Scandal (14 page)

Thinking of dogs reminded me of pets. I wondered where Prince Charming was. He'd been
very friendly to Sam last week, but looked to be hiding tonight. From Len?

I didn't put any stock in his response to Len, The Prince was not the best judge of character
and could be mercurial in his choices. The trees beyond the house threw shadows across the lawn.
If Prince was outside he would be in soon. I didn't like him out after dark, worried that some wild
creature might take him.

I put salad in my bowl. "Have you seen my cat?"

"Uhh, would that be a black and white one?"

"Yes, with a tail like a flag, fluffy and waving about."

"It's in the garage. It was watching me chop wood."

"Didn't he come in the house with you?"

"It wanted to, but..."

I turned to stare at him, "Why?" obvious on my face.

"I didn't tell you, didn't think it of it, really. I am allergic to cats. I have medication, but not
with me."

"Oh, swell." I felt my ardor for him reduce a notch. A man who can't be around a cat? How
were we going to negotiate that? I thought of my bed where Prince Charming slept on the other
pillow. There's always the couch. Not an attractive prospect. Besides, the cat lies there, too.

"Is your steak rare enough?" Might as well enjoy dinner. No doubt The Prince will be crying
to come in, pretty quick here.

"Perfect. You've learned to cook. I like this salad, too."

"You want some blue cheese?" I handed him the small bowl of apple and pungent
cheese.

"No. That's all right. I like it most times. This just smells pretty strong to me."

"I don't think it's the cheese," I said as I became aware that the fireplace chimney seemed
to be making a whooshing sound I'd never heard before. The aroma of the fire had moved from
gentle woodsy to the sharper smell of a bigger blaze, with sound. Alarmed, we both went over to the
fireplace.

"I think..." Len ran to the front door and out onto the lawn, where he yelled back to me,
"Call the fire department! Flames are shooting from the chimney."

I ran with wooden legs to the phone on the side table, not even thinking of the cell in my
pocket. Later I would laugh at that. At the moment I was in a barely restrained panic that showed in
my voice.

"Here, fire in my chimney!" I shouted at the 911 operator who was calmly asking, "What is
the nature of your emergency?"

"Sorry." I took a deep breath and answered her next questions about my name and address.
"But it's not so easy to get onto our road."

"Not to worry, ma'am, the fire department knows exactly where you are and are on their
way." I heard then the scream of sirens, a long ways away, but definitely moving in our direction.
"Ma'am, you need to leave the house."

"I'm okay. The house isn't on fire."

"Ma'am, your chimney is on fire. Your roof might be engaged. The wall could be on fire. You
need to leave the house."

I didn't want to leave the comfort of her voice. Sense had returned to me. "Here's my cell
phone number," I said, rapid fire. "Please give me a minute, then call on it, okay? Please?"

"Yes, ma'am, but you will leave the house. Now."

I touched the phone in my pocket, grabbed a jacket from the hallway and met up with Len
on the lawn. The phone rang just as I reached him. I answered it, it was the 911 dispatcher. "Yes. I'm
here. Thanks for calling back."

"You're welcome, Mrs. Buler. You are outside now? Is anyone else in the house?"

"No." Then I remembered and turned to Len, grabbing his arm. "Prince Charming. He's in
the garage." I started back towards the house.

He caught me before I could move. "No! You can't go back in!"

The scream of the sirens was just down the street and then the red truck swung into view
and our driveway. Len had parked his car beside mine, in front of the garage. The device to open the
garage door was inside my car.

The fire truck, lights still flashing, was huge in my driveway, dominating everything. The
driver and rider climbed out of the cab, four firefighters piled off the truck. They were all garbed in
tan fire coats with yellow florescent stripes and those snazzy black firefighter helmets. At least two
were women.

A fire car pulled up behind the truck, and a man got out. He came towards us across the
lawn. His helmet was white with the word CHIEF on the side.

"This your place? Anyone inside?"

Len shook his head:
no.

I nodded:
yes.
"My cat's in the garage."

Len said, "I think it's a chimney fire, sir."

