Lending a Paw

Chapter 1

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of growing up to be the president. Failing that, an astronaut or a ballerina.

My presidential aspirations were quashed when I found out that the president did not, in fact, get to do whatever he (or she) wanted. The astronaut idea faded when my mother told me that even people in space suits could get motion sickness, and my ballerina phase lasted only until I actually took a class and discovered that I had no aptitude whatsoever. Even at six, I knew what the ballet teacher’s headshaking meant.

With those career paths closed off, I went to my alternative tier of professional choices, determined in large part because I’d had the great good fortune to grow up within walking distance of a public library. By the time I’d turned ten, I knew that I would be one of three things: a librarian in a big city, a librarian in a large town, or a librarian in a small town.

Big cities give me the heebie-jeebies, so that was out. A large town would have been okay, but a few short years after receiving my master’s degree in library and information science and a few short weeks after the end of a long-term relationship, I found a posting for an assistant director position at the district library in Chilson, Michigan.

Chilson! I stared at the listing so long that my eyes dried out. Chilson was a small tourist town in northwest lower Michigan. It was where I’d spent childhood summers with my aunt. It was my favorite place in the whole world. Could I really be this lucky?

When the library board voted to hire me, I was deliriously happy. I was young, footloose, fancy-free, and, since I’d given up any hope of my height reaching five feet and had become resigned to the fact that my curly black hair was never going to straighten, things were working out just the way I’d crossed my fingers that they would.

But three years after my move to Chilson, not long past my thirty-third birthday, life took an abrupt turn.

I woke on that fateful Friday morning to the beeping of my alarm clock and a cat-shaped weight on my chest. Eyes closed, I thumped off the clock and spoke to the weight.

“Eddie, it’s time to get up.” I opened my eyes, then immediately shut them. “Why do you have to sleep so close to my face?” If I opened my eyes again, I’d see late-May sunshine streaming through the gap in the white curtains and illuminating my cat’s furry face, which was maybe an inch from my chin. Soon after Eddie had followed me home last month, I’d learned his preferred mattress was a human one.

As there’d been no feline reply, I tried a second time.

“Eddie, get up.”

A faint rumble spread into my chest.

“No purring.” I gave him a gentle shove that was meant to instigate a move. It did nothing. “I have to go to work. Sorry, pal, but you have to get off.” I rolled onto my left side. Eddie, still purring, slid off my chest and landed on my arm. “No,” I told him. “Really off.”

He opened one eye.

I pulled my arm out from underneath him. “What do you want me to do, stay in bed all day?”

He stopped purring and opened both eyes.

“Not a chance,” I said. “I have to go out and make a living so I can support us in the style to which you’ve recently become accustomed.”

He settled deep into the covers. With my freed arm I scratched his chin, earning more purrs. Then, grunting a little with the effort, I carefully moved him aside and got up to start the first day of the rest of my life.

Halfway to the bathroom I looked back at Eddie. My first cat. My first pet. My parents hadn’t encouraged household animals—my dad was allergic to pet dander—and until I met Eddie I’d never felt the lack.

Eddie yawned wide, laying his ears back against the sides of his head and showing me far too much of his pink tongue.

“Cover your mouth when you do that, will you?” I asked.

“Mrr,” he said sleepily.

“That’s what you always say,” I said. “You’d better learn some etiquette by October. Aunt Frances is a sweetheart, but she doesn’t tolerate bad manners.”

All winter I lived with my aunt in her old and large house, but come May she good-humoredly kicked me out to make room for guests who paid a lot more than I did. That was when I moved down the hill to the small houseboat I’d bought from an elderly couple when they’d moved to Florida. The month of April involved a lot of cleaning and prep before the guys at the marina moved the boat out of the warehouse and into the water, but I didn’t mind the work.

Friends shook their heads at my living arrangements. I heard a lot of “Don’t you want your own house?” and “You should be building up more equity,” and “Your aunt is awesome, but isn’t it a little like living with your parents?”

