Naomi held up her hands, still gloved, in a gesture of peace. "April, Sandy raised issues inside our circle that allowed us to prepare for hard questions from the board. He wasn't my husband's best friend, but he has always had the good of St. Elizabeth's at heart."
April clamped her lips shut. "I don't want to do it, but I'll do it for you." She picked up the carton and walked by Sandy, closing the door behind her.
He exhaled, jamming his hands in his pockets. "Naomi, I don't ask that April be fired. She's given long years of service, but there's absolutely no way I can work with her or her with me. I need to find my own secretary—and that will bump up the budget."
She finally took off her gloves to sit on the edge of Roscoe's massive desk. "We'll have to fire her, Sandy. She'll foment rebellion from wherever she sits."
"Maybe McKinchie could use her. He has enough money, and she'd be happy in his little home office."
"She won't be happy anywhere." Naomi hated this whole subject. "She was so in love with Roscoe—I used to tease him about it. No one will ever measure up to him in her eyes. You know, I believe if he had asked her to walk to hell and back, she would have." She smiled ruefully. "Of course, she didn't have to live with him."
"Well, I won't ask her to walk that far, but I guess you're right. She'll have to go."
"Let's talk to Marilyn Sanburne first. Perhaps she'll have an idea—or Mim."
"Good God, Mim will run St. Elizabeth's if you let her." "The world." Naomi swung her legs to and fro. "St. Elizabeth's is too small a stage for Mim the Magnificent."
April opened the door. "I know you two are talking about me." "At this precise moment we were talking about Mim." Sourly, April shut the door. Sandy and Naomi looked at each other and shrugged.
36
"How did I get roped into this?" Harry complained.
Her furry family said nothing as she fumbled with her hastily improvised costume. Preferring a small group of friends to big parties, Harry had to be dragged to larger affairs. Even though this was a high school dance and she was a chaperon, she still had to unearth something to wear, snag a date, stand on her feet, and chat up crashing bores. She thought of the other chaperons. One such would be Maury McKinchie, fascinating to most people but not to Harry. Since he was a chaperon, she'd have to gab with him. His standard fare, those delicious stories of what star did what and to whom on his various films, filled her with ennui. Had he been a hunting man she might have endured him, but he was not. He also appeared much too interested in her breasts. Maury was one of those men who didn't look you in the eye when he spoke to you—he spoke to your breasts.
Sandy Brashiers she liked until he grew waspish about the other faculty at St. Elizabeth's. With Roscoe dead he would need to find a new whipping boy. Still, he looked her in the eye when he spoke to her, and that was refreshing.
Ed Sugarman collected old cigarette advertisements. He might expound on the chemical properties of nicotine, but if she could steer him toward soccer, he proved knowledgeable and entertaining.
Coach Hallvard could be lively. Harry then remembered that the dreaded Florence Rubicon would be prowling the dance floor. Harry's Latin ebbed away with each year but she remembered enough Catullus to keep the old girl happy.
Harry laughed to herself. Every Latin teacher and subsequent professor she had ever studied under had been an odd duck, but there was something so endearing about them all. She kept reading Latin partly to bask in the full bloom of eccentricity.
"I can't wear this!" Harry winced, throwing off a tight pump. The patent leather shoe scuttled across the floor. She checked the clock, groaning anew.
"There's time," Mrs. Murphy said. "Can the tuxedo. It isn't you."
"I fed you."
"Don't be obtuse. Get out of the tuxedo." Murphy spoke louder, a habit of hers when humans proved dense. "You need something with imagination."
"Harry doesn't have imagination," Tucker declared honestly.
"She has good legs," Pewter replied.
"What does that have to do with imagination?" Tucker wanted to know.
"Nothing, but she should wear something that shows off her legs."
Mrs. Murphy padded into the closet. "There's one sorry skirt hanging in here."
"I didn't even know Mom owned a skirt."
"This has to be a leftover from college." The tiger inspected the brown skirt.
Pewter joined her. "I thought she was going to clean out her closet?"
"She organized her chest of drawers; that's a start."
The two cats peered upward at the skirt, then at each other.
"Shall we?"
"Let's." Pewter's eyes widened.
They reached up, claws unsheathed, and shredded the skirt.
" Wheee !" They dug in.
Harry, hearing the sound of cloth shredding, poked her head in the closet, the single light bulb swaying overhead. "Hey!"
With one last mighty yank, Mrs. Murphy scooted out of the closet. Pewter, a trifle slower, followed.
Harry, aghast, took out the skirt. "I could brain you two. I've had this skirt since my sophomore year at Crozet High."
"We know," came the titters from under the bed.
"Cats can be so destructive." Tucker's soulful eyes brimmed with sympathy.
"Brownnoser!" Murphy accused.
"I am a mighty cat. What wondrous claws have I. I can rip and tear and even shred the sky," Pewter sang.
"Great. Ruin my skirt and now caterwaul underneath the bed." Harry knelt down to behold four luminous chartreuse eyes peeking at her. "Bad kitties."
" Hee hee ."
"I mean it. No treats for you."
Pewter leaned into Murphy. "This is your fault."
"Sell me out for a treatie." Mrs. Murphy bumped her.
Harry dropped the dust ruffle back down. She stared at the ruined skirt.
Murphy called out from her place of safety, "Go as a vagabond. You know, go as one of those poor characters from a Victor Hugo novel."
"Wonder if I could make a costume out of this?"
"She got it!" Pewter was amazed.
"Don't count your chickens." Mrs. Murphy slithered out from under the bed. "I'll make sure she puts two and two together."
With that she launched herself onto the bed and from the bed she hurtled toward the closet, catching the clothes. She hung there, swaying, then found the tattiest shirt she could find. She sank her claws in and slid down to the floor, the intoxicating sound of rent fabric heralding her descent.
"You're crazy!" Harry dashed after her, but Murphy blasted into the living room, jumped on a chair arm, then wiggled her rear end as though she was going to leap into the bookshelves filled not only with books but with Harry's ribbons and trophies. "Don't you dare."
"Then leave me alone," Murphy sassed, "and put together your vagabond costume. Time's a-wasting."
The human and the cat squared off, eye to eye. "You're in a mood, pussycat."
Tucker tiptoed out. Pewter remained under the bed, straining to hear.
"What's got into you?"
"It's Halloween," Murphy screeched.
Harry reached over to grab the insouciant feline, but Mrs. Murphy easily avoided her. She hopped to the other side of the chair, then ran back into the bedroom where she leapt into the clothes and tore them up some more.
"Yahoo! Banzai! Death to the Emperor!"
"Have you been watching those World War Two movies again?" Tucker laughed.
"Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes." Murphy leapt in the air, turning full circle and landing in the middle of the clothes.
"She's on a military kick." Pewter snuck out from under the bed. "If you get us both punished, Murphy, I will be really upset."
Murphy catapulted off the bed right onto Pewter. The two rolled across the bedroom floor, entertaining Harry with their catfight.
Finally Pewter, put out, extricated herself from the grasp of Murphy. She stalked off to the kitchen.