by Tess Grant
Layering the chicken on top of the rice, she dumped in both cans of soup and a cup of water. Capping the Crock-Pot, she spun toward Phinney.
He studied her face, and she stared back, daring him to ask her another question. When he didn’t say anything, she started for the door.
“Better turn that thing on,” Phinney remarked mildly as she passed him.
* * *
They were heading toward town on River Road when Kitty pointed to an estate sale sign. “Want to try there?”
“Sure. Sometimes, estate sales are better than yard sales. A little more high end.” Phinney turned in the direction of the arrow. “Of course, sometimes the prices are high end too.”
The car bumped into the grass along the side of the road as he slowed to a stop. He narrowed his eyes and scanned the setup. “Hmm.”
“Hmm what?” Kitty asked following his gaze. Several long tables were set up on the cement driveway. Stacks of clothes were on one, dishes on another, miscellaneous piles on a third. A battered chair and a nearly new exercise bike completed the half circle in front of the garage.
“True estate sales are usually inside the house. They hand out numbers and only let people in a few at a time. I think this is a yard sale masquerading as an estate sale.”
“Are you kidding?” Kitty looked from Phinney’s face to the sale and back again. He seemed dead serious. “Well, la de dah. I didn’t know you were such a connoisseur.”
“Honey, if you had spent the last twenty-six years searching for silver, you’d be a connoisseur too.”
“Yes or no?” Kitty put her fingers on her seat belt.
Phinney twisted the wheel slowly and eased the car back onto the road. “We’ll hold it in reserve. I don’t think it will have anything, but we can always hit it on the way home.”
Kitty watched the river swoop alongside them once they were back on the main road. Phinney drove slowly enough that it was easy to keep an eye on things going by. Tubes floated down the center of the water, bound together—a group of kids, probably from her school, enjoying the June sun.
She and Joe and Jenna had floated the river last year in August. Jenna had dropped one of her flip-flops off her foot early on, and some kayaker found it and returned it two miles downstream. Down on the river now, a round of splashing started and Kitty turned away. It wouldn’t be any fun to tube in June anyway, she told herself, trying to override the little voice wishing she were out there. They were probably freezing their butts off. “How much are we looking for exactly? A silver dollar? An entire tea set? How much is it going to cost?”
“We’ll take whatever we can find. If we find a little, we only make a few. If we find a lot, we make a lot, and they last the duration. As for cost, obviously cheaper is better. But if all we can find is something expensive and it’s the end of the day, same deal. We’ll take whatever we can get. Beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to a tight schedule and a werewolf.”
Kitty giggled. “You’re never going to make Bartlett’s with quotes like that.”
“No,” he agreed, turning in the direction of a hand-lettered sign advertising a huge sale. “But I might make my next birthday.”
It was getting late and so far all they had scored were some glares from the antique store lady. Kitty found a flowered peasant shirt in a soft green at one stop, and Phinney practiced his glare when she brought it back to the car.
“I can’t melt that down.” He rubbed the material between his thumb and forefinger.
“Hey,” she said defensively, “you can’t bring a girl to a sale and ask her not to shop.” She plopped down in the passenger seat, holding the shirt up and folding it before placing it over her purse. She snuck a look his way as he pulled out. His mouth barely turned up at the corners, but it was a big enough smile to crinkle his eyes. He eased up after that.
They decided to pack it in after four straight hours and were returning down the opposite side of the river when they saw the sign. “Attic sale.”
“Let’s try that.” Phinney said.
Kitty sighed. “We have hit,” she said and started unfurling her fingers as she counted, “a huge sale, a yard sale, an estate sale that was not an estate sale, an antique shop, and a barn sale. Maybe it’s just not our day.”
“There are some older houses in this area. Maybe we’ll luck out and catch someone cleaning granny’s house.”
Kitty opened her mouth, about to mention that he was probably older than most people’s grannies. Then she thought twice and closed it.
