“You know what Nick and Michelle will say,” I said.
“That people mistake identities of people in cars and mix up dates all the time and this kind of information is very unreliable. As my mother used to say, ‘Horsefeathers!’” She reached over, plucked a dust ball out of my hair, patted my cheek and left.
It was a busy afternoon. It seemed as if every tourist passing by North Harbor decided to visit the store. No one had specifically asked me if I’d call Michelle so we could update her on what Mr. P. had learned about Jeff Cameron. By the end of the day they just all seemed to decide that that’s what would happen.
Rose and Mr. P. were having dinner with Charlotte. “Why don’t you join us?” Charlotte said.
“Thank you,” I said. “But I want to go for a run. Next time, though.”
Mac was crewing for someone who’d lost one of his regulars when the man had eloped to Las Vegas. I’d sent him off an hour earlier.
“Is your grandmother picking you up?” I asked Avery.
She shook her head. “Nonna’s having dinner with Mr. Caulfield.”
I did a double take. “Channing Caulfield?”
“Yeah. The money guy. Nonna said he wore her down.” She had her backpack and the accordion in a brown paper shopping bag.
“Do you need a ride?”
She hiked the backpack up onto one shoulder. “Nope. I’m going to the library. This is totally the best day of the anime festival—Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess, Mei and the Kitten Bus and two films from the Dragon Ball series.”
“Have fun,” I said.
Elvis was waiting for me at the back door. “Looks like it’s just you and me,” I said. He climbed into the front seat of the SUV and I set a bag of tea towels on the floor of the passenger-side seat. The cat eyed the brown paper bag, whiskers twitching. Then he looked at me.
“Yes, the cupcakes are in there,” I said.
He licked his whiskers.
“Cupcakes are people food.”
His green eyes went to slits, making his skepticism very clear.
“What should we have for supper?” I asked once I’d backed the SUV into the driveway at home and gotten out.
Elvis eyed the paper shopping bag still on the floor at his feet.
“Cupcakes are not supper,” I said.
“Merow,” he said, and I could have sworn I could detect sarcasm in his tone. Did cats even understand sarcasm? I wondered.
“Yes, I know we’ve had cupcakes for supper before, but I’m trying to turn over a new leaf.”
He tilted his head to one side and regarded me unblinkingly. I was pretty sure this cat, at least, got sarcasm.
I leaned across the seat to grab the bag of tea towels. I was going to wash and iron them and Jess was going to make pillow covers out of them for me. Elvis walked along the seat and jumped down to the driveway. I backed out of the car. “Hey, where are you going?” I said.
“Murp,” he said, and then he disappeared around the side of the house. Translation: backyard.
Friday night and even my cat seemed to have plans. I thought about my brother, Liam, teasing me about my lack of a love life or a social life. He’d been back and forth for the last several months, consulting on a development project for part of the harbor front that after too many delays and roadblocks would finally be getting under way at the end of August.
“I’d say you live like a little old lady, but Rose is a little old lady and she gets out way more than you do,” he’d said the last time he’d been in town, as he sprawled on my sofa eating a bowl of chocolate pudding cake that Rose had dropped off on her way to meet Mr. P.
Since I didn’t have a comeback, I’d stuck my tongue out at him. That had made him laugh, and then he suggested I could stick that tongue in Nick’s mouth and maybe that would spice up my life. I’d thrown a pillow at him.
Nick. Even Liam thought we should get together, although his idea of getting together didn’t seem to involve me in a lacy white dress and Nick in a suit the way Charlotte, Rose and Liz’s did.
I changed into my running gear and went out onto the back verandah to see where Elvis was. He was sitting on a small wrought-iron bench next to the raised flower bed that Rose and Mr. P. had planted with sunflowers.
I held the door open. “Are you coming in?” I asked. He ignored me, looking in the direction of my neighbor, Tom Harris’s yard. I may as well have been talking to the sunflowers. “I’m going running,” I said. “We can eat when I get back.” I felt a little foolish explaining myself to a cat.
I decided it was a good chance to take a longer, more challenging route than I’d picked the times Nick had gone running with me. He wasn’t a runner, and it had been harder than I’d expected to rein myself in and not leave him behind.
I needed to talk to him. I couldn’t avoid him much longer. Charlotte would notice. Or Rose. I thought about Mac asking me why Nick and I had never gotten together. I hadn’t been lying when I’d told him our timing had been off. But Mac had been right when he’d pointed out that we’d both been back in North Harbor for more than a year and still nothing had happened. And it wasn’t like all three of my fairy godmothers hadn’t been pushing us together.
What was stopping me from pursuing a relationship with Nick? At fifteen that was all I’d wanted. What was different now? We’d made tiny moves toward each other, but they never seemed to go anywhere. Was Nick even interested? He’d come running with me. He’d eaten my cooking. The latter had to mean something.
I had a headache. Why did relationships have to be so much work?
I showered when I got home and pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of baggy cut-off sweatpants. Since my only company was going to be Elvis—at least I was assuming he’d be spending time with me—I decided I might as well be comfortable. This time when I walked out onto the verandah he immediately came across the grass. He followed me back inside and joined me in front of the refrigerator while I tried to decide what to have for supper.
“Spaghetti or salad?” I asked the cat.
He yawned.
“Pizza it is,” I said.
Once we were settled on the sofa with a big slice for me and some of Rose’s treats for him, I called Michelle. “Could you stop by the shop sometime on Monday?” I asked. “The Angels have some information about Jeff Cameron they’d like to share.”
“Have you spoken to Nick?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I was out of the shop this morning. And by the way, did Glenn McNamara call you?”
“He did.” She hesitated for a moment. “You know what the odds are on the reliability of this kind of witness sighting?”
“I know,” I said. I didn’t say “horsefeathers,” but I was thinking it.
“Are you taking on some kind of job for Glenn?”
I popped two black olives in my mouth. It was clear Michelle wanted to change the subject. “Maybe. For his uncle, actually.”
“So are you angling to get paid in blueberry muffins?” she teased.
“Chocolate cupcakes, actually,” I said.
“The ones with the mocha frosting. They are good.”
I waited for her to say that she’d been at McNamara’s today, but she didn’t. Odd.
“How was your day?” I asked, feeling a twinge of guilt for fishing.
“Full of meetings and paperwork. I didn’t even go out for lunch.”
I could have asked her straight out what she’d been doing with Liz, but I decided not to. Maybe Liz had been pushing over what had happened to Rose. Maybe Michelle didn’t want to tell me that she’d had to ask Liz to back off.
“Anyway, Nick should have the results from the blood work on Monday,” she said. “The lab is a bit backed up. That’s why he didn’t get them today.”
It seemed as though Nick hadn’t told her about our argument. I decided I wasn’t going to, either.
“Thanks for telling me,” I said. I held out a piece of bacon to Elvis. At least when I spent the evening with him I could have exactly what I wanted on my pizza.