Cat Trick (7 page)

Georgia and I both nodded.

“That’s great,” Abigail said. Her gaze shifted to Georgia. “So you’re not dropping
out?”

“No, I’m not,” she said. She flushed and gave me an embarrassed look. “I was thinking
about not doing the tasting, but I’m a new business and this is a great opportunity
for me.”

“And now that Mike Glazer is . . . well, gone, things should run a little more smoothly,”
Abigail said. She shrugged her shoulders and looked from Georgia to me. “I mean no
disrespect, but from what I heard, he was making everything—the food tasting and the
art show—difficult.”

“I know,” I said, nodding slowly. “I heard that he was . . . challenging to work with.”

Georgia’s cheeks got pinker. “Mr. Glazer had some very strong ideas about how things
should be done. He said that chocolate was so last year. He wanted me to make something
trendy like peanut butter jalapeño cupcakes.”

Abigail made a face. “Peanut butter and jalapeño cupcakes. For that fiery sensation
that sticks to the roof of your mouth? I don’t think so. Trendy isn’t what people
are looking for when they come here.”

“What are people looking for when they come to Mayville Heights?” I asked.

“Clean air, gorgeous scenery and charming eccentrics like me,” she retorted. Her stomach
growled before I could answer. “And good food,” she added, patting her middle.

“Go have lunch,” I said. “Everything’s under control here.” I smiled at Georgia. “I’m
glad we met.”

“Me too,” she said. “I’ll see you at the tasting. I’ll save you a chocolate cupcake.”

I headed for the checkout desk, where Susan was answering the phone.

Mary was just coming in. “Hi,” she said, walking over to me. “You can go for lunch
anytime.”

“Thanks,” I said. “How was your morning?”

She set her quilted bag on the counter. “Very good. Burtis made some adjustments to
the tents, and we have more than half the stalls set up in the second one.” She laced
her fingers together on top of the bag. “Go have some lunch, Kathleen,” she said.
“Susan and I have things under control.”

Susan leaned over, resting her head against Mary’s arm, and they gave me the same
kind of faux-innocent look that Owen and Hercules sometimes used. It didn’t fill me
with any more confidence than I had when the cats did it.

“That’s what scares me just a little,” I said, holding up my right thumb and forefinger
about an inch apart.

They both smirked at me.

“I’m going upstairs to get my purse and my sweater,” I said. “I’ll be at Maggie’s
studio if you need me.” I started for the stairs. “Don’t do anything
outlandish
to my library while I’m gone,” I warned. I was only half joking.

“Would we do that?” Mary asked. I knew she was pretending to talk to Susan even though
she’d raised her voice a little so I’d hear her.

“Yes,” I answered, not bothering to turn around.

“Well, not on purpose,” Susan called after me.

I let that one go.

The sun was shining and there were just a few fluffy clouds, looking like puffs of
cotton, floating in the blue sky overhead. I walked over to River Arts, glad to have
the time to stretch my legs. Maggie was waiting for me at the back door. “Hi,” she
said. “Roma called. She can’t make it. She has to do emergency surgery on a golden
retriever. But she did get the keys to Wisteria Hill.”

“That’s good,” I said. “I’m so glad the place isn’t going to be turned into a subdivision.”

Maggie nodded. “Me too. So how was your morning?”

“Busy,” I said. “I think half of Mayville Heights was looking for something to read.”

“Good,” she said as we headed up the stairs to her top-floor studio. “That means the
user numbers will be up, and Everett and the board will be so impressed, they’ll offer
you whatever you want to sign a new contract and stay.”

Maggie was waging an unapologetic campaign to convince me to stay in Mayville Heights.
Truth be told, it made me feel good that she cared so much.

“How was your morning?” I asked.

“Also busy,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder at me. “You must have heard
by now everything’s a go.”

“I did.”

“Liam had to change the date to a week from this coming Monday instead of Sunday,
but otherwise we’re still on schedule.”

“So Liam saved the day.”

“He really did,” she said.

We came out into the top hallway and started down to Maggie’s studio.

