at the new champions of North America. A new lineage is born today,” Susie announced triumphantly.
If you say so, Bernie thought. Then she wondered if she’d actually said that out loud, because Susie was glaring at her. Bernie prepared herself for another nasty comment, but Susie didn’t say anything.
Instead, she took the package out of Bernie’s hands, walked back to the table, and set it down. It was as if someone had pulled a switch. In a matter of seconds, the cats became transfixed. They weren’t trying to scatter anymore. They were clustered around the package. Their ears were pricked forward; their eyes focused; their tails waving back and forth. They were all on high alert.
Something is in there that the cats really like, Bernie thought. Later, in retrospect, she realized that she should have been a bit more suspicious of the package’s contents, but at the time she thought it contained something like catnip or raw tuna or maybe even chicken livers. And in her defense, evidently, Susie thought the same, because she rushed to open it.
“Since everyone seems so excited, we’ll open this present first,” Susie announced to her guests in the high singsong voice she used when speaking to her cats. Then she turned to Boris. His whiskers were quivering in anticipation. “I wonder what it could be?” she asked him.
Boris let out a noise between a meow and a growl.
“I bet I know,” Susie exclaimed. She cocked her head and batted her eyelashes. “I bet it’s a catnip plant.” She wagged a finger at Boris. “You lucky, lucky boy. I hope you’re not going to be too naughty, now. You have to share with your bride and your guests.”
At which point, Natasha extended a paw and swatted at the package. Boris hissed at her. “Don’t be rude,” Susie chided him before turning back to Natasha. “That goes for you, too,” Susie told her. “I love surprises, too, don’t you?” Susie chirped.
Natasha’s tail went faster. Back and forth. Back and forth. Swish. Swish. Swish. It reminded Libby of a windshield wiper on a rainy day.
“Let’s see if I’m right,” Susie trilled.
As Bernie watched the cats, she had a premonition of disaster. Something wasn’t right here. “Don’t open it,” she blurted out as Susie ripped the paper off the box.
Susie stopped what she was doing, her hands hovering above the box, and glared at Bernie. “Why don’t you do what you’re supposed to be doing and not concern yourself with things that are none of your business?” she snapped. Then she turned back to the cats, all Little Miss Sunshine again, her anger reminding Bernie of a thunderstorm that came and went on a summer’s day.
“I have a bad feeling about the box,” Bernie whispered to Libby.
“Don’t be silly,” Libby whispered back.
Bernie leaned closer to her sister. “I’m not.”
“So now you’re gifted with ESP.”
Bernie put her hands on her hips. “Maybe I am.”
“Yeah? In that case, tell me what’s going to happen.”
“I don’t know,” Bernie confessed. “But something.”
Libby snorted. “You need to get a grip.”
“Bet you a dollar I’m right.”
“You’re on,” Libby told her as she watched Susie tear the last of the wrapping paper off the box and toss it on the ground.
The box had had four layers of paper, and half a roll of tape had secured the paper. Libby could understand this if the wrapping paper was tissue paper, but it wasn’t. It looked like expensive paper. Which made Libby wonder why the box had needed four layers of wrapping paper to begin with. Maybe Bernie was right, after all. Maybe this wasn’t going to be good.
“This is so exciting. Now, what do you think this could be?” Susie asked her guests while Libby ran through the possibilities in her head. No one answered Susie. Instead, Charlene bit her lip, Allison studied one
of the tent poles, and Mrs. Van Trumpet and Marie examined their hands. Susie ignored them and concentrated on the cats. “Let’s find out, shall we?” she said to Boris.
Boris mewed.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Susie sang as she peeled off the tape that was securing the lid to the box and then removed the lid.
And that was when all hell broke loose.
Chapter 7
First, Bernie and Libby saw two rounded ears, two large eyes, and a long, pink nose adorned with whiskers peeping over the edge of the box; then they saw two little paws.
“It’s a mouse,” Bernie cried.
“Two mice,” Libby said as two more rounded ears, two more eyes, and another nose made their appearance.
“It’s a mischief of mice,” Bernie noted, spotting a third mouse.
The cats didn’t say anything. They just stared, too stunned to move. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing. But the three mice certainly did. They jumped out of the box, onto the table, and then onto the ground, landing with soft plops.
A fourth mouse jumped down to the ground, followed by a fifth and a sixth. They kept on coming, just like circus clowns packed into a clown car, Libby noted. She wondered how whoever had done this had managed to cram so many mice into the box as Susie screamed and pushed the box away from her. This was a mistake, because it fell onto the ground. Still more mice ran out. By now the cats had gotten over their shock, jumped off the table, and were in hot pursuit, while the guests had started yelling and running this way and that. The word overreacting occurred to Bernie as she watched the spectacle unfold. Meanwhile, Susie, looking to get away, bumped against the table with the presents on it, and it and the rest of the presents crashed to the ground.
“My vase,” Allison cried. “My vase is broken.”
“Oh, do shut up. You probably got it at Target,” Charlene told her right before a mouse started running up her leg. Charlene screamed, jumped up and down, grabbed the mouse, threw it onto the ground, and ran outside the tent. Allison ran after her.
A Catered Cat Wedding Page 4