The Cat Sitter's Nine Lives (28 page)

Half whispering, I said, “I know…”

I was thinking about Janet. If I was going to turn her in, now was the time. If I didn’t tell McKenzie what I knew right away, it would be pretty hard explaining why later … but I just couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t shake the notion that, even though what Janet had done was completely wrong, I knew with all my heart that in her mind she felt there was no other choice.

“Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

McKenzie’s voice snapped me back to the present. I shook my head. “Um … no, that was it.”

“You’re sure?”

I could tell by the sound of her voice she knew there was something more, but I held firm. “Yep.”

After we hung up, I laid the phone down on the coffee table and just stared at it. I was beginning to wonder if maybe Detective McKenzie didn’t have a few psychically gifted ancestors of her own.

*   *   *

For the next half hour or so I managed to keep my mind off everything by straightening up the apartment. I got out some glass cleaner and my trusty bottle of bleach-and-water mix and cleaned the heck out of anything that was glass, porcelain, or chrome until all the accumulated grime was a distant memory. Then I took a long hot shower until all the accumulated grime in my head was a distant memory, too. Feeling completely renewed, I toweled myself off and padded naked into my closet to see if I could drum up a date-worthy outfit to wear.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fashionista. It’s not that I don’t like nice clothes, I do, but unlike most women I just don’t like shopping for them. In fact, I’d be tickled pink if I never had to see another mall for as long as I live, even if it meant wearing the same clothes every day until they fell off in tatters and I had to go around stark-raving mad and naked to boot—which may very well happen one day. Standing in the middle of my closet and surveying my measly collection of outfits, though, I wished I had a slightly better attitude.

There were only a few viable options, one of which was a beautiful plum-colored evening dress, but I’d worn that the first time we’d gone to Yolanda and it didn’t seem right to wear it twice in the same place, so instead I decided on something a little less fancy. I laid out a white silk blouse with mother-of-pearl buttons, a low-cut yellow cotton camisole, and a pair of cream-colored linen capris.

Looking in the mirror over the desk, I applied a little makeup, with just enough blush and eyeliner to make it look like I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. That took me a good ten minutes. Then I pulled the hair dryer out from under the sink, blew off the dust, and coaxed my hair into a state of natural, windswept fluffiness—as if I’d just come in from a fun, carefree day at the beach. That took another ten minutes at least. Then I got dressed, which took another half hour because I changed my mind about what to wear ten times, and just when I’d given up and settled on my first choice—with a resolution to go to the mall as soon as possible—I heard Ethan’s car rolling up the driveway. I knew I had just enough time to slip my bare feet into a pair of nice low-heeled sandals before he could climb the steps and knock on the door.

As I checked myself one last time in the mirror, I had a momentary lapse. I think it was the mother-of-pearl buttons on my blouse—for a second I saw the shiny brass buttons of Mr. Hoskins’s shirt staring back at me in the darkness, but I closed my eyes and chased the image away before it had a chance to take over my whole brain. Then I just stood there and waited.

There was no knock. I went into the living room and looked through the window, thinking Ethan was waiting for me in the hammock, but he wasn’t there. I grabbed my pocketbook and opened the French doors. Nothing. I looked over the balcony, and sure enough there was his car, parked just behind mine, but he was nowhere in sight. I went down the steps into the courtyard.

The tiki torches were all lit, except they’d been rearranged. Instead of surrounding the deck like they usually did, they were in a line leading all the way down to the beach. I looked in the kitchen window. It was empty. Drying on a rack next to the sink was a pile of copper pots and pans, but Michael and Paco were nowhere to be seen.

I went over to the edge of the deck and followed the line of torches down to the beach, where my eyes finally landed on Ethan, illuminated by the golden glow of the last torch. He was at the water’s edge, standing next to a small table and two dining chairs. There was a white cloth spread across the table with a glass hurricane lamp in the middle, sending a flickering light over a sparkling arrangement of silverware, wineglasses, and gleaming white china.

He called out, “Hemingway, party of two?”

