Page 36 of No Judgements

I felt like an elegant lady just being in the room. Gary seemed to realize that he, too, was moving up in the world, since he quickly made himself at home on the air mattress Ed had inflated for me on the floor, though I noticed that he was eyeing one of the antique love seats, with its temptingly puffy pink silk cushion.

All the information about the first Mrs. Hartwell was given to me by Nevaeh as I unpacked Gary’s things and set up a litter box for him, deep in a far corner of the room. There was a portrait of the first Mrs. Hartwell hanging over the antique scroll-top desk, and she looked like a handsome but unhappy woman, wearing heavy mourning clothes.

“All of her four children,” Nevaeh informed me, “died of yellow fever before the age of ten. They said she died of a broken heart soon after.”

“Oh,” I said. “My.”

“But no worries. Her husband went to the convent school and found a new girl to marry. They had eleven children,all of whom lived and went on to produce their own kids, and then those kids had kids, and then those kids had kids, one of whom was my uncle Ed!”

This was one of the strangest local history lessons I’d ever received, but I attempted to roll with it.

“Wow,” I said. “Neat.”

“We’re going to have so much fun while you’re here,” Nevaeh assured me, as if thunder wasn’t rolling ominously beyond the lace curtains of my room’s single window (shuttered, so I could see nothing of the view). “We can do each other’s nails!”

This did not sound fun to me at all, given that I kept my nails clipped as short as possible to avoid nervously biting them.

But I politely refrained from saying so, since Nevaeh was my hostess by proxy.

“Sure,” I said. “Maybe later, though. I need to make sure Gary gets settled in.”

“Oh, of course,” Nevaeh said, though she gave me an odd look, since anyone could see Gary was currently contentedly cleaning himself, as at home as if he’d always lived there. This was a far cry from my apartment, and an even further step up from the animal shelter where he’d spent so many years. Gary clearly thought he’d won the feline lottery.

“I have to go put this in the refrigerator,” I said, showing Nevaeh the container holding Daniella’s yeast starter. “It’s my roommate’s, and it’s super important to her that it stays cold at all times.”

“Uh, sure.”

Nevaeh glanced nervously toward the kitchen. I soon realized why. I could hear raised voices coming from there—one belonging to Drew. It appeared he was getting yelled at for something by his aunt and uncle.

Was this more drama about what had happened last night at the party with Rick Chance? And was it wrong that I felt as if I needed to get in there to watch? Not to defend him, of course—I was quite sure Drew Hartwell didn’t need my help. But I felt a natural curiosity about what was going on.

“Well.” I got up from the floor and grabbed the handles to the tote bag containing all the foodstuffs I’d brought along. “Do you mind?” Nevaeh looked as if she did mind, so I added, “I brought a cheese ball, too, you know. Maybe you’d like some?”

Nevaeh finally stood up but looked confused. “What’s a cheese ball?”

“You don’t know what a cheese ball is? Let me show you.”

Closing the library doors to keep Gary from roaming—I knew both the parrot and the rabbits would be temptations he might find too hard to resist—I followed Nevaeh toward the kitchen.

The Hartwells’ fifty-six-inch flat-screen television—so fun but so out of place in such a historic home—was on in the living room. We had to pass it to get to the kitchen. It was tuned, obviously, to the Weather Channel.

“Things are looking grim here in Key West, Cynthia,” a reporter was saying into the camera as he stood, in all-weather gear, on a pier beneath a leaden sky. “And the first bands ofthe storm are only hours, if not minutes, away. We can only wonder what it will be like when they finally arrive.”

Behind him, tourists who’d neglected to evacuate stood wearing shorts and T-shirts, holding cans of beer, and making rude gestures into the camera.

“Idiots,” Nevaeh said, shaking her head. “And those stupid reporters aren’t even brave enough to come here to Little Bridge, where the storm is actually heading.”

I raised my eyebrows. She was right. The feed was bouncing among news journalists stationed all over South Florida—Key West, Miami, Naples, and back—but not a single one was in Little Bridge.

“Maybe,” I ventured, “it’s because they consider this island too small to be of interest.”

“That’s not it.” Nevaeh’s tone was bitter. “It’s because they know if they stay here, they’ll be trapped. Or die.”

I glanced at her in surprise, about to ask if she believed this, too, when there was a knock on the front door.

“Oh, Katie!” she cried, in a completely different voice. “Katie’s here, yay!”

She turned and went skipping for the door without another word, leaving me, feeling a little stunned, to make the rest of the journey to the kitchen solo.