“Saying what?”
“The most beautiful day in Odelia’s life? I thought the most beautiful day in her life was the day she was born. If she hadn’t been born, she wouldn’t even be here, right?”
“It’s just something people say,” I explained. “It means that Odelia finally gets to tie the knot with the person she loves the most in all the world.”
“But… doesn’t Odelia love her mom and dad the most in all the world?” asked Dooley, still in the habit of asking those tough questions, like he usually does.
“Well, yes,” I admitted. “But, once again, it’s just something people say.”
“But why do they say things that aren’t true? Isn’t that the same thing as lying?”
“Look, Dooley, it doesn’t matter,” said Harriet, clearly tiring of Dooley’s interruptions. “We’re not invited, so it doesn’t matter if it’s the most beautiful day of her life, or the second-most beautiful or whatever. We’re not a part of it, see? We don’t feature into the thing at. At all.”
Dooley blinked.“But surely—”
“Surely we should consider this a lucky escape. And that’s all there is to it. Now why are you guys sleeping on the couch and not upstairs on the bed where you belong?”
Dooley made a face.“Odelia kicked us off. First she kicked Max in the tush, and then when I took his place she kicked me off as well. Also in the tush. My tush, not Max’s.”
“She did what?” said Harriet, clearly shocked at this egregious example of gross misconduct on the part of one who’d always professed to be an animal person.
“She didn’t mean to kick us off,” I hastened to say. “She was having a bad dream and inadvertently happened to lash out with her feet. Both feet, I should probably add.”
“Hitting us where it hurts,” Dooley added sadly, and rubbed his tush for good measure.
“This is too much,” said Harriet. “First she neglects to invite us to her wedding, and now she’s causing you grievous bodily harm? What’s wrong with the woman?”
“Nothing is wrong,” I said. “She’s just nervous about the wedding, that’s all.”
“Well, she shouldn’t be,” said Harriet. “It’s the most beautiful day of her life. She doesn’t have anything to be nervous about. She should just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
“I think she would like to be uninvited,” said Brutus. “Just like us.”
Dooley smiled at this.“Imagine if Odelia decides to skip her own wedding. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“If Odelia skipped her own wedding there wouldn’t be a wedding, Dooley,” said Harriet.
“What do you mean?”
Harriet gave an exasperated groan.“How can there be a wedding when the bride is missing? Think, Dooley,” she added, tapping my friend on the noggin. “Think hard!”
Dooley gave himself up to thought, and judging from the frown that appeared on his brow, and the steam that gently started pouring from his ears, he was indeed thinking very hard. Finally he gave up.“No,” he said. “I don’t get it.”
“Oh, Dooley,” said Harriet, and Brutus grinned, thinking the whole thing hilarious.
Just then, the sliding glass door that offers such a nice view from the living room straight into the backyard, opened and closed and Gran walked in. Odelia’s grandmother is one of those early risers. In fact she often gets up before we do, which is saying something, as we’re usually up at the crack of dawn. Though in our defense by that time we’ve usually been up half the night. She looked her usual energetic self: blue tracksuit lined with pink, little white curls topping her head like cotton candy and a cheeky grin.
“Heya, fellas,” she said. “Wanna hear the latest?”
“The latest what, Gran?” asked Dooley.
“The latest news, Dooley. Some truck just lost its cargo on the road into town. Ten tons of grade-A potatoes, if you please. Wanna go and have a look-see?”
“What’s there to see about a bunch of potatoes lying in the road?” asked Harriet, who clearly wasn’t in the mood for the introduction of this agricultural theme.
Gran shrugged.“Nothing much, except this.” And she spirited a large canvas bag from behind her back. It was the kind of canvas bag that can easily hold a very large quantity of grade-A potatoes. A slow smile spread across her features when she saw the light of understanding appear in three pairs of cat’s eyes: mine, Harriet’s, and Brutus’s.
“You’re going to steal a bunch of potatoes,” I said, nodding.
Gran’s smile disappeared. “Who’s talking about stealing? I’m just going to help that poor truck driver clean up the road. And if a couple of spuds end up in the trunk of my car, then so be it. My reward for being a good Samaritan, right?”
And so we set out for this kind intervention. Nothing too exciting, mind you, simply four cats helping out their human, and getting away from Odelia’s new kicking habit.
And as we made to follow Gran out the door, Dooley said,“I don’t get it. Where are we going, Max?”
“We’re going to help Gran help a potato truck driver,” I explained.
“Oh, okay,” he said, though he didn’t look convinced.
He had a point, of course. Potatoes aren’t exactly a staple of a cat’s healthy diet. Then again, they are a staple of our humans’ diet, and cats might not have a reputation for being charitable, some of us do have an altruistic streak. Besides, if we helped Gran bag a couple of nice potatoes, I’m pretty sure she’d fill our bowls to the brim come dinnertime.
How does that saying go? You scratch my back and I scratch yours?
Though I’m not sure Gran would like it if we scratched her back. Oh, well.
Chapter 2
Odelia wasn’t having a good time. She knew she should be ecstatic, over the moon, delirious with happiness at the prospect of finally tying the knot and engaging in matrimony with the man currently snoring away to his heart’s content right next to her. But as she lay there, wide awake, even though it was still dark outside, she couldn’t help experiencing a powerful twinge of concern. The worst part was that she had no idea why. When she thought things through logically there was nothing to be concerned about: the wedding had been arranged and would soon be taking place at St. John’s Church, officiated by Father Reilly. The invitations had all been sent out, the reception nailed down, as well as the wedding dinner and party, the caterer and the DJ booked and paid for, and the jamboree promised to be a big hit with those guests lucky enough to have snagged an invitation to what promised to be the social event of the season.
So maybe that was what was troubling her: she hadn’t planned for her wedding to become an event. Somehow, though, it had quickly ballooned into this big thing and now she had a hard time reconciling the shindig as planned with the one she’d had in mind.
Chase, too, was a little overwhelmed with the response. He hadn’t planned to invite his entire precinct but that was what had happened, and the poor guy even had all of his former NYPD colleagues busing in on the day, eager to put their feet under the table. They viewed the wedding of their ex-colleague as an opportunity to organize a reunion of sorts, and even though Odelia was happy for the opportunity to have a meet and greet with all of his brothers and sisters in blue—all one hundred and fifty-four of them—she wasn’t sure this was what Chase had in mind when he told her, only two weeks ago, that he was looking forward to their nice little wedding, just them and a couple of guests.
She closed her eyes, eager to catch a few more winks before dawn, but unfortunately sleep refused to come. So it was with a slight sigh that she finally decided it was no use and got up. Careful not to wake her snoring future better half, she tiptoed into the bathroom for a quick bathroom break, then tiptoed down the stairs to get some work done on an article for the newspaper. Much to her surprise, of her cats there was no sign. But figuring they were probably out and about, she took a seat at the kitchen counter, opened her laptop, and was soon typing away. It wasn’t exactly a Pulitzer-winning article she’d been handed by her editor, having been given the dubious honor of chronicling the upcoming ceremony awarding the keys to the city to Lord Hilbourne, but it effectively took her mind off the wedding, which was exactly what she needed right now.