She eased her vehicle forward a few feet, then braked. “Um, this may sound like a weird question, but is your cat with you?”
My heart did an odd thump-thump. This was Eddie’s real owner. She’d cried buckets over losing him and I was going to have to give him back. I deeply, desperately wanted to lie, but was stopped by an image of my mother shaking her head at me and saying, “Minerva, I am so disappointed in you.”
“Thanks a lot, Mom,” I murmured.
“What’s that?” Surfette asked.
“Eddie’s in the bookmobile.”
She nodded. “Okay, good. Is there anything I can get you?” I shook my head and she pulled away, speckles of rust falling off the wheel wells as she accelerated.
I stood, slump-shouldered, and watched her Jeep vanish into the distance. She was going to take Eddie away from me and I was going to have to be grateful to her for rescuing the bookmobile. And to think I’d started this day happy.
Hands in my pockets, I scuffed my way back to the bookmobile. If I only had a little time left with Eddie, I was going to make the most of it.
I climbed up the steps and found him in the back corner, sitting on a small pile of children’s books he’d pulled off a shelf. Any other day this would have earned him a scolding and a threat of no treats for a week. This time I lay on the floor next to him, stomach down, and laid my head on one arm while I petted him with the other, not thinking, just being.
In what felt like three minutes, I heard the Cherokee’s muffler return. I got to my feet, scooping up Eddie on the way, and sat on the carpeted step to wait.
Surfette knocked on the back door and came on in, all bright smiles and energy. “Your garage guy said he’ll be out as soon as he can. He didn’t see how you’d blown two tires, though. He must have asked me six times if I was sure it was two tires.”
I laid my hand on Eddie’s flank. My friend, my companion. “Did he say how long he thought it would take to get here?”
“Less than an hour, he figured.” She introduced herself as Hannah, thereby blasting the surfer girl image to bits. Surfettes would be named Didi or maybe Jenny. Never Hannah. “He said he’ll bring an extra guy and the big tow truck.”
I nodded. “That’s great. Thanks so much for your help, Hannah. I could have been here all night if you hadn’t come along.”
“Oh, anybody would have stopped,” she said, shrugging. “I must have been the first person by. Just luck it was me.”
Luck. You could call it that. There was a pause that neither one of us seemed in a hurry to fill. “So,” I asked, “do you mind if I ask you a question?” My inquiry came at the same time Hannah asked, “Is it okay if I ask you something?”
We both laughed and I gestured for her to go ahead. “Rescuers get to go first. It’s a rule.”
Hannah giggled and pushed her sun-bleached hair back behind her ears. “You know how I’ve been in here a couple of times looking for a book? Well.” Her voice went low, almost into a whisper. “My fiancé and me, we’re getting married in the fall.”
For the first time, I noticed the diamond ring on her left hand. A very small diamond. Hannah spun it around on her finger, smiling a little.
“Anyway, both our families want this great big wedding. Our parents really can’t afford it, and anyway, Bobby and me don’t want a big wedding. Too much money for one day, and you’re still just as married if you go to a justice of the peace, right?”
My mouth might have dropped open. “Yes,” I managed to say.
She gave a sharp nod. “That’s what I keep telling my mom. I tell her we don’t want them to run up their credit cards for a wedding, but she kind of tells me to go away, that she has to pick out napkins since I haven’t done it yet.” She rolled her eyes. “I mean, it’s our wedding. Shouldn’t we be able to say that we don’t want napkins?”
“Absolutely.”
“So what I was looking for was a book on having a small, cheap wedding. There’s got to be a way.”
I smiled. “I know just the book.”
Her eyes lit up with hope. “You do?”
“Not here, but I’ll put it on the bookmobile as a reserved book and you can pick it up anytime.”
“Really?” She grinned wide. “This is so cool. I thought for sure if I checked out a wedding book, you’d tell my mom—she knows everybody, it seems like. Bobby and me, we’ll figure out a plan first, and then we’ll just, you know, go ahead and do it.”
I looked at her happy smile. It wouldn’t be that easy, but given the firm look in her eye, she probably knew that already. We fell to talking about weddings, easy happy talk that stretched out long.