Celia laughed happily. She always laughed at the mildest quip from “the Chief.” She explained, “I’ve brought you two meals of macaroni and cheese and a two-pound meatloaf. It’s sliced so you can thaw some for a sandwich. I didn’t put much onion in it because you might like to give some to the kitties, and I know they’re particular…. Ooh! You have new bar stools!” she squealed when she went indoors. “We’re so busy! I had to hire a helper. We’re catering a wedding reception Saturday.”
“Will you have time left for volunteer work? You were a real asset.”
“Only one thing – teaching adults to read. My first student is a forty-year-old woman who’s tickled to be able to read recipe books. In fact, she’s the one I hired as my helper…. Have you rented my old apartment yet?”
“To the new manager of the Mackintosh Inn. He says he has a strange feeling that some wonderful person lived there before him.”
“Oh, Chief! You’re a big kidder!”
In mid-afternoon Qwilleran walked downtown to Lois’s Luncheonette for a slice of her famous apple pie. Lois Inchpot was a loud, bossy, goodhearted woman who had been feeding downtown shoppers and workers for decades – in a dingy backstreet lunchroom. The shabbier it became with the years, the more the customers cherished it; they felt comfortable there.
When Qwilleran arrived, the place was empty, and Lois was in the kitchen, working on dinner. “Whaddaya want?” came a demanding voice through the pass-through window.
“Apple pie and a cuppa!” he shouted back.
“Apple’s all gone! You can have cherry.”
He walked to the pass-through and said, “I’m not enthusiastic about cherry pie.”
“How come? You un-American – or something?”
“I did my patriotic bit when I helped choose the queen for the cherry festival.”
Lois shoved a mug of coffee across the shelf and then banged a plate of cherry pie beside it, chanting, “Cherries every day keep the gout away!”
“Is that propaganda for the cherry-growers? Or are you practicing medicine without a license?”
“Eat it!” she ordered. “You’ll love it!”
He had to admit the pie was good – not too tart, not too sweet, not too gelatinous, not too soupy. Obviously it had never been in a freezer or a microwave oven. “Not bad!” he declared as he returned his empty plate. “Keep practicing, and someday you’ll get it right.”
“Oh, pish posh!” she said grouchily but with a half smile. She liked Qwilleran.
“Where’s Lenny?”
Her voice softened. “He has classes ‘most all day on Wednesday, and I don’t allow nothin’ to interfere with that boy’s education. He’ll finish school if I hafta scrub floors! Did you know he’s workin’ parttime at the hotel? – I mean, the inn? Six to midnight. And he’s captain of the desk clerks,” she said proudly.
“Someday he’ll be chief innkeeper,” Qwilleran predicted, knowing that was what she wanted to hear.
“Lenny says old Mr. Muckety-Muck is here again, registered in the fancy suite on the third floor. You seen him?”
“To whom… are you referring?” Qwilleran asked to tease her.
“Don’t get la-de-da with me! You know who I mean.”
“No, I haven’t seen him. I thought I might catch a glimpse of him here, eating cherry pie.”
”Hah!” she huffed with contempt, banging the lid on a soup kettle for emphasis.
Just then her son burst into the restaurant and threw his textbooks on a table in the rear booth, “Got any pie, Mom?” He helped himself to a mug of coffee. “Hi, Mr. Q! Going to the games this weekend? The inn’s booked solid for Friday and Saturday nights.”
“Do you participate in the athletic events, Lenny?”
“Only the footraces. I leave the hammer-throw and all that to the big guys, but our night clerk tosses the caber. He has the strength for it. I introduced him to you at the party Saturday night. We call him Boze, short for Bozo.” Lenny moved his coffee mug to Qwilleran’s table. “I’m sort of his manager. He needs somebody to prod him, make his decisions, keep him on track, you know.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Since high school. I was managing the football team, and Boze was a great tackle. Not much of a student, though, and he wanted to drop out. So my mom and I took him on as a private crusade. I tutored him, and she fed him and read the riot act. She’s good at both of those!… And he managed to squeak by with a diploma.”
“What were his parents doing all this time?”
“He’s an orphan. Grew up in different foster homes. After graduation he got a job as woodsman with a forestry company, and I worked at the old hotel until it was bombed.”
“What brought Boze out of the woods?” Qwilleran asked.
“A soft job at the hotel, a small scholarship to MCCC, and a berth on the Moose County team for the Highland Games. Boze can toss the caber like nothing you ever saw! It’s not just brute strength, you know. It’s tricky, and he’s mastered the knack.”
“Should I know what a caber is?”