My reply was a smile and a shrug. It worked for me and it worked for Aunt Frances, who didn’t like to live alone. Maybe someday I’d want my own lawn to mow, my own furnace to repair, roof to fix, and plumbing to worry about. Maybe. For now, I was happy. And so was Eddie.

Six weeks ago, on my last pre-Eddie day, I’d been spending a gloomy Sunday on the houseboat, scrubbing and washing. Come midafternoon, a slice of blue sky had appeared through the partially open warehouse doorway. I’d wandered outside to see. Not only had the low gray clouds vanished, but the temperature had gone from stay-home-with-a-book to I-need-to-get-outside-or-I’ll-die.

I looked at the cloudless blue. At my boat. At the sky.

It’d be okay to take a short walk, I told myself. After the long winter we just had, it’d be criminal not to take advantage of this weather. A short walk, then I’d get the galley cleaned up, see that my neighbor Rafe hadn’t passed out from paint fumes in the house he was rehabbing, meet my friend Kristen for dinner, and still have plenty of time to clean the bedroom before heading back up to Aunt Frances’s place to sleep.

It didn’t turn out that way.

My short stroll through the streets of Chilson turned into a long ramble through a nearby park, which became a wandering walk through an old cemetery.

No one knew that I like to spend time in cemeteries. Not my friends or relatives, and certainly not my coworkers. The single time I’d suggested walking through a cemetery to someone (my very-ex-fiancé), he’d made me feel like such a freak that I’d decided then and there to keep my cemetery inclinations to myself. I found cemeteries peaceful and calming in a poignant sort of way, and I always left from them eager to get things done.

The appropriately named Lakeview Cemetery was perched on the edge of a hill, overlooking the sparkling waters of the twenty-mile-long and two-mile-wide Janay Lake. That April afternoon I sat on a bench next to the headstone of Alonzo Tillotson (born 1847, died 1926) and enjoyed the pleasurable sensation that comes from skipping out on chores.

“I should get back,” I said to the view, not meaning a word of it. “There’s a lot to do.” Which was true, but Aunt Frances wouldn’t mind if I stayed in her house for another week. Her summer boarders wouldn’t show up until after Memorial Day—there was plenty of time for me to move to the houseboat.

I slid down into a slouch and lifted my face to the sun. “Lots to do,” I murmured lazily. “Finish the inside, wash down the deck, call the marina to schedule—”

“MRR!”

I leapt up. Small animal noises eeked out of me, little bleats of panic that made me sound pathetic and small and frightened. All true, but still. I grabbed on to an arm of the bench, sucked large amounts of air into my lungs, and tried to pretend that I was a fully functional adult.

The cat at my feet didn’t look impressed.

“Did you make that awful noise?” I asked.

He—maybe it was a she, but the cat’s attitude felt decidedly male—looked at me. Unblinking yellow eyes stared into my brown ones. His markings were black and white stripes with a chest and paws that probably would have been white if they’d been clean. A small pyramid of whitishness had its peak between his eyes, spreading down to touch the outside corners of his wide mouth. The pale triangle gave him a face so expressive I almost felt as if he were talking to me.

“Mrr.”

Then again, maybe he was.

“Hello,” I said. “My name is Minnie Hamilton. And before you ask, yes, it’s short for Minerva, and no, I don’t know what my parents were thinking.”

“Mrr.”

The cat was sitting up straight, studying me intently. I didn’t care for the look. “Don’t you have a home?” I asked. “Someone’s looking for you, I’m sure.”

Without visibly flexing a muscle, he moved forward three inches.

“Yup,” I said, “there’s someone coming, without a doubt. You stay here and wait, okay?” I nodded. “Nice talking to you.”

I took one step away from the bench.

The cat didn’t move.

I took another step.

He still didn’t move.

Good. He wouldn’t follow me home and beg to be fed and housed and cared for. Or was it only dogs that begged? Everything I knew about pets I’d learned from watching America’s Funniest Home Videos.

I walked down the hill, not dawdling, but not hurrying, either, because being chased out of the cemetery by a cat was ridiculous.

