Chapter Five

"Home early?� You?"

"Even a blind squirrel gets an acorn once in a while," I answered with an obscure but cheerful retort.� Then I drew her into conversation about any office scuttlebutt that I might have missed that day, but it seemed to have been quiet on the Potts Lab frontier.� Dena and I parted company at the sidewalk, but suddenly, she snapped her fingers.

"Oh, I forgot.� Tater signed the catering contract before he left.� I meant to give it to you, sorry."

"That's O.K., no harm done.� Tomorrow's all right."

She looked relieved, and I watched as she got into her husband's car, a sleek gray BMW.� I envied her extremely slender figure as she swung her long legs inside.� Her strawberry blonde hair was a perfect foil for the sprinkle of freckles across her nose.� She often bemoaned the cinnamon spots, but to tell the truth, they gave her a sun-splashed complexion that no makeup could duplicate.

I also had a momentary pang of envy for the car, which didn't extend to the driver.� Dale Carr, her dumpy, bald husband had been in my high school class.� His one virtue was that his father owned the largest import car agency in town, and he and Dena drove super cars.� One problem of still living in the town where you'd grown up was that too many of the people from your past kept resurfacing in your present, or ended up married to your clerical support person.

As for me, I hadn't remained single due to any real search for Mr. Right. Nor had I exactly remained celibate, either; but so far, none of the candidates for a meaningful relationship had come along at the right time or place. � Ending up in my present situation as much from inertia as from any conscious planning, I'd settled for evening classes at the local college, paying my own way by working at Potts Labs.

Earning a good salary was tempting, and I had settled into a routine.� Men had come and gone in my life, leaving little more impression on me that the enjoyment of a good ice cream cone on a warm day.� There were a few diverting episodes, but I thought little about then, except for Jerry, the computer jock who apparently took sponge baths in English Leather.� I was reminded of him occasionally when Julio, the lusious Marlena's brother wore the same fragrance.

Smells have always been quite important to me.� I have a nose like the proverbial fox, and odors were a childhood hobby with me.� As a kid, I'd get a kick out of telling my mother what had occurred in the house while I'd been gone to school, from her doing the laundry to making my favorite cornbread, by the leftover scents.� My Dad often warned me that I'd get my little sniffer in a jam someday, if I kept blurting out things like, "God, it smells like a brewery in here," when he and my Uncle Bob had a cold beer in the kitchen.� Fortunately, I'd eventually developed a tighter lip, learning to sniff first and make comments later, and only if appropriate.

Now, as I drove home in my trusty, rusty little Taurus with the windows cranked down, I joyfully inhaled the aromas of a May afternoon.� But when I unlocked the door to my house and stepped inside, I was hit with an array of herbal scents that told me exactly what mischief my cat Genevra had been up to that day.

After I'd tripped over her huge ginger-colored body lying just inside the door on the mat, I'd gone directly to the shelf of herbs that I keep in the bay window of the dining room to find overturned pots and scattered plants. Maybe it was because of my super sense of smell, but a recently handled or repotted herb plant scent seemed to be stronger for a day or two.

"Gen," I scolded, but of course she paid no attention to me at all.� She concentrated solely upon the full-length glass of the front door, watching a veritable army of lady bugs parading up and down and occasionally flying out in to the room and landing on the herb plants. She didn't try to eat them as she would do with the occasional moth that escaped from the aging cornmeal on my kitchen shelf.� She just watched as they flitted to and fro.

Last winter, I had put weather stripping all around the door, thinking to seal out both drafts and insects, but it made no difference to their ceaseless sojourns in and out of the house.� Intrigued, I had read a book about them. � I found that the lady bug, also called a beetle, had a life expectancy of only about 60 days.� So, they had been copulating their little hearts out for generation after generation, season after season, right at my front door, for over a year.

Apparently, the shrubs by my front door provided them a steady supply of gourmet aphids, their favorite snack.� I'd also read that they were good luck, a blessing, and a protection, and that it was very bad luck to kill one. I was thankful that Genevra had not developed a taste for them.� Somehow it was a pleasant thought that the orange cat and the orange and black bugs had some kind of affinity for each other.� If they could bring me luck, more power to the bugs.� I could use all the luck I could get.

But for now, I supposed that I could consider myself lucky that the orange streak hadn't broken any of the pots. She was just paying me back for leaving her only dry food yesterday and getting home late.� Just as I finished cleaning up the mess, she sauntered slowly past me to stand in front of her empty food dish, not bothering to turn her head in my direction.� She knew she had made her point. I went to the shelf for a special peacemaking food, real-people salmon in a tiny can, rather than her usual packet of an economy brand. I'm pandering to her, I thought, as I emptied the contents of the can in to her bowl.

After a nuked dinner found me snoozing over the newspaper, I called it an early night.� I'd have to start gathering the data for G.O.D.'s report tomorrow, somehow, sandwiching it in among my other work.� Tater would be back after his afternoon in the "rough."� I hoped he'd won, so he'd be in a good frame of mind.

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