The car jittered over the washboard formation in the gravel and sent up a plume of dust. Kitty coughed and shut the window. They nearly missed the sign in the cloud surrounding them. It was close to the road, a squat toad of a house covered with fieldstone bumps. Half-slumped boxes clustered haphazardly under the main tree in the yard. A woman, who looked a little bit like the house itself, was sitting in a beach chair reading a grubby paperback with no cover.
“This one has some promise.”
Personally, Kitty thought, she would have kept driving. “How can you tell?”
“When you’re laying things out neatly, that means you sorted and sorted and you’re only letting go of what you don’t want. When you throw boxes out in the yard, you have no idea what’s in them and you don’t care. There could be treasure here.”
Kitty opened the door. “Well, here we come.”
Treasure indeed. The woman was disinclined to talk and after a grunt in their direction, she went back to her paperback. Phinney started poking around in one box and Kitty started at the other end of the yard.
She was sorting through a box of some loose glassware when she spotted an orange-yellow fairy light. Even in the dim interior of the damp cardboard, the swirling colors glowed. Her mother collected the little tea candleholders, and Kitty knew she didn’t have one like this.
Phinney leaned close over her shoulder. “That’s pretty, but I can’t melt that either. We’re looking for silver.”
Kitty looked at him. He had a heavy ball peen hammer in his hand. “Mine’s a Christmas present. What’s yours—a silver hammer?”
His face was stern as he said, “You can never have too many hammers.” Then he grinned and actually whistled as he walked across the lawn to open another box.
Kitty watched him go. Guns and flasks maybe, but ornery? That one didn’t apply.
Kitty turned from the glassware box and knee-walked over to the next one. The top was soggy, and a wet cardboard smell filled her nostrils as she pulled the flaps back. At the bottom, a few loose forks, tarnished and beat looking, rattled around. She set them aside next to the fairy light. A small wooden carton, barely bigger than a cigar box, was tucked into the corner near where the forks had been. She pulled it out and put it in her lap. Opening it, she gasped with delight. Inside, it was full of stones, perfect ovals, polished to a high sheen. Her fingers brushed over their softness. Sam. It was absolutely perfect.
Phinney stumped over with a fat candlestick in his hand. Was everything in this house chunky? He leaned over, eyeing the rocks, and she held up a hand to ward him off. “Don’t even say it. I got something good.”
Laying the box down next to the tea light holder, she held up the forks and he squinted at them with one practiced eye. “Plate.” He waved the candlestick at her conspiratorially.
Her nose wrinkled in confusion.
“It’s plated with silver, a thin coat on top. Probably copper underneath. I think this one.” He placed the candlestick in her hand. It felt heavy in her hand, and she rubbed at the grime coating the base with the edge of her t-shirt. Underneath, it was less tarnished than the forks. She didn’t think she could have picked it out of a lineup, but if he said so, she’d go with it. He’d been doing it for a little bit longer than she had. Okay, he’d been doing it for longer than she had been alive.
He went to the Caprice, opening the trunk and tucking a small box and some newspaper under his arm. Kitty gingerly carried their choic
es over to the woman who stared at their loot.
“What ya got?” She poked at each item with a sausage of a finger. Putting the dirty half-moon of her nail up to her mouth, she chewed thoughtfully. “Some glass, candlestick, rocks, hammer.”
“Oh and these,” Phinney said tossing two small U-shaped metal objects on the pile.
“Uhh,” said the woman. “Brackets? You can have ‘em. This place is so full of junk. How about eight bucks, whole box?”
Phinney drew out a battered leather wallet in response. Two thin shreds of leather wrapped around a fat sheath of papers. He pulled a ten-dollar bill out of it and held it out. Kitty carefully loaded everything in the box, wrapping the glass in the newspaper to protect it.
“I ain’t got no change. You’re the first ones here.” The woman didn’t seem to notice that statement didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Kitty wrapped a second layer of paper around the delicate fairy light. She worried it would break on that washboard of a road.