“And will he be appropriately rewarded?” I asked.

Maggie rolled her eyes at me. “Maybe by the town council, but not by me. I told you,
there’s nothing serious between us. We’re mostly just friends.”

I stopped and put both hands on my hips. “Oh, c’mon, Mags,” I said. “Liam is funny,
he’s smart, he’s working on a PhD and this proposal for Legacy Tours, he’s still tending
bar and he’s majorly cute.”

“Majorly cute?”

“We had a ninth-grade class in this morning for a tour,” I said. “I picked up a few
phrases to expand my vocabulary.”

She pulled her keys out of her pocket. “Yes, Liam is smart, and he makes me laugh,
and he is, as you put it, ‘majorly cute,’ but we’re just friends. You’re wasting your
time if you’re trying to play matchmaker.” She opened the studio door and I followed
her inside.

“Why is it that all the times I told you that you were wasting your time playing matchmaker
with Marcus and me, you just ignored me?”

The high worktable in the center of the room was set with two place mats and cutlery.
I pulled out a stool and sat down while Maggie plugged in the kettle and started taking
food out of her little refrigerator. “That’s different,” she said, moving between
the table and the fridge.

I leaned an elbow on the paint-spattered tabletop and propped my head on my hand.
“Why? Because it’s you?”

“No,” she said. “Well, yes, at least partly.” Her expression turned serious. “I’m
good at this kind of thing. I got Roma and Eddie together.”

“That was an accident,” I protested. “People saw Roma with the mannequin you made
and thought she was dating the real Eddie. He never would have gotten in touch with
her if it hadn’t been for that.”

Maggie set a large bowl on the table between our plates. She’d made her pasta salad
with sun-dried tomatoes. It was one of my favorites. “Exactly,” she said. “Roma ended
up with the real Eddie because of the Eddie I made. The universe was working through
me.”

I would have laughed at that, but I knew she was serious. “You said ‘partly,’” I said.
“What’s the other part?”

“You and Marcus are perfect for each other. You’re yin and yang.” She added hot water
to her teacup and brought it over to the table.

I groaned. “Oh, please don’t say we’re soul mates. I don’t want to lose my appetite
before I’ve even had one bite.”

Maggie slipped onto the stool opposite me. “I’m not saying that,” she said.

I knew that didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking it. “I’m officially changing the subject,”
I said. “Let’s talk about the art show or the food tasting or the
Gotta Dance
reunion tour. They’ve added three more stops to the schedule.”

I glanced over at the Matt Lauer doll perched on a chair by the windows. I’d found
the eight-inch-high knitted doll wearing a dark blue suit and a gray fedora in the
same store where I’d bought the
I
Matt Lauer
T-shirt. It seemed as though the
Today Show
host had a lot of fans in Boston.

“There are rumors that as a former
Gotta Dance
champion, Matt’s going to join the others for a few dates to show off his moves,”
I said.

“I know.” Maggie made a face. “But they aren’t coming anywhere close to here, and
so far Matt hasn’t said for sure that he is going to be part of the tour.”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” I said.

“You’re just saying that because the beefcake didn’t win the crystal trophy.”

The “beefcake” was Kevin Sorbo, aka Hercules from the syndicated TV show
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
, and
Gotta Dance
runner-up to Matt Lauer. I shook my head. “No, I’m saying it because I’m pretty sure
if we went to see Matt Lauer in person, you would rush the stage and end up in jail,
and I’d have to call my so-called soul mate to pull some strings to get you out.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Maggie said. Then she laughed.

I grinned at her across the table. “Okay, let’s talk about the art show and the food
tasting. Things really are going okay?”

She set down her fork, and a shadow slid across her face. “Uh-huh. They’re just better
overall. I’m sorry to say it, but Mike rubbed people the wrong way. Now Liam’s basically
in charge. Alex isn’t going to have his fingers all over everything the way Mike did.”
She shrugged. “Liam says it’s far from a done deal, though.”

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” I said. I speared another corkscrew of pasta. “I met
Georgia Tepper this morning.”

