by Ritter Ames
THE NEXT MORNING, KATE glanced up from her clipboard and pushed a swath of blonde hair behind her right ear. She surveyed the mountain of camping supplies stacked in the right half of the McKenzie garage, the side that was generally taken by Keith’s Jeep Cherokee. This had been hers and Meg’s weeklong effort, and now both family’s hiking, fishing and sleeping gear patiently waited on the cement floor, sharing space with the pegboard wall holding every gardening and repair tool the organization expert could figure out how to hang. The camping equipment was slated to be split up and loaded into her van and the Jeep. In a few hours, the McKenzie and Berman families would trek to the Weston, Vermont area cabin to spend a weekend in the semi-wild. She reminded herself to be excited about the opportunity to have this family-friendly trip and made one more checkmark before turning ask Meg, “I think we’ve corralled all the non-perishable stuff. Where do we stand?”
Her neighbor stood in the open doorway, the sunlight making her auburn curls a halo of fire as she ticked the completed items off with her fingers. “Okay, we have Gil and Keith armed with a shopping list and hunting down our big food supplies at the grocery store. We’ll grab the perishable stuff at the little market near the cabin. I told Gil to pick up my boys at mom’s and dad’s house on the way home. Your girls are at Keith’s parents, and we’ll trade them for whisker-face over there.” Meg pointed to the oversized, squash-faced, orange and gold mass of fur napping in a box originally slated for foodstuffs. “Is Robin-Hero aware he isn’t going?”
The cat looked up when his name was mentioned, then yawned so big his one green eye squeezed shut again and his long pink tongue curled lazily out like a long strip of bubblegum. Kate smiled and shook her head. “Nope, he doesn’t know it yet, but he’s headed for Chez Grandparents for the weekend.”
She wrote a note on the clipboard to remind herself to load the cookie dough from the freezer, then said, “Not that I want to change the subject, but how about your house guest?”
A brief storm passed over Meg’s face before she answered, “Mr. Pulitzer Prize Winner was still asleep when the guys left for the store. I took great pleasure in knocking loudly on the guest room door to tell him toast and oatmeal waited for him in the kitchen, and we’d all be leaving soon.”
“How late did they stay up last night?”
“I don’t know. I went to bed.” Meg’s mouth shot down at the corners. “Gil got up with me, but he was still downing coffee to wake up when Keith came by this morning to grab him and take the boys by my parents to say goodbye while the guys shopped.”
The cat kicked up his purr to diesel volumes and raised his chin. Meg bent down to scratch along his jawline. “You know your mother-in-law will have this fellow spoiled by the time we get home. Probably making him homemade anchovy treats already. And he’ll be napping in the big La-Z-Boy with George every afternoon.”
“As long as R-H isn’t pacing the house wondering why everyone abandoned him, I’m okay with spoiling the big guy,” Kate replied, kneeling to rub a finger between the feline’s pointed ears. He turned his smushed-up face toward her, and Kate felt her heart constrict a bit. When the one-eyed cat followed the girls home one evening in late spring and found a permanent home in the McKenzie household, he arrived a matted-up mess, undernourished, dehydrated, and in need of much TLC. Which the feline received after only a few reservations on Kate’s part. But the plucky furball proved his worth ten-times over when he helped Kate takedown a murderer.
Meg clapped. “R-H. I knew that Robin Hood name wouldn’t last.”
“Robin-Hero. The cat’s name is Robin-Hero,” Kate said, lifting the large cat from the box. “Yes, I abbreviate it sometimes, but it’s all your fault he has the hyphenated name anyway. Between him helping save me, and you giving me the Batgirl nickname, my twins couldn’t decide what to name him.” When he looked up at her, she touched her nose to his fuzzy pug-like one.
“Well, you certainly have changed from the ‘Oh No, We Don’t Need a Pet’ Katie we’ve all known and loved,” Meg said, crossing her arms.
