I scrolled through my newsfeed idly, completely frustrated with this turn of events and wondering how I would break it to Charles, especially considering that we’d lost my engagement ring because of our trip out here. And it hadn’t even been a full week since he’d proposed.
Ugh. I was the worst fianc?e ever.
Tears stung at the edges of my eyes, and I didn’t try to hold them back. Stupid San Francisco, I thought, looking for someone to blame other than myself.
Then, for whatever reason, I navigated back to my grandmother’s profile to look at that picture again. Perhaps it was just to wallow in my dumb luck, or maybe I’d subconsciously realized that something didn’t quite add up.
That’s when I saw it. She’d checked in when she posted the photo, not at the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, but at the Golden Wok in Katahdin, Maine.
Oh my gosh.
She was here—here and lying about it.
When she’d tried to pull up the Golden Gate bridge, the social media site must have brought up nearby establishments with similar names. My grandmother hadn’t noticed that the geo-tag gave her away.
But why would she lie about being out of town?
“Hi, Mommy!” Paisley called as she rushed past me, then dipped her head and picked up a pink shell, only to immediately take off running again.
“Hi,” I called back distractedly. My grandmother was here, and she knew I was looking for her.
She wanted to put me off her scent, but I refused to go home without meeting her first. Maybe she’d never want to see me again after—and that possibility hurt me deeply—but, still, I at least had to try.
I’d rather meet her and have it go badly than never get the chance at all.
Now I just had to tell Charles what I’d found, and we could figure out our next steps from there.
15
When I shared my discovery about the failed social media checkin with Charles, I may have mentioned how much I wished Pringle was there to help us make a plan.
And Octo-Cat took the bait, hook, line, and sinker.
“The dog and I are better than that raccoon fraud could ever hope to be,” he growled and then insisted he could handle things from here.
We drove back out to the condominium complex, and I watched as the pets tore away from the car to begin their top-secret recon mission. Octo-Cat had declared the details of the operation to be on a need-to-know basis and then had proceeded to explain that I did not need to know.
Charles reached over and squeezed my knee.
With growing trepidation, I closed the door so that he could drive us around the corner and out of sight.
The part of the plan that I’d been privy to involved Charles and me circling the block slowly while the animals followed through with their mission to track down my missing grandmother.
“Am I wrong for kind of wishing the raccoon was with us?” Charles asked later with a snort. “At least he keeps things interesting.”
By this point, we’d driven around the neighborhood at least a dozen times, and the residents had noticed. If we kept this up much longer, we’d soon have a cop car on our tail.
“You know I only brought up Pringle to get Octo-Cat to think helping us was his idea, right?” I reminded him with a laugh. “So, yes, you are very wrong for thinking Pringle’s presence would improve anything. You don’t have to listen to him prattle on the way the rest of us do. Do you knowduring our last trip, he decided to pick up trucker lingo?”
Charles burst out laughing.“You’re kidding. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”
“I’ve tried my best to block it out, honestly. He was going on and on about Smokeys and ten fours and whatever else. I couldn’t manage to understand the half of it.”
“Huh. Makes me wonder if you could understand animals speaking a foreign language. Like—”
“Stop the car!” I shouted as I spotted the waggy black blur of Paisley rushing down the sidewalk barking at us.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” I heard her crying as soon as the door opened.
“I’ll park the car and catch up,” Charles called as I jumped out of the car.
“What’s going on, Paisley?” The little dog leapt into my arms and frantically licked my face.
“We found her! We found your grandmama,” the Chihuahua yipped excitedly. “Follow me!”
She leapt from my arms and began sprinting at full tilt. I glanced back to make sure Charles was coming before I started running after the quivering bullet of a dog.
I sprinted after Paisley, thankful for the time Nan had forced me to work out with her friend’s dog Cujo for a time. Of course, the husky had moved at a steady, even clip, unlike the wildly darting mini-dog I was attempting to follow now.
My current canine guide also didn’t seem to worry much about the obstacles I was having trouble getting around, over, and under. The first thing I tripped over was a sprinkler, and it sent me crashing down onto the same lawn that belonged to that grumpy guy we’d met earlier. Why? Just why?
Staggering back to my feet, very little time passed before I crashed headlong into a raspberry bush.
Meanwhile, Paisley remained blissfully unaware of my challenges and of how far I’d fallen behind. The little dog’s legs were almost invisible with her sprinting, hopping gait.
Trying to focus on Paisley meant not paying enough attention to the road ahead of me, and I thumped into a set of garbage cans, then jammed my knee into a fence post.
Maybe we should have followed her in the car. Too late for that now, I guessed.
Off-balance and disoriented, I was overwhelmed when I saw that Paisley was no longer surging forward. She now ran tight circles behind one of the condos.
“Mommy! Mommy!” she yelled. “It’s right here! This is the place!”
And there was my grandmother, sitting at a small patio table with Octo-Cat, who was happily munching on a shrimp cocktail. I stood there, woozily, my mouth opening and closing without any sound coming out. It would so leave the wrong impression if I threw up now.
Octo-Cat looked up at me and yawned before licking the sauce off his paw.
“Angela,” he purred. “This is your grandma Lyn. Lyn, Angela.”
“Hello, Angela,” Lyn said, almost as if she were responding to Octo-Cat. “Sorry for giving you the runaround, dear. I’m… Well, I was afraid you’d be disappointed, and I couldn’t stand the thought of you rejecting me.”
My heart felt like it was breaking for her. She had been just as worried about meeting me as I’d been about meeting her.
But before I could find something to say, she continued.“I was tipped off that you were heading my way when your friend… Um, what was her name again?”
“Sharon,” Octo-Cat replied.
“Ah, Sharon,” Lyn said as if prompted by Octo-Cat. “The reality star that was looking into me wasn’t the subtlest of people. So I knew you were coming here. When I saw you and your fellow sitting out in your car for so long, I knew it just had to be you.”
She poured more iced tea into her glass and added a few more shrimp to Octo-Cat’s cocktail.
“Of course, the moment you got out, I knew for certain. The family genes are extremely strong. You look so much like my sister did when we were growing up. But I’m sure that’s not why you made the trip out here.”
“Of course not,” Octo-Cat said, polishing off another shrimp. “We were here to find out why your husband decided to take your child and make a run for it.”
I winced at Octo-Cat’s bluntness.
“Relax, Angela. I understand how cats can be,” Lyn said, clucking her tongue and shaking her head. “And for the record, you’re right, Octavius. I lost my dear little Laura because her father didn’t believe me when I told him I could talk to animals. Such a shame.”
Whoa.I still hadn’t even said so much as hello, and already my grandmother had told me her big secret.
It was a secret we shared.
Did this mean…? Could I talk to animals because she could? I couldn’t wait to hear more.
16