answer to Hamlet’s cryptic clues. And maybe by then Reese would have learned something of value from Tera’s cell phone records and messages.
Which reminded her that she still had that piece of plastic in her corduroys that she needed to give to Reese.
Which also reminded her that, despite all the unpleasantness of the past few days, at least she’d had a very pleasant meal with a very pleasant man.
She smiled to herself in the darkness. The proverbial sterling lining to the cumulonimbus, as James would put it. For the dinner with Barry had been fun, and she was looking forward to a second time out with him. She suspected that he was looking forward to it, too. And she could even overlook the slightly underhanded way he’d managed to get her cell phone number.
Of course, the big question was, did he like cats . . . and more important, would Hamlet like him? She couldn’t recall seeing the two of them in the same room together, and so the feline’s opinion of the man was an unknown at this point. But she rather suspected the two would get along well enough.
After all, if the persnickety Hamlet could become BFFs with a goth teen, then anything was possible.
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU’VE NEVER HAD BISCUITS AND GRAVY FOR breakfast before? What kind of uncivilized place is New York, anyway?”
Smiling, Darla set down a basket of fluffy biscuits in front of Robert, followed by a bowl of white sausage gravy, and then sat beside him. They were upstairs in the bookstore lounge, which up until a few minutes ago had been Robert’s temporary sleeping quarters. Today, he was wearing what she could only term a mod black turtleneck over his fashionably skinny black jeans. He’d tied the look together with yet another vest, this one made of some shiny silver fabric with a distinctly futuristic vibe to it.
By the time she’d come upstairs, he was folding the blanket that normally was tucked beneath the oversized coffee table that anchored the sofa with a pair of wingbacks. The coffee table served equally well as a dining table, which was a good thing, since Darla had decided to indulge her inner country cook that morning and go with the works.
First, however, she’d had to feed Hamlet, who had been sitting in her kitchen as usual, awaiting his kibble and fresh water. Apparently, his teen-sitting duties extended only through nighttime hours. While he crunched away at his breakfast, Darla gave him a few “atta kitties” for watching out for Robert overnight. And, to make up for the shrimp she’d not brought home for him from the Greek place, she’d cooked a small chunk of thick-sliced maple bacon just for him. Hamlet had finished off the crispy slab in a couple of appreciative bites and favored her with a meow of enjoyment in return.
At nine on the dot, as promised, she’d made her way down to the shop carrying the essentials of a good southern breakfast. In addition to the biscuits and gravy, she’d scrambled a few eggs, which she topped with cheddar, and cooked several slabs of the same kind of bacon that Hamlet had just enjoyed. To counteract all the heart-clogging grease, she had also carried down a carton of orange juice, all packed into an old picnic basket of Great-Aunt Dee’s. The coffee was already taken care of, as she’d recently splurged on one of those single-cup brewers and installed it in the lounge.
Now, Robert picked up a biscuit and stared at it in bemusement. “Don’t you have any, like, grape jelly?”
“Jelly is for toast. No, no, don’t dunk it like a donut!” she exclaimed as he attempted to dip the biscuit into the gravy bowl. Picking up a biscuit of her own, she went on, “Hold your horses, and I’ll show you how to do this right.”
Though, of course, doing it right meant you also needed to follow said breakfast with a five-mile run so as to unclog any arteries that had become dangerously plugged up during the course of the meal.
“First, you tear the biscuit into little pieces that you put on your plate. Or, if you want to be formal about it”—she paused and grabbed a second biscuit—“you can slice it like a muffin and put both halves like so,” she explained, arranging top and bottom alongside each other to form a flaky figure eight. “Now take your gravy and pour it over the biscuits. And I don’t