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“For crying out loud, Wilbur,” said Father Reilly, raising his voice. “It’s a damn cult!”

“Uh-huh,” said Wilbur, still thinking hard.

“Their leader is a known blasphemer!”

“Is he now?”

“They’re worshipping the golden calf!”

“You don’t say.”

“They took my cat and brainwashed her!”

At this, Wilbur looked up sharply.“They did what?”

“This Master Omar has a cat, called Master Sharif, and he’s gathering all the cats of Hampton Cove and converting them to Soul Science.”

“Pied piper,” grumbled Wilbur, wriggling his bushy white brows with menace.

“Exactly! Soon all of our pets will walk out on us to join this cult!”

“Over my dead body!” said Wilbur, finally coming to a decision. He grabbed the stack of flyers from Father Reilly’s hands and started handing them out to his customers. “Stop this petnapping cult now!” he said. “Read this ye and be warned!”

“See?” said Kingman with a note of triumph in his voice. “The fight against Soul Science has begun, and my own human is leading the charge!”

Chapter 20

That evening, Marge was checking the fridge and wondering if it wouldn’t be a great idea to get one of those newfangled fridges she’d heard so much about. The kind that know when you’re running out of milk and eggs and automatically place an order with the store to have the items delivered to your doorstep. It would definitely be a great timesaver. She looked up when her mother walked in, looking resplendent in a pantsuit.

“What do you think?” asked Ma, twirling around.

“You look like Hillary Clinton,” said Marge. Or the Queen of England.

The pantsuit was a bright mauve, and it hurt Marge’s eyes to look at it.

“Yeah, yeah. But do I look like a preacher’s wife, that’s the question.”

Marge raised an eyebrow.“You’re going to be the wife of a preacher?”

“I’m still considering his proposal, but I’m leaning towards a definite yes,” said Ma, looking pleased as punch. Marge noticed she’d even put on makeup, and looked ten years… older, unfortunately.

“Ma, you really shouldn’t use so much foundation,” she said.

“I wanted to look like a blushing bride.”

“You look more like the Corpse Bride. Here, let me fix you up.”

They both retreated upstairs, where Marge proceeded to remove the thick layer of foundation from her mother’s face with wet wipes and then applied makeup the way it should be applied.

“Haven’t felt so nervous in years,” Ma admitted. “I actually feel butterflies in the pit of my stomach. I haven’t felt butterflies in the pit of my stomach since Jock Brownie tried to feel me up underneath the Franklin Raiders bleachers when I was fifteen.”

Marge’s face clouded. “Jaqlyn Jones dropped by late last night.”

“Oh, was that who that was?”

“Yeah, he came to apologize to Tex, and extend the hand of friendship.”

‘”Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“He also told him that the Franklin Raiders have decided to replace Tex with Jaqlyn for their sports physicals this year.”

“Why?”

“Who knows why? It seems almost as if all of Hampton Cove is over Tex and embracing Jaqlyn as their new favorite doctor.”

“Ungrateful bunch of fools,” Ma grunted. “Tex is a wonderful doctor and a fine human being. Hampton Cove doesn’t know how lucky they are to have him.”

It was probably the first time that Marge had ever heard her mother praise Tex, and it touched her heart—or maybe even her soul.

“Tex wasn’t going to tell me, but I could see he was brooding on something, so I finally made him talk. And it’s not just the Raiders either. Tex thinks that if this keeps up he’ll be out of a job soon.”

“And if he’s out of a job, so am I,” said Ma. “There must be something we can do.”

“It’s a free country. If people prefer Jaqlyn, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Let me talk to Jaqlyn. He’s Omar’s right-hand man, and with me soon becoming Mrs. Omar, I’m sure he’ll pay attention when I talk to him.”

“What are you going to say?”

“To lay off Tex’s patients. He can tell them he’s full up, can’t he? He can tell them anything. Fifty-fifty seems like a good split between Tex and Jaqlyn.”

“It’s still a big loss of income. Fifty percent fewer patients means Tex loses half his income.”

“We’ll manage,” said Ma, and patted her daughter’s hand. “Nice work, honey. You were right. I did look like the Corpse Bride before.”

“And now you look like a blushing bride,” said Marge, satisfied with her work. “So you like Omar, huh?”

“Yeah, I think he’s sweet. I mean, we haven’t spent a lot of time together, but you saw him last night. He’s a pretty impressive guy, right?”

“Yes, he’s certainly impressive,” Marge agreed. She’d come away from the meeting a little disappointed. She’d probably expected too much. Some kind of lightning bolt from the sky turning her life upside down and inside out. Instead it had been nice and kinda sedate. Interesting people andinteresting conversations. Not exactly earth-shattering.

Still, Omar did seem like a nice guy, and if her mother liked him and he liked her…

“Do you want me to drive you?” she asked now.