How to terrify Miss Josie a few weeks before Halloween:
- Find an old bat decoration in the garden storage shed.
- Sneak outside (with the music from Mission Impossible playing in my head).
- While Miss Josie isn’t looking, hide the bat under a bush.
- Bark at it. Several times.
- Grab it and make her scream.
- Run around the yard with it in my mouth.
- Try not to laugh as she chases me with a broom.
Ah, such good times we had that afternoon. Who knew there were so many wondrous things in the small shed in the back garden? The bat was the main prize, but I found lots of other delightful and exciting objects as well. Dangerous chemicals. Sharp gardening tools. Fertilizer with the words “Hazardous if swallowed” written on the box. I consider these sorts of things a personal challenge. Hazardous if swallowed? Well, let’s see.
Miss Josie stopped me from trying it out, though. She immediately assessed the potential risk of the items in the shed and closed the door in my face. The only thing I managed to sink my teeth into was the bat, and acquiring it took a great deal of stealth and sneakiness.
It had been a long day. We’d gone outside right after Ms. Anne and Mrs. Steele left. The conversation with Cedric the Betrayer clearly disturbed her. She kept staring off into space with a hurt look in her eyes. Poor, sweet Miss Josie.
I honestly thought the bat trick might cheer her up and make her laugh. It did not. After we finished our merry chase through the garden, we headed straight to the basement of the shop and she picked out a bottle of red wine from a storage rack.
I had no idea there was a basement in the shop. It fascinated me. First, I’d discovered the shed (a Cave of Wonders), and now I got to see the basement (the Deep, Dark, Dungeon of Mystery). If I included the time spent at Misty Mountain and the not-so-delightful visit from Cedric, I had to admit today had positively teemed with adventure.
Miss Josie fed me dinner, grabbed a copy of The Complete Works of Jane Austen, and carried her bottle of wine outside. She poured a glass, and sat quietly for a long time, sipping on it. She’d changed into a comfy pair of yoga pants, and had on a thick, woolen cardigan to keep her warm. Although it was a mild evening for early October, a slight chill pierced the air. She was reading Pride and Prejudice, probably to make sure Mr. Nate didn’t lie about his progress. Fortunately, she read it aloud so I could enjoy it, too.
I snuggled close to her, hanging on every word. When she noticed my attentiveness, she gave me a warm smile. “A fellow Janeite, I see,” she said. “Do you know why I like Jane Austen, Capone?”
She wanted to discuss Jane Austen with me? This might be the best day of my life so far. I wagged my tail, hoping she’d continue. She did, patting my head as she spoke.
“In Jane Austen’s time there were rules. I like rules.”
Her words made me wag my tail even harder. I liked rules, too. We were obviously soulmates.
“Men were honorable. They followed a strict code of ethics.” She wrinkled up her nose. “Well, not Wickham, of course. He was pond scum.”
After her second glass of merlot, she spoke in a much louder voice, waving her arms around and sloshing drops of wine on my back, but I didn’t complain. Miss Josie could slosh me anytime.
“You know, Capone, I’m not the kind of girl who dates a married man,” she said. “I’m not the kind of girl who dates anyone at all.”
Acting on instinct, I placed my head on her lap and stared up at her with my big, puppy eyes. I wanted to psychically convey my sympathy to her, and it seemed to work. She lost the haunted look on her face and gifted me with another smile.
“I’ve never had a dog before, but I wish more people were like dogs. Dogs are simple. People are so much more complicated.”
I heard a noise on the other side of the wall near the wooden door. I sat up and sniffed. Recognizing the familiar scent of Mr. Nate, I wagged my tail, wondering why he didn’t say something. He could most certainly hear every word Miss Josie said, and it seemed weird.
Well, I guess the fact she held a private conversation with her dog while drinking an entire bottle of wine alone in her backyard might be the weird part. Mr. Nate listening in? Pretty minor in comparison.
“Take Nate over there at First Impressions Café.” She waved her wine glass in the general direction of the coffee shop. “He thinks I’m a real…”
She lowered her voice and said a word that rhymed with “witch.” I won’t repeat it. A gentleman does not curse.
