Remarkably Bright Creatures(37)

“Janice, please. It’s just a sprain.”

“A bad sprain.” Janice eyes the boot. Then she removes her gauzy pink scarf and hangs it, along with her pocketbook, over the back of one of Tova’s kitchen chairs. Humming to herself, she snatches up the casserole dish, carries it to the refrigerator, and begins prodding around, searching for space.

“Try the bottom shelf,” Tova mutters.

“Aha! There we go.” Janice swipes her hands. “Barb made that for you. Potato-leek, she said? Something like that. She was going on and on about some recipe she found online.”

“How kind of her.” Tova limps toward the percolator. “Shall I put on coffee?”

“No, you should sit. Put that foot up.” Janice scoots in front of her and barricades the carafe. “I’ll do the coffee.”

Janice’s coffee is always on the weak side, but Tova sits as instructed, keeping a watchful eye as Janice measures the grounds and water.

“Does that cat need to be fed?” Janice lowers her round glasses to peer skeptically at Cat, who is parked under Tova’s dinette chair. A gesture of solidarity on the animal’s part.

“Thank you, but he’s already had breakfast,” Tova says. Then, before Janice can get any ideas about cooking, she adds, “We both have.” Cat flops over onto his side, showing off his new, rounder belly. All that casserole has plumped him up, and it suits him. Sympathy weight, as Tova calls it affectionately.

“Okay, chill. I’m just trying to help.” Janice sets two steaming mugs on the table and sits. “Did you see Dr. Remy?”

“Of course,” Tova says with a huff.

“And?”

“I told you. It’s a sprain.”

“How long will you be off work?”

“A few weeks,” Tova says truthfully. She leaves out the part where Dr. Remy ordered a bone-density test, and cautioned her that at her age, returning to work might not be advisable. Might not, he’d said. Nothing is set in stone yet. So why mention it?

“A few weeks,” Janice repeats, eyeing the boot skeptically. “Anyway, I came over for a reason. Aside from making sure you were, you know, alive.”

“I see.” Tova takes an evaluative sip of the coffee Janice prepared. Might have used another tablespoon of grounds, but it’s decent.

“Two reasons, actually.”

Tova nods, waiting.

“Okay, so first thing I need to tell you. If you had been at Knit-Wits last Tuesday, you would’ve heard Mary Ann’s big news, but since you were gone . . .”

“What is it?”

“She’s moving in with her daughter.”

“With Laura? In Spokane?”

“That’s right,” Janice confirms.

“When?”

“Before September. She’s putting the house on the market.”

Tova nods slowly. “I see.”

Janice takes off her round spectacles, then plucks a paper napkin from the holder on Tova’s tabletop and wipes the lenses. Squinting at Tova, she says, “It’s for the best. The stairs in that house are steep, you know, and with the laundry in the basement . . .”

“Yes, that’s a challenge,” Tova agrees. The basement laundry was to blame for Mary Ann’s fall last year, the one that she was lucky to escape from with only a set of stitches. “It’s wonderful that Laura will have her. And Spokane. That will be quite a change.”

“Yes, it will be.” Janice replaces her glasses. “We’re planning a special luncheon to say goodbye. It might be a few weeks off, depending on how quickly everything moves, but you’ll attend, of course?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it, even if I have to hobble there,” Tova says. And she means it.

“Good.” Janice looks up, her face inscrutable. “You know, after Mary Ann’s gone, we’ll be down to three Knit-Wits. At some point, we might ask ourselves what our long-term plan is, here.”

Tova draws a long breath, trying to imagine how the Knit-Wits might function with just Barb, Janice, and herself. Without Mary Ann and her store-bought, oven-warmed cookies. They’ve been meeting for decades. Going to Knit-Wits is a well-worn habit.

“Well, something for the three of us to talk about.” Janice rises and wraps her scarf around her shoulders. The scrape of her chair on the linoleum causes Cat, who’d apparently fallen asleep, to lift his head and open a distrustful eye. “I’d better scoot. Timothy’s taking me to lunch at that new Tex-Mex place down in Elland.”

“How lovely,” Tova says, trailing Janice to the front door. Janice’s son is always taking his mother out to eat. She imagines them dipping tortilla chips in a shared guacamole bowl.

“Oh! I almost forgot the second thing.” With a short laugh, Janice spins around and pulls a mobile phone from her pocketbook. “Here. This is yours.”

Tova’s eyes narrow. “I don’t have a cell phone.”

“You do now.” Janice thrusts the device at her. “It’s Timothy’s old one, nothing fancy. But it’ll work in an emergency.” Inconspicuously, her eyes dart toward Tova’s boot.

Tova’s jaw sets. “How many times have I explained that I don’t need one of those? There’s a perfectly good telephone right there in the den. I don’t need to carry one around in my pocketbook.”