So I headed back toward the marina with a light heart, thinking about the coming summer. My walk took me through the outskirts of town with its clapboard cottages, past the brick post office, past the stucco city hall, and through downtown with half its shops still closed for winter.

Throughout my journey, the sun shone and people smiled. I smiled back, happy to be alive, happy to be me. Then white-haired Mr. Goodwin, a regular library patron, said, “Hello, Minnie. Who’s your little friend?” He pointed behind me.

I closed my eyes. “Don’t tell me it’s a cat.”

The elderly man chuckled. “Okay, I won’t. Hope you and your friend enjoy the rest of this fine day.” He and his dapper cane moved off.

I kept my eyes closed for a moment longer. Mr. Goodwin had a vivid imagination; he was always telling shaggy-dog stories that kept you riveted until the final pointless ending. Sure, that was it. Another story. Just a really, really short one.

“Mrr.”

I turned and there he was. The cat. Who looked remarkably proud of himself.

“Why did you follow me?” I asked, frowning. “And quit looking at me like that.”

“Um, Minnie?” Another library patron was standing on the sidewalk, holding one small child by the hand and an even smaller one on her hip. “Cats don’t like that tone of voice,” she said. “If you keep talking to him like that, he’s never going to answer.”

“He followed me, that’s all. He’s not mine.”

“Are you sure?” Laughing, she walked off.

I looked at the cat. He looked at me.

“You do have a home, don’t you?” I asked.

He walked straight to me and gave me my first-ever fuzzy head butt, right on the boniest part of my shin.

“Ow! That hurt!”

He butted me again. This time it was gentler, almost a caress. Then he was winding around my ankles in figure eights, around and around and around.

I sank into a crouch and patted his head. He turned his face away, making my fingers slide under his chin. “You like that, do you?” I scratched his chin with one hand and petted his long back with the other.

His purrs were loud and rattling and . . . and comforting.

“Well,” I said, “maybe you could stay with me until we find your real home.”

“Mrr.”

• • •

That day had been almost two months ago. I’d taken the cat to the town’s veterinarian until the boat was ready, and the vet confirmed that the cat was a male, that he weighed thirteen pounds, had ear mites, needed to be wormed, was roughly two years old, and hadn’t been reported as missing.

I’d run the obligatory ad in the paper and talked to the local animal shelter, but no one came to claim my little buddy. His name had been the inspiration of a bemused coworker. “Sounds like an Eddie kind of a cat,” Josh had said after I’d told the story.

“What kind is that?” Holly, another coworker, had asked.

“Just . . . Eddie.” Josh had shrugged. “You know what guys named Eddie are like.”

And just like that, my cat had a name, because I knew exactly what Josh meant. Guys named Eddie spoke their minds, didn’t waste time when they knew what they wanted, and were deeply loyal. They were the classic average good guys. At least that’s what the Eddies I’d known were like, and the name fit my new friend as if it were tattooed on his furry forehead.

I looked at him now. He was squirreled into the covers of my bed, and he still looked like an Eddie. And he still looked like he wanted me to stay home and nap with him all morning.

“Can’t do it. It’s the big day, remember?”

He half opened his eyes. “Mrr.”

It was an invitation that had, more than once, tempted me to whack the snooze button on the alarm clock. Not this time. I ignored him and headed to the shower. Half an hour later I was dried, clothed, breakfasted, and had done my best to make the bed around the sleeping Eddie.

I also kept a promise I’d made to my mother and left a note on a whiteboard I’d tacked up in the kitchen about where I was going and when I was going to return. Mom worried—a lot—and my vow to always leave a note of my whereabouts comforted her. How leaving a note for myself would help anything, I didn’t know, but she said it made her sleep easier.

So I scrawled a note and gathered up my backpack, but halfway out the door, I screeched to a halt. I’d forgotten to pack a lunch.

The panic of potential lateness seized me. I ran back inside, opened the tiny microwave that was now called the Eddie Safe, as it was one of the few places safe from the bread-loving Eddie, and pulled two pieces of bread from a loaf. In thirty seconds I’d slapped together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and shoved it into a plastic bag. I found an apple in the back of the small refrigerator, grabbed a half-empty bag of tortilla chips, filled a plastic bottle with water, and dropped it all into my backpack.

