Page 46 of Blame it on the Bet
“The Knitty. Kitty.” She repeats it slowly, as if I’m dim. “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
She groans in exasperation. Clearly, I’m getting under her skin.
Excellent.
“How can you not have heard of this?” she demands. “The story’s been in like a hundred magazines and papers. Kathie Lee and Hoda even came out here to do a news piece on it.”
“Um, okay, I’m not sure which I’m more confused by, ‘The Knitty Kitty’ or ‘Kathie Lee and Hoda,’” I admit and am treated to more of her tinkly-bell laughter.
“It’s a business run by a woman named Julie Freddino. About five years back, there were those terrible storms down south. Lots of flooding, thousands of people displaced from their houses. Mayhem was one of several towns all over the country that worked with the Humane Society and the ASPCA to adopt stray, lost, and abandoned cats. We must have had at least thirty in all.”
“Wow, that’s impressive,” I murmur.
“Only problem was that it was one of the coldest winters on record and several of those Southern cats were of the shorthair variety. Julie had taken one of them in, and she knitted a sweater to keep it from shivering all the time. After that, everyone with a cat wanted a sweater. Word got out, and she was taking orders from all over the state. Now she’s a dot com millionaire, selling cat sweaters all over the world.”
“The Knitty Kitty,” I repeat, awestruck and shaking my head.“Amazing!”
“I know, right?” Hennessy grins.
“And they all seem to have weird names,” I note.
She nods. “Yes, most folks decided to name them after real people.”
“Right! Miss Lucy has Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill. And Katty Perry, over at Campbell’s. And King has Barack and Michelle,” I recall.
“Exactly,” she agrees as we reach the front of the pie shop. Then she pauses. “There. Look up in the corner,” she instructs, pointing into a storefront across the street. I follow her finger to the top of a filing cabinet where a black cat is curled up wearing a black and white polka dot sweater. “That’s Liam.”
“Neeson?”
“No, Hemsworth, of course,” she grins at me. “His brothers, Luke and Chris are probably under someone’s desk. And, if you wait long enough, you might get a glimpse of Miley. Her sweaters are a little on the skimpy side.”
“And, Liam Hemsworth…likes polka dots?”
“Well, obviously. I should think you’d have known that, being a Hollywood boy and all…”
“Los Angeles and Hollywood are not the same thing,” I point out with a stupid grin.
“Uh-huh,” is her unconvinced answer. “You sure about this?”
“What? About Liam Hemsworth’s polka dots?”
“No, Bryan, not about Liam Hemsworth’s polka dots,” she replies with mild impatience. “We have an expression in court—you can’t un-ring the bell. Once something’s been heard, or seen, you can’t un-see it or un-hear it.”
“Are you saying I might regret asking you to bring me in here with you?”
“What I’m saying is that Janet Lahti doesn’t lie…and neither does her pie. If you don’t want to know, you don’t ask.”
I answer her by reaching around and pulling the heavy door open. She steps inside, and I follow her, taking a good, long look around. Clearly, I am not alone in my quest for pie, because the Little Slice of Heaven Pie Shop is packed. Vintage pie plates line whitewashed pine plank walls, and pearl-wearing, apron-clad waitresses look as if they’ve just stepped out of the 1950s.
Hennessy unzips her parka and hangs it on a hook by the front door. I follow suit and make note of the jeans and pink sweater she’s got on, both hugging her in all the right places. God, I swear this woman gets prettier every time I see her.
We’re shown to a small table in the back of the room. The only menu available looks like one of those flip calendars, each laminated page a glossy color picture of a different piece of pie.
“So…how does this work, exactly?” I ask quietly, leaning in toward Hennessy. She looks up from the menu, confused.
“How does what work?”
“This,” I say, gesturing to the room around us.“Will there be a fortune baked into my piece of pie or something?”