"But no people inside?"

"But my cat--"

"We'll get to the garage in a bit. Must see to the chimney and building first."

I knew that Prince Charming was probably flying about in the garage, going from window
to window to see what was going on. Of all the cats I'd had, he was the most curious, wanting to be
in the center of everything, not making a fast run to hide like many.

"I have the door opener right here. I'll open it up right now." I had retrieved it while the fire
truck had been pulling into the driveway. I went to push the button.

"Oh, no, ma'am." He took it from my hand and stashed it in one of his many pockets. "We'll
want to control the rush of oxygen to the house. My people are on the roof now, and in the house,
checking the flow of the fire. They'll camera the wall, go into the crawl space and TIC it." At my
mystified look he said, "Oh, sorry, Thermal Image Camera, looking for hot spots." His phone rang, he
answered it, listened, said, "Okay. Good. Ready to mist? I'll come help finish it up." To us he said,
"Doesn't look to be in the walls, but we have to make sure."

"Look here, Chief," said Len.

The chief looked at him. I could see his eyebrows rise at the demanding and self-important
tone of Len's voice. He tilted and lowered his head, saying nothing but the movement encouraged
Len to continue. Despite the controlled chaos around us Len had his full attention.

"I just built that fire less than an hour ago. It couldn't have set the house ablaze."

"That's good to know. How long's it been since you had your chimney cleaned?" Stern.
Firm.

Len took a step back. "Hey! It's not my house."

"Yours?" His look swung to me and I took a step forward, to him. My guilt made me
defensive and aggressive.

Several men pushed past us, holding and pulling a hose, everybody working together,
helping get the hose up to the people on the roof. I pulled my attention back to the chief.

"Yes. I've been planning on getting it done. Didn't think it was so immediate."

"I'd say it's right now. Quite immediate. We'll talk about this later. Now I'm going to see
what they've found. It was a flue fire. We'll close up the fireplace then mist the chimney. Puts out
the fire with a fine spray. You just might have got lucky. This doesn't look to be too serious."

In fact, I was lucky. They hadn't come in with a hose through the front door and blasted
everything to a soaking ruin. The job done, the fire fighters allowed us to return to the living room
where we met with the chief. "Well, folks, you can get back to your dinner here. Looks to have been
a good one. Sorry it got messed up."

"Oh, thank you!" I was so grateful that the whole deal had come out all right. The Chief
pulled off his hat and shook hands with both of us. He was certainly less severe than he'd been
when he was admonishing us for not getting the chimney cleaned.

"You can find a chimney sweep in the yellow pages. I advise you to call one. They'll come
out and fix that for you. Here's my card if you have any more trouble. My cell number is on there if
I'm not at the station." He handed me his card, with his name in bold letters, DANIEL DEE. Little
wrinkles crinkled at the edge of his golden flecked brown eyes as he smiled at me.

I smiled back and tucked it into my pocket.

To his crew he said, "Men, and women, our work here is done. Let's vamoose and leave
these people to their dinner. Good thing it didn't burn, huh?"

With that they all left the house, pulled off the roof, reloaded ladders and hoses back onto
the big truck and lumbered out of the driveway, negotiating their way through the gaggle of
watchers clogging the entrance to my driveway. The watchers dissipated, eventually.

Len and I went back inside to the dining table. "Perhaps we could take up where we left
off?" he suggested.

"I'm not sure where that was." Frankly, my desire for him had cooled. "Why do you always
have to set people off? Challenge them?"

He looked at me with wide eyes.

"Oh, don't
wide eyes
me. You know you put that fireman on edge. Just like you did
the counter girl this afternoon. Why do you do that?"

"You mad 'cause I was flirting with her a little? Seemed to me you were pretty quick to
make sure that guy knows that I don't live here."

That was so opposite what had happened that I stared at him. I started to clear the dishes
off the table. Someone had blown out the candles.

"You know what? I'm just not hungry anymore. I think it's been a long day and perhaps
time for you to go home. This conversation is going nowhere. We're both upset by all this. The
house smells like smoke. The dinner is cold. I'll pack up your steak and potato and you can take it
home and reheat it. Would you like some salad, too?"

