We thought there’d be plenty of time for a road trip when Max got older, Bella remembers, swallowing another bittersweet lump. We thought it would be easier in a year or two—on him, on Millicent, on us . . .
Tears well in her eyes. She reaches over to turn on the radio, needing a pleasant distraction. After scanning past enough static to let her know they really are in the middle of nowhere, she finds a music station.
Elton John is singing about the Circle of Life.
Terrific.
Abruptly, she silences the radio and swipes at her eyes with a fast food napkin from the console.
From the back seat: “Are you okay, Mommy?”
“I’m fine, sweetie.”
The highway blurs, and she wipes again with the soggy napkin.
If you don’t snap out of this, you’ll need to pull off the road for a good cry.
Saved by the GPS: “Turn . . . right . . . in . . . one . . . hundred . . . feet.”
Chance, whose reverberations of contentment have punctuated the drive from the animal hospital, is purring even more loudly now.
“Listen to her, Max. Maybe she knows she’s going home.”
“You said animals are psychic. And the cows were right about the rain.”
“They were. I wish they’d tell us it’s going to stop soon.”
“I don’t see any cows. All I see is a tiny house. What does that sign say?” he asks as the road opens up to reveal a little hut flanked by stone pillars, topped by an arched sign.
She reads it aloud: “Lily Dale Assembly.”
“What’s ‘assembly’?”
“I’m not sure.”
She hears a loud meow from the back seat and turns to see that the cat is up on her hind feet, paws on the window as she peers out.
“She knows she’s home!” Max exclaims, and Bella smiles as she turns right and drives slowly between the pillars, past the unmanned guardhouse.
Branches of ancient trees sway high overhead as she bears left at the fork toward Cottage Row, following the GPS instructions. The wipers sweep away the raindrops, and she gazes through the windshield, wondering whether she made the wrong turn. This gated community looks like none she’s ever seen back in the New York City suburbs, or anywhere else, for that matter. There are no sidewalks, the pavement is rutted, and the houses . . .
The houses are more like cottages, really. Victorian gingerbread cottages with shutters and porches and gables, crowded into a network of narrow lakeside lanes. Some are shabbier than others, and all exude an unconventional charm. One is painted purple, another has bright turquoise trim, and nearly all are surrounded by bright flowers spilling from pots, planters, and beds. Tiny patches of yard are well-tended and host more than the usual share of birdhouses and birdbaths, seating areas and garden statuary.
“What kind of town is this?” Max asks.
“Just . . . you know . . . a regular town.”
“It doesn’t look like a regular town.”
“It’s just smaller than the ones where we live because it’s rural. We live—lived—in the suburbs. Oh, look, there’s a library.” She points at a stately, pillared red-brick building as they pass. A library is always a good sign. Libraries remind her of her bookworm childhood and well-worn books with happy endings.
She rolls down her window to lean her head out slightly, squinting into the gloaming. “Can you see the numbers on the houses, Max?”
“I see seven . . . and there’s nine . . . and that house has a sign, and so does that one. What do they say?”
“I can’t tell. Just look at the numbers. We’re looking for sixteen.” Thunder rumbles in the distance, and she resists the urge to drive faster. There isn’t another car on the road, and there are no pedestrians, but there are people scattered here and there, sitting on porches and in a small gazebo on the park-like green. The air is damp and heavy with woodsy greens and bark mulch.
“I see it! Sixteen!”
“You . . . have . . . arrived,” the GPS informs them simultaneously.
She slows to a stop in front of a three-story lavender-gray house with white trim and a wide porch. It, too, bears a wooden sign hanging from a post beside the front walk. This one she can read, and she does so aloud: “‘Valley View Manor Guesthouse.’”
“Where’s the valley?” Max asks.
“Good question.”
“What’s a manor?”
“It’s a big, fancy house.”
He surveys the place. “It’s big, but it’s not fancy at all. What’s a guesthouse?”
“It’s . . . like an inn. A hotel.”
