“I can just picture Owen and Hercules riding shotgun,” Maggie laughed.
Owen and Hercules were waiting in the kitchen when Maggie and I walked in.
“Hey, guys,” she said as she pulled off her coat. Hercules watched her, hoping, I guessed, that she’d brought them some kind of treat. Owen walked around behind her, more like a puppy than a cat. I put the kettle on to make tea for Maggie. “Want a date square?” I asked.
“I could eat one,” she said. Maggie ate like a lumberjack and was built like a runway model. “I’ll put the TV on.” She headed for the living room.
Hercules padded over to the counter and looked at me. I slipped him a couple of cheese-and-sardine crackers. “Don’t tell your brother,” I whispered.
I put the date squares on a plate with a few chunks of mozzarella, which I knew Maggie would sneak to the cats when they all figured I wasn’t looking. When the water boiled I made tea, put everything on a tray with a couple of napkins and headed for the living room.
Maggie was on the sofa, feet propped on my leather footstool. Owen was on one side, giving Maggie adoring looks, and Hercules was on the other side, doing his no one ever feeds me look. The theme song for Gotta Dance was just beginning. I curled into the opposite end of the sofa, setting the tray on the cushion between Maggie and me.
She leaned forward and pointed at the TV. “See?” she said to Owen. “That’s Kevin Sorbo. Boo!”
The cat would have booed if he’d been able to.
Maggie gestured to the screen again. “Remember? That’s Matt Lauer. Yay!”
“Meow!” Owen said with enthusiasm.
Maggie laughed.
“Sold out for mozzarella,” I said. Owen was busy eating the bit of cheese that Maggie had just snuck to him.
I settled back against the cushions to watch the show and I couldn’t help thinking how much happier my house seemed than Agatha’s. Okay, so there was cat hair on the footstool and some part of a catnip chicken by the stairs. But it felt a lot more welcoming than Agatha’s lonely place.
Maggie was leaning forward again, forearms on her knees, discussing the various dancing couples with Owen, while Hercules ate the piece of cheese Maggie had slipped to him.
Thinking about Agatha made me wonder if what Rebecca and Mary had told me could be true. Did Agatha have all that money and had she left it to Justin?
Maggie left when the show ended. We made plans to check out the Winterfest activities Saturday night. Yawning, I put the dishes in the sink. “I’m too tired to tell you everything,” I said to Hercules and Owen. “Remind me in the morning.”
Owen woke me in the morning by breathing his cheesy, bad breath in my face. Over oatmeal and bananas for me, plus two cups of coffee, and cat food and water for the cats, I told them about the visit to Agatha’s house and the rumors about the money. They didn’t have any insights, either.
The library was open only until one o’clock because of Winterfest, but it was a busy morning. I stopped for groceries before heading home, slogging up the hill with a heavy canvas bag in each hand. I decided maybe I could create a workout DVD: the Grocery Bag Workout.
I spent the afternoon cleaning my little house and doing laundry, with Hercules for company. Owen appeared only when the new batch of kitty treats came out of the oven.
Maggie pulled into the driveway at about seven o’clock. She was wearing heavy boots and cherry-colored earmuffs over her mohair hat. It made her look like a fuzzy, red-eared teddy bear.
“Oh, good. You’re wearing your snow pants,” she said, as I laced up my boots.
“I don’t know what you have planned, but I’m figuring a little padding couldn’t hurt.”
Owen came over for a quick nuzzle. “Stay off the footstool,” I whispered to him. His response was to bat an errant piece of hair coming out of my hat.
Maggie parked on one of the side streets, and we walked down to the Winterfest site. There were probably twice as many people as on Friday night. More of the lights were on and I could see the course was even bigger than I first realized. Along with the sliding hill, the dogsled circuit, and the rink, there were a puck shoot and a labyrinth.
Maggie tugged on my sleeve. “Let’s do the maze.”
From where we were standing, on a slight incline looking down, the maze, built completely out of frozen snow, looked massive and complicated and scary.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Why?” Maggie asked.
“Because I have a bad sense of direction. Once I get in there I’ll be wandering around all night. Anyway, I thought you wanted to go sliding.” I pointed the hill. “Why don’t we do that before the line gets any longer?”
“Good idea.”
Saved.
I felt kind of silly, but I didn’t want to admit that the maze scared me. It was because of an old movie called The Maze that a bunch of older kids had scared me with the summer I was nine and my parents were doing summer stock in a hundred-year-old, supposedly haunted theater. I had nightmares for months after watching that movie on an old black-and-white TV late at night in one of the back rooms at the theater.
Maggie and I got in line for the hill. As we worked our way to the top I realized it was probably a good idea that I was wearing snow pants, sweats, and long underwear. I also realized it looked like a heck of a lot of fun. I turned out to be right on both counts. We slid until my legs began to wobble.
“I can’t climb that hill again. I need hot chocolate,” I told Maggie, brushing hay and snow off my jacket.
We walked slowly down to the canteen set up by the rink and the puck shoot. I pulled at the front of my parka. I was actually sweating.
“That was fun,” I said to Maggie as we stood in line for our cocoa.
“Yeah, you’re not a bad Saturday night date,” she joked. She looked around. “I haven’t seen Roma. Have you?”
“No,” I said. “But there’s so many people here, it would be easy to miss her.”
Lita was working behind the counter. She caught my eye. “What can I get for you, Kathleen?” she asked.
I held up two fingers. “Two hot chocolates, please, Lita.”
She poured two cups from a huge insulated carafe and dropped a marshmallow in each one before she snapped on the sippy-cup lids. I paid and moved out of the way, handing one cup to Maggie.
“Thank you,” she said, wrapping her hands around the cup and taking a sip. “Oh, that’s good.”
We walked over to the puck shoot and stood watching for a moment. Maggie elbowed me. “Hey, maybe Roma is with Eddie,” she said with a grin.
“How do stupid rumors like that get started?” I said, sipping my hot chocolate.
“There’s usually a grain of truth to them,” Maggie said. “Roma was driving around with Eddie in her SUV. It just wasn’t the real Eddie.”
Did that mean there was a grain of truth to the story that Agatha had left a fortune to Justin?
“Hello,” someone said. Maggie’s face lit up with a slightly mischievous smile and she turned immediately to say hello to Marcus.
I shot her a warning look over my cup, but it was a waste of effort. I turned, “Hi,” I said.
Marcus was wearing the same heavy jacket he’d had on at Wisteria Hill, as well as black ski pants and oversized gloves.
“Have you tried the puck shoot yet?” Maggie asked, gesturing at the game.
He shook his head. “I just got here. How about you?”
“We were on the sliding hill,” I said. I held up my hot chocolate. “We came over here to get warm.”
Beside me, Maggie took a step forward, and I realized we had somehow ended up in the puck-shoot line. “Maggie, how did we get in this line?” I asked.
She looked around. “I’m not sure.” She looked at Marcus. “Do you want to go ahead of us?”
“You’re not going to try it?” he asked.
“Maybe when my fingers get a little warmer. I think I need to at least be able to feel them before I pick up a hockey stick.”