27

Every life has its milestones, those perfect moments that feel entirely right and familiar, as if you’ve been dreaming about them your whole life. Ethan was standing in the sand with the waves gently lapping over his bare feet, wearing a fitted black dress shirt and tan chinos rolled up to his calves. I immediately felt like I’d wandered into some kind of photo shoot for
Foxy Man Magazine
—and the theme was “World’s Most Eligible Bachelor.”

Most women presented with such a stunning tableau would have felt like a queen at her coronation, or at least Snow White waking up to her handsome prince, but not me. Both of my hands started to tingle, as if they’d fallen asleep, and my vision went a little blurry. I’ve only fainted once in my whole life, but I was a little worried it was about to happen again. It took all the strength I could muster just to make the rest of the trip down to the water—I distinctly remember making a conscious effort to put one foot in front of the other. As I came up to Ethan, my legs quivering and my head on spin cycle, he silently took me in his arms and kissed me.

I said, “What in the world is happening?”

He was beaming. “I decided we’d do something a little more special, and the food’s much better here at Chez Ethan.”

“Are you kidding me? Whose idea was this?”

“Well, yet again I’d like to take full credit, but it was a group effort. It’s a good thing Michael and Paco are around or I’d be the lousiest boyfriend ever. We figured you could probably use a nice dinner at home after, you know, after everything that’s happened this week.”

There was only one word I could think of that was appropriate for this particular moment:
Whew!

I’d just been on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. Tiki torches leading down to a beach, a beautifully appointed table, candlelight, romantic dinner for two, waves gently lapping at our feet … the only thing missing was Ethan getting down on one knee and then maybe some fireworks over the ocean and a harp player. Once I realized there was no ring involved, I felt like a fool, a very lucky fool, but a fool nonetheless.

I squeezed him tighter. “You have no idea—this is the perfect ending to an otherwise crazy day.”

He kissed me again. “It’s okay, then?”

I nodded. “Oh yeah, it is definitely okay. This is exactly what I needed.”

“You looked a little pale there for a minute.”

“I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

He pulled a chair out for me and we sat down, and then as if on cue Paco appeared out of the shadows, carrying two plates of food with a white napkin draped over his arm. I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

He was wearing a tight black Speedo and black leather sandals, with a black tuxedo jacket over his bare chest and a red sequined bow tie around his neck. He looked like a Chippendale dancer delivering a strip-o-gram.

His cheeks were flushed red. “Don’t laugh. The chef made me wear it.”

I said, “You look fantastic. I think you should be required to wear that for every dinner.”

Ethan patted his pockets. “Man, I’m all out of dollar bills or I’d throw you a couple.”

Paco set the plates down on the table and said, “Very funny.”

Michael was right behind him with a bottle of white wine, wearing his regular khaki shorts and white tank top.

I said, “Wait a minute, where’s
your
waiter uniform?”

He said with a grin, “Oh, I’m not a waiter. I’m the chef,” and Paco rolled his eyes.

I said, “You guys aren’t eating with us?”

“Nope. We don’t want to crash your date, plus we have our own plans.”

As he filled the wineglasses he described the menu—vegetable lasagna, with cremini and portobello mushrooms and a creamy bechamel sauce, served with a salad of baby greens and slices of fresh blood orange and ripe avocado. Later there’d be homemade key lime pie.

I started to get that feeling again—that everybody felt like I needed to be taken care of, that they had to pamper me and protect me and keep me happy as a baby so I’d forget about Mr. Hoskins and the accident and everything else that had happened. Sooner or later I was going to have to let everybody know that I didn’t need to be coddled and spoiled, that I wasn’t here to make them all feel like big, strong he-men taking care of a defenseless little girl.

I opted for later.

Dinner was absolutely delicious. Our grandmother always said you can improve just about any recipe by adding a pound of bacon to it, and I wondered if Michael and Paco didn’t have some similar trick up their sleeve. Everything just seemed to taste better when it came out of their kitchen. They both reappeared every once in a while to refill our wineglasses or take plates away, and when we were done they headed back up to the house, their arms around each other’s shoulders. As they disappeared into the shadows I heard Paco say, “Next time, you’re the waiter and I’m the chef.”

