She patted him on the shoulder. “General Hospital would be happy if they could add you to the roster. Sure, it would be a big loss for Hampton Cove, but they’d live.”
He stared off for a moment, a slight smile on his lips, and she could see him envisioning a future as a hospital doctor—member of an elite staff of the country’s top physicians. Then he blinked and was himself again. “Look, Vesta. Why don’t you come and work for me again? This whole Scarlett business wasn’t working out for me anyhow, and I need a competent receptionist. So what do you say?”
“You mean kiss and make up?”
He grimaced, the kissing part clearly a bridge too far.
“I’m just messing with you, Tex. I don’t say this often but you’re a good man.”
In fact she never said it. You had to be careful with men. Their egos were such that you had to use compliments sparingly, or else you could end up with a blowhard for a son-in-law. Better keep them on a short leash so they didn’t end up being the boss of you.
She pinched him on the cheek. “Sure I’ll be your receptionist again, Tex.”
Tex brightened. “You will?”
“But first I have to clean up the mess this Scarlett woman made,” she said, staring down at the floor, hands on her hips. “What were you thinking when you hired her?”
Probably he wasn’t. That was another thing about men: they took one look at a set of big knockers and they were gone. She looked up just in time to see Tex walk up to her, arms wide.
Uh-oh.
And then he hugged her.
“Let’s leave the past behind us,” he said warmly.
She grimaced. “Uh-huh. Sure, Tex. Let’s.”
As soon as the hug was over, she returned to her desk and Tex returned to his office. And since she was an old lady and didn’t feel like cleaning up Scarlett’s mess, she called the cleaner and told her they’d had a medical emergency and to come round right away.
And as she settled in her chair and started a new game of Solitaire, she thought with a satisfied grunt that life was finally back to normal again. And not a moment too soon, either.
Chapter 39
As we walked along Main Street, admiring its myriad shops and the felines associated with their owners, I had the distinct impression that all was not well in the cat community. A red cat was hissing at a black cat, which was hissing right back, its tail distended to its furthest limit, a Russian Blue was trying to hit a Siamese across the ear, a Scottish Fold was cowering before a British Shorthair, who stood thrusting out its chest with a sneer on its lips, and a Sphynx cat was running circles around a Turkish Angora.
Gazing out at this battlefield from his perch on his owner’s checkout counter was Kingman, shaking his head at so much feline folly.
“What’s going on, Kingman?” asked Dooley as we joined the store owner’s piebald.
“Madness,” said Hampton Cove’s feline Nestor. “Pure madness.” Then he directed an irritated look at me. “Is it true that you called me a pompous old windbag, Max?”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I said, rolling my eyes. “No, I did not!”
“Milo’s been here, hasn’t he?” said Dooley.
“He’s the one who told me,” said Kingman. “I practically couldn’t believe my ears.”
“So don’t,” I advised my friend. “Milo is a mythomaniac, Kingman.”
“That’s almost the same as a nymphomaniac,” Dooley added knowingly.
“He makes stuff up so he can create trouble between cats.”
“And humans, too,” said Dooley. “Remember what he told Odelia about you?”
I did. The cat was a menace. I spread my paws. “All this is Milo,” I told Kingman. “All this fighting and bickering is his doing. He’s been hard at work tearing up the social fabric of our once peaceful and loving cat community.”
“Well, maybe not all that loving,” said Kingman dubiously. “I distinctly remember Shanille once calling me a braggart simply because I told her Wilbur gives me foie gras from time to time—only as a treat,” he quickly added when I cocked a surprised whisker at him, “and only ethical foie gras, where the birds aren’t forced to gorge, of course.”
“Of course,” I said. We might be cats but that doesn’t mean we’re animals.
One of the cat fights on the street had escalated into a minor war, with two cats coming to blows. Usually when cats fight one cat will hold up its paw and make to hit the other one, then doesn’t. The other cat then returns the favor. Almost like a beautiful ballet.
There was nothing beautiful about the skirmish that had now broken out, though. These cats were whizzing around in a circle, a maelstrom of yowling and screeching and fur flying when nails hit their marks.
“Oh, enough already!” bellowed Kingman, and descended from his throne. He pranced up to the two cats, slapped one with his left paw and one with his right, then said, “Stop it, you two! You should be ashamed of yourselves, Shanille and Harriet!”
Only now that the whirring movement had stopped did I finally get a good look at the cats involved in the fight and to my astonishment Kingman was right: they were our very own Harriet and the conductor of cat choir, now both panting and missing a few patches of fur. Shanille even had a nasty scratch on her nose which was bleeding profusely.
“Explain yourselves,” Kingman said, now fully assuming the role of a King Solomon.
“She’s trying to seduce my boyfriend!” Harriet panted.
“And she’s been saying that I’m a slut!” Shanille retorted.
“I did not!” Harriet cried. “You take that back!”
“I will do no such thing,” said Shanille. “I will not be insulted by a common Persian!”
“No anti-Persian racism here, Shanille,” said Kingman sternly. “And what do you have to say about the accusation? Are you trying to lay your paws on Brutus?”
“Of course not! I don’t even like Brutus! He’s been saying some very nasty things about me!”
“Like what?” asked Kingman, who couldn’t resist a nice morsel of juicy gossip any more than the rest of us could.
“Brutus says I don’t observe Lent, but I do! I always observe Lent.”
“You abstain from eating meat during Lent?” asked Harriet, horrified.
Shanille raised her head proudly. “I do. So you better tell your boyfriend he’s a liar.”
“Brutus didn’t say those things,” said Harriet. “You’re lying.”
“Milo told me and Milo knows. Milo lives with Brutus,” said Shanille. “So there.”
I groaned, and locked eyes with Harriet. She knew, too. “Oh, dear,” she said.
“Who told you about Shanille having an affair with Brutus?” I asked.
“Oscar.” She nodded. “And he probably heard it from Milo.”
“Milo,” I said, extending and retracting my claws. “Always Milo.”
“Did I hear my name?” suddenly a voice rang out.
We all looked up and there he was. The treacherous cat himself.
Harriet rounded on him. “You told Shanille Brutus says she doesn’t observe Lent,” she snarled, and something of the fight she’d just engaged in must have still come through in her voice, for Milo moved back a few paces.
“I’m sure Brutus is making that up, Harriet. I would never say such things.”
“You didn’t?” asked Shanille, surprised.
“Of course not, Shanille,” said Milo. “I know what a God-fearing cat you are. You’re an example to us all.”
If he wasn’t tearing cats down, he was building them up. Nice strategy.
“You told Oscar that Brutus was having an affair with Shanille,” said Harriet now.
“Oscar said that? But that’s terrible! I always knew there was something fishy about that cat. But then he does work for a fishmonger,” he added with a sly smile.