Kiki Lowenstein Books 1-3 & Cara Mia Delgatto Books 1-3: The Perfect Series for Crafters, Pet Lovers, and Readers Who Like Upbeat Books!

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  When the coach dismissed the girls for the day, they raced over to us. Detweiler said, “I think a great practice like that deserves celebrating. How about some ice cream? Sheridan’s has outdoor seating. We can bring the dogs.”

  He didn’t have to ask twice. The girls jumped up and down with joy.

  “Sorry,” he said to me. “I should have asked your permission first.”

  “I’ll forgive you this time,” and I laughed.

  By the time we finished our ice cream, said goodbye to Detweiler, and returned to my house, the girls were nodding off, even though they hadn’t had any dinner. The exercise and the heat had tired them both out. They were hot, sweaty, and dust-covered.

  “Go take your showers while I make us dinner.” They came out scrubbed, sweet-smelling, and adorably wet behind the ears. I served them chicken and broccoli stir fry. All the food disappeared in record time, except for a cup and a half of rice that I’d turn into fried rice for another meal. After they ate, the girls settled onto the sofa where they fell fast asleep. I didn’t rouse them. Instead, I tucked a blanket around the two of them and went to bed myself. I’d nearly nodded off when Mert rang my cell phone.

  “I was on the horn with Ali for an hour.” Mert sounded weary. “Her mom still is unconscious, so she’s footing the bill for this clean up. I promised her if we found anything worth anything, we’d set it aside. She’s hoping to have an estate sale, thinking that might help offset what I’ll charge her.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can on Monday.”

  “See you,” she paused, “and thanks.”

  26

  Monday morning…

  After dropping Nicci off at her home and Anya at the Science Center, the dogs, Martin, and I drove to Time in a Bottle. Not surprisingly, I was the first person there. I let the pooches roam the store while I got the place ready for the day. My chores included straightening and restocking shelves, checking for messages, and dusting everything. When I finished that, I put the dogs in the playpen and mopped the sales floor.

  I had dumped a bucket of dirty water and put the mop away when I heard the back door slam. The off-key singing that followed announced Rebekkah had made it into work. She was, of course, an hour late, but that really wasn’t my problem.

  While she puttered around in her mother’s office, I got busy taking care of Martin. We had our routine down pat. He latched onto the rubber nipple eagerly. With very little fuss and muss, I was the proud owner of an empty baby bottle, and his sweet little tummy bulged like a small pink balloon. Next came the process of swabbing Martin’s nether parts with a damp cotton ball. He took it all in stride, but for one reason or another, I couldn’t achieve the desired end result. I dampened a second cotton ball and tried again. I was concentrating on stroking his kitty bits when I heard Rebekkah’s heavy footfall, so like her mother’s. However, I didn’t look up until she stood right in front of me. Us. Martin and me.

  Before my eyes, Rebekkah’s face changed from sullen to happy.

  “A kitten! Get out! He’s totally adorable. Where did you get him?”

  I explained how he’d landed on my head. Rebekkah watched as Martin finally gave in to my stroking and did his business. Instead of being grossed out, she volunteered to take a turn feeding and stimulating him.

  As a gesture of goodwill, I yielded Martin to her embrace. She cuddled the tiny fellow gently. I decided to take advantage of her good mood by taking the first step toward an improved relationship.

  “We need to talk. You and I have always gotten along. I’d like to go back to that. I know you aren’t happy. Is there anything I can do to make things better for you? I miss being your friend.”

  I held my breath and waited. Either she would recognize and respond to my sincerity or she’d get huffy, and we’d have a miserable day. For the longest time, she didn’t answer. When I’d almost concluded she wasn’t speaking to me, she glanced up from Martin, who was cuddled against her chest and purring.

  “I’m such a screw-up.” Her eyes, hazel like her mother’s, filled with tears. “I should have never left Missou. But I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t want to waste more of my parents’ money. I was worried about my mom.”

