“Something like that.” He at least had the good grace to look a bit embarrassed.
We’d been a couple for a year and a half now but I was still learning things about him. For instance, I’d recently discovered he liked samurai movies. Tonight we were going to watch one of his favorites: 13 Assassins. It seemed fair. He’d sat through one of my favorite movies, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, at Christmastime. Marcus had promised popcorn with the movie. I knew that was a bribe.
I sat at the table while Marcus made the popcorn at the stove. After they had made quick work of their respective sardine halves the boys joined me, Hercules on my lap because he’d be closer to the popcorn when Marcus eventually set it on the table and Owen at my feet, which was his preferred spot in case any buttery kernels landed on the floor, which had been known to happen. Sometimes actually by accident.
Marcus was on a popcorn kick and had been since Christmas, when his sister, Hannah, had sent him some organic popcorn from a little company in Illinois. Now instead of making popcorn in the microwave he made it on the stove, dousing it with melted butter and sea salt, both of which he bought at the weekend farmer’s market.
“Hannah had no idea she was creating a popcorn snob when she sent you that original bag,” I said as the aroma of melting butter filled the kitchen. Hercules’s whiskers twitched as I stroked his fur.
Marcus put one hand on his chest in faux indignation. “I’m not a snob, I’m an aficionado,” he said. Right on cue Owen meowed his agreement.
“You have an opinion on everything, don’t you?” I said to the cat.
He licked his whiskers. He definitely had an opinion on anything with melted butter.
I leaned back in the chair, one hand on Hercules, who sighed softly. He knew there was pretty much no chance either of them was getting any popcorn; still, he liked licking butter and salt off my fingers, so for him this whole process was taking way too long.
“Did you know that the US is the world’s largest producer of popcorn?” I asked.
“No, I did not.” Marcus tipped his head toward the covered pot he was shaking over the burner. I wasn’t sure what he was listening for. Then again, I was happy with a bag of popcorn made in the microwave.
“It comes in two shapes, you know,” I continued. “Snowflake and mushroom. Because snowflake-shaped popcorn is bigger, movie theaters typically sell that shape.”
He was smiling at me, I realized.
“Am I talking too much?”
He stretched sideways to kiss the top of my head. “No, you’re not,” he said. He straightened up and turned his attention back to the stove. “Remember Lewis Wallace, the drunk from last night? Turns out he’s had some dealings with the police.”
“The memorabilia business,” I said. “How did you find out?”
“Guy from the prosecutor’s office was at the bar. He recognized Wallace. How did you find out?”
I gave him a brief rundown of my two encounters with Lewis Wallace and my subsequent research online. “I don’t know if any of this is relevant to Wallace bringing his business to town,” I said. “It’s not as though the information was hard to find. And let’s be realistic. The town can’t make some kind of character test a requirement for anyone who might set up business here.”
Hercules nudged my hand because I had stopped scratching between his ears.
“Still, I was thinking maybe I should talk to Lita. Or do you think the whole story about what happened last night is pretty much around town by now?”
Marcus frowned at the popcorn, which was now in a large bowl. He added a sprinkle more salt. “I’d be surprised if the story weren’t all around town by this point,” he said. He gave the bowl a shake and nodded, seemingly satisfied. “You’re right that we can’t set some kind of moral code that people have to meet just to be in business, because I’m pretty sure that would be a small pool, but on the other hand it doesn’t benefit the town to make a deal with someone that no one else will want to work with.” He gave me a wry smile. “Roma is on that development committee, remember? I’m going out to Wisteria Hill tomorrow to help Eddie get some stuff down out of the attic. I’ll tell her what happened—last night and today—and see what she thinks.”
Roma and I had met when Hercules and Owen followed me home from Wisteria Hill, two little balls of fur that didn’t seem to have a mother. That was back when Everett Henderson still owned the place. Later, Roma recruited me to join her team of volunteers that helped take care of the feral cat colony that lived in the old carriage house on the property. “Coincidentally” she’d paired me with Marcus.
Roma had married former NHL star Eddie Sweeney this past summer. They were still in the happily-ever-after honeymoon phase and I’d been surprised when she’d agreed to get involved with the new business committee the town had put together. But since I knew she’d be the calm voice of reason I was selfishly happy she’d said yes.
I got to my feet, gave Marcus a kiss and swiped a handful of popcorn from the bowl. “That works for me,” I said.
I was awakened in the morning by a poke from a furry paw. I opened one eye to find a furry black-and-white face looming over mine. I groaned. Hercules looked from me to my old clock radio and back again. I threw an arm over my eyes. “Yes, I know I wanted to get up early but not this early,” I told him. Despite the fact that the time change meant it was six thirty, to me it still felt like half past five.
I lay there for a moment and I could feel the cat still lurking. “You win,” I said, sitting up. Hercules dropped to all four feet and headed to the door. He paused in the doorway and gave a loud murp. Hercules liked to get the last word.
I got dressed and went down to the kitchen to make the coffee and feed Owen and Hercules their breakfast. I was leaning against the counter, both hands wrapped around my coffee mug, when Ethan wandered in, bare-chested, wearing just a pair of blue plaid-flannel pajama pants, his dark hair standing on end just the way it had when he was a little boy.
“How about a T-shirt?” I said, grabbing a mug from the counter and offering it to him. “No one wants to see that first thing in the morning.”
He reached for the coffeepot, poured a cup and then grinned at me. He rubbed a hand over his belly. “I haven’t had any complaints so far.”
I made a face at him. “Way, way more information than I need to have.”
Ethan just continued to smirk as he added cream and sugar to his mug.
I scrambled three eggs with some spinach and we ate them with the muffins I’d made the day before. Ethan told me about the band they’d gone to hear and I told him about the samurai movie. It seemed the movie had been a lot better than the music.
We headed down to the hotel about quarter to nine.
“So this is Old Main Street?” Ethan said when we turned the corner at the bottom of the hill.
I nodded. “Which is not the same as Main Street.”
“How the heck did that happen?”
“Would you believe I’m not sure?” I said. I’d gotten confused more than once, trying to find my way around town when I’d first moved to Mayville Heights from Boston, mostly due to the way some of the streets and buildings were named—and sometimes renamed. For instance, Old Main Street followed the shoreline from the Stratton Theatre, past the library and the St. James Hotel all the way to the marina. Main Street continued from the marina to the edge of town, where it joined the highway. Having two Main Streets made giving directions to visitors a little complicated, compounded by the fact that the St. James Hotel had reverted to its original name after a decade of being just the James Hotel.
It struck me that maybe the question about the streets was something Harrison could answer in his next talk.