Liza Bean Has My Number

Knowing my weakness for good chocolate, Liza Bean Bitey (of the Minneapolis Biteys) lured me out of the house the other night.

Lured.

She knows, the fuzzy little manipulator, that I will go out of my way for a piece of good chocolate.

As it turns out, I didn’t have to go far out of my way – just out to the porch.

“I know how much you like a good piece of chocolate,” Liza Bean said, casually. “It’s out on the porch.”

Out on the porch? Now why would it be out there? I better go check on it!

Of course, by the time I had stepped out on to the porch and saw it sitting on the long table normally reserved for smokers and other miscreants, the door had closed and locked behind me.

No worries, though! Chocolate! In hand!

Just a bit of door banging later, Willie let me out of the porch and back into the house; but by that time, Liza Bean had her tiny striped paws on my keys, gotten into the garage, and we watched from the back window as she drove down the alley.

The little bugger.

She came back, of course. As usual, it was 4:00 a.m.. I took the keys off the kitchen table and stepped outside at 4:15.

I sat in the car, out of the freezing wind and started ‘er up. The gas gauge showed “full”. The big ol’ engine on the ’98 Le Sabre was still warm, and the heat blew on to my feet. I turned the stereo on: Stephen Stills' “Love the One You’re With”.

Hmmmm. Not what I expected.

Something shiny in the back seat caught my eye.

It was a gift-wrapped box. There was a card attached to it: “Pearl”, it said, in a neat, spiky script.

I opened the box and nestled in amongst the paper was an emerald-green cashmere beret.

It was beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful.

There was a note tucked inside the cap. I unfolded it. The same spiky cursive handwriting, neat and contained.

“You really should be wearing a hat,” it said. It was signed “Liza Bean Bitey, of the Minneapolis Biteys”.

That little bugger.