Kate tossed Robin-Hero onto the backseat of the van and slid the side door closed extra hard. The van had been stolen that summer and wrecked. The repair shop did their best, but Kate found she still had to coax or bully the vehicle to do things it did easily before the joyride. “Grab that cat carrier off the shelf over there, and we’ll head for his weekend retreat. I’ll be back in a minute with his food and dishes.”
Minutes later the women were in the front seats of the van and pulling out of the cul-de-sac. Meg twisted around when they heard a meow. “Your cat isn’t in the back anymore.”
“No, he’s under my seat. Don’t worry, he’s fine.”
“O-kay.” Meg pulled a brochure out of the map holder in the passenger side door.
“I know that tone, Meg Berman. The cat isn’t a problem like this. We’re barely going out of the neighborhood. We could practically walk the cat there,” Kate argued. “The girls have already started asking when they can ride their bikes to see their grandparents.”
Meg took her time unfolding the brochure to create a large-scale map of the nearby national forest, and said, “I was sitting here being quiet. That’s all.”
“An extremely loud quiet.”
“Admit the cat has you wrapped around his overlarge paw. Nothing and no one else can convince you to so quickly break the rules as can your furry admirer.” Meg laughed and waved the map to flatten out some of the creases. Then she changed the subject, “Katie, you’re going to love the Green Mountain National Forest. I wish we’d been able to go earlier in the summer, but it’s still going to be great now. Trust me.”
“I trust we’ll have mosquitos.”
“You’ve been taking your B-complex, right?”
Kate squinted at her neighbor. “You guarantee that will keep biting insects from using me as their personal smorgasbord?”
“I have no scientific data to back up the claim, but the boys’ pediatrician says it works. If nothing else, the B-12 will help everyone from being cranky.” Meg grinned, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “It’s going to be perfect. Exactly the right thing to get everyone ready to start school again. We’ll hike and eat under the trees, with views of mountain majesties as the daily pick of the moment. Imagine breakfast looking at Mount Equinox every morning.”
Kate blew a wayward clump of blonde bangs from her eyes. “I think you have me confused with a Girl Scout.”
“But your parents—”
“My parents were nature fanatics, granted, but whenever they sat in the shade of a centuries-old tree the more likely reason was because they were chained to it while playing chicken with a developer’s bulldozer.” Kate slowed the van to a halt at a stop sign and turned to face her redheaded neighbor. “Mom and Pop lived for weeks up in the branches of threatened trees in the northwestern U.S., sure, as well as linked together with other environmentalists near the roots. But hiking and camping for pleasure was never a family pastime for us.”
A thump under the seat reminded the women they were not alone.
“Is there a reason you had me put the cat carrier in the back, but you didn’t bother to put the cat inside?” Meg pressed the point.
Kate felt a furry nudge at her ankle, and she reached down to push the cat’s head back before moving forward again into traffic. “Robin-Hero doesn’t like the carrier. It’s probably too small for him. He’s a big cat after all.”
“I’ve seen him inside it when Keith and Gil trucked him in for the follow-up visit to the vet.”
The driver’s seat wobbled again as the more-than-medium-sized cat wiggled out the back. He leaped gracefully onto the boot between the two front seats, and Kate scruffed the orange and gold fur atop the animal’s head. “He climbs into the carrier for Keith, but not for me. So, I’m taking it with us to give to Jane and George in case they need it handy while we’re camping.”
“You know the only reason he gets in for Keith, but not for y
ou, is because the cat knows you’re a pushover.”
Yeah, I kinda am, Kate thought.
As the van moved onto the grandparents’ street, the cat raised his face to look closer out the windshield. Kate scratched under his chin and bit her lip. “I think he knows something is up.”
“Yeah, he probably does.” Meg folded the map and slipped it under the visor, then pulled the big fellow into her lap and took over the head massages. The cat purring kicked up in volume.
Kate slowed as they neared the elder McKenzies’ neat ranch style home, then she pulled into the driveway and braked. The garage door slowly rose, and she could see George’s khaki-clad legs appear from the ankles and trend upward.
“You know calling this cat Robin-Hero is going to leave people thinking you mean Robin Hood,” Meg said.