  Touching her arm, I said, “I don’t blame you. We’re all concerned about her health.”

  “I hate working here in the store. I hate it! I’m not good at crafts. I never have been, and it makes me angry how stupid I look when I can’t do stuff as good as you do.”

  “It’s not true that you aren’t good at crafts. You just don’t put much effort into them. But that’s not the real problem, is it?”

  The tears started to fall. I brought her a box of tissues, ran to the refrigerator and returned with a Diet Coke for her.

  “We’re two savvy people,” I said as I popped the tab on her cola. “We can’t do anything to help your mom, but we can brainstorm ideas for you, right? I mean, if you could do anything—anything at all—and you knew you couldn’t fail, what would that be?”

  “I dunno.” She sniffled.

  “You can do better than that.”

  “I like helping people. Not with crafts, although that’s all right, I guess. But I like talking to people. Hearing about their problems. Back at school, everyone called me ‘The Counselor’ because I was good at helping people sort things out.” Her laugh was rueful. “That’s such a crock because I can’t help myself.”

  “Tell me the last time you lost track of everything because what you were doing was so intriguing.”

  “My sorority volunteered to help out at Big Sisters. I worked with a little girl to help her with her reading. That was totally awesome.”

  From there we talked about more ways Rebekkah could get involved in charity work. That led us to her considering the field of social work. Next I helped her create a list of agencies whose directors I’d met through scrapbooking. “Why don’t you go on an informational interview with them? Use my name.”

  “What’s an informational interview?” she asked.

  It’s easy to forget how young someone is. Or what we know. We all take our body of knowledge for granted as if those facts and skills came with our genetic code. Of course, they didn’t. We acquired the information one piece at a time from this source and that, from this experience, and that overheard conversation, from watching other people struggle and succeed, and sometimes from watching others fail.

  I explained that she could ask her interviewees what they studied in college, what skills they use in their jobs, what skills they wish they had, what a typical day was like, and what challenges they could foresee coming down the pike for their industries or associations.

  “That makes sense. I could also ask them what they look for in a new hire.” Rebekkah stroked Martin’s back while she thought this over.

  “Yes, and remember, there are always changes on the horizon. A college education is a degree in learning, not an end-all and be-all. But I can tell you as someone who dropped out of school, I regret not having that degree every day of my life.”

  “Why? You do pretty well for yourself. You aren’t making the money a doctor or lawyer might, but I guess there are plenty of unemployed English majors. At least that’s what Garrison Keillor says.”

  “With a degree, you’ll earn $1.3 million more in your lifetime. Four years isn’t that big of an investment of time, and certainly the cost pays for itself. Besides that, a college degree gives a person confidence. When I was a kid, a high school diploma was the standard. Now it’s that four-year degree. While in some ways I know it’s silly, I look around when I’m at a gathering, and I think I’m probably the only person there who is uneducated. It puts a real crimp in my self-esteem. Let’s not debate whether it should or not. Just trust me on this.”

  27

  While Rebekkah called around to schedule her interviews, I made good on my promise to Detweiler by rounding up all of Marla Lever’s photos and scrapbook materials. Fortunately, that didn’t take long. Becaus
e we work with so many scrapbookers and their photos, we had developed a good system for keeping materials straight.

  Actually, one of our customers was the first to show me how she used new, clean, and empty pizza boxes for storing photos and papers. The boxes were labeled with the names of each scrapbooker so they could easily be seen when the containers were stacked in alphabetical order. Each box served as a miniature storage locker, holding photos, journals, paper supplies, and ephemera the scrapper planned to put in an album. This proved especially helpful for the “My Life Highlights” class I’d been teaching.

  Marla’s photos were pretty much as I remembered them. I studied the subjects and their spatial positions, a clue to people’s relationships. Marla’s husband always stood to the far outside edge of any photo, his body not touching hers or anyone else’s.

  Marla always appeared with her arms draped over her children’s shoulders. Ali and her brother Allen stood side-by-side, their faces nearly identical, with only their hairstyles making them distinctive. I hadn’t realized the brother and sister were twins, and they took after their mother.

