He approached gingerly. A flight of wooden steps led up to an enormous wicker furniture-bestrewn wraparound porch. Every chair on it sported a fat and flowery cushion.
It looked so thoroughly girly, he wouldn’t be surprised if he was required to check his testicles at the door. The way you took off your shoes before you entered a Buddhist temple.
He made for the steps like a pole vaulter and took them two at a time.
Which was how he nearly crashed into a great, dangling wind chime. He gave it a startled swat. It retaliated by swinging at him like nunchucks.
He dodged and feinted nimbly just in time, before it took out an eye.
His black belt in karate came in useful at the damnedest times.
The chimes were still clanging together, as were his nerves, as he turned the knob on the door.
The first breath he took inside told him instantly how Dorothy felt in that field of poppies inThe Wizard of Oz. Only instead of poppies it was potpourri. And he would lie right down here on the purple carpet and die if he was forced to breathe it longer than necessary.
He looked around grimly. The glossy mauve walls terminated in a pale blue ceiling painted in big, creamy clouds. Everywhere his eyes fell, cherubs of one kind or another gazed lovingly back at him from framed prints on the wall, their chubby cheeks perched on their clasped hands, or their little wings outspread as they cavorted through rosy skies, or from the tops of little gewgaw boxes.
And every imaginable depiction of an angel—ceramic, glass, wood, animal, stone, abstract, medieval, Art Nouveau—lined rows of shelves along the walls. It was the UN of angels.
If this was heaven, he really hoped hell had a better decorator.
As if the budget had all been spent on the interior, there wasn’t a single superfluous thing about the woman behind the counter, from her haircut (no-nonsense) to her sweatshirt (gray) to her figure (solid) to the reading glasses perched on her nose. One hand was flipping through a ledger, another hand was tapping away at an old adding machine, and her eyes were darting between it and her cell phone lying on the counter next to a big brass bell that said “Ring for Help.”
If only there was a big brass bell just like that for every occasion in life that warranted it, he thought.
She was about the same age as the motherly woman at the Misty Cat, and her hair color, the only flamboyant thing about her, was the same flame red. Either they were related or that particular color was on sale at Costco last week.
She glanced up.
She froze in place, one hand on the adding machine, the other on her ledger.
Then she whipped off her reading glasses as if they might be causing her to hallucinate.
She stared a moment longer, then a bemused smile spread all over her face.
“Well, what lucky wind blewyouoff course, hon? Need a room? A wife?” She gave her lashes an exaggerated flap.
He perked up. He did enjoy a big personality. And he could field that line like Babe Ruth.
“Well, that all depends”—he paused for effect—“on whetheryou’resingle.”
“Let me just pack a bag and write a farewell note to my husband.”
“Okay, but hurry it on up. Just think of all the time we’ve wasted up until now.”
She clapped a hand over her heart as if Cupid had pierced it then and there.
He grinned. One magazine article had described him as an “Olympic-caliber flirt” and he’d considered it an honor. There was nothing to it, really. You had to like women. A lot. And they had to like you. A lot.
Her cell phone chirped an incoming text and she reflexively flicked her eyes down.
She went absolutely motionless again.
Her eyebrows dove into a puzzled frown.
She jammed her reading glasses back onto her face.
She remained absolutely still.