At Wick's End - Tim Myers [46]
After rinsing my bowl, I picked my book up and started back in on it. Dame Agatha was as mesmerizing as ever, and I wanted to get back to her tale.
Fifteen minutes later I heard a soft thump on the hardwood floor. I pretended to ignore the sound, watching Esmeralda out of the corner of my eye as she slowly stalked toward me. After sniffing the air, she pounced on the couch beside me, then somehow managed to slide up under my book without the slightest bit of noticeable effort. It was almost as if my temporary roommate had been born without bones.
I started to stroke her fur, but she moved away before I could manage it. This relationship wasn’t going to be any easier than the one I’d had with Mr. Fluffy.
Reading wasn’t possible with the cat on my chest, and Esmeralda was in no mood to just hang out with me. I was tired anyway. It had been a big day. Heather had supplied a cat bed, so I laid it out in the living room, then went into the bedroom and closed the door. Two minutes after I shut the door, there was the most pitiful mewling outside.
“Go to sleep,” I said through the wood, but the noise just grew louder.
“All right, you win. You can have your bed in here.” It appeared that it was the only way I was going to get any sleep. Esmeralda seemed pitifully grateful when I opened the door. She circled the room while I brought her bed in and put it at the foot of mine. As she settled in for the night, I turned off the light and tried to put aside the thoughts scrambling through my mind. The same time last week I’d been in an entirely different job and apartment, my great-aunt Belle was still alive, and I hadn’t been around a cat for a dozen years. It was ironic that I’d been looking for a change in my life not all that long ago.
It was a perfect example of being careful what you wished for; it just might come true.
Chapter 11
I woke up the next morning with an anvil on my chest. At least that’s what it felt like to me. It took me a few seconds to realize that sometime during the night Esmeralda had moved from her bed to mine. Evidently the mattress had been too soft for her.
“Okay, rise and shine,” I said as I gently lifted her off me. There are ways to hold a cat, and then there are ways to lose a hand. Janie had taught me how to hold Mr. Fluffy, though he’d been indignant about the whole procedure. Sometime during the night Esmeralda had accepted me as a surrogate, so she appeared to put up with my clumsy movements. Any port in the storm, I guessed, even for a cat.
Esmeralda studied me as I got dressed and ate breakfast. I tried to offer her food, but she insisted on observing me instead of eating. I couldn’t imagine what she found all that fascinating.
I was still wondering what to do with her, whether to banish her to the bathroom or try to take her to the candle shop with me when there was a knock at my door. I opened it to find a sprightly little woman who immediately identified herself as Mrs. Quimby. She scooped Esmeralda up as the cat trotted over to her.
“Hello, princess,” she said to the cat before she had another word for me. “Heather asked me to collect her majesty, I hope you don’t mind. Esmeralda here is a fierce watch-cat for The New Age.” She made eye contact with me as she added, “My Herbert is deathly allergic, else the princess would have spent the night with me. Did you two get along all right?”
“We did fine,” I said. “Have you spoken to Heather this morning?”
“Oh my, yes. She knows I keep an insomniac’s hours, late to bed and early to rise. Honestly, I just don’t seem to sleep much anymore. Be happy for the hours of peaceful slumber you get, young man, they are a true gift from above.”
“How is her mother doing,” I asked.
“Much better. Heather’s hoping to be back here by tomorrow night.”
It appeared Esmeralda and I would be roomies for at least one more night then. “Good enough. Do you want to drop her off here after you close the shop? I’ve got some errands to run, but I should