Phinney shrugged and twitched the bill. “You can keep it.”
The car began rattling as soon as they had all four wheels on the road. Kitty dug into the box at her feet and grabbed the paper-wrapped bundle to keep it safe from the beating the ruts were giving the rest of their finds. “When we get to a place where I can put this down, I’ll get you a five. Is that fair?”
“What for?”
“My Christmas presents. It’d be nice if I let you pay for them. To Mom and Sam, From Phinney.”
“Next time we’re on the road, you can buy me ice cream. Deal?”
“Sure.” Kitty fingered the little metal U-shapes Phinney had tossed in the box at the last minute, holding one out toward him. “So, what are these things? I’m guessing they’re not brackets.”
“One of them is your Christmas present to your Dad. The other is for you.”
Kitty picked one up. It was just a rectangle of old metal, bent twice in the middle to form a squared off U-shape. A small channel ran down the middle of one side. “I give. What is it?”
He reached over, took it and bent it downward. It gave off a metallic click before it snapped back to position. “Some folks call them clickers or noisemakers, but we always called them crickets. Paratroopers used them when they jumped behind the lines on D-Day. If they got lost or separated and heard someone coming, they could use their cricket to see if they got a response. The bad guys didn’t have them, so you knew if someone was clicking, he was on your side.” He handed the little noisemaker back to her. “Those are the genuine article. I have one that Thompson gave me when he left. Small enough to send in a Christmas package to Iraq. Your dad will know what it is, and he can keep it on him. Even if he can’t click around the desert, he’ll know what it means.”
Kitty looked out the window at the trees. They bent over the road, making a living tunnel, and the sunlight that filtered down to her was tinged green. Between the tears flooding her eyes and the green light, she swam toward home.
How would this little thing possibly help anyone who was lost?
“Thanks, Phinney.”
“You’re welcome.” He was silent for a few minutes. “The other is for you. We can start carrying them, and if we get separated on full moon nights…” His voice trailed off.
The hair on her arms stood up in sudden goose bumps even in the heat of the closed-up car. She picked up the cricket and compressed it a few times. Phinney grabbed the other one and clicked back at her.
“We’re good,” he said. “That’s all there is to it.”
“How come you don’t have a bunch of these already?” she asked.
He dropped the clicker into her hand as if it had suddenly grown hot. “I haven’t had a partner in…” He hesitated as if he were counting up the years. “…a long time. Not since Kevin.”
Chapter Fourteen
Anne was late coming home from work again. It had become a regular thing, once a week. Joe had just brought Sam home when she called. An hour or two, she said. Things heating up at the ER—just like last week. Kitty put the phone back in the cradle and walked into the kitchen.
“We’re on our own for dinner again, little brother. What sounds good? Turkey sandwiches? Soup? Pancakes?”
“I’m sick of your cooking.” Sam sounded tired and cranky. He dropped his backpack on the floor.
“You’re not the only one.” Good thing I didn’t mention eggs. Kitty’s food repertoire hadn’t gotten much bigger despite her mom’s recipes and hints.
“Pizza,” Sam said suddenly looking eager. “In town.”
“That’s not on the list.”
“Can’t we go to town and have pizza?” His face was petulant now and his voice close to a whine. “We never do anymore, and we used to when Dad was home.”
“I’m with Sam,” Joe said.
Kitty looked at Joe and he dangled the car keys from the end of his finger, swaying them back and forth. Jenna and he had occasionally come to their family pizza dinners in town. Sam watched the two of them. Things were different enough with her dad gone, Kitty decided. A stupid pizza wasn’t going to break the family budget. She went and pulled a cookie jar out of the cupboard. It was the Irish petty cash fund and Kitty knew her mom had replenished the stash. She pulled out forty dollars and shoved it in her pocket. If her mom got mad, fine. Kitty would replace it with her own running-around money. Sam was right. Her cooking sucked.
