Chez Stinky (35 page)

Maria jumped out of the car and waved. “Hey, girlfriend! I forgot to give you your money!” She ran up the stairs holding an envelope and came inside.

Kat took the envelope from her peeked inside at the bills. “Money? I need that. Thanks for coming back out here to give it to me.”

“I’ve got to head out now, but most of your furniture is gone. And your last paycheck is in there, too. After I extracted it from Mark, I decided not to mail it, since I figured I’d see you first.”

“How was your date?”

“It was good. We went to the Italian place. Larry really likes Italian food.”

“I noticed.”

“He likes it when I talk about my grandmother’s recipes, too. I told him about her lasagna, and I thought he was going to faint.”

Kat smiled. “I didn’t know your grandmother made lasagna.”

“She usually doesn’t. Actually, she mostly eats TV dinners. I embellished a little. Food talk makes Larry horny. I need to get some Italian cookbooks and find more recipes.”

“He’s going to be disappointed if he ever meets your grandmother.”

“Oh, that won’t happen. He thinks she lives in a little village in Tuscany.”

“Wait, doesn’t she live in New Jersey?”

“Larry doesn’t know that.”

Kat smiled. “If he wants to honeymoon in Italy, you’re going to have a problem.”

“Give me a break. I’m not getting married for a long time. I’m still sowing my wild oats. I don’t know what sowing is exactly. But I know I’ve still got a lot of oats that need to get sowed.”

“Is it sowed or sown?”

“I don’t know. Whatever. Speaking of sowing, which we all know is just a fancy word for getting it on, how’s the sexy engineer?”

“I don’t know. He went on a trip.”

“Where?”

“I have no idea.”

Maria frowned. “I’m not going to have to have that chat with you, am I?”

“No. I’ll deal with it. His sister calls it ‘clamming up’ when he shuts down and won’t talk. I think he might think he’s protecting me or something.”

“I guess that’s sweet. Sort of. No. Not really. That would piss me off.”

“I’m trying to retain composure, particularly after I melted down about his ex-girlfriend.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that was your finest moment.”

Kat nodded. “Plus, I had a weird day. Do you have to leave right away? Or do you want to hear about how I’m adopted and my aunt is actually my grandmother.”

Maria raised her eyebrows. “What?” She walked into the kitchen to look at the clock on the wall. “I definitely have time for that. Maybe I’ll just go in late to work tomorrow. Mark will just have to deal with it.”

“Okay. I’m going to have a glass of wine. You can’t have any because you’re driving.”

“Yeah, yeah. So come on, spill it.”

Kat related the story Louise had shared earlier. By the end, Maria was sitting up straight in the chair staring at Kat. “That’s like an ABC movie of the week. You need to sell the film rights about your family to a TV network.”

“I’m not sure my mother would be up for that idea.”

“That doesn’t matter. She’s just a supporting character.”

After Maria left, Kat fed the animals and collapsed into bed. Thanks to the wine and information overload, she was asleep moments after her head hit the pillow.

The next morning, Kat had a headache and a sick feeling in her stomach. Was she hung over? Yuck. Maybe the wine hadn’t been such a good idea. She moved slowly feeding the dogs and dealing with her morning routine. Taking a shower sounded like way too much work. For the unemployed, Mondays weren’t particularly different than any other day. She was at loose ends wanting to talk to Joel about everything that had happened, but unable to reach him.

After the morning dog walk, she went outside with Linus. She stopped and leaned on the fence of the garden area, which was still filled with six-foot-high grasses. She looked through the welded wire fence. A small purple flower was reaching up through the thick weeds to find some light. Seeing the little plant struggle to grow shifted something in her mind.

She went out to the Tessa Hut and dug through various dusty and rusty things on the shelves until she found an old trowel. Even if she wasn’t going to live here in the end, she wanted to see if there was anything left of the garden Abigail had cared for and loved so much.

Linus settled in for a nap under a tree and watched as Kat dug, scraped, yanked, and pulled in her effort to uncover any flowers and herbs Abigail might have planted. After about an hour of effort, one small corner of the garden was clear. Kat sat on the ground with her back against a fence post, pleased at having unearthed some feeble thyme and sage plants. With a few breaks for water and dog walks, Kat continued digging for hours while Linus supervised with his eyes closed from his shady spot under the tree. As the big dog’s fur ruffled in the breeze, Kat worked until she was too exhausted to think about anything anymore.

That night, Kat awoke to the sound of a dog bark. Linus woofed once from downstairs. A few minutes later, Joel’s snuggled his warm body next to her and wrapped his arms around her. She rolled over in his embrace and looked into his face. The moonlight was streaming in through the window, glinting on his eyes. She smiled at him. “Welcome back.”

“It’s good to be back.” He nuzzled his face in her hair and kissed her neck. “I missed you. You smell like Thanksgiving dinner and wine. What have you been doing?”

Kat giggled, enjoying the feel of his body next to hers. “I fell asleep before I took a shower. Sorry about that. I found some herb plants in the garden. And Maria stopped by last night to give me my last paycheck and the money from all the furniture she sold. Apparently, she’s a hard-nosed negotiator. She was motivated by the prospect of shoe shopping. Then we talked for a while. It has been a weird couple of days.”

“Really?” Joel sat up and looked down at her. “The Lumberjack didn’t come back, did he? Is everything okay?”

Kat pulled him back down to her. “Relax. It’s nothing like that. And I’d like to know where you were first.”

