Chapter 15
Fifteen
pixilated (adj.): somewhat mentally unsound
Lucy
I arrive early the following Thursday night, hoping to check in with Savannah before the second official gathering of the Sweet Reads Writing Society commences.
But tonight she is neither making tea nor shelving books.
She left hours ago, Ian tells me, due to morning sickness that refuses to be limited to mornings.
At least now her pregnancy is one less secret I carry.
My favorite tabby slinks around my ankles, meowing pathetically. “Aww, Louie,” I say, stooping to stroke his thick orange fur. “You sure are a chatty catty tonight—”
“Lucy, no!” Ian shouts. “I wouldn’t—”
White fangs flash. I jerk away, but already pain spears my hand. “Ow!” I try shaking the pain away. On inspection, the space between my thumb and pointer finger bears an angry red bite mark.
“Oh no,” Ian says, “I’m so sorry! It’s me he’s not happy with. I’m out of food.”
“No biggie,” I say through gritted teeth. “No blood.” At least not yet. “All good. But poor Louie.” I’ve never known him to bite.
“Don’t let him convince you he’s starving. He’s always got kibble. But you know Louie. Total prima donna. He usually gets a scoop of wet food at closing time. So yes, my cat, who holds no job, pays no rent, and poops in a box, is unhappy about his menu choices.”
Louie directs an unending series of fierce meows at Ian. “And he’s never going to let me hear the end of it until he gets his Fancy Feast Seafood Paté. He’s very particular.”
Welcome to my world, I nearly say, thinking of Chase.
“I guess every unhappy kitty is unhappy in its own way,” I quip in an attempt to pose as someone who, for the sake of Ian’s feelings, is no longer suffering twinges of pain.
“Ahh! Riffing on Tolstoy. You’re so clever, Lucy.”
“Need me to run and get a can of food? BuyMore’s still open for another”—I glance at the cuckoo clock behind the tea bar—“twelve minutes. Besides, I need to pick up something myself.” No need to mention that the thing I need is Wite-Out, assuming they even still make it.
There’s something about my evenings with the Smith Corona that still feels too personal to share. “I’ll just go grab—”
“Louie will live.”
“Be right back,” I say more definitively. This is just the kind of mission I need to shake the pre-writers-group adrenaline. Already I’ve hung my sweater over a chair, laying claim to one with four legs and no squishy filling.
Ian lights up when I return fifteen minutes later carrying a plastic BuyMore bag. “Lucy! You’re a lifesaver.”
“Dogs have owners, cats have staff, right?”
I hand him a can, and his face falls. He frowns at his shoes. “Guess I should’ve made it clearer. It’s Fancy Feast Seafood Paté or nothing. I’m ashamed to say Louie won’t eat this.”
“Ian, Fancy Feast is eighty-eight cents. Louie deserves better. You’ve got to spend at least a dollar a can for such a special kitty.”
“I . . . do?”
“On principle.”
“I’m not sure it matters how principled I am if he won’t eat it.”
Again, I reach into the bag. “Not even this salmon?”
“Fancy Feast Seafood Paté or nothing.”
Crouching, I scratch Louie behind the ears. “Poor wittle guy, lapping up all those filler ingredients.” Again, Louie snaps at my hand. This time I yank it to safety.
“Bad kitty!” Ian scolds.
Straightening, I sigh, then produce one last can. “I grabbed one, just in case.”
“Ah! You’re the best!”
Ian’s puppy eyes linger on mine. “Hey, Lucy, would you . . . I mean, would you maybe want to—”
Oh, dear God. Please don’t let Ian be making a sudden, 180-degree swerve out of the friend zone!
I bite the inside corner of my mouth, my eyes pleading with him not to.
Fortunately, the door jingles, and in slips Bernard, greeting us with a silent tip of his cap.
Seconds later, not-so-sunny Sunny follows.
Today she wears a knit hat over her weightless white hair.
Their arrival only appears to add urgency to Ian’s mission.
“Would you like to grab a coffee with me sometime?”
“Coffee?” I say, stalling.
“Or . . . tea?”
Raising my plastic cup with its last inch of tea, I swirl the ice noisily. “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I can tell I’m wearing a stupidly perky grin. Much as I’d like to soften it, I seem to have zero control over my facial muscles.
“Or, I don’t know. Pie?” Ian’s tone turns soft. He steeples his hands. “Lucy, listen. I’m only thinking it would be nice to drink our beverages someplace else for a change. You know, together. Louie is great, but occasionally I wouldn’t mind some human company. I mean, for the beverage drinking.”
“Hmm. I take it Louie’s not drinking coffee these days.” Hokey jibber-jabber. My new specialty.
“Not so much.”