“I’m changing clothes. Sam, you write a note for Mom and leave it on the counter.” Kitty took the stairs two at a time. Sam’s whoop followed her up.
It probably meant she had no social life if pizza meant dressing up, but she didn’t care.
She was as sick of t-shirts and shorts as she was of her cooking. Besides, she had bought the flowered peasant blouse at the yard sale for a reason. She tossed her t-shirt in the corner and pulled the blouse out of the closet. Paired with faded jean Capri’s and a delicate green glass choker, she looked more than adequate for a loaded pizza. The pale color of the blouse shaded her eyes a step toward green, and she gave her hair a fresh twist, letting one chunky strand flop over an eye.
Joe must have thought she was decent enough for pizza too, because he whistled when she came downstairs. “You clean up nice.”
The car rolled them down River Road toward town, and Kitty was surprised to feel almost normal. She let Sam sit up front with Joe so they could discuss the relative merits of the first three Star Wars movies versus the more recent ones. They were laughing hard, and Kitty relaxed into the slouchy seat. If she closed her eyes and let herself drift on the vibes in the car, she could almost pretend it was an ordinary outing. They were getting close to town already. She could feel the car slowing down.
“Kitty.”
She wondered if Sam had called her more than once. She had been mentally coasting, that was for sure. “Hmm?”
“How come sometimes that sign says ‘Thank you’ and sometimes it says ‘Welcome Back’?”
Kitty looked out the window at Rossdale’s Hardware. Its board out front kept track of those coming home from Iraq. She was suddenly angry. Where is Mom? I am not the one who should be answering this question.
Joe met her eyes in the rearview. He would field the question for her if she wanted him to; she knew he would. A month or two ago, she may have let him. But she had been learning a little more about the truth every day, and sometimes it was better having it out there.
She tilted forward enough that she could see Sam. “If it says welcome home, So-and-So, it means that person has come home safe. If it says thank you—” she stopped for an instant and swallowed, “if it says thank you that means that person died in Iraq.”
“Oh.” It came out small and breathy. Sam had sounded that way once when he had fallen off the swing set and gotten the wind knocked out of him. He was old enough to know what dead meant. And he was old enough to know that one way or the other, his dad’s name would be on that board.
He stayed quiet for a few minu
tes, but by the time Joe parked outside the pizza place, he had recovered enough to argue about mushrooms.
“It’s fungus,” said Joe with disgust, pocketing his car keys. “Fungus.”
“They’re good,” Sam protested. “Just don’t look at them.”
Kitty shook her head. “We always have this same argument.” Over Joe’s shoulder, she saw Phinney coming out of the drugstore. “Grab the good booth.” She pointed an index finger at the boys. “And do not order without me. I’m going to get us an arbitrator.”
She hurried out and waved at the old man. “Hey, Phinney.”
He looked up from putting a paper bag in the Caprice and waved, and she jaywalked across the street toward him.
“Almost didn’t recognize you,” he said as she got closer.
“It’s this great shirt you talked me into buying.” She grinned at him. “Plus, I clean up nice. Feel like pizza?”
The old man paused, thinking.
“We got the window booth.” When Phinney nodded, she asked, “How do you feel about mushrooms?”
“Can’t stand ‘em,” he said as she led the way back across the street. “They’re fungus.”
Kitty was so deep into a slice of double pepperoni and a story Phinney was telling to a wide-eyed Joe and Sam about being on the beach on D-Day that she didn’t hear the jangle of the bell above the door or see the two girls enter. Only when they were standing next to the table did she look up.
“Hey Jenna,” she said, smiling with surprise. Her eyes slid sideways toward the other girl and she upped the wattage on the smile. “Deb.”
“What’s up?” Jenna said. Her eyes slid pointedly toward Phinney and back to Kitty with a question in them.
Kitty didn’t feel like playing that game so she ignored it. “Taking Sam out for pizza.”
“Yeah,” Sam chimed in. “Her cooking is terrible.”