What Grows in Your Garden by Carolyn P Schriber

Author:Carolyn P Schriber [Schriber, Carolyn P]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780999306079
Publisher: Katzenhaus Books
Published: 2019-11-28T22:00:00+00:00

She busied herself moving all her belongings into the kitchen. Then she hurried through the apartment, turning on lights, opening curtains, and adjusting the thermostat. She opened the cat stroller so that Elijah could get out when he woke up. On the dining room table, she found a mound of mail gathered by her landlady, who had also offered to water her ficus plant and make sure everything was undisturbed. And on the desk, her phone blinked an insistent red light, telling of messages waiting.

She started there. Most were recordings or sales pitches, and she clicked through them. The last was from Beth.

“Hi, Sarah. Just checking to see if you are home yet. I guess you are if you’re listening to this. Anyway, I'm eager to talk to you. I've had an interesting vacation period getting to know the mushroom guy you introduced me to. If you’re not going out somewhere with your cop, call me. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll see you at tomorrow’s faculty meeting. Bye!”

She shuddered at the cheerfulness of the message. Beth would have to wait. Sarah was in no mood to listen to someone’s tale of a budding romance. Her alternative was tackling the pile of mail. She pulled a wastebasket to the table and began to fill it with ads for magazine sales, a brochure from a new dentist’s office, insurance offers, and grocery store flyers. Then she turned to the smaller stack of bills and threw away all the fillers that accompanied most of the statements. All she kept were the bills themselves and their return envelopes. She gritted her teeth when she realized several of the bills were overdue because she had not thought to check on their status before leaving. “Live and learn,” she muttered.

Her evening did not get any better. For dinner she settled on a boring plate of chicken Alfredo with broccoli and the dregs of a bottle of wine she had left in the fridge too long. Some red pepper flakes and a heavy dose of parmesan cheese helped the noodles, but the wine was beyond salvaging.

Just as she gave up and chose an early bedtime, Elijah arose from his long catnip stupor. He bounced from the stroller, seeming to take delight in finding himself at home, and made a straight line for his litter box in the bathroom. Then he gorged himself on a can of tuna cutlets and attacked a ping pong ball he had discovered under the table.

Sarah headed for bed, but once there, she couldn’t sleep. The ping pong ball rattled and bounced across the wooden floors. It stopped only when Elijah discovered her feet moving under the covers. With deadly accuracy, he pounced and dug in his claws. She had only two choices—to lie still until the cat got bored and went back to chasing the ping pong ball or move and risk losing a toe to the black avenger. When Elijah settled down, she wrestled with her pillow, but sleep still eluded her.

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