  The other little Lever was the image of his dad, from his pointed nose to his round face and protruding ears. Anthony Lever stood on one foot, off-balance, posed mid-motion, his outline a bit blurred as if he hadn’t been completely still when the picture was snapped.

  This was one of the rare photos that Marla had narrated for me. “I always called him Anthony, not Tony. I hate how people slap nicknames on kids. My daughter is Allison, not Ali, and my son is Allen, not Al.”

  Inside the box was yet another artifact, a journal. Each scrapbooker had been encouraged to keep a diary for at least a month.

  From this, my students would cull one twenty-four-hour period and build a page called “A Day in My Life.” I pointed out that our lives change gradually, and we don’t notice our new habits as they take the place of old ones. But when you compare a day today to a day ten years ago, you can see how your life has evolved.

  Marla hadn’t finished her “A Day in My Life” page. Her pizza box labeled “Marla Lever #1” held the paper I’d selected for our class project, along with the embellishments we were working on, and of course, her photos. I flipped through Marla’s journal. Scribbling filled the pages. Much of the writing was too misshapen for me to decipher.

  Using one of the exercises I offered, Marla had written diligently about her routine, from getting up in the morning through her completed daily activities.

  A Day in the Life of Marla Lever

  6:30 a.m.—Wake up.

  7 a.m. − Defrosted ground meat in microwave. Mixed it with kibble. Put out in bowls.

  7:30 a.m. − Made my coffee. Grocery list: More cat litter. Kibble. Creamora.

  8 a.m. − Drove to Dierbergs. (Note: Car has funny rattle. Oil light is on--again.)

  9 a.m.− Back to house.

  9:30 a.m.− Visited (unintelligible).

  Noon − Home for lunch.

  1 p.m. − Checking out new resale shop and other sites.

  5 p.m. − Dinner at Wendy’s.

  7:15 p.m. − A. came over. Brought back Blackie and more cat food. He’ll do my lawn but his mower is broken. Thinks mine will work.

  Each day from then on looked the same.

  I assumed that A. was her son Allen. Otherwise she had no visitors; she lived a solitary life.

  Most people don’t keep a journal with any regularity. They find it too time-consuming. I do. There are ways to look back over your life, techniques I recommend in my classes. One is, “Locate your personal calendar or even your checkbook register for the past year. Those entries will tell you what you did, who you saw, and so on. If you have dates with no activity, go back and look at your credit card statement. Your statement not only records the dollar amount of your purchase, it can remind you what you bought. Of course, your buying habits will change as time goes on, but those purchases are clues as to what was happening in your life.”

  Some of my students had trouble coming up with any documents at all, but not Marla. She brought in her calendar from the past year, as well as calendars for many years back, her check register, and her credit card statements. She even had all her canceled checks and receipts. In fact, she astonished me and the rest of the class by bringing in a stack of papers clearly used as her “to do” lists. She had so much paper, I’d assigned a second pizza box to Marla just so she could keep it organized, which is why the box I now examined had been labeled “Marla Lever #1.” Right below it sat “Marla Lever #2.”

  Now I knew why she had been able to bring in all that junk. Marla’d never seen a piece of paper that she didn’t want to keep!

  Rummaging through the paperwork in Marla Lever #2, I noted a few of the receipts were for vet visits, going back several decades. Seems she’d owned at least one or two cats (maybe even three or four) for most of her life. Several notations on her calendars bore the message, “Call Devon − cat food!”

  Was her son-in-law supplying her with cat food? Did that qualify as aiding and abetting a hoarder? Or was he performing a humanitarian mission? Did his wife know and accept the fact he was trying to help? Or was that a sore spot in their marriage?

  The alarm chimed on my cell phone. I asked Rebekkah if she’d like a full explanation of how to play Mama Cat to Martin.

  “Do you do the same thing over and over?”