“Oh, let them. The name was a compromise to settle an ongoing argument between Sam and Suze. If something brings peace between a couple of eight-year-old sisters’ squabbles, I’d agree to practically anything.”
Kate removed the key and opened her door. The cat leaped from Meg’s lap and into his owner’s arms. “Well, guess I’ll be carrying you in, huh, guy?” The cat’s diesel-volume purr was her answer.
Loaded down with the feline, Kate headed toward her father-in-law, now fully visible in the wide doorway, with Meg bringing up the rear.
“Hey, Robin, boy, how are you?” George called out and ruffled the cat’s fur. “But the girls keep reminding me you have that even longer name I’m supposed to get used to.”
“I take it you’ve heard the tale,” Kate said.
George McKenzie grinned. His eyes were so like his son’s that despite his shaggy gray brows Kate got an inkling of what Keith would look like in another thirty years.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “In great detail. Those girls could make marvelous lawyers with the amount of evidence they can funnel into a conversation.” He laughed and motioned the women toward the door into the house. “Jane’s in the kitchen helping the girls pack homemade trail mix for the campout. Go on in and grab some coffee and I’ll get Robin-Hero’s food and extras from the van.”
“Thanks, everything is in the back.”
The women headed inside. A smiling Jane McKenzie stood on one side of the work counter, slim hands in constant movement. Kate had noticed lately a few gray hairs touching her mother-in-law’s short, dark curly ’do, but no more than she had noticed in her own blonde bob. The two girls were on their knees perched on high stools on the other side of the counter from their grandmother. Between everyone stood plastic sacks partially filled with trail mix, along with a half-filled bowl and a handy scoop conveniently placed beside them. Kate’s blonde twins slipped off the stools and ran over as soon as they saw their mom.
“Look what we made!”
“Gramma taught us how!”
“We can survive for weeks in the woods!”
“But we have to have water too!”
Their blue eyes shined with enthusiasm, and Kate felt her heart swell a little.
Jane’s smile turned into clear laughter. “Girls, slow down. Let your mother get into the room for heaven’s sake.”
“Looks like everyone has been busy,” Kate said, setting the cat on the floor so she could hug each girl. She noticed the cat jumped onto the wide window sill near the table. Her mother-in-law kept a collection of bird feeders filled in the backyard. That spot would undoubtedly become a favorite cat perch for the weekend. Kate peered into the bowl on the counter. “What’s in here?”
“Homemade granola!” The girls chorused.
“Are these dried cherries, I see?”
Jane nodded. “And dried cranberries, too. We roasted the pecans, walnuts, and almonds. And George toasted the coconut for us earlier. We mixed everything with the grains I prepared yesterday and baked it all together. Now we’re loading it up.”
Samantha was so excited her blonde pigtails vibrated. “We’re scooping it into bags, so we can carry it in our backpacks when we hike.”
“First, we had to wait for it all to cool,” Suzanne added, the more precise twin of the pair. “If we packed it too soon, steam would have stayed in the plastic bags and made everything all mushy and moldy.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” Kate said, as Meg coughed to cover a laugh.
After a round of goodbye hugs, a few promises to be careful and have fun, and with the back floor of the van covered with goodie sacks full of granola, the women and the twins made their way home to the cul-de-sac. Keith’s Jeep Cherokee was backed up to the garage, and the vast pile of supplies they’d left was considerably reduced.
“You guys are wonderful!” Meg jumped out of the van and ran toward her men, with the twins jumping out and following her lead. “I’ll bet we can fit the rest of that in my Camry, and then I can drive instead our always using Kate’s van.”
Keith opened the driver’s side door and slipped an arm around Kate’s shoulders as they made their way more slowly inside. “Sounds like a plan. Katie always prefers riding to driving. Right, honey?”
“Absolutely,” Kate replied. “Especially since my van still isn’t one-hundred percent after its convalescence at the repair shop last month.”
As Meg left to get her car, and the Berman guys moved toward the remaining gear, Keith spoke into Kate’s ear, “Everything okay with the cat and...all?”
