Norah's Ark

“But, but, but…” I made a noise like a sputtering engine. “Who?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Why?”

“Because he doesn’t know about it yet.” Lilly fluttered her eyelashes and I saw her perfectly painted lids. “But he will soon enough.”

“Who…why…how…”

“Connor, of course. Why? Because he’s handsome, charming, wealthy, debonair and perfect for me. How? I’ll be as charming and wonderful as I can, that’s how.”

Lilly can be plenty charming and wonderful, but I’m not sure she’s picked a viable target with this one. “What if he’s not interested in being married?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, I’ll worry about that later. For now I just want to go out with him.”

“More than once?” I thought of her serial dating and short attention span where men are concerned.

“Of course more than once! A lot.” She put a polished finger to her lips. “You’re the only one I’m telling because you are my best friend.”

“Shouldn’t you mention it to Trevain?”

“Of course not. He has to figure it out for himself.”

“Lilly, what if he doesn’t want to get serious with someone right now?”

“That’s what love is about, Norah—the unexpected. Affairs of the heart cannot be decided by logic alone.”

I have to grant her that. And it made her intentional plotting even more ridiculous.

“I know how you are about love and marriage, Norah,” Lilly added. “It needs to be blessed by God and all that, but this will be okay—really.”

Blessed by God and all that?

It was more than just a toss-off matter for me. God’s blessing is the key to the whole thing, as far as I’m concerned.

Lilly has been trying to play hide-and-seek with God. Sometimes she tries to avoid Him completely. Other times she asks a hundred questions about what it’s like to give one’s life to Him. She’s got some ideas from childhood about a judgmental God and it’s got her hung up. She forgets that the same God who sees our sin and judges it as wrong, is the One who has the ability to forgive the sin, wash it away and forget it ever happened. He doesn’t keep a tally of wrongs like some humans do. He forgives and forgets “Far as the east is from the West.” When Lilly’s ready she’ll jump in—Gucci-clad feetfirst—I just know it.

Chapter Six

Now that Lilly had announced her new project—the unsuspecting Connor Trevian—it was time for me to get back to work.

“Sorry I don’t have time to help you plan your wedding, but I have a tuna fish cupcake to make. It’s Mr. Tibbles’s birthday today and he’s coming to stay a few days.”

“You mean that pompous black cat, the one that acts like he’s Winston Churchill?”

“That’s him.”

“You’d rather do that than plan my wedding?” Lilly said incredulously.

“Let’s just say that I know for sure that Mr. Tibbles is coming. I’m not so sure Connor is going to go willingly down the aisle.” I met Lilly’s gaze with my own. “What’s up with you, anyway?”

Lilly pouted a bit, threw her blond hair back from her face, stomped in her high-heeled butter-colored boots to a chair behind the counter and sat down. Her starlet persona, no doubt about it. “Do you think I’m flighty?’

Uh-oh. Trick question.

“Ah, well, it depends on your definition of the word flighty.”

“Airheaded, dizzy, short attention span, blonde jokes, erratic, unreliable, capricious.”

“If you know the definition of capricious you probably aren’t flighty.”

“Be honest, Norah. You’re the only one I can rely on to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but.”

“First I need to know who called you flighty.”

“Oh, that accountant I’ve been seeing. He says we can’t continue a relationship because I’m much too erratic and impulsive.”

No wonder Connor is looking so good.

“In that case, you are flighty. Look at how you are dressed. You strive for erratic and impulsive.”

“And cutting edge fashionwise,” Lilly defended, already looking a bit happier. “You’re right. I like what I am. If he doesn’t, he’s not the man for me.” She jumped up and gave me a hug, swathing me in the fragrance of lavender and something mossy. “I’m so glad we’re friends, Norah. I can trust you. You tell me the truth and never go behind my back. Thank…thank…”

“…God?” I finished for her.

“Yeah. Him.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied me. “If you’re the kind of product He turns out, then I do want to get to know Him better…someday.” Then she threw her head back and swept out of the store like a runway model. No wonder she’d made her accountant nervous. Lilly was a full five fingers, a definite handful.

So she was watching me, looking for God in me. My grandmother said I might be the only sermon someone like Lilly ever hears. That should keep me on my toes.

When I pad around in my pajamas and big white bunny slippers, Hoppy goes crazy. She thinks she’s got company and keeps returning to my feet to sniff them. Her little nose practically vibrates with excitement. I’m thinking of getting a second rabbit so she’ll have some company. It’s easier to put two does together than two bucks, so I’ll have to get another female. If I introduce a male, within weeks, I’ll have way too much company in the house.

I leaned down to touch her soft fur. “You bunnies are just like humans, aren’t you? Two women can get along fine, but put a man in the mix and—poof!—there’s trouble.” We eyed each other soulfully, human and rabbit, and for a moment, I was sure Hoppy knew exactly what I meant. Then she tried to bite off my slipper’s nose and I snapped out of that daydream.

When my doorbell rang, my attack powder puff, Bentley, slid off the couch, rolled on the carpet, staggered to his feet and took what he thinks is an aggressive stance. It might be aggressive, if he’d ever learn to stop wagging his tail. Bentley, for all his former woes, is an optimist. “Sure,” his posture says, “I’ll protect my mistress even if she is wearing stupid slippers, but, no matter who you are on the other side of the door, I’d rather just lick your face.”

Then he must have gotten a whiff of pizza, because he raced to the door wriggling like an otter on a waterslide.

Lilly was on the other side of the door with a double pepperoni and cheese pizza, bread sticks and a liter of soda. She walked in without invitation and plopped the food down on my table. “Girl’s night,” she announced. “I’ll get the plates.”

Never one to turn away a delivered pizza, I gathered glasses and napkins and settled into one of the cushioned chairs in my dining room.

“What’s up?” I finally got around to asking as Lilly doled pizza onto plates.

“Oh, nothing. Want a bread stick?” She waved them under my nose.

“‘Nothing’? You brought a family-size pizza for ‘nothing’? Lilly, we could solve the world’s problems over this thing. What’s wrong?”

“I saw Connor after work.”