45ebf3c490593574dd454e5dfd5a5758

Okay, so I think I told you that cats don’t care about cruises, right? Or beach vacations. Or sand and surf. Well, I can now officially announce that cruises are great, and so are beach vacations and even sand and surf, but only on one condition: that they come with a supplementary dose of Chase Kingsley as a package deal.

And you know what? I think Odelia feels exactly the same way. In fact I know she does.

And thus ended another adventure. Not the cruise, though, or the honeymoon. We had another week to go, and we all know that a week can seem like an eternity when you’re having fun. Or is that when you’re not having fun?

Just to be on the safe side, we returned to our little patch underneath those palm trees to recover from our ordeal. And as we watched our humans take another dip in the ocean, my eyes slowly drifted closed once more.

“So how about a parrot, Max?”

“A parrot?”

“As a friend for Salvatore. Parrots are nice.”

“Salvatore said he doesn’t want a friend, Dooley.”

“But that was before his human was sent to prison. I’ll bet he needs a friend now.”

“He has Laura. And David.”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

For a moment all was quiet. I rolled over on my back and lazily gazed up at those gently swaying palm fronds. In the distance children were playing, people were laughing, and Odelia and Chase were happily cavorting in the surf.

Aaah.

Blissss.

“Or how about a hamster?”

“Dooley!”

36. PURRFECT HARMONY

Prologue

Neda Hoeppner had a habit of directing St. Theresa Choir with bold, vigorous movements of her arms. She was a formidable woman, with an abundance of dark curly hair that vibrated in tune with the music. She hadn’t been choirmaster long but had already adjusted surprisingly well to her new role as musical director.

“No, no, no, no, no!” she shouted in short staccato bursts of her stentorian voice. “Janette, I can hear that shrill squeak of yours over all the rest—harmony, ladies, harmony!”

Janette Bittiner, first soprano and a woman of about Neda’s own age, gave the choir conductor a look that would have killed a lesser woman stone-cold dead on the spot. Fortunately for Neda, she wasn’t a lesser woman, and frankly she was used to being the target of these unfavorable looks from certain members of the choir.

She had, after all, been one of them until very recently, and had only risen to the treasured role of director when its previous musical leader, Samuel Smalls, had been called to that great big choir in the sky, where presumably he was now giving the angels the benefit of his reedy tenor voice and tendency to shout at the top of his lungs when the altos failed to pick up the pace again.

“From the top!” Neda yelled, and raised her arms, expectantly tilting her chin. Suddenly a hand went up and she gave its owner a look of annoyance. “Yes, Yoko,” she said, suppressing a groan. She thoroughly disliked being held up by these stragglers.

“Wouldn’t it be better if the tenors joined us one bar in?” the young woman suggested. Yoko was the youngest member of the choir and prone to these sudden flashes of ill-advised and frankly unwelcome ‘inspiration.’

“No, the tenors will not be joining us one bar in,” Neda snapped decidedly.

“But…”

“From the top!” Neda shouted over the young woman’s protestations.

Once more the choir launched into its rendition of an uptempo little ditty from Johannes Brahms. In the first pew, Father Reilly was watching on. He didn’t seem one hundred percent relaxed that his choice of choir director had been a good one, as he kept tugging at his nose and upsetting his coiffure, a clear sign he was ill at ease.

“Oh, for Christ’s sakes, Janette!” Neda suddenly yelled, and the choir’s rendition of the concerto once more ended in a jumble of discordant notes. “Can you keep it down, please? This is a choir, not your one-woman show! Destiny’s Child, not Beyonc?!”

“You know what, Neda?” said Janette, raising a quaking voice as she threw down her songbook. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. If you really think you know so much better, you take my place and sing my part. Cause I’m officially done!” And with these surprising words, she strode off stage, her face set in a look of intense constipation.

“Janette, you get back here!” Neda shouted to the woman’s retreating back. “Janette!”

But Janette did a most unladylike thing and raised her hand in a gesture of defiance, which caused her fellow choir members and her director to draw in a shocked gasp.

“Janette,” said Father Reilly, on his feet and hurrying after the deserter. “Janette, please wait.” His polished shoes clacking on the stone floor, he almost ran, not walked.

Janette turned with as much dignity as she could muster.“Francis, I can’t do this anymore,” she declared, her voice echoing through St. John’s Church’s nave, and mingling with the soft chatterings of the choir, even as Neda stood tapping her baton against the conductor stand and heatedly demanding that choir practice was resumed at once.