“See you tonight, Eddie!” I ran out of the house and walked across the boat’s deck, unlatched the railing door, hopped onto the marina’s dock, and started trotting up the hill to the library.

Never once had I been late for work. Never. I always arrived on time for appointments and I’d developed such a reputation for arriving at the stated hour to parties that my friends routinely sent me invitations with a different starting time. Now, with so much riding on what happened today, there I was, skimming the edge of lateness.

I hurried up the hill and away from the marina, practically running through the narrow side streets. The library, a handsome L-shaped brick building, sat on the far side of downtown. To my left, I knew the majestic Lake Michigan would be an inviting horizon of blue, and behind me the adjacent Janay Lake would be glittering in the sunshine, but I didn’t have time for my normal backward glances of appreciation.

“Morning, Minnie.” The owner of the bakery was putting out his sidewalk sign. OPEN. FREE SMELLS. “Say, did you know—”

“Talk to you later, Tom, okay?” I waved as I went past. “Running late today.”

After three blocks of antique stores, art galleries, clothing boutiques, and the occasional bookstore, fudge shop, and coffee shop, I reached the library. But instead of using my keys to let myself in the side door as per usual, I went around back. Then around the back of the back, past the employee parking and past the bins for cardboard recycling and trash. There, on the far side of the auxiliary parking lot, which was used only when famous authors came to speak, was the thing that was going to make or break my career.

The bookmobile.

Though it was inside a brand-new garage, I could almost see its wavy blue-painted graphics in the bright morning sun, its bright white letters emblazoned across its sides: CHILSON DISTRICT LIBRARY BOOKMOBILE. All fresh and spanking clean and waiting for me to . . . to what?

With a sudden and unwelcome rush, anxiety and dread darkened the shiny morning. Doubts assailed me from every direction. There was no way I’d be able to—

“Stop that.” I took a firmer grip on the straps of my backpack. Hearing the words out loud made me feel better, and since there wasn’t a soul around to hear, I kept going. “I haven’t been carsick in years. I’ve taught myself how to read maps and bought a GPS, and since the bookmobile was my idea, I’m the one to run it. I can do this. And I’ll do it right.”

The night before, I’d slid the driver’s daily checklist into my backpack. In ten minutes I was scheduled to be driving out of the parking lot and to my first stop on the opposite side of the county. It was time to hurry.

I unlocked the garage, climbed into the driver’s seat, tossed my backpack onto the passenger’s seat, started the engine, and backed the bookmobile out into the sun. Though the library director had grudgingly agreed to have a garage built for the bookmobile, it wasn’t any bigger than it had to be. Doing the pretrip check outside would be much easier. I turned off the engine, pulled the hood release, and went outside. “Water level, oil level,” I muttered, checking off the list as I went. “Good, and good.” I hurried back inside and started the engine. Gauges, all good. No weird engine noises. Very good.

Back outside to check tire pressure, back in and back out to check the lights and turn signals. Back inside to check a dozen other things. Fellow drivers had assured me that it would get to be habit within a matter of days, that soon I wouldn’t need the checklist. I almost, but not quite, believed this.

I ticked off the last item (“loose books secured”), shut the door, and slid into the driver’s seat.

The bookmobile’s dashboard clock stared at me accusingly. “Yes, I’m a minute late,” I told it as I buckled myself in. “If you don’t tell Stephen, I’ll give you a good vacuuming tonight.”

I could have sworn I heard a sniff.

First day as the bookmobile driver and I was already hearing things. Outstanding.

As I put my hand on the gearshift, a rush of excitement prickled my skin. It was actually happening. The bookmobile was real, and I was driving it. I was going to bring books back to the small towns who’d had their branch libraries closed. I was going to bring books to schools and senior centers and people who were homebound. This outreach program was going to make a difference. I was going to make a difference.

A happy grin spread wide across my face. It was a beautiful morning, the finest in months, maybe the finest ever, and this day was going to be one of the best ever and—

“Mrr.”