“It doesn’t look like a hotel.”
“No,” she agrees, “it doesn’t.”
“Can we stay here?”
“We don’t have any money for hotels. We’re going camping, remember?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Chance meows loudly, gazing so fondly through the back window that Bella laughs. “I guess that means we’re in the right place. Stay here with her, Max, while I go see if anyone’s there. It seems a little deserted.”
A gust of wet wind rustles leaves in the towering canopy of branches and stirs wind chimes that hang here, there, everywhere.
Wind chimes.
Home.
Sam . . .
Bella shivers, grateful for his warm sweatshirt and wishing she’d worn jeans instead of shorts. They haven’t even crossed a state line and it’s as though they’ve traveled to another climate.
A sign beside the car warns her that this is a no parking zone, for loading and unloading only. That’s fine. That’s all she’s doing, unloading a feline foundling, and then she’ll be on her way.
Thunder, closer this time, rolls off the lake as she hurries up the creaky steps onto the shadowy porch.
Along with a cushioned glider and a couple of chairs, she spots a well-used scratching post and a pair of empty feeding bowls. Okay, so this is must be the place.
She presses the old-fashioned bell and hears it reverberate inside. Then there’s no sound but the rain falling beyond the porch. The damp air is heavy with a strikingly familiar floral scent. It takes her a moment to pinpoint the source: just beneath the side railing lies a mock orange shrub in full bloom.
Just like at home.
Maybe it’s a sign.
Oh, come on . . . a sign of what?
It’s not like you could run down to the garden center a hundred years ago to buy exotic plant specimens. Lots of houses from that era have identical landscaping: lilacs, peonies, hydrangea, mock orange . . .
So really, this isn’t much of a coincidence.
And neither is the cat, she reminds herself as she rings the bell again and then knocks on the door. No answer. The house has a deserted air about it.
“Can I help you with something?”
The voice is so close Bella jumps. Turning, she sees a female figure standing behind a leafy trellis on the porch next door. She presses a hand against her galloping heart, spooked even though the woman sounds perfectly pleasant.
“Yes, I’m looking for the people who live here,” she calls. “I found their cat, and—”
“You found Chance the Cat?”
Chance the Cat. How funny that she phrased it that way. That’s exactly what Max has been calling her. On the drive over, when Bella asked why, he said, “Because it’s her name.”
“I know Chance is her name, but why do you add on ‘the Cat’?”
“Because she’s a cat,” he said reasonably.
“I’m so relieved!” the neighbor tells Bella. “We’ve all been beside ourselves worrying about her.”
Wondering who “we’ve all” entails, she asks her when the owners will return and is met by a long pause.
Then the woman says, “I’m afraid Leona isn’t coming back.”
That explains at least part of the situation. Chance’s owner must have just taken off and abandoned her pet.
A loud clap of thunder explodes so nearby that Bella gas
ps.
Max opens the car door. “Mommy!”
“It’s okay, sweetie, I’m right here.”
As she hurries down the steps toward the car, Max cries out, “No! Chance the Cat, no!”
The cat has leapt through the open door. Moving with astonishing speed for an expectant mama, she zips past Bella and disappears into a clump of bushes.
“Oh, dear.” The plump, older woman next door emerges from the shadows, standing on the top step of her own porch. Her right foot is in a walking cast.
Max, too, is out of the car, hurrying after the cat. Bella stops him, seeing a flash of lightning in the sky.
“Come on over here,” the woman calls from next door.
“But what about Chance the Cat?”
“Oh, she’s under the porch,” the woman tells him. “She likes it back there. Don’t worry.”
“She’ll be okay,” Bella assures Max and pulls him along as the rain turns to a downpour.
“Hurry—this is going to be a doozy of a storm.” The neighbor waves them up the steps, holding the door open for them.
“What’s a doozy, Mommy?”
Bella opens her mouth to answer her son, but the woman beats her to it. “A doozy is a really big storm.”