  “Every four hours. I’ll bring him up front so we’ll both be available if a customer drops in.” I stopped and thought a second. “Hey? Could you do me a favor? I’m working with Mert this afternoon over at Marla Lever’s house. Would you take care of Martin for me while I’m gone?”

  “Love to. Anytime you bring Martin in, I’m glad to help. You want me to drop him by your house after work? Then Gracie and Petunia could stay here, and I could take the dogs to your place later.”

  “Could you? That would be really helpful.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “That would be super. When you get to my place, please be sure to put Martin inside his cardboard cat carrier and then set it on my bed and close the door behind you. He needs to feel safe. I don’t want him to be frightened by Gracie and Tunie. I don’t think they would hurt him, but it’s better to be careful. Besides, we don’t want Martin to start being afraid of dogs. He’s had a hard enough life so far.”

  “No problem. Good thinking about keeping him in your bedroom with the door closed. I’ve heard you need to introduce a new pet slowly. They get upset about losing their status just like people do.”

  Hmmm. People losing their status. Was that what was happening between Bama and me? Probably. She and I had been at odds from the minute she first arrived. Maybe I needed to have a candid talk with her, too.

  I shuddered.

  The very thought of approaching Bama overwhelmed me. Baby steps. The best I could manage was baby steps. I’d made a good start with Rebekkah. My hours at the store would be much more pleasant if she and I got along better.

  “Hey, kiddo, how would you like to have dinner with us? With Anya and me? Sheila is dropping her off at six thirty. Do you want to stick around after you bring the animals to my house? Wait for Anya to get home, me to shower, and then eat with us?”

  “You sure? You’re bound to be tired from working in this heat,” Rebekkah said.

  “You’re right about that. It’s exhausting, and I will be stinky, dirty, tired, and starving. So I’ll definitely need to eat, and Anya will be thrilled to spend time with you.”

  “I’d love that.”

  Rebekkah had gone from sullen to sunny. Life was good.

  28

  Because Rebekkah was in such a good mood, she let me leave the store early and head over to Marla Lever’s house, where my co-workers had made remarkable progress. The overpowering stink had dissipated slightly, mainly because a lot of the animal waste had been dumped into big black garbage bags and taken to the Dumpster. Mert and Johnny had scooped up the many clumps scattered throughout t
he dwelling. “What a job that was. We used a snow shovel. Marla couldn’t keep up with all the poop her cats produced. Nobody could.”

  Was I ever glad that I’d missed out on that portion of the job!

  Stacks of newspapers awaited me in the living room. I tied them into bundles so I could toss them out the open window. When a dozen or so bundles piled up outside, I ran out of the house and carried my haul to the recycling bin. Half of the living room floor had been cleared using this technique. An hour into the work, and I was already exhausted. I told myself that besides putting money in my pocket, this job was burning mucho calories. I could eat whatever I wanted for dinner tonight. Too bad I couldn’t afford much besides a frozen pizza in my fridge.

  As I tied and toted, my mouth watered as I fantasized about a fresh pan of lasagna. When we stopped for lunch, I mentioned my pasta cravings to my co-workers while I chewed on my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

  “Too bad you didn’t grab one of them packages of ground meat yesterday,” said Mert, wolfing down a bologna and cheese. “They all went to waste. I wouldn’t trust them today.”

  “A frozen Stouffer’s dinner will do me just as well. I don’t really have a good lasagna recipe.”

  “I could find one for you,” Trudy said as she pulled out her iPhone and started playing with it. She’d daintily spooned out a diet yogurt as her meal. “A vegetarian one would be best. Fewer calories.”

  “Thanks…I think.”

  Trudy acted more like a teenager than a grown woman. She pulled the scrunchy out of her dark chestnut hair and shook it loose onto her shoulders, sending out a cloud of strawberry-scented perfume.

  While Mert did a slow survey of our progress, Johnny ate a thick meatloaf sandwich and Trudy entertained us with her new phone. Apple should have hired her as a spokesperson. That girl was crazy about her new toy.