1c8c0f371c0d914159db2df0bf94b5c6

“I think a cat’s soul is his personality,” said Brutus, adding his two cents. “Like… I’m a happy-go-lucky cat, always sociable and kind. That’s my soul. And Harriet here is sweet and bubbly. Max, of course, is a clever puss, and Dooley…” He glanced at Dooley. “Well, Dooley is Dooley,” he said finally, which earned him a grateful smile from our friend, who was now massaging his belly, no doubt trying to locate his soul.

I wouldn’t have described Brutus as happy-go-lucky, sociable or kind. More like a rough-around-the-edges reformed brute, but then of course that’s just me.

Odelia sighed a wistful sigh.“If I ever manage to snag an exclusive with Omar, I’ll be sure to ask him. All I know is that right now? My soul wants to have a good night’s sleep.”

I had no idea whether it was Odelia’s soul that wanted to sleep, or some other part of her physical or psychological makeup. All I knew was that after having been induced to listen to Master Sharif for the past two hours, I absolutely concurred. I might not have understood what a soul was, exactly, or what Soul Science was all about, but it definitely was a wonderful cure for insomnia.

Chapter 16

Tex was just getting ready for bed, still musing on that day’s events, when suddenly the front doorbell rang. He directed a quizzical look at his wife, who was already in bed, thumbing through a copy ofStar Magazine.

“Probably Odelia,” Marge muttered distractedly. “Must have lost her key.”

“She could have come in through the kitchen door,” Tex grumbled. “Unless Vesta locked it again.”

Dressed in his pajamas, he slipped his feet into his slippers and tripped down the stairs. And as he flung the door wide, fully expecting to find his daughter, he was not a little bit surprised when instead he found Jaqlyn Jones’s grinning face staring back at him.

Immediately his mood, pretty foul to begin with, soured even further.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Oh, hi, Tex. I’m so sorry for troubling you at this late hour,” Jaqlyn caroled cheerfully, as if he and Tex were best buds on the eve of their annual fishing trip. “Look, I just wanted to clear the air. I don’t know about you, but I felt a distinct tension between us at the Soul Science meeting, and I wanted to come over personally and tell you that I like you and I admire you and I have nothing against you whatsoever—on the contrary.”

He stepped forward and Tex stepped back so Jaqlyn’s tap, intended to land on Tex’s chest, instead landed on his hand. Awkward.

“All I’ve wanted from the get-go is for us to be good friends and colleagues, Tex. So tell me, what do I have to do to earn your trust and, if possible, even your friendship?”

Tex thought about this for a moment.“Well, for starters you could begin by not poaching my patients,” he said, deciding that he’d played coy long enough and the time had finally come to call a spade a spade and let the chips fall where they may.

“Poaching? Me?” Jaqlyn laughed. “Oh, Tex. Now I understand this odd animosity that seems to exist between us. Did you really think I’ve been poaching your patients?”

“You know you have. Dozens and dozens of them. I don’t know how you do it, or what stories you tell them behind my back, but I’ve lost more than half of my regulars.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that these people joined my roster simply because they wanted to, and not because of some insidious shenanigans on my part? I can assure you that every single one of my newly acquired patients has come to me of their own free will, and not because I’ve been badmouthing you. Just the opposite! I keep telling everyone how lucky they are to have such a fine and capable doctor at their disposal!”

“Then why do they all come to you?”

Jaqlyn screwed up his face in an expression of utter befuddlement, and drew his shoulders practically to his ears in an exaggerated shrug.“Beats me! All I can think is that people have this tendency to go for the new and shiny. You know how it goes. They may have a perfectly fine iPhone but still they want to buy the latest model. Or they have a great car and still they look at the latest introduction from a competing brand. Or they have a perfectly wonderful wife at home and still they can’t help checking out that cute checkout girl at their local supermarket.”

He gave Tex a conspiratorial little grin that Tex didn’t reciprocate. He was one of those men who never checked out checkout girls, unless it was to ascertain whether that pimple on their nose wasn’t skin cancer, in which case he gave them his card and told them to drop by his office at their earliest possible convenience.

He could see that Jaqlyn probably had a point, though. It was true that people often got tired of the old and trusted and yearned for something new and exciting. This was true for a lot of things, so why not for doctors?

Some of Tex’s patients had been with him for so long that the arrival of a young new doctor in town probably worked on them like catnip: they simply had to have a nibble.