“You’re going to love her cupcakes,” Maggie said, taking a sip of her tea.

“She said Mike told her chocolate was ‘last year,’” I said. I waved my fork at her.
“This is good, by the way.”

Maggie smiled. “I’m glad you like it.” She frowned at her tea, got up and rummaged
in the old pie safe until she found a small container of honey. “Yeah, Mike wanted
Georgia to make some kind of ‘in’ cupcake with chili peppers or jalapeños. He told
Mary white tablecloths were a throwback to the fifties, and I don’t know what the
heck he said to Burtis to aggravate him.”

“Burtis is not someone you want to be on the bad side of,” I commented.

“True,” Mags said, drizzling a little honey into her tea. “But it was Georgia who
almost took a swing at Mike with a serving tray.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

She twisted her mouth to one side. “I’m not.”

Before I could ask her for more details, there was a knock on the half-open door and
Ruby poked her head in. “Hi,” she said. “Got a minute?” She was looking directly at
me when she asked the question.

“Sure,” I said, setting my fork down again.

“Could I paint Owen?”

“You mean the same way you’re doing with Hercules?”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“That’s a great idea,” Maggie said, putting a little more pasta salad in her bowl.
“Are you thinking of letting them go to auction as a set, or as two individual paintings?”

Ruby wrinkled her nose in thought. “I’m leaning toward listing them separately just
because I think that’ll bring in more money for Cat People. What do you think?”

“Oh, definitely,” Mags said, waving her fork like a flag. “Are you going to do a frame?”

I leaned sideways so I was a little more in Ruby’s line of vision. “You can paint
Owen. It’s fine with me.”

Ruby nodded and waved her hand absently at me. “I went with metal the last time, but
I’m thinking about a black floater frame.”

Okay, so she wasn’t talking to me.

Maggie frowned. “What about charcoal instead of black?”

Neither was Maggie.

Ruby nodded slowly. “That might work. I don’t want a frame that screams ‘Look at me!’”

I leaned a little farther sideways and waved my arms in the air, kind of like I was
a flag person on a highway construction crew. “Hello,” I said.

They both looked at me then. “Do you need something?” Maggie asked.

“Yes,” I said, sinking back on my stool. “I need to tell Ruby that she can paint Owen.”

Ruby and Mags exchanged glances. “I did get that,” Ruby said. “Thank you.”

“Anything else?” Maggie said. I might have been imagining the tiny hint of impatience
in her voice.

“I could bring Owen down first thing tomorrow morning before the library opens, if
that works,” I added.

“That’ll work,” Ruby said.

I turned to Maggie and made a move-along gesture with one hand. “I’m done.”

“Thank you,” she said. No, that wasn’t impatience I was hearing; it was a tiny bit
of sarcasm.

Mags and Ruby went back to discussing possibilities for framing the cat portraits,
and I went back to my pasta salad. By the time they had settled on a charcoal frame,
I was done eating. I stretched my arms up over my head, which caught Maggie’s attention.

“Do you have room for a cup of hot chocolate?” she asked. “I have more of those homemade
marshmallows you like.”

I glanced at my watch. “Okay,” I said. It was chocolate. I didn’t need much persuading.

She looked at Ruby. “Rube? Hot chocolate? With marshmallows from the farmers’ market?”

Ruby smiled. “Mmm, that sounds good.”

Maggie got up to put the kettle back on and get out the mugs and cocoa.

“How’s the setup going for the art show?” I asked Ruby.

“Better,” she said, leaning her elbows on the table.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You had problems with Mike Glazer as well.” There seemed
to be no shortage of people who did.

Ruby slid her bracelets along her arm and sighed. “Kathleen, I think everyone had
problems with Mike. If he hadn’t died when he did, I swear someone would have smacked
him with a two-by-four by now.” She shrugged. “Maybe me. Or Burtis. Wednesday night,
Burtis was pounding in tent pegs with a sledgehammer and there was a moment when I
actually thought he was going to take a swing at Mike.”