The Trouble with Cupid

by Carolyn Haines

  Passin’ Time

  By Greg Herren

  I opened the front door and Trouble wasn’t there.

  The food bowl I’d set out for him was empty. The water bowl was upside down next to the cement step. He had a habit of doing that, I’d noticed. I wasn’t sure why, but it was just one of his quirks. I picked it up and walked it over to the sink and refilled it. I set it down and sat down on the step, looking around. This was the first morning since he’d shown up that he wasn’t out there, waiting for me with his eager eyes and twitching black tail.

  And it made me sad.

  You need a pet of your own, Terry, I said to myself, looking up at the blue sky. It was a gorgeous morning, not even ten yet, and already warm. The ladies of Iris and the gentlemen of Tucks had lucked out this fine Saturday before Fat Tuesday. Fat Tuesday was early this year, so I’d worried my favorite parade day might be cold—or worse, rainy. There had been a downpour on Iris Saturday a few years earlier, but the parades still rolled—the floats speeding past at breakneck speed, the marching bands and dance groups sitting out the parades—and I’d stood out there, soaked through and having the best time, even if my glasses were covered with beads of water and it was also cold out there. It had taken me a while to warm up again after that, curled up on my loveseat under woolen blankets and drinking hot chocolate spiked with peppermint Schnapps while I watched Endymion roll through mid-city on television.

  Endymion.

  I hadn’t been to the Endymion parade since—well, since Paul died. Hard to believe it had been seven years already. It had gotten easier over time, but sometimes it was still a gut punch that snuck up on me when I was least expecting it. He’d loved Mardi Gras, always wanted to go to every parade, rain or shine. Getting to the parade route uptown had always been problematic, what with traffic and all, but we always knew someone who was either having a parade party or an open house for the parades or something. He’d love this little carriage house apartment half a block from St. Charles Avenue, where I could just walk out the front gate and be at the corner in less than five minutes. And now there was a phone app that updated the parades, so you always knew where they were and didn’t have to stand around outside wondering…passin’ time, as New Orleanians called it. Paul had always loved that phrase, so expressive and so unique to the city. “Everywhere else it would be ‘wasting time,’” he would always grin when explaining it to me again, “but here we call it passin’ time, waiting around for something to happen, like a parade to show up or your friend to meet you for lunch…we’re just passin’ time.”

  How he loved New Orleans.

  I nudged the food dish by the steps with my foot. There was still no sign of Trouble this morning. Maybe he’d finally gone home? I hoped not. I’d gotten attached to the little guy since the first time he’d shown up at my door—how long had it been? A couple of weeks, maybe? It was raining that morning, and when I opened my door to take my recycling to the bin in front of the main house he’d been sitting there on my step, mewling piteously, wet from head to toe and looking at me with those enormous sad green eyes. Before I could do or say anything, he’d darted into the apartment and curled up in front of my little space heater, cleaning himself furiously. Hoping he didn’t have fleas and that he might leave, I opened my umbrella, left the door open, and waded through the little river the walk had turned into as all the rain water drained out to the street. When I got back to the apartment, the little guy was impertinently sitting on my Oriental rug, still cleaning himself. He looked at me as I shut the front door as though he was thinking, okay, human, where’s my dinner now?

  Fortunately, I had some tuna. As I opened the pouch I could hear my mother saying if you feed a cat you own the cat.

  I hadn’t had a pet since…well, since I’d had to have Nicky put to sleep. Three years after Paul died, Nicky—who’d never been the same since, it used to break my heart how Nicky would sit and stare at the front door for hours, waiting for Paul to come home—had started acting not like himself, and the tests came back bad. The cancer spread so fast…so I’d made the decision to let him go, too, take him to the vet’s on a Saturday morning and hold him while they administered the shot and his little body just relaxed. That was when I decided I had to sell that house. There was too much death there, too many reminders of what used to be around every corner. I couldn’t stand how quiet and still and empty it was.

  My best friend David and his partner had a house just up the street, and they let me stay with them for a while, while I looked for another place to live. The neighborhood had changed since we bought the house all those years ago, people moving in and buying and renovating, the bigger places being broken up into condos that were selling for ridiculous amounts of money, and I couldn’t believe what the realtor decided to put the house on the market for. I was even more shocked when she actually got it less than a month after the sign went into our little front lawn. I found this little carriage house apartment, sold all the rest of the furniture that wouldn’t fit in this place, and moved in. I’d liked it, it was cozy, the downstairs just a big room with the kitchen against one wall and the stairs to the upstairs where the bedroom suite was.

  I still liked it. It was comfortable if small, and it didn’t have any memories. I never went up the stairs expecting to see Paul in the bed, I never came down the stairs wondering where Nicky was. It was my place, and my place only, and it was where I was going to get the rest of my life going. It was close to St. Charles Avenue and the streetcar line and if it didn’t have off-street parking it didn’t matter.

  Trouble liked the tuna, and when he was finished he jumped up into my lap and gave me some head butts, and kneaded my chest and then went to sleep, purring.

  I don’t know why I decided to call him Trouble, but it just seemed to fit. He always wanted to go out at night, but he was always there at my front door every morning, hungry and wanting dinner.

  If he doesn’t come back I’ll get a rescue cat, I decided as I poured myself another cup of coffee and sat back down in my recliner. You’re lonely.