“Is it dangerous?” Max asks anxiously.
“No, that would be a humdinger, which is a really, really, really big storm. Don’t worry, we’re not due for one of those for at least a hundred years or so.” She hobbles along, chattering on as she ushers them into a small foyer cluttered with decorative knickknacks. “With a doozy, you have nothing to fear except getting wet. I don’t know about you, but I’m terrified of that. The rain does terrible things to my hair. How about yours?”
Her hair happens to be bright orange, which clashes with her purple cargo pants and the lime-green high-top sneaker on her left foot. Bella notes with interest that she’s also—somewhat fittingly, given the circumstances—wearing red cat-eye glasses and a tiger-striped T-shirt.
After assuring her that his hair is just fine and proudly adding that he’s not afraid of rain, Max asks what happened to her leg.
“Oh, this? I tripped and fell and sprained my ankle.”
“My mom’s a klutz, too.”
The woman bursts out laughing.
“Max! Sorry,” Bella tells the woman. “I’m always calling myself a klutz, and he didn’t mean—”
“Oh, believe you me, he’s a perceptive boy. I’m as clumsy as they come. By the way, my name is Odelia Lauder, and that,” she points at a fat tabby cat dozing in a cushioned basket at the foot of the stairs, “is Gert. Leona’s Chance the Cat is her granddaughter.”
After introducing herself and Max, Bella says, “I’ve noticed that you call her Chance the Cat, and not just Chance. Why is that?”
“I told you, Mommy,” Max says, “it’s because she’s a cat! She isn’t Chance the Dog!”
Odelia laughs. “You’re right about that, Max. And her full name is Chance the Cat, because she was born in the garden in the spring, smack dab in the middle of a bed of Wood Hyacinths that just happened to be in full bloom that day. Those are Leona’s favorite flowers.”
“So why was she named Chance the Cat?” Bella asks, not following the reasoning. “Why not . . . I don’t know, Woody?”
“Oh, Leona doesn’t care for Woody Allen at all.”
Bella blinks. “No, I meant because you said Wood Hyacinths are—”
“But she adores Peter Sellers,” Odelia goes on. “She’s kept in touch with him quite regularly.”
“Isn’t Peter Sellers dead?”
“Oh, yes, for years. Anyway, Being There was her favorite of all his movies, so that’s where it came from.”
Bella’s head is spinning. “That’s where what came from?”
“The name! Chance the Cat!”
Bella, who never saw Being There, is no stranger to Sellers’s Pink Panther movies and can’t help feeling a little like Inspector Clouseau right now. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just don’t get it.”
“She’s named after Chance the Gardener, Peter Sellers’s character in Being There,” Odelia explains patiently. “Because she was born in a garden. Do you see?”
Bella, who doesn’t see at all, assures her that she does. She gets the feeling that Odelia subscribes to a peculiar brand of logic—one that was apparently shared by Leona. And what about Max? She’s pretty sure her son has never seen a Peter Sellers movie in his life. So why would he have known to call Chance the cat Chance the Cat?
She makes a mental note to ask him again later, though she suspects she already knows the answer. “Because she’s a cat.”
Max, too, has his own unique brand of logic.
Odelia wants to know where they found the animal, and Bella explains how Chance was perched in the road not far from the exit and refused to budge.
“I knew it!” Odelia nods triumphantly. “My guides were pointing me to the south. In her condition, I’m impressed that Chance the Cat could travel that far in . . . let’s see, she’s been missing for over a week now.”
“Your guides?”
“Spirit guides,” Odelia cheerfully tells Bella over another thunderous boom and rain drumming on the porch roof. “I’m with the Assembly . . . you know, a psychic medium.”
“You’re psychic? Like a cow?” That comes from Max; Bella is at a sudden loss for words.
“A cow? Young man, I’ll have you know I’ve lost ten pounds since Christmas,” Odelia informs him with a grin.
“What?” Max looks at Bella.
