Chez Stinky (18 page)

The long silence on the line was oddly awkward. Finally her mother said, “Yes, I met Louise a long time ago.”

“Do you know if she had a daughter? I found a lot of photographs of a little girl and I was wondering who she is.”

Kat’s mother paused again before answering. “Louise might have had a daughter. I wouldn’t bother worrying about it, though. I think the little girl may have died, and Louise might not want to talk about it.”

Kat raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

“Why don’t you just forget about all this? Alpine Grove isn’t where you should be, anyway. You are a city girl with a nice apartment. What about your job? What is it you do again? Something with computers?”

“Yes, mother. I’m a technical writer. As I have been for a number of years now. But I like Alpine Grove. And Abigail wanted me to take care of her pets. I found out that I like dogs.”

“That’s nice, dear. But they must shed so much fur! How could you ever keep the place clean? That reminds me. I really should get back to my vacuuming now. The Carrharts are coming over, and I still have some dusting to do as well.”

As Kat hung up the phone, she could envision the pinched look on her mother’s face as she contemplated the diabolical nature of dust.

Conversations with her mother were not usually a lot of fun, but her mother had acted weird about Kat’s visit to Alpine Grove. The question was why. Maybe her mother had a bad experience here. Or maybe she and Abigail had a fight. Or maybe her mother had a torrid affair. That seemed unlikely and definitely not something she wanted to think about. Yuck. Kat gave herself a mental head shake and as usual, tried to avoid dwelling on the fact that her mother seemed to like spending time with her vacuum cleaner more than with her daughter.

Having discovered first-hand that the nightlife in Alpine Grove was limited, Kat convinced Maria that staying in that evening might be a better option. But they needed provisions. At the local Save-a-Lot, Kat pushed the grocery cart as Maria scanned the shelves for the evening’s Wine and Whine session.

Maria rummaged through the depths of the dairy case. “Do you have cheese at home? I want some cheese.” Successful in her quest, Maria held a wedge of Parmesan in front of Kat. “I love cheese, but yeesh this grocery store is cold. I’m getting chills.”

Kat raised her eyebrows. “Are they multiplying?”

Maria swayed her hips and said in a sing-song voice, “I’m looosing control.”

“I think the power you’re supplying…it’s rather electrifying.”

Overcome with a nostalgic high-school musical moment, Maria grabbed a single Twinkie from the Hostess display and waved it around like a microphone. “Ooh, ooh, ooh. I neeed a man!”

Kat giggled and looked beyond Maria down the cereal aisle where Joel was standing, holding a box of corn flakes and smiling at Maria’s impromptu snack-cake performance.

Kat raised her hand and with a somewhat sheepish smile waved at him. With an amused twinkle in his eye, Joel started walking toward her. A little twinge of excitement went down her spine as he strolled down the aisle past the Froot Loops display.

Maria concluded her musical performance and said, “I’m hungry. Don’t they have samples at this store? I love samples. I could eat all my meals from the sample people. Sometimes they have those great mini-wiener dogs on toothpicks. All this healthy exercise and outdoor activity really works up an appetite. I don’t know how you do all this dog-walking every day. You’re going to become an athlete if you hang around here.”

Earlier in the day, Maria had accompanied Kat on one of the dog walks. The excursion was cut short when one of Maria’s heels got caught on a tree root. She tripped and landed on Linus, who had yelped in surprise, but handled having a human sprawled upon him with remarkable dignity.

With her eyes still on Joel, Kat said to Maria, “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, I like that big dog. He’s soft and squishy. But you need to get a better lint brush. Like one of those industrial-strength ones. That little crappy thing you have barely makes a dent in the hair I got all over myself. I think that animal is doing his seasonal shedding thing. I don’t know how one dog can hold that much fur.”

“I’ve never seen an industrial-strength lint brush. If you find one, let me know.”

“It’s better spending time with the dogs outside because the breeze blows the hair off. Except outside there are the bugs, too. I hate bugs. Why are there so many bugs everywhere? I want to live in a place where bugs aren’t allowed.”

Kat nodded absently, gazing up at Joel, who was now standing quietly behind Maria, looking amused. “If you find that place, be sure to tell me. Any place with no mosquitoes gets my vote.”

Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the chrome of the dairy case, Maria grimaced. “Yuck, my hair is really flat. What happened? Is there something in the air here? I need to fluff it up.”

Maria doubled over to shake out her brown curls. “I really do have nice feet don’t I? They look so cute in these little peek-a-boo pumps.” When she stood up and flipped her hair back over her head, she turned around and found a tall man in front of her.

Maria put her hand on her hip. “So who are you and where were you the other night when the only people out on the town were creepy, toothless old dudes?”

Kat said, “Maria, this is Joel. I told you about him. He helped me get the cat out of the wall.”

“Oh, yeah; you’re the hero!”

Joel gave a half-smile and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know about that. But I did get the cat out of the wall without hurting him.”

“Maria is a friend of mine from work. She’s up for the weekend. We’re getting some stuff for dinner.”

Joel surveyed the contents of the cart, which included a wide selection of items from the Hostess snack-cake rack, several types of cheese, potato chips, a jar of tomato sauce, spaghetti, and three bottles of wine. “It looks like you have quite an evening planned.”

Maria said, “We’re all about nutrition. Remember—Ronald Reagan said ketchup is a vegetable, so with the pasta sauce, we’ve got all the food groups covered.”