“So then he’s a decaf-feline? Or is it a noncaf-feline?”
I’m guessing by Ian’s blank expression he isn’t into dorky dames wielding ridiculous puns. See, if I were looking for a romantic partner till death do us part, this could be a deal-breaker.
“Louie adores you,” I say, still buying time.
I need a few more moments to wave my trusty danger-detector over the proposition before me.
A warning buzzer sounds in my brain. I’m getting a reading.
It isn’t deafening, but it’s detectable.
What if something were to go haywire in my friendship with Ian?
I’d lose my place. My Sweet Reads. My visits to Savannah.
I’d lose Louie! I palm my stomach to quell the butterflies.
“More likely, he thinks I’m a sorry excuse for a cat,” Ian says. “It’s pure pity.”
Ian isn’t wrong. Company is good. Clearly, company—of the grownup kind, anyway—is missing from my life.
My gaze travels down Birch in the general direction of the Trading Post Café.
Sweet Reads offers a daily pour-over brew, but easily 90 percent of the hard-core coffee drinking in town goes on at the Trading Post.
“So . . .” I say slowly, “you want to cross the street and drink coffee. With or without pie.”
Ian shrugs. “That’s pretty much the gist. I hear that other people do these things quite regularly.”
I laugh a little.
He takes a step backward. “Forget I even brought it up. No worries.”
Let’s face it, Ian’s a great guy—this is widely agreed upon.
In fact, a contingency of smart-alecky locals, disenchanted with their options in the last presidential election, cast write-in votes for this man.
If the upcoming November ballot added a call to elect Charity Falls’ Most Eligible Bachelor, Ian Witherspoon would win by a landslide.
In ancient Yiddish times, the town yenta wouldn’t waste a second before pairing me up with Ian.
Thing is, if I’m only allowed one hard no for the rest of my life, it’s to being paired up.
Still, winsomeness is a hard quality to come by, and Ian is nothing if not winsome. Not to mention he has access to more books than I could read in ten lifetimes.
And then there’s the fact that I haven’t said yes to anything new today.
Not to mention, Ian’s pretty cute when he blushes. Ohhh, what’s the harm?
“Okay, sure,” I say.
He stares at me for a beat. “Brilliant. That’s . . . brilliant. It’s a date, then!”
Ian clearly regrets his word choice the moment it’s out. Date isn’t exactly the term I was going for either.
“I mean,” he adds quickly, “that we should settle on a date.”
Riiight. “First things first,” I say. “Better feed your cat.”
***
Billie will be our final reader tonight. She passes a stack of copies to Nytasha, who takes one and passes the stack clockwise to Bernard, who passes to Wyatt, who passes to me. Finally Sunny and then Ian hold copies as well, and the reading begins.
Billie’s memoir promises a behind-the-scenes look at life as a flight attendant—or, rather, a stewardess, to suit the 1970s setting—and while we’ve been forewarned to anticipate heart-wrenching tragedy, the story opens with her placid childhood on a hay farm.
As she reads, we all follow along on the page. Well, not me so much.
I’m too busy casting glances around the circle, considering each member of this “society” that once again opened its arms to me without hesitation.
Quite in his element, Ian scratches notes on his copy. He really comes alive in this setting. His gentle and encouraging feedback for tonight’s previous readers set the tone for the rest of us to follow in terms of how critique will be done in this group.
Bernard nods along to the cadence of Billie’s words as if appreciating a piece of fine music. Nytasha uncrosses and recrosses her legs. Bounces a foot. Flicks covert looks in Wyatt’s direction.
From what I can tell, he’s altogether oblivious. Following along with Billie’s story, he strokes his chin thoughtfully. With the simple addition of a pair of readers, Wyatt has reverse-morphed—from Superman to Clark Kent, from lawman to bookworm—and I really wish I didn’t find this so agreeable.
Nytasha catches me spying, and we lock eyes for a beat before she returns hers to the page.
Fiddlesticks.
Finally my gaze lands on Sunny’s puckered face.
Tonight we are the two holdouts, the only members who have not yet walked the plank.
Which is to say, we continue to hold our writing close to our chests.
Except that I seem to have earned a pass this time, given the fact that Ian kicked off the meeting by holding up a copy of this week’s Mountain Messenger, drawing unanimous oohs and ahs over the piece about Wyatt.
I’m not sure who was more uncomfortable with the attention, me or him.
Funny . . . before tonight I wouldn’t have considered Sunny and me kindred spirits by any measure.
But throughout the evening, I’ve noticed another behavior we share in common besides our unwillingness to read for critique.
Like me, Sunny seems engaged with the discussion.
She nods and takes notes, as do I. I sense that, like me, she has opinions yet withholds feedback.