Before she can explain, Odelia says, “I’m guessing you’ve never met a psychic medium before. Or even a psychic large medium—that’s my new dress size.”
“What’s a psychic large medium?”
“Forget the large,” Odelia grins at him. “A psychic medium is an intuitive, which means,” she adds before he can ask the next question, “that I tune into the energy all around us in order to interpret the past, present, and future.”
After allowing a moment to let that settle, she gives a case-closed nod and moves on—conversationally and physically.
Leading them toward the back of the small house, she says, “I’m impressed that you went out of your way to bring Chance the Cat back where she belongs. Leona will be so pleased.”
Hmm . . . that’s interesting. Bella had assumed Leona had abandoned the cat. Everything about this conversation—and this woman and this place—is bizarre. So many questions fill her head that she can barely manage to articulate even one: “So Leona . . . she’s . . . um, she didn’t . . . um, where, exactly, is she?”
“She’s on the Other Side.” In the cluttered, fragrant kitchen, Odelia lifts the lid from a simmering pot on the stove.
“You mean she’s dead? A ghost?”
In response to Bella’s blurted query and Max’s raised eyebrows, Odelia turns to offer a faint smile. “We prefer to say in Spirit.”
We as in Odelia and the late Leona? We as in Odelia and Gert the cat? Or does she simply refer to herself using the royal we?
It’s hard to tell. Odelia is undeniably dotty, yet she radiates such good-natured warmth that Bella finds herself smiling back despite what should be a somber topic.
But Odelia seems perfectly chipper as she stirs whatever’s in the steaming pot and explains that her elderly neighbor transitioned to the spirit world more than a week ago, the same day the cat went missing.
“She’s been so restless, the poor dear, and I know it’s because she was worried about what had become of the cat. Leona really loved her.” Odelia lifts the spoon to her lips and tastes the red, saucy concoction, tilting her head as if contemplating the flavor.
“What is that?” Max asks.
“Chili.” She opens a glass canister on the countertop and takes a handful of whatever’s inside, tosses it into the pot, and resumes stirring.
“What did you put in there?”
“Chocolate chips, what else?” she replies with a gr
in.
“In chili?” Bella raises her eyebrows.
“Sure. I can’t think of many things that don’t taste better with chocolate chips, can you?”
A few. Chili is one of them, Bella decides with a smile, but it fades when Max asks Odelia yet another question: “How did she die?”
“Leona? She had an accident.”
“Was she a klutz, too?”
“I suppose we all have our moments, don’t we?” Odelia says with a touch of wistfulness, setting the spoon aside and covering the pot with a decisive clatter.
“What about Chance the Cat? Who’s going to take care of her? And her babies, when she has them?”
“I’ll have to find a new home for them. Leona only has one relative, and I’m planning to ask him to take them, but he’s not very fond of animals—which is mutual,” she adds with a meaningful nod at Bella.
“Why don’t you keep Chance the Cat yourself?” Max wants to know.
“Because my Gert doesn’t do well with other cats here.”
“But she’s her grandma!”
“Cats aren’t like humans,” Odelia says. “Once family members have lived apart, they don’t take to each other very easily. They’re very territorial and set in their ways.”
Bella can’t help but think of her mother-in-law. Sam had always claimed she’d been different when he was growing up, before widowhood, age, and isolation had hardened her. She never got over his moving away and held out hope for years that he’d come back home. That hope had been crushed when he married Bella.
“I’d keep her if I could,” Odelia goes on. “I don’t suppose you’d like to—”
“We can’t,” Bella cuts in quickly, before Odelia gives Max any ideas. “We’re—”
She breaks off at a deafening clap of thunder.
“Mommy? I don’t want to go camping,” Max says in a small voice.
“Camping! On a night like this?” Odelia looks from Max to Bella.
“We’re just going to Summer Pines. It’s not far.”
“Where?”
“Summer Pines,” she repeats, noting the woman’s blank expression.
“Never heard of it.”
Nine Lives Page 4