Miguel nodded, still clearly in thought. “I’d like to get an independent electrician at the same time.”
Rosa awoke the next morning to a loud shriek. “What is this thing doing in my living room?”
Pushing herself to a sitting position, Rosa let out a weary sigh. With less grace than an orangutan, she wrestled herself into her silk housecoat, did a desperate search for her slippers, and headed for the stairs to face her angry aunt. What has Diego done to upset her now?
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Rosa called the moment she reached the bottom of the stairs. The Forrester mansion was a sprawling, two-level estate with many rooms and corridors. The yards, both front and back, were an impressive display of west coast gardening expertise with fragrant flowerbeds, elaborate water fountains, and manicured hedges.
Rosa raced for the living room situated in the west wing and practically skidded along the hardwood floors. Standing about the slate-blue, low-back Scandinavian-designed couch were her stern-faced aunt and her cousin Clarence, who attempted but failed at hiding his amusement. His little girl, Julie, squealed with delight, her blond ringlets bobbing as she skipped over the yellow area rug.
Diego’s sharp front claws had pierced Louisa’s heavy front room drapes—yellow, embossed with a white geometrical pattern—and the kitten hung from them like an acrobat. With one paw, he stroked the air trying to catch the curtain’s pull string. Even at the height of mischievousness, he was simply adorable!
Clearly, Aunt Louisa didn’t see it that way. Impeccably dressed in a striped pencil skirt, and her short brunette hair neatly styled around her ears, Rosa’s aunt crossed her arms. A hard frown etched her tanned and make-up-adorned face.
Wearing slacks and a light cotton shirt, Clarence removed a paperback book—a James A. Michener novel—from his back pocket and tossed it onto the glass coffee table before lowering himself into an armchair. He casually crossed his legs, and chuckled. Julie giggled in turn.
Rosa shot her cousin a look that said, You’re not helping!
“I’m sorry!” Rosa said again as she raced across the room, the hem of her housecoat flapping. She grabbed Diego firmly by the scruff of the neck with one hand and used her other hand to push the middle of his front paws one at a time until his claws released. When she had him cleared of the drapes, she scrutinized the fabric, and sure enough, there were two arcs of tiny holes left behind.
With a sheepish glance toward her aunt, she said, “I’ll be happy to replace them.”
But as expected, Aunt Louisa huffed out a breath of despair. “They’re irreplaceable! They’re from Venezuela.” Rosa held in a breath of exasperation. All her aunt’s home furnishings seemed to be imported from some distant land, and they were all irreplaceable.
“I’m really sorry, Auntie,” Rosa said, for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Can I play with him?” Julie tugged on Rosa’s housecoat. If anyone could defuse the tension it would be her aunt’s little granddaughter.
“Of course you can,” Rosa said. “Perhaps you can take him to the nursery?”
Julie awkwardly carried Diego, who looked rather annoyed at having his fun cut short, out of the room. Clarence smirked at Rosa as he followed his daughter. Being divorced, Clarence only had Julie on select days of the week, and Rosa was quite pleased that today was one of them.
Rosa tried another angle of appeasement. “I heard there’s a training school for cats in town.”
Aunt Louisa’s arms remained firmly crossed over her chest. “Cats can’t be trained.”
“That’s not true,” Rosa said. “I’ve read about cats learning to walk on a leash and to enjoy driving in cars. There was a story about that in the Readers Digest.”
Aunt Louisa harrumphed and strode to the living room door. She paused, and said, “Are you joining us for breakfast?”
It was an unnecessary inquiry, and Rosa took it for an olive branch. “Yes, I am.”
After taking time to dress properly, Rosa joined Aunt Louisa in the morning room and took a seat at the table.
Her aunt glanced up briefly with a begrudging look behind her eyes, then flipped open the morning newspaper. “I have a good mind to take that creature down to the ocean and tie a rock to him,” she said, her capacity to nurse a grudge on full display.
Rosa failed to rein in her disgust. “Oh, Aunt Louisa! He’s just a kitten.”
“In my books, that’s just another word for a large rat.”
Señora Gomez, the long-time housekeeper who wore a perpetual smile, appeared from the kitchen with a platter filled with freshly baked muffins and a small silver coffee carafe, Aunt Louisa’s usual breakfast.
“Buenos días, Rosa!”
“Buenos días, Señora Gomez.”
Determined to make amends somehow, Rosa turned back to her aunt. “I thought Diego was with Gloria.” A waft of sweet buttery muffin aroma hit Rosa’s nose, and she had to help herself to one. They were still warm. “I didn’t get home until the wee hours of the morning. It won’t happen again.” At least Rosa hoped it wouldn’t.
Her step-grandmother, Sally Hartigan, made her way slowly from the back hallway, thankfully breaking the uncomfortable silence. Her floral dress hung over soft curves, and a slight bend of her back along with her gray hair twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck attested to her senior years.
Rosa smiled. “Good morning, Grandma Sally.”
“Good morning,” Grandma Sally returned. Her accent hinted at her many years living in Boston. To Aunt Louisa she said, “Why are we so sour-faced so early in the morning?”
Rosa groaned inwardly, not wanting to hash out her aunt’s grievances with little Diego again, but it turned out that Aunt Louisa didn’t want to do that either. She sipped her coffee and spoke over the rim. “Only bad news in the paper, as usual. There was a death at the boardwalk last night.”
Grandma Sally shot Rosa a conspiratorial look. “Gloria said you were out with that police detective until late last night.”
Wanting to avoid the subject of