  It was funny how used you can get to being solitary. David and Russ worried I was becoming a recluse, but I was fine, really. Most of the time. It wasn’t like I wanted to find someone else or was afraid of being by myself. I’d tried getting back into the swing of dating again, of trying to find another relationship—pushed by them, of course, cheerleading every step of the way—but for one reason or another, things never quite worked out. And it was fine. I was luckier than most. I had a great relationship for a long time. Happily ever after just didn’t turn out to be the rest of my life. And I was fifty now, set in my ways. Like I told my friend Alison, “I’m too old to train a new one.”

  But a rescue cat? Probably would rescue me from being alone.

  I did miss Trouble.

  I missed Nicky.

  I missed Paul.

  My phone vibrated. It was Michael, who lived in the main house with his partner, Larry. They were nice guys, I’d seen them around for years but had never known them. I was pleasantly surprised when I moved into the carriage house to find out they had the big apartment in the main house on my side of the building. Michael had a green thumb and was responsible for the lush jungle in front of my apartment and running along the side of the house. He was texting me about the parade. We always went to the parades together—they were lovely, really nice guys, who seemed to know everyone in New Orleans and always seemed to have at least one friend riding in every parade.

  Paul would have loved that.

  I texted back, of course text me when you’re heading out to the corner.

  Mardi Gras was the hardest, really. Not Christmas or Thanksgiving, but Mardi Gras. Carnival always brought him back to me, the memories and the melancholy, which was why I was so grateful to Michael and Larry and their friends for helping me to enjoy myself. But I couldn’t help it sometimes. Sometimes when I got a great throw—a shoe from Muses or a purse from Nyx or a coconut from Zulu—I
was reminded again sharply that I was alone.

  But another relationship wouldn’t make that go away.

  I was fine. Really. I’d tried before and it hadn’t worked out and that had nothing to do with my unresolved feelings of loss. Really.

  I made another cup of coffee and was chagrined to see that I was out of creamer. I thought I’d had enough to get me through this morning, but I was wrong. I’d planned on waiting until later and going to the grocery store after the mob from Tucks had cleared, heading over to the Endymion parade route or to Endymion parties or whatever their plans were for the evening. I was always grateful for the Saturday night respite on the St. Charles route. Walgreens was just on the corner; surely it would be crowded full of revelers buying ice and things, but they wouldn’t be out of creamer—and even if they were, I could suffer thru with a little pint of milk or half-and-half or, calories be damned, heavy cream.

  I slipped on my sandals, shoved my wallet and keys into my shorts pocket, and went out the front door. I looked for Trouble, keeping my eyes open, but I didn’t see him anywhere.

  There was a crowd at the corner, with ladders for the children and chairs for adults, coolers and bags for the captured treasure, the smell of charcoal and roasting burgers and hot dogs and sausage, the scent of grease from the big corn dog and funnel cake stand set up at the corner at Felicity Street. Kids were playing frisbee and tossing a football around in the street, the downtown side of St. Charles already closed off for the start of Iris. I couldn’t help but smile and say hello back to people. Strangers greeted me as I weaved around them on my way to Walgreens. Carnival brings out the best in New Orleans, and people are always so festive and cheerful and friendly and happy.

  It didn’t take as long as I thought it would at Walgreens, and miracle of miracles they did have my French Vanilla creamer. I was in a really good mood as I walked back home.

  And when I got to my corner, there was a man standing there, holding Trouble.

  “Trouble?” I said. He’d been purring and cuddling with the man holding him, but when he heard my voice he squirmed out of his arms and ran over to me, winding in and around my legs and purring. I knelt down to pick him up. “There you are,” I said. “I was worried about you.”

  “Terry?”

  I looked up, and caught my breath. “Jeff? Is it really you?”

  “It’s really me.” He smiled his gorgeous smile back at me, his dimples deepening in his tanned cheeks, his green eyes sparkling the way that always used to—well, apparently still did—make my knees weak. “Your cat is very friendly.”

  “Trouble? Yes.” I could feel myself blushing. “How long has it been?”

  Jeff.

  How many times had I asked myself if I’d blown my second chance?

  Jeff was a friend of Russ and David’s, and the first person they tried to set me up with after Paul died. We’d actually met before that dinner party set up, when they sprang him on me. Years earlier, when Paul and I had separated, we’d connected on-line and met for coffee. He was so handsome, so tall, so sexy, and so kind…but Paul and I had made it through that bad patch and I’d never spoken to Jeff again. And then Russ and David tried to set us up. That dinner had been so awkward, with the two of them hovering and the two of us so embarrassed at how obvious they were—he’d known about me coming but I hadn’t known about him, and it was all such a huge mess that afterwards he’d walked me home and I asked him over for dinner as a do-over.

  We’d dated for about three months, nothing serious, just spending time with each other and getting to know each other. He’d moved away shortly after our coffee date, going to Dallas for a job that had turned out fairly well and he’d been able to quit that job and move back. He was a painter and a photographer, had a very successful show in a great gallery on Royal Street and then had done some in Palm Springs, New York and Beverly Hills. He was a rising star in the art world and he wanted to travel. I wasn’t in that place yet, I was still settled in New Orleans and a jet setting life of traveling the world wasn’t something…wasn’t something I was ready for. So things came to an end, without any hard feelings, and he was off. We were friends on