She looked up at his face and knew he was actually worried about her. The year had been a bit more traumatic than anyone expected. The van had just been the latest casualty. And while everyone else was looking forward to this as a relaxing getaway, Kate knew her husband realized she was moving out of anything resembling her personal comfort zone. “Everything is fine and everyone is fine,” she said, crossing her left middle and index fingers behind her back as she reached up with her right hand to pat the hand he rested on her shoulder. “I need to run inside and grab a couple of things from the kitchen. Be back in a sec.”
It took a few minutes to grab the oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies from the freezer that she’d made for the trip. With high protein, high fiber treats like the cookies and the trail mix Jane sent, the snacking side of things was well covered for the weekend. The daypack carrying her emergency supplies and first aid kit hung on the peg by the door, and she grabbed it on her way out.
Expecting everyone in the garage by the time she went back, Kate was surprised to find only Keith and the kids.
“Where’s Gil?”
“Dad went to find Mom,” Mark said, tossing a softball to his younger brother.
Kate raised a questioning brow at Keith, but he shrugged. She turned back to the kids. “Why don’t you all go out and play catch in the front yard until Meg gets here with the car.”
“Yeah! Let’s go,” Ben cried. Since he had the ball, the rest followed his lead, though older brother Mark did a little foot dragging along the way.
One good stride put Keith next to his wife. They watched the kids spread out across the small yard and take turns tossing it underhand. He asked, “What are you thinking?”
“That if Gil doesn’t grow up and take charge of their ‘guest,’ Meg may kill Paul Gaines before we can get him back to the forest,” she replied. The couple had talked the previous night after Kate got home, so Keith had a good idea about the tension growing in their neighbors’ home and marriage. She took another minute to brief him on the morning’s happenings, which made Keith start laughing. “
“Yep, Mount Meg is about to blow,” he said. “I’m surprised she didn’t dump cooked oatmeal on top of him when he was still in bed.”
Kate shook her head. “She’s too practical for that. Oatmeal makes too much of a mess. She would have used a pot of coffee.”
“Remind me never to make her mad at me.”
“You and me both, buster.”
Mark sent a long, slow toss toward Sam, and they watched as their tomboy twin backed up to catch the ball and blindly stepped off the curb.
“She
won’t cry, but I need to check on her,” Keith said, moving forward.
“Wait a second. Take this.” Kate tossed her daypack. “The first aid kit is in there in case she has a scrape. That asphalt is mean.”
He caught it one-handed and kept going. A second later he had Sam smiling and nodding as he used one of the anti-bacterial wipes on her right palm. When no bandage was pulled out, Kate let herself breathe again. She knew it hadn’t been any kind of a bad fall, but Sam was her baby and worrying is what a mom does. At that same moment, the Berman’s garage door rumbled open, and Meg backed out the Camry, staying in reverse as she moved into the McKenzie driveway.
The trunk popped up before Meg exited the car. When Kate saw the fury on her friend’s face, however, she contemplated climbing in and hiding until the storm passed.
“You would not believe what he was doing!” Meg’s voice was at a deadly quiet volume, her hands fisted on her hips as she stood next to Kate and fumed.
“You mean Paul?”
“Damned right I mean Paul!” Meg bit off each word as she spoke. Her right hand shot up to rub the back of her neck, a sign she was under extreme stress. “He was yelling—” She stopped, took a deep breath, then started speaking softly again, yet her tone seemed even heavier. “That idiot was calling a mob enforcer from my house. Can you imagine anything so stupid?”
Kate had to swallow hard before she could ask, “From your phone?”
“No. His cell. But he had the damned thing on speaker, and I heard the guy at the other end tell Paul he had his GPS pegged, and they were coming for him.”
“What did Paul do?”
“Kept yelling back!” Meg started pacing the garage. “I hollered for him to turn off his phone, and about then was when Gil walked in. I was screaming at Paul, and the mob guy was hollering on the phone, and Paul stood there with a stupid grin on his face, pointing to show that he was recording the whole thing. The guy is a nut!”
Meg finally stopped and leaned against the back of the Camry. As tears fell, Kate grabbed her friend in a hug.
