The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas Read Online Free PDF Page B

counter between two little girls, each gripping one of her hands as if she were a maypole. Identical twins, the girls looked to be about six years old, the age Christy would have been if she’d lived. I had a momentary hardening of veins and muscles and lungs, an involuntary blend of rage and yearning and jealousy that this woman had two children and I had none.
    The sandwich man said, “Looks like you need something to carry all that in.”
    While I forced myself back to sensibility, he went to some other part of the store and came back with a neat cardboard tray big enough for sandwich cartons, tartlet cartons, and chips, with cutouts for the two coffees.
    I thanked him profusely, smiled at the cute little girls, and carried the tray to the Bronco filled with admiration for the unsung people who recognize homely needs and fill them with clever inventions like carry-out trays.
    It’s only a quick scoot from Morton’s across the bridge and around to Siesta Beach. As I carried the clever cardboard tray and its goodies up the steps to the pavilion area, I realized that I didn’t really expect Briana to meet me there. She might be crazy, but she would expect me to be smart enough to alert the sheriff’s department about our meeting. Even if she had figured out that I was dumb enough not to call them, she would have realized by now that she had mistaken Cupcake’s cat sitter for a person with his importance and power. She would know I couldn’t do a thing for her.
    Realizing that was a big relief. I could relax under the shade of the pavilion roof and have breakfast in solitude. I would eat one of the turkey sandwiches and drink one of the coffees, and if I wanted more coffee I could drink Briana’s. I would eat my tartlet and save the other for later. And when I left, I would offer Briana’s sandwich and chips to some young person who looked hungry and broke. I was not only going to enjoy a meal at the beach, I would have the pleasure of giving away food. I was Lady Bountiful in cat-hairy shorts.
    A woman at one of the tables waved to me. I stopped with the little cardboard tray clutched close to my chest and peered at her. She had removed the scarf from around her head and stuffed all her red hair up under a big floppy white hat. She still wore the huge dark shades, and her lips were still bright red. She stood up and walked toward me. She moved with that sharp-shouldered, flat-assed, pointy-toed, pelvic-bone thrust that runway models use. Anybody watching her walk would know her purpose in life was to make very expensive clothes look tantalizingly desirable to very rich women.
    I never felt so dowdy and fleshy in my life.
    I frowned sternly at her. “Sit down! Don’t attract attention.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry!”
    She stylishly scurried back to her table while I clumped after her with my stupid cardboard tray pressed against my low-class bosom.
    She didn’t even look around for law enforcement officers when I sat down across from her. She was either the most naive woman in the world or so arrogantly sure of herself that she assumed I wouldn’t have given her away.
    I said, “I brought you a sandwich and coffee.”
    Her red lips pursed as if she had to think about what to say. “I suppose I should eat.”
    I nodded vigorously and handed over her sandwich.
    “Look, I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by talking to me, but you have to know you’re going to be arrested.”
    Her hand was fish-belly white, with long boneless fingers. Her red nails picked at the wrapper on the sandwich and peeled it away as delicately as a cat separating what it will eat from what it disdains.
    She said, “I don’t think Cupcake will have me arrested. He’s too sweet to want me in jail.”
    I whipped the wrapper off my own sandwich and took a big bite. I chewed slowly, looking at her as if she were a skinny white shark that had just washed up on the beach.
    I swallowed. I took a swig of coffee. She was still uncovering the