![\"DSC05239\"](\"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/DSC05239-300x251.jpg\")
My mother called me Fi Fi and my father called me Pumpkin, but to my neighbors and writing students, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m Miss Ophelia Perhaps, neighborhood detective. I live with a very difficult cat named Ti Jean in the tiny room of some family friends in Summertown, just north of Oxford.<\/p>\n
After a brisk walk down Banbury every morning, Dennis brings me coffee with a slice of cake every day at the Albion Beatnik Caf\u00c3\u00a9. I sit there in his front room and talk with old Mr. Briggs most mornings, except Sundays. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when his wife makes him go to church.<\/p>\n
I spend most evenings over glasses of Pinot Gris in the Oxford Wine Caf\u00c3\u00a9. In between the two cafes, I teach people to write and occasionally my neighbors ask me to help them solve mysteries.<\/p>\n
But this rainy Wednesday morning, something\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wrong. The Beatnik is still locked at 10:14 a.m. Where\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Dennis? And where\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mr. Briggs? Oh, hold on, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a note. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Emergency. Back later.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be right. And who wrote the note?<\/p>\n
I call Mrs. Briggs, but she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not much help.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mrs. Perhaps?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she says with a quaver, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know a Mrs. Perhaps.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a friend of Oscar’s. We meet at The Beatnik every morning. He may refer to me as Ophelia.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re that person!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Right. Well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a bit worried. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a note on the Beatnik door that says there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been an emergency.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Briggs is silent. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes. There was. Oscar had a heart attack last night. I suppose you could call that an emergency.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m so sorry. Is he alright?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing tests today. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m off to see him at hospital in a few minutes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is there something I can do?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, no, dear. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be all right.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Okay, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be back in touch in a few hours. Cheers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I walk down to Joe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s. I need a drink. Melissa was serving.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fish and chips and a glass of Pinot . . . the usual, Melissa.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
“Pinot at 11 a.m.? Seems a little early, even for you.”<\/p>\n
Yeah. It probably is.”<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something very comforting about chips. I use British condiments with my chips now that I’ve been here eight months, and HP brown sauce is today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s choice. As I dip each hot chip into puddles of spicy brown glop, I think about Dennis and Mr. Briggs. If Mrs. Briggs didn’t want me to come, why is Dennis at the hospital?<\/p>\n
I signal to Melissa to bring the check.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, Mrs. Perhaps, a gentleman already paid your check. He told me he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d wanted to pay for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that nice American woman at table 6.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What are you talking about?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think he was an American. Had on a black trench coat and a kind of American hat.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What kind of American hat?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Like I see those rappers wear backwards, except he had it on frontwards.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Like a baseball cap?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Was it? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know anything about baseball. It was just a rapper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hat turned round.”<\/p>\n
“Did it have a logo or a symbol of some kind on the front?”<\/p>\n
“There was something written on it, but I don’t remember what. Anyway, he seemed more of a Heinz ketchup American, you know, somebody who hasn’t been here long. Not a brown sauce American like you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I left Joe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in an unsettled state, standing at the front door threshold, looking up and down the sidewalk through the drizzle for a black trench coat. Not seeing one, I popped open my umbrella and headed home to give Ti Jean lunch. Ti Jean gets angry when he’s hungry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My mother called me Fi Fi and my father called me Pumpkin, but to my neighbors and writing students, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m Miss Ophelia Perhaps, neighborhood detective. I live with a very difficult cat named Ti Jean in the tiny room of some family friends in Summertown, just north of Oxford. After a brisk walk down Banbury […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ophelia-perhaps-mystery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":808,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions\/808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathygrossman.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}