“Mrr,” said my black-and-white tabby cat.
Eddie and I had been together for almost a year. It had been an unseasonably warm day last April that lured me from inside chores to a long walk outside that ended at the local cemetery. Which sounds odd, but this particular cemetery had an outstanding view of Janay Lake and beyond to the bulk of the massive Lake Michigan.
While relaxing in the sun on a bench next to the gravestone of one Alonzo Tillotson (born 1847, died 1926), I was startled by the appearance of a large black-and-gray cat. He’d followed me home, where I’d cleaned him up as best I could, turning him black-and-white. I had responsibly run an ad in the newspaper and had been relieved when no one claimed him. Because of my father’s allergies, I’d grown up without pets. Eddie, who my vet estimated was now roughly three years old, was my first pet, and I wasn’t sure how I’d ever lived without my opinionated pal.
There’d been a little issue when my new boyfriend turned out to be allergic to cats, but after trying a series of various medications, he’d found one that worked just fine. Then again, since we were now in the midst of a long-distance relationship, he had probably let the prescription lapse. I made a mental note to send a text to remind him.
“Eddie,” Julia told my furry friend, “you must learn how to enunciate more clearly. Theatergoers in the top rows will never grasp your nuances unless you work on the consonants.”
“Mrr!”
Julia sighed and settled back. “He does not take advice well, does he?”
The interviewing process for the bookmobile job had included a tour of the bookmobile and an introduction to Eddie, because Eddie had been part of the bookmobile from the beginning. He’d stowed away on the maiden voyage and quickly become an integral part of the services we offered. Books, magazines, DVDs, video games, and Eddie hair, not necessarily in that order.
For months I’d felt the need to hide the feline presence on the bookmobile from my follow-the-policy-or-else boss, Stephen Rangel, but it turned out that Stephen had known about Eddie’s adventures from the beginning.
I really should have known better.
And I really should have known to stop interviewing after I’d talked to Julia. She was the best candidate for many reasons—and had the bonus of being eight inches taller than five-foot-nothing me, making the job of reshelving the top rows of books easy to delegate—but the buttercream frosting was how she’d immediately started talking to Eddie in the same way I did, which was as if he understood what we were saying.
We agreed that this was ridiculous, of course, but there were times when his comprehension of human speech seemed to go far beyond his name and the word “no.” Not that he paid any attention to either, but the twitching of his ears proved that he heard us.
“Cats aren’t big on taking advice,” I said. “They’d much rather give it.”
I flicked on the turn signal and started braking. It was time for our first stop of the morning, in the parking lot of what had originally been a gas station and was now a . . . well, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. A store, sure, but a store that defied description. The owner stocked everything from apples to taxidermy supplies. On the surface, it fit the definition of an old-fashioned general store, but there was also a corner with tables, copies of the Wall Street Journal, and free Wi-Fi.
“General stores don’t stock the Wall Street Journal,” I muttered, bringing the bookmobile to a stop.
Julia laughed. “Wake up and smell the twenty-first century, Minnie Hamilton.”
I pretended to sniff the air, then frowned, shaking my head. “I like my stereotypes and I’m going to keep them.”
“Mrr,” Eddie said.
“You two are quite the pair.” Julia unbuckled her seat belt and reached forward to open the wire door. “There you go, Mr. Edward. You are free to move about the bookmobile.”
“Mrr.”
“You’re very welcome,” she replied.
Julia and I fired up the two computers, emptied the milk crates we used to haul books from the library to the bookmobile, un-bungeed the chair at the rear desk, and unlocked the doors. Eddie watched our activity from his current favorite perch, the driver’s seat headrest, and made the occasional critical comment.
“What do you think he’s saying?” Julia, who was straightening the large-print books, cast a glance Eddie-ward.
I didn’t need to look to know. “That he wants a cat treat.”
“Maybe,” she said in the tone indicating she was about to get creative, “he’s saying that every day is a gift. That today, especially, is a gift and we should—”
The back door opened, and a few sturdy-sounding footsteps later a man came into view. Henry Gill could have been a young-looking eighty or an old-looking sixty, but with his bald head, fit frame, and almost complete crankiness, he was one of those people you just didn’t think of in terms of age.
“Good morning, Henry,” I said.
The look he gave as his return greeting made me wonder if my hair, which was black, shoulder-length, and far too curly, had gone up in flames without my noticing.
Eddie gave Henry a long visual examination, then jumped off the headrest and trotted down the aisle. He bonked Henry’s shin with the top of his hard, furry head, then started twining around his ankles in the feline-standard figure eight.
Henry reached down and gave Eddie a few pets. Then, when he realized I was watching, he stood up. “Doesn’t do to make cats too happy,” he muttered. “Next thing you know you’ll be feeding them bits of prime rib by hand.”
I grinned. Henry was undoubtedly a curmudgeon, but he liked cats, and Eddie appeared to like him back, so it was easy for me to overlook his cranky attitude and see down to the man underneath, a man I liked quite a bit.
“You have an excellent point,” I said. “If you’re in the market for biographies again today, there’s a new Theodore Roosevelt you might like.”
Henry grunted, but didn’t nod, so I wasn’t sure whether he’d said, “Why, yes, Minnie, that sounds wonderful. Thank you for being such an outstanding librarian” or “Whatever.” I gave a mental shrug and left Henry alone, or as alone as you can leave someone in a bookmobile.
Other people came on board, and the time passed quickly. Julia and I were kept busy with helping people find books and checking them out, and at the end of the forty-five-minute stop, Henry was the last patron to leave.
I checked his books into the computer and slid them back across the counter to him. “Would you like a plastic bag?”
He picked up the books without answering, then put them back down again. “Here,” he said shortly and, reaching into his coat pockets with both hands, he drew out two brown paper bags and handed them to me. “For you and her,” he said, tipping his head toward Julia, then picked up his books and tromped down the steps and outside.
“What are those?” Julia asked.
“No idea.”
“Everyone says Henry Gill has turned a little strange since his wife died,” Julia said, not opening her bag. “Rock, paper, scissors to who opens theirs first?”
Patrons bearing questionable gifts were something no one had warned me about in college. Before I could scare myself into imagining what could lurk inside, I opened the bag, reached in, and drew out a Mason jar filled with a golden liquid.
“Oh, my.” Julia’s voice carried reverence and awe. “It’s maple syrup. I take back every unkind thought I ever had about that man.”
I held the jar up to the light, admiring the liquid gold, and, once again, came up against the reality that we never really know what goes on inside people’s heads. Henry as a maple syrup Santa? “Who would have guessed?” I murmured.