St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets

by Annie England Noblin

  “We’ll have to get her a bed and a water bowl if she’s going to come to work with you,” Florence replied.

  “She doesn’t have to,” I said quickly. “I just brought her today, because I’m not sure what to do with her while I’m gone.”

  “She can come,” Florence replied. “It’ll be nice to have a store mascot other than that awful hairless beast Eva calls a dog.”

  “Thanks,” I said, unable to hide my grin. “And I’m really sorry for being late. It won’t happen again.”

  “I know it won’t,” Florence said. “Would you like to come in a little later tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow my brother and father are bringing some of my belongings up from Seattle, but I can come in anytime on Saturday,” I said.

  “No worries,” Florence replied. “We’re having our annual sale on Saturday, but you’re probably not ready for that level of insanity. Besides, the girls always come in and help me during that time.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “I can come in if you need me to.”

  “We’ll just play the first couple of weeks by ear,” Florence replied. “Now, why don’t I give you a little tour and introduce you to our merchandise?”

  “Okay,” I said. “That would be great.” I followed Florence over to the wall of yarn I’d been admiring the night before.

  “We have all different kinds of yarn. They’re separated by weight,” Florence said. “The weight and type of yarn are on the cards next to the yarn, so it won’t be too confusing for you to find what a customer needs.”

  “Oh great,” I replied, inspecting one of the cards.

  “Now, the lace here on top is a zero in weight,” Florence continued. “You might use it to knit a doily or something like that. Then at the bottom, you’ve got your weights five and six, which are the bulkiest yarns. You could use it for a thick scarf or a throw.”

  I squinted at the yarn.

  “You’ve got your wool, your mohair, your cotton,” Florence said. “And of course angora, alpaca, silk, nylon, and polyester.”

  “I’m glad you have the labels,” I said. “It would take me forever to memorize it all.”

  “Once you learn it by touch,” Florence replied, “you won’t need the labels. It’ll come more quickly than you expect, I promise.”

  “Because Annabelle was good at it?” I asked.

  “Oh, goddess, no,” Florence said. “Your mother was terrible at remembering the names. She’d just say something like, ‘I need that yarn, you know, the one made from the animal that looks like the llama.’”

  “Alpaca?”

  “That’s the one,” Florence said, laughing. “All she had to do was look at the ball band. Even if we didn’t have little signs, the ball band tells you everything you need to know, including the fiber content, weight, amount, care instructions, suggested needle size, gauge, and dye-lot number.”

  “I’ll do my best not to screw it up,” I said.

  “You were a reporter before this, right?” Florence asked. “Working here should be a piece of cake.”

  “I was a sportswriter,” I replied. “And I wasn’t particularly good at it.”

  “Well,” Florence said. “What are you good at?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “What’s your passion, then?”

  I shrugged.

  “You don’t have a passion?” Florence asked me, slightly stunned. “Everyone has a passion, Maeve.”

  “Is this shop your passion?” I asked.

  “One of them,” Florence said.

  “My degree is in English literature,” I said. “English is about the only thing I’ve ever been any good at. My mother wanted me to be a lawyer like her best friend’s daughter, but I’m not . . . controlled enough for that.”

  “Your passions don’t have to be limited to what you’ve accomplished in school,” Florence replied. “When you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

  “I wanted to be a raptor,” I said.

  Florence coughed. “You mean the dinosaur?”

  I nodded. “In the first grade, we had to draw a picture in art class of what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I drew a raptor first. Then I looked around the room, and everybody was drawing normal things like doctors and teachers, so I copied off the boy next to me and drew my raptor with a stethoscope.”

  At that Florence burst out laughing. She laughed until she had tears running down her cheeks, and I had to offer her a tissue.

  “That’s wonderful,” she said at last. “Simply wonderful.”

  “I’ve never been very practical,” I muttered.

  “Thank goddess for that,” Florence said, giving my arm a squeeze.

  She led me past the front part of the store down a small hallway to the left. “Back this way there’s a small meeting room,” she said. “I rent it out for special occasions, but mostly people use it for their own knitting clubs. The Girl Scouts use it once a month and so does the Catholic Ladies Society.”

  “I didn’t realize knitting was so popular,” I said.

  “You’d be surprised,” Florence replied. “But they don’t all use it for knitting. If they do, the room is free. If not, I charge them twenty-five dollars.”

  “That’s cheap,” I said. “I can’t think of a single place in Seattle you could rent for less than a few hundred.”

  “This isn’t Seattle,” Florence said with a wink. “Besides, I don’t care a wit about the money, and people sure do appreciate having a place to go.”

  “I bet.”

  “Most of these groups meet at night,” Florence continued. “From four o’clock until about seven o’clock. I’d like for you to work some evenings during those meetings. Would that be all right with you?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’m happy to work anytime you need me.”

  “Wonderful,” Florence said. “Alice used to come and help me, but she hasn’t been able to help as much.”

  “How come?” I asked.

  “That old house,” Florence replied with a sigh. “She refuses to let it go. She spends every dime she has on fixing it up, but the problem is that there is always something that needs to be done.”