Miss Josie took a deep breath and stared into the contents of her glass. “And he’s right. I haven’t been nice to him at all.” I licked her ankles, hoping to make her feel better. Oddly enough, it worked. “Thank you, boy. That feels kind of nice.”
Note to self: Miss Josie has a kinky side.
As I continued licking her ankles, she continued talking. It felt quite companionable, and I rather enjoyed it.
“I’m such an idiot. Cedric seemed perfect, but who falls for a man named Cedric? Not exactly the kind of name you want to scream out in a moment of passion.” She made her voice high pitched and nasal. “Oh, Cedric. Yes, Cedric.” She looked at me. “See what I mean? It’s awful. Yuck.”
I heard Mr. Nate stifle a chuckle on the other side of the door. I wanted to warn Miss Josie about our intrepid eavesdropper but couldn’t figure out how to do it. “Capone, what am I going to do? I miss Cedric. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. He understood me, and he understood books, and, other than the fact he was a lying jerk face and a married man, he treated me well. I realize it sounds pathetic, but how many men do you know who can quote Jane Austen and keep all the Brontë sisters straight?”
She slurred the last few words, and it came out kind of like, “slisters slaight,” which made no sense at all. Wow. She was toasted. And she continued to pour more wine.
“I thought he might be my Mr. Darcy, but he was not Darcy at all. He was…”
Mr. Wickham. He was your Mr. Wickham.
Curse my inability to speak even a single word of Human.
“You’re right,” she said, and I looked at her in surprise, since I hadn’t said anything. “I need to stop whining about my problems. Yes, I lost my parents, and it was hard, but it shouldn’t define me. They wouldn’t want me to live like this, all sad and alone. I have to force myself to get out more. Do you know sometimes it’s almost hard for me to leave the shop? I get stressed out even thinking about it, and I’m tired of feeling like this. I want to reconnect with my old friends. I also need to make new friends. And I think I should force myself to date as well. I haven’t been able to date since Cedric, but it might be the only way to fix this. I need to get over him and be the person I used to be before he broke my heart into a million tiny pieces.”
A little dramatic, but she wasn’t done yet. She was only warming up. She rose to her feet and stumbled around the yard, wine glass in hand, as she went through all the things she planned to change about her life.
“The next time Cedric comes here, insinuating I’ve stolen something from him, I’m going to say, ‘Get out of my shop now. You are a stinking…’” She paused, brows furrowed, as she tried to think of a good insult. Unable to come up with something powerful enough, she waved the hand not holding the wine. “I’ll think of something. It’ll be good, too. You’ll see. I’ll show him.”
She took another gulp of wine. Her sipping had turned to chugging at this point. I wondered if perhaps I should bring her a straw so she could drink it straight from the bottle.
“And I’m going to be nicer to Nate over there.” She pointed to the fence. “Yes, his customers are annoying, and yes, his fat pug pooped in front of my shop, but he seems like a nice guy. Cute, too. He might even be the most attractive man I’ve ever met. And he’s reading Pride and Prejudice, which does not seem like it’s in his wheelhouse at all, but he’s making an actual effort and it’s sweet. If only he would stop it with the coffee. It’s like coffee, coffee, coffee. All the time, coffee. Geesh. Enough already.”
Mr. Nate laughed, a muffled sound, but it made Miss Josie stiffen. “Did you hear a noise? Is someone there?’
She grabbed the key to the padlock, but couldn’t move fast in her inebriated state, so her run ended up being more of a drunken stumble. I ran beside her, barking the whole way. By the time she staggered to the door and unlocked it, Mr. Nate had already gone.
“Huh,” she said. “I could have sworn I heard something, but I think your barking scared them away. Maybe Anne was right. You are a good guard dog.”
After patting me on the head, she closed the door, locked the padlock, grabbed the now empty bottle, and headed back into the shop. “Come on, Capone. Time for night-night.”
I trotted along beside her, and she did something unexpected when we reached the back door. She crouched down, leaning against me, and hugged me tightly around my neck. A little awkward, and suffocating, but beautiful.
“Thank you, Capone. You were the friend I needed tonight.”
I didn’t even mind it when she locked me in my crate. I fell asleep, a smile on my face, a song in my heart, and Orange Snuggle Bunny tucked under my chin. For the first time since I joined Miss Josie, I felt like I’d genuinely come home.