Page 28 of At the Heart of It
“Thank you.” Kate pushed up the sleeves of her jacket and turned on the taps, wondering if she looked like someone who might have cat diseases.
“It’s because I’m letting you into the food-prep area,” Beth said, reading Kate’s mind. “The boss is really strict about OSHA stuff. Things you wouldn’t even think about. Like anyone who’s had litterbox duty that day isn’t allowed in the kitchen during the same shift.”
“Oh. That does seem like a smart policy.”
“Yeah.” Beth smiled. “You have a cat?”
“No. I like cats, though. I guess I just travel too much for work.”
“We get a lot of folks like that here.” Beth whipped a rag out of her back pocket and started dusting a waist-high steel sculpture of a cat. “Can’t have a cat of their own, so they come here to get their feline fix. It’s good for the animals, too. Helps them get comfortable around people so they’re more adoptable.”
“That’s a great idea.”
Beth smiled. “The boss man’s full of ’em.”
The pride in the young woman’s voice was evident, and Kate lathered her hands and stole a glance at her. Beth straightened a black-and-white cat photo on the wall as Kate pumped a little more soap from the dispenser shaped like a cat.
“Have you worked here long?” Kate asked.
“Since the day he opened. It’s a great place. Indie bookstores are dying off by the dozen, but this place is doing okay. Jonah’s a smart businessman.”
“So I’d gathered,” Kate said, remembering what he’d said in Alki Park. How he’d chosen to cast aside his cerebral self to fill the Average Joe persona. How much would it suck to think you could only be one or the other? A military counterintelligence expert and bookstore owner, or a straight-talking, blue-collar handyman known for writing hilariously brash sidebars in a self-help book?
One or the other, but not both.
Then again, hadn’t Kate faced the same conundrum? More than once, really. An art-minded actress or a family-focused female with a stable career. A documentary filmmaker or a money-making reality TV producer.
What a dumb choice to have to make. To have to decide at all.
“I should get back to closing out the till,” Beth said. “Could you let him know the restrooms are clean and we’re getting low on cold brew?”
“Clean restrooms, almost out of cold brew,” Kate repeated. “Got it.”
“Thanks! Have a good night.”
Beth turned and vanished back through the lobby, making Kate grateful for a few moments alone to compose her thoughts as she dried her hands on a paper towel. She dropped it into a black metal wastebasket engraved with silhouettes of cats whose tails were intertwined. Then she took a deep breath and pushed open the door marked Cat Café.
She heard the singing before she saw him. The voice was coming from the other side of a huge stainless-steel oven, and sounded vaguely like Jonah. The tune resembled Meghan Trainor’s All About That Bass, but the lyrics were something else entirely.
“I love to stuff my face, stuff my face, more kibble?—”
“Jonah?”
The singing stopped, and Jonah poked his head around the oven. Kate expected him to look embarrassed about being caught in an off-key serenade, but he just grinned at her.
“Hey,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”
Kate smiled back and stepped around the oven to join him at the bright-red enameled counter. He was stirring something in an industrial-sized stainless steel pot, and steam billowed around him like marshmallow fluff.
“Beth said to tell you the restrooms are clean and you’re almost out of cold brew,” Kate reported. She watched as Jonah continued stirring the pot. “Don’t let me stop the concert. By all means, keep singing.”
He laughed and flipped off the gas burner. “I hadn’t gotten very far with the lyrics yet,” he said. “This one’s in honor of Porky.”
“Porky?”
“Yeah, he’s one of the cats we’ve had here the longest. Everyone thinks since he’s a little overweight, he’s not as desperate for a home as the other guys. The vet suggested we switch up his diet to see if there’s a food allergy going on, so that’s what I’m working on.”
“You’re cooking him a meal?”