  “Why does she care about the house so much?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t asking too many questions.

  Florence shook her head and then seemed to spend a few seconds deciding whether or not it was safe to tell me. “It’s all she has left,” she said at last. “Of any of them.”

  “That’s so sad,” I replied.

  “It is,” Florence agreed.

  I could tell there was something Florence wasn’t telling me. I wanted so badly to ask what it was, but the door chime rang, signaling a customer. A look of relief passed across Florence’s face that was so brief, I almost didn’t recognize it.

  “We better go see who that is,” Florence said.

  We hurried up to the front in time to see Harriett stroll through the door, followed by a somber-looking Max.

  Florence looked down at her watch. “What on earth?” she asked. “Max, shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “Guess who went and got herself suspended?” Harriett broke in, glancing over at Max disapprovingly. Then she took Max’s chin in one of her hands and said, “Look! Just look at that split lip!”

  “What?” Florence gasped. “Max, you didn’t.”

  Max ignored the two older women and dropped her bag on the floor. “Whose dog?” she asked.

  It took me a moment to realize that I should be the one answering. “Oh, mine, I guess. She’s mine.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Happy.”

  “She does seem pretty happy.”

  “Max,” Harriett broke in. “What do you think your father is going to say when he gets here?”

  Max shrugged. “Where is he? Why couldn’t he come pick me up?”

  “Because he’s building a fence,” Harriett replied. “You know that as well as I do, and it seems to me you’
d already thought of that before you managed to get into a fistfight with a girl nearly four years older than you.”

  “What?” Florence gasped. “Maxine! You’re lucky they didn’t expel you altogether. This is the third fight this year.”

  I looked down at Maxine, who was now on the floor cuddling with Happy. She didn’t look like the kind of kid who fought all the time. She looked more like a kid who wore too much eyeliner and dyed her hair jet-black when she felt sad. I guess, in some small way, she reminded me of myself when I’d been her age.

  Harriett opened her mouth to continue her scolding, but I cut in and said, “I need to take Happy out to do her business. Max, do you want to come with me?”

  Max looked up at me, on her face surprise and distrust.

  “You can stay inside if you want,” I said to her, slipping Happy’s harness over her head and hooking it up to the leash. “I’m sure Harriett and Florence have more to say.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Max replied, jumping up. “Thanks.”

  Once we got outside, I handed the leash over to Max and let Happy guide us around to a grassy spot across the street from the shop. The two of us watched her sniff at the ground, moving every so often to inspect a new smell.

  Finally, after nearly ten minutes of silence, Max said, “I haven’t gotten into three fights this year, you know. There have only been two. The other time I was just there when two other girls got into it.”

  “Two is still a lot,” I replied. “I mean, it’s only September.”

  Max shrugged and handed me back Happy’s leash.

  “What were they about?” I ventured. “The two fights?”

  “Breanna Holland is a bitch,” Max replied bitterly.

  “I don’t know her,” I said. “But I’ll take your word for it.”

  “She’s the worst,” Max continued. “She . . . she told everyone that she hooked up with my boyfriend last weekend at a party.”

  “Did she?”

  Max’s face clouded over and she looked down at her feet.

  “Have you asked your boyfriend about it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  Max looked up at me, and her eyes filled with tears. I led her over to a bench in front of the store. Happy settled herself down at our feet.

  “Look,” I said. “I’m literally the last person in the world who ought to be giving relationship advice, but I do know a thing or two about cheating boyfriends.”

  “You do?” Max sniffed.

  I nodded and pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened the YouTube app. “I’m going to show you something, but you have to promise not to show anybody else, okay? I don’t generally enjoy people knowing what an idiot I’ve been.”

  Max finally said, “Okay.”

  I found the clip, which was now one of the most watched videos in Seattle, and handed it to her. “That guy,” I said, “was my boyfriend when this video was taken. That woman he’s with? She’s a reporter we both know.”

  Max watched the whole thing through and then started it over again, and I had to look away, at anything else, to keep myself from feeling ashamed and angry all over again.

  When she was done with the video, Max said, “Wow.”

  “Yup,” I replied. “I found out my boyfriend was cheating on me the same way everybody else found out—videographic evidence.”

  “What did you do?” Max asked. She handed the phone back to me. “I would have died of embarrassment.”

  “I considered it,” I replied. “I also considered breaking into her apartment in the middle of the night and bleaching all of her clothes.”

  Max giggled. “I wish I’d thought of that.”

  “But you know,” I continued. “At the end of the day, she wasn’t who I should have blamed. She hadn’t been the one to hurt me. She didn’t owe me anything. The person I should have been upset with was my boyfriend. He’d been the one to break a promise.”

  “But she knew he was your boyfriend,” Max replied. “Just like Breanna knows that August is my boyfriend.”

  “I’m not saying that what Breanna did was okay,” I replied. “It’s not okay.”

  Max sighed. “My dad is going to ground me for the rest of my life,” she said.

  “Probably not the rest of your life,” I replied.