"Whatever. I didn't mean to make you mad." He tried to put his arms around me, make nice.
I wiggled out of his grasp, went to the cupboard where I keep the container boxes, pulled out a
couple, dividing up his meal between the two boxes. He watched in silence as I put them in a paper
bag.

"I'm not mad. Just tired, frustrated with myself for not having seen to the chimney. That
was something Roger always did, and I just kept putting it off. And I truly am tired. This has been a
hellacious week, and tomorrow I have to go back over to Willamina to tend to Magda and Sam. And
the quilt."

With one hand he took the bag, with the other he put his hand behind my head and pulled
me to him for a kiss.

I let him do it but it was one-sided. I wondered what had happened to the passion. Went up
in smoke, I guess.

"I'm going with you, remember?"

Appalling thought. "No. I'll go by myself. It will be simpler. Bound to be chaotic, the less of
us the better."

He accepted that. Maybe he wanted the space as much as I did.

"I'll call you tomorrow, on your cell."

I could barely wait for him to leave. I stood outside on the porch until I was sure he was
gone, his headlights shining down the driveway in the dusk. When I went back into the kitchen, I
heard a scratching noise.
O, Lord, Prince Charming. How had I forgotten him?

I also realized I had forgotten to take the garage door opener back from the Chief. I opened
the door and stepped back as Prince's black and white fuzzy body shot past me with a sharp,
"Meow!" His disgruntlement was clear as he passed me, making sure to not brush my legs.

"Sorry, Prince. I've been a bit involved, here." I followed him to his food bowl, which I
topped off. I took his water bowl to the kitchen sink, refilled it from the tap. He was mad at me,
didn't even look at me while he nibbled and took a short drink. I took my plate to the fridge and put
plastic wrap over the whole thing. Dessert had not gone as I'd planned, so I took out the coffee ice
cream from the freezer and spooned myself a decent sized bowl. I ate it while I watched a few
minutes of late news.

The ice-cream took Prince's attention. He came to sit on the floor at my feet. When I was
done, I scraped the bowl so the spoon made that particular noise he was waiting for. I handed the
bowl down to him. He licked it clean and walked away, satisfied.

I followed the Prince to our bedroom. He had forgiven me, was lying on the other pillow,
waiting for our nightly cuddle. It really had been a long day.

And I was mad at Roger. Never here when I need him. The Prince helped. He was, in the
long run, a forgiving creature. Despite all the drama of the day, I slept well.

In the morning I had a message on my cell, a short text from Magda:
Here? Noon?
Sooner? Work to do. Problem with wrestlers. Call me.

Problems with the wrestlers? What next?

I called her. She said Sam thought he had an easy fix. I told her about the fire, she told me
we'd work on everything when I arrived, that none of this was an emergency.

I felt remarkably light the next morning. Glad I'd not given in to the lusty feeling that Len
always aroused in me. My curiosity about sex with him remains a mystery. I had been hoping to
prove my theory that mature sex would be more satisfying than when I was barely twenty.
Experience does, in the long run, trump the ingénue.

I ate cold cereal and toast, and coffee. Took a quick shower and dressed in khaki pants and
a yellow tee shirt. The chief had told me that I was also lucky because the fire had whooshed up the
chimney and quickly burned itself out before filling the house up with smoke. But, still, I would be
glad to be away from the faint reminder. Who knew what today would entail? How Tom got dead in
the back yard of the quilt cottage? Police activity? And the quilting.

I was rather anticipating the quilting, spurred by yesterday's purchase of fabric. And
intrigued, trying not to be dismayed by Magda's statement, "You won't know whether it all works
until it is done."

I filled the food and water dishes for Prince Charming, cleaned the litter box and locked the
cat door. I didn't like him wandering without me at home, nor did I want another creature using it
for entry. When I left I could see him sitting on the sill of the laundry room window, watching
me.

When I arrived at Magda's home, her first words when she opened the door were, "You
won't believe what that stupid woman has done!"