Kat nodded. “Wine is made from grapes, so that’s our fruit. And we have a few extras like Twinkies that defy classification. They are in a class by themselves.”

Maria picked up her Twinkie again and pointed it at Joel. “And this individually wrapped Twinkie right here is mine because I’m starving.”

Joel nodded and smiled politely. “I’ll let you get back to it, then. It was nice to see you again, Kat.”

Kat blushed. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the roof problem if you have time. Can I give you a call?”

“Sure. You have my number.”

As Joel walked away toward the produce department, Maria turned to Kat and gave her an appraising look. “You seriously have the hots for him, don’t you?”

“I do not! He was just nice about fixing stuff in the house. I told you I went out on a date with Larry, right?”

Maria poked her Twinkie toward Kat. “One date doesn’t mean you’re
dating
him. There’s a difference. And you said it was horrible.”

Kat cringed mentally at the memory. “Yes. It was. But Joel isn’t my type. I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m weird.”

Maria began unwrapping her Twinkie. “You are weird. But in a good way. That’s why I like you.”

That evening, Maria held her wine glass in front of her face and swirled the burgundy liquid within it. “We should have just gone to the grocery store to meet men in the first place. That’s where the hot ones are. That Joel guy is beyond fine. And now we even have food, too. Whatever you’re making over there smells fantastic.”

“It’s just spaghetti. After our dinner at the restaurant last night, I got inspired and even added some Italian spices.” Kat stirred the deep red marinara sauce slowly, causing the scent of basil and oregano to waft around the room. She tasted the sauce and said, “So are you ready to go back to work? I know I’m not.”

Maria shook her head. “Me neither. I think I need to find a job where my fabulousness is appreciated. I think Mark is off his meds again. He was acting more mental than usual before I left to come up here.”

“More mental?”

“He had me set up an appointment with an image consultant. He wants to seem more loveable. I said to him that maybe if he were nicer to people, they’d like him better. I don’t think he took the hint.”

Kat smiled. “He told me he was taking gingko to get smarter. Maybe he’s on a personal-improvement kick.”

“I don’t know. He’s been going around the office complaining about people’s shoes and what they are wearing. He told Anna that she needs to buy the expensive makeup from the mall, not the cheap stuff from the drug store that makes her look like a slut.”

Kat raised her eyebrows. “A slut? He really said that?”

“I know! Who cares what we look like, anyway?” Maria waved her wine glass to emphasize her point. “No one actually sees us. The guys have to wear ties and suit jackets now and the women have to wear high heels. Now, you know I love my stilettos, but Jane isn’t going to wear heels. She has that new hip and her legs aren’t even the same length anymore. She’s got those special shoes to even her out, so she doesn’t tip over.”

“Interesting. Did Jane talk to Mark about that?”

“We were chatting in the kitchen and I asked her exactly that the other day. She said she went to his office to explain she has to wear her shoes for medical reasons. He just blew her off. If she won’t follow his instructions, she can find a new job. She was
not
happy about that, either. That woman is seriously pissed off. Like the ‘I’m gonna get a lawyer’ type of pissed off.”

“If her shoes are related to her medical treatment, that has to be illegal, right?”

“Who knows? Maybe you can ask your lawyer friend we met…Larry. I hope she sticks it to Mark, though. And if anyone can, Jane can. That woman is such a stud-ette. I bet she didn’t even need anesthesia when she got her new hip.”

Kat smiled at the mental image of Jane waving away an anesthesiologist wearing medical scrubs “Yeah, there’s no love between her and Mark. When I was in Mark’s office one time, he referred to her as a fat cow and he never even said thank you for all that overtime she put in a few months ago. And remember when she went on vacation and he moved her office space to that tiny spot in the back? That was rude.”

Maria sipped her wine and then tipped the top of the glass, pointing it toward Kat. “It takes some nerve to pack up someone’s personal stuff like that. That guy just gets weirder all the time. I think we need an intervention or something.”

“That’s for people who drink or do drugs. I don’t think an intervention fixes being a jerk.”

“Maybe we can find a rehab for loser bosses.”

Kat smirked and stood up. “Loser rehab would probably be full. This conversation is getting depressing. I need more wine. We both have to go back to that place all too soon.”

The next morning, Maria pulled her Miata out from its spot under the tree. After lamenting the many pine needles, pitch, and bird droppings marring the car’s formerly shiny red exterior, Maria loaded her suitcases into the trunk. Kat looked at the gray clouds above and took a deep breath. She had been blessed with perfect weather for her vacation in Alpine Grove, which had made it easy to ignore the roof problem. After Maria left, she needed to make some phone calls and see if she could find someone to fix it, since Bud was no longer a contender for her roofing business.

Maria stretched out her arms for a hug, “I’ll see you at work! Behave yourself until then. Unless you see the cute guy from the grocery store again. Then all bets are off.”

Kat grinned and hugged Maria tightly. “I’ll try and be good. My only plan today is to find a roofer. It looks like it’s going to rain.”

“Maybe that will wash all the forest crap off of Greta. She doesn’t like being dirty.”

Maria crawled into the little red car and pulled it out into the driveway. Kat waved and shouted, “See you soon!” as the car pulled away.

Turning back to the house, she wrapped her arms around her waist and looked up at the roof.
Please remain in one piece and keep the rain out until I can find someone to fix you.