  “You know what?” Max asked, looking up at me. “Breanna can have him. He’s a terrible kisser. I can’t believe she was even bragging about it.”

  I grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

  Abel’s Jeep rounded the corner, and even from where we were sitting, I could see his stern expression.

  “Here we go,” Max mumbled. “Let’s go back inside.”

  We stood up, and I led a wiggling Happy toward the door. Her name sure did suit her. I couldn’t help but smile at her genuine excitement over every little thing. It was quite the contrast to the somber expression Max was wearing, and I didn’t expect it was going to be any better once we were inside.

  Abel pulled into a parking space a few shops down, and I watched him get out of the Jeep. I couldn’t help it. He was so good-looking. All that dark hair, his dark eyes, arms full of tattoos. It really was like I was watching a real-life Paul Bunyan, and I was just waiting for Babe the blue ox to appear.

  Abel caught my gaze as I opened the door to the shop, and for a moment, his expression softened.

  “Maeve?”

  I tore my eyes away from Abel and looked over at Max. “Yeah?”

  “Do you have a thing for my dad?”

  “What?” I asked, startled. “No. There’s no thing. I don’t have a thing.”

  “Okay,” Max said serenely, a small smile playing at her lips. “Whatever you say.”

  Chapter 24

  BY THE TIME I GOT HOME FROM THE KNITTING SHOP, I was exhausted. Florence had insisted on making me stay to have another lesson, and I’d learned casting on and the knit stitch, and surprisingly, I didn’t have much trouble getting started this time around. Florence sent me home with yarn, even though I told her there was more than enough where I was going.

  “This is your yarn,” she’d said. “Keep it by your bed. Practice the stitch before you go to sleep.”

  So, instead of taking a shower or reading another chapter in Abel’s book, I climbed into bed and tried to remember what I’d learned. It got easier each time I attempted a stitch. By the time my eyes started to burn, and I was ready to sleep, I’d finished nearly half the ball. I fell asleep sitting up with the knitting needles still clutched between my fingers.

  * * *

  I awoke the next morning to Happy’s insistent barking. The dog sat at the foot of the bed, woofing up at me. I opened one eye and rolled over to stare down at the offending animal.

  “What?”

  Happy jumped up, putting two paws on the side of the bed. She licked my face, covering it in one swipe, and woofed again.

  Next to me, Sherbet yawned and sat up. After a few moments of licking himself, Sherbet jumped up on my chest, knocking all the wind out of me, and then over Happy and onto the floor. The two trotted off into the living room, and I groaned, wondering if I could just roll off the bed rather than having to sit up. My head still felt as fuzzy as it had the night before.

  From the living room, Happy’s barking continued. It was so loud I almost didn’t notice the impatient knocking on the front door. I shot up, remembering that my brother was supposed to be there that morning. I’d set an alarm, hadn’t I? Surely I hadn’t slept through it. I picked up my phone and looked at the display, cursing when I realized it was nearly ten a.m.

  “I’m coming!” I yelled to the door, hopping out of bed and wrapping the comforter around me in the chilly morning air. I made a mental note to buy a space heater before the day was out. I’d turned up the heat the night before, but it hadn’t seemed to make a dent. The bed had been so warm with Sherbet and Happy in it with me, I hadn’t noticed the cold until someone was rudely pounding on the door.


  I yanked open the door, and Holly was standing there, in one hand the largest energy drink I’d ever seen in my life.

  “This is for you,” she said. “I figure you’re gonna need it. I’ve already had two.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, reaching out to hug her. My irritation vanished, and I pulled her inside. Eli followed on her heels. “Where’s Dad?”

  “Dad had some kind of retirement party for a buddy today that he forgot about,” Eli said. “I called Holly last minute.”

  “And you know me,” Holly said, plopping down on the couch. “I’m a sucker for this town, apparently.” She looked around the living room. “Nice place.”

  Sherbet headed straight back for the bedroom with a hiss, but Happy wiggled her way in between us, immediately rolling over on her back in the hope of a few tummy rubs.

  “What is this?” Holly asked, half-horrified and half-amused. “You have a dog now?”

  “And a cat too,” I said.

  Eli and Holly shared a look and then burst out laughing. In less than two seconds flat, they were both on the floor giving Happy the attention she’d been begging for, and I left them there to take a shower. When I emerged from the bathroom half an hour later, Happy was sitting between them, and I could hear Sherbet meowing pitifully from the bedroom.

  “Your cat doesn’t like me,” Holly said. “I tried to pet him, and he ran away.”

  “It’s been a big week for him,” I said, dabbing at my damp hair with a towel. “There’s already one stranger living in his house, and now there are two more just hanging out.”

  “So the cat was . . .”

  “Annabelle’s,” I finished. “Yep.”

  “What about the dog?” Eli asked.

  “Some guy tied her to the front porch.”

  They both stared at me.

  “I guess Annabelle used to take in a lot of strays,” I said. “I told this guy I couldn’t take her, and two days later, she was tied to the porch.”

  “Her neck looks like it hurts,” Eli said, inspecting the wound on Happy’s neck. “Is she all right?”