Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues

NINETEEN

When I got home, I went straight to Michael’s kitchen, where he and Paco were busy putting dinner together.

Michael’s face was grim. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. A headache, but it’s better.”

“Tell me what happened.”

I did a mental groan. If I had to tell it one more time, I might start making stuff up to make it more interesting.

“When I was passing the Kurtz house on my way home last night, I saw the woman’s car I told you about, the one with the dog named Ziggy. It was parked in the driveway by the guard’s house, so I pulled in.”

Michael gave me a big-brother disapproving look, and I hurried to justify myself.

“I wanted to catch her and Kurtz together because he’d lied to me, said she died two years ago, so it couldn’t have been her that I talked to. But I was going to call Guidry to check it out, I swear I was. I drove in and got out of my car, and that’s when somebody hit me on the head. When I woke up, I smelled smoke and called nine-one-one.”

“The fire marshal said you passed out while you were there.”

I rubbed my forehead, not unlike the way Kurtz touched his face before he lied. All the questions were taxing my brain.

I said, “I fainted on the way to tell your guys about the woman. Guidry found me and took me to the emergency room at Sarasota Memorial.”

Michael rubbed his own temples with his forefingers, rotating his fingertips like giving himself a shiatzu massage. I had a feeling his head hurt almost as bad as mine.

He said, “That fire was set by somebody who knows chemicals and has access to them. The stuff they used doesn’t explode, but it burns for a long time and puts out lots of dark smoke that looks like a major fire. Whoever set it meant to draw attention.”

I didn’t want to tell him I knew the arsonist. That was information still reserved for Guidry. Besides, as much as I resented her, I was beginning to feel a sort of female bond to Jessica.

I said, “Other than getting a concussion, I had a great evening. My date with Ethan, I mean.”

He raised his head and quirked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“I really did. We danced.”

Michael allowed his mouth to twitch in an almost-smile.

Paco said, “You danced? For real?”

“Honest to God, and I didn’t step on his feet or trip him or do anything embarrassing.”

In unison, they said, “Good girl!”

Then they beamed at me like mothers hearing a five-year-old’s report of the first day of kindergarten.

Michael was so pleased he lost the worry wrinkles on his forehead. “I’ve got spareribs for supper. Sweet potatoes. Corn bread. I’m talking real soul food.”

Two seconds ago, I’d intended to crawl in bed without dinner, but now I licked my lips like a feral cat offered a warm mouse.

As a kid, I thought soul food was something God dispensed, like a Mardi Gras king tossing trinkets down to clamoring humans. I imagined it as fluffy and insubstantial, maybe pink as carnival cotton candy. It was Michael who told me it meant basic down-to-earth things like collard greens and ham hocks and corn bread. Now, inhaling exquisite smells coming from a sizzling rack of ribs hot off Michael’s prize smoker, I was glad soul food was real instead of ethereal.

He said, “So tell me more about your lawyer.”

“He’s not my lawyer, and I just went out to dinner with him. There’s nothing exclusive about it.”

Michael raised his face with such a look of shock that I laughed. For the last two years, Michael and Paco had been after me to start seeing men and I had refused with the chaste prudishness of a cloistered nun. Now all of a sudden I sounded like a woman ready to play the field.

Paco twirled an imaginary mustache. “Ah so, my little chickadee.”

I got a stack of napkins and tossed them around on the butcher-block island, but my mind was playing a tape of Granddad patting Gran on the rump and saying, “My little chickadee,” while she made pretend push-away motions and cut her eyes warningly at Michael and me.

He would grin and say, “Kids, why don’t you go outside and see if you can count the stars. The one who gets the number right gets a hot fudge sundae at Dairy Queen.”

Michael and I would edge out of the room, trying not to giggle, and wait until Granddad came out to see if we’d counted the stars correctly. We knew it didn’t matter what number we came up with, he’d say we were right. Then we’d all pile in his Chevrolet Impala with the pelican hood ornament and the personalized license plates that said SIESTA-1 and drive to Dairy Queen and give ourselves tummy aches on too much ice cream. When we got home, our grandmother would be in her shiny satin robe that she reserved for special occasions, and she’d have a soft smile on her face. I was grown before I learned that the word chickadee belonged to a bird and not to my grandmother.

Paco said, “When are you going to see that Stork guy again?”

“His name is Crane, not Stork, and I’m having dinner at his place Saturday night.”

“Awriiiiight!!”

While we ate, they made an obvious effort to get my mind off being a suspect in a bizarre murder case, so obvious that I wanted to squeeze them and plant grateful kisses on them. But I couldn’t, because then we’d be acknowledging the spot I was in and they’d know their efforts to keep me from thinking about it had failed. I left them early, didn’t even stay to help with the dishes.

I knew that was okay because they knew my head still hurt from the concussion and they didn’t expect me to help, which was something else we couldn’t discuss because it would throw us into the really big thing none of us wanted to talk about.

Loving people is complicated.

As I crossed the deck to my stairs, I looked up at a violet-blue sky sparked by an infinity of icy lights zillions of miles away. Some of them might have men and women on them, people going about their daily lives without a clue that I existed. I found that an oddly comforting thought.

Guidry still hadn’t returned my call, and I was glad. I needed a break from talking about it. Also, I wasn’t sure how much of what I’d learned I was going to tell him, and that made me skittery. There shouldn’t have been any question about what I’d tell him. I was a responsible citizen, and I should give him every scrap of information I had, no matter how queasy it made me.

I took a long shower, and when I was drying off I found a big blister on my right heel. Wars were breaking out in remote spots on the globe, loggers in the Amazon were destroying a large part of the earth’s supply of oxygen, emaciated babies in African villages were dying of AIDS, and I had a blister on my heel. The blister was the only thing I could do anything about. I could not feel sad enough for the world’s condition to change it, but I could put a Band-Aid on my heel.

I sat on the edge of the tub and stared at the square tiles on the floor. Funny how I’d never noticed how they were connected but still solitary in their surrounding lines of grout. I thought about how I’d felt dancing with Ethan. Was the blister worth the fun I’d had?

Damn right it was. I’d have tolerated blisters on both heels to do that again.

I thought of how I felt every time I was in the same room with Guidry, all warm and soft and ready to follow him home like a stray puppy. I put my face in my hands and whimpered. How could I have gone from expecting and planning to be alone for the rest of my life to being in love with two men?

I wondered if I had blisters on my brain to match my feet.