He sighed. “Okay. I went to Las Vegas.”

“Vegas? Why?”

“I wanted to see if I could find the records of the notification of your aunt’s divorce. I have a friend there who went to engineering college with me, so I stayed with him. I spent most of the day looking at microfilm of old newspapers. I know more about the Las Vegas news of yesteryear than I ever wanted to know. That’s one strange place.”

Kat smiled. “I don’t think anyone would argue that point. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to worry or get your hopes up about it.”

“Sorry, but that plan failed. I did worry. I had no idea where you were. You said if I had questions about you, I should ask you. I think you need to do your part to provide answers when I ask questions.”

He looked into her eyes. “I know. You’re right. I’m not used to telling people what I’m doing. Then you said I didn’t have to ask permission, and I didn’t want to talk about it. Anyway, the trip was a failure. I didn’t find anything. But I didn’t have time to go through everything. A lot of little newspapers have come and gone over the years. I asked a librarian for help before I left, and she said she’d keep looking into it. She looked really bored, so I think she was excited about having something else to do.”

Kat sighed. “That’s too bad. I can’t believe you went all the way down there. I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” She reached out toward his face, caressed his cheek and smiled. “I think I forgive you.”

“I tried, anyway. One good thing happened, though. My friend works for a company that supplies slot machines for casinos.”

“I guess he got out of engineering?”

“No. He is an engineer. Slot machines have gone high-tech. He said his company might be interested in some consulting work.” He grinned. “You don’t want to have programming errors on the circuit boards that would lead to too many payouts. He wants me to send an email tomorrow.”

“If you figure how the slots work, maybe you can give me some of that extra cash they spit out, since I could be homeless again. I seem to have bad luck with housing lately.”

Joel propped his head on his hand and looked down into her eyes. “You could always stay with me. I could add on to the shack. Maybe make it less of a shack and more of a house.”

“You’d do that?”

“Of course I would. I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

“You know I have all these dogs and cats, too. They go where I go.”

“I know. It might be a crowded shack. I just want to be with you.”

Kat breathed a sigh of relief. “I want to be with you, too. I thought you might be going on the trip to get a job or something.”

“I said I wasn’t. I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”

Kat’s eyes widened. “I love you, too. I don’t care where I live as long as it’s with you.”

Joel leaned down and kissed her slowly and tenderly. The tension Kat had stored up for days evaporated from her body and then there was nothing but the warm sensation of his touch.

The next morning, Kat and Joel slept in later than usual, entwined with one another in the bed, unwilling to break the cocoon of warmth they had created. Kat lay in his arms and explained her newly discovered family history.

When she was done retelling the tale, he gazed at her thoughtfully. “That’s quite a story. I think I see why your aunt’s, or I guess your
grandmother’s
, nightstand is so well stocked.”

“Abigail was late to the safe sex game, but apparently she made up for it.”

“So it seems.”

“Given my family predilection for extreme fertility, I’m glad I’ve always been a little hysterical about birth control.”

“Better safe than sorry. And speaking of that…”

Kat rolled her eyes. “If we don’t get out of bed soon, there’s going to be a canine citizen uprising.”

Joel nibbled on her earlobe. “Mmm. Maybe. Maybe not.”

Kat giggled. “They’ll be okay. It’s not
that
late.”

Later that morning after feeding and walking dogs, Kat was downstairs lying on the bed in Joel’s office, staring at the ceiling. “I’m tired.”

Joel looked up from his computer. “I think I know why.”

“I did a lot of gardening.”

“That, too.” He looked back at his computer monitor. “Hey! I got an email from the librarian! It looks like she found something.”

Kat sat up on the bed and looked over at him. “Really?”

“Yes. She found the newspaper notification. In some small obscure paper in Nevada. Impressive.”

“Librarians do love a research challenge.”

“She’s going to scan it and email it to me. Then I can print it out.”

Kat jumped up off the bed. “This is good news!”

“Have you seen any paper anywhere? I need to set up the printer.”

“I think there was some in the closet.”

Kat opened the door and bent over, looking around on the floor and rummaging through the boxes in the closet. She’d seen copier paper somewhere. Joel walked up behind her and touched her back, startling her. She jerked upright and hit her head on something metal that was jutting out from one of the shelves at the side of the closet. “OW! Not again!” She rubbed the top of her scalp. “What
is
that? This is the second time I’ve hit my head on it.”

Joel maneuvered around Kat and pulled out a large metal box. “Looks like a fireproof box.”

Kat raised her eyebrows and met his gaze. “Like the kind of box you’d use for storing important documents?”

“Exactly.”

They put the box on the floor and quickly discovered it was locked. Joel got up. “I’ll be right back.” He returned with his toolbox, crouched down next to the box, and pulled something from his toolbox that looked suspiciously like lock picks.

Kat looked at him. “Do you have a life of crime I don’t know about?”

“No. I locked myself out of the shack so many times, I got a set. You’d be surprised at the ads you can find in the back of geeky magazines.”

“You are a man of many talents.”

Joel grinned up at her. “You know it.” He looked back down at the lock and continued fiddling with the picks.

At last the lock released and he opened the box. They both peered inside. Kat picked up the pile of papers sitting within, sat down on the floor and started going through them. “I found a copy of the will. That’s good, I guess.” She kept flipping through papers and then stopped. She looked up at Joel. “I think I found it.” She handed the papers to him. “What do you think?”