I turned to Ethan. “This has been about the nicest thing anybody has ever done for me.”

He smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

He held up his wineglass and said, “To now,” and then we clinked our glasses and each took a sip. Then he held up his glass again and said, “And to me being an awesome boyfriend.”

I grinned and said, “I’ll drink to that,” and then we clinked our glasses once more and took another sip.

Then we just sat there for a while, not talking, just enjoying the wine and the company and the moon hanging over the ocean. I thought about my plan to sneak away and call Mrs. Silverthorn, but now, sitting here with Ethan, it didn’t seem so urgent. I figured if Mr. Silverthorn had found Cosmo he would probably have called, and if he hadn’t found him there wasn’t anything I could do about it now anyway. Tomorrow I’d come up with an excuse to pay the Silverthorns a visit, which would give me an excuse to pull Janet aside and talk to her. Except …

Ethan interrupted the silence. “So, I wanted to tell you, about that letter from Guidry.”

I took a deep breath, but he stopped me.

“No, just listen. I know what was going on when you met him. That was a rough time for you, and I know he made you feel happy for the first time in a very long time. So, I mean, it’s pretty stupid of me to sit here and be all jealous just because he wrote you a letter. It’s probably because of him that you’re even here with me in the first place. So I figured I’d just go the mature route. No sweat. I don’t need to be part of it. You can open it or not open it. Either way I’m good.”

He sat back and folded his arms over his chest, then added, “Thus concludes my speech.”

I smiled. “Thanks for that.”

He winked. “Sure, babe.”

Then I slid Guidry’s letter onto the table between us. “Because I thought we should open it together.”

His jaw dropped open and he pushed his chair back, holding his hands up in the air. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m totally not ready to be that mature!”

I laughed. “Oh, come on! You have to help me.”

“Why do I have to help you? That letter’s for you, not me!”

I said, “Because we’re a couple and that’s what couples do. Now grow up and open it with me.”

He shook his head. “No way.”

“What about that speech you just gave me about not being jealous and taking the mature route?”

“That was all bullshit.”

I cocked one eyebrow and stared at him.

He grinned uncomfortably. “Really?”

I said, “Ethan, I don’t want to read it alone. I want to read it with you.”

He sighed. “Ugh. What if he wants you back?”

“We’ll say no.”

“What if he wants you to come visit him?”

“We’ll say no.”

He picked up the wine bottle and split the last remaining drops equally between our glasses. “Okay, let’s open the damn thing already.”

I picked up the letter, hoping Ethan wouldn’t notice the slight tremble in my hands, and slid a fingernail along the edge of the envelope. I lifted the flap and looked inside. There was a single piece of paper, handwritten and folded into thirds.

I spread it open on the table, took a deep breath, and read it out loud:

Dixie,

I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. I know you might find that surprising, but I do think about you a lot and hope you and Ethan are good (yes, the guys down at the station keep me up to date on all the gossip). I’m writing because I have something to tell you. I’ve picked up the phone a hundred times to call, but every time I do, I can’t quite figure out how to say it. So I thought I’d just do the old-fashioned thing and write you a letter (or is it the cowardly thing?) Well, anyway …

I’m engaged.

I can tell you all about it later, if you want to hear it, but I didn’t want to take the next step without letting you know first. Probably dumb, huh?

Guidry

I looked up to find Ethan staring at me, his eyes as big as an owl’s. He said, “Whoa. Did
not
see that coming.”

I had to admit, I hadn’t seen it coming either, and to be honest I didn’t know how I felt about it. Part of me was grateful Guidry had told me first—it would definitely have been strange to find out any other way—and part of me was just plain shocked. How was it possible he could so quickly have met someone, fallen in love, and decided to get married? It seemed like only yesterday that he’d left for New Orleans. Had I opened that letter alone, I would probably have sat down and cried for myself for a couple of hours, but with Ethan there with me, my ultimate reaction was entirely different, not to mention a little surprising.