Wynn seemed reluctant to end the conversation. “Katherine.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. Hearing my father’s message after such a lovely evening put a damper on my Christmas.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Have fun today.”
“You, too.” She closed her cell and set it back in her purse. Her step seemed to have an extra bounce as she hurried to meet her friends.
Chapter Ten
Saturday afternoon, just back from shopping, K.O. stopped at LaVonne’s condo. She rang the doorbell and waited. It took her neighbor an unusually long time to answer; when she did, LaVonne looked dreadful. Her hair was disheveled, and she’d obviously been napping—with at least one cat curled up next to her, since her dark-red sweatshirt was covered in cat hair.
“Why the gloomy face?” K.O. asked. “It’s almost Christmas.”
“I know,” her friend lamented.
“Well, cheer up. I have great news.”
“You’d better come inside,” LaVonne said without any real enthusiasm. She gestured toward the sofa, although it seemed to require all the energy she possessed just to lift her arm. “Sit down if you want.”
“Wouldn’t you like to hear my good news?”
LaVonne shrugged her shoulders. “I guess.”
“It has to do with you.”
“Me?”
“Yup. I met Vickie and Diane at Pacific Place, and we had lunch at this wonderful Italian restaurant.”
LaVonne sat across from her, and Martin automatically jumped into her lap. Tom got up on the chair, too, and leisurely stretched out across the arm. She petted both cats with equal fondness.
“I ordered the minestrone soup,” K.O. went on to tell her, maintaining her exuberance. “That was when it happened.” She’d worked out this plan on her way home, inspired by Wynn’s joke about the olives.
“What?”
“I had a psychic impression. Isn’t that what you call it? Right there with my two friends in the middle of an Italian restaurant.” She paused. “It had to do with romance.”
“Really?” LaVonne perked up, but only a little.
“It was in the soup.”
“The veggies?”
“No, the crackers,” K.O. said and hoped she wasn’t carrying this too far. “I crumbled them in the soup and—”
“What did you see?” Then, before K.O. could answer, LaVonne held out one hand. “No, don’t tell me, let me guess. It’s about you and Wynn,” her neighbor said. “It must be.”
“No...no. Remember how you told me you don’t have the sight when it comes to yourself? Well, apparently I don’t, either.”
LaVonne looked up from petting her two cats. Her gaze narrowed. “What did you see, then?”
“Like I said, it was about you,” K.O. said, doing her best to sound excited. “You’re going to meet the man of your dreams.”
“I am?” She took a moment to consider this before her shoulders drooped once more.
“Yes, you! I saw it plain as anything.”
“Human or feline?” LaVonne asked in a skeptical voice.
“Human,” K.O. announced triumphantly.
“When?”
“The crackers didn’t say exactly, but I felt it must be soon.” K.O. didn’t want to tell LaVonne too much, otherwise she’d ruin the whole thing. If she went overboard on the details, her friend would suspect K.O. was setting her up. She needed to be vague, but still implant the idea.
“I haven’t left my condo all day,” LaVonne mumbled, “and I don’t plan to go out anytime in the near future. In fact, the way I feel right now, I’m going to be holed up in here all winter.”
“You’re overreacting.”
Her neighbor studied her closely. “Katherine, you really saw something in the soup?”
“I did.” Nothing psychic, but she wasn’t admitting that. She’d seen elbow macaroni and kidney beans and, of course, the cracker crumbs.
“But you didn’t take the class. How were you able to discover your psychic powers if you weren’t there to hear the lecture from Madam Ozma?” she wanted to know.
K.O. crossed her fingers behind her back. “It must’ve rubbed off from spending all that time with you.”
“You think so?” LaVonne asked hopefully.
“Sure.” K.O. was beginning to feel bad about misleading her friend. She’d hoped to mention the invitation for Monday night, but it would be too obvious if she did so now.
“There might be something to it,” LaVonne said, smiling for the first time. “You never know.”
“True...one never knows.”
“Look what happened with you and Wynn,” LaVonne said with a glimmer of excitement. “The minute I saw those two raisins gravitate toward each other, I knew it held meaning.”
“I could see that in the crackers, too.”
This was beginning to sound like a church revival meeting. Any minute, she thought, LaVonne might stand up and shout Yes, I believe!
“Then Wynn met you,” she burbled on, “and the instant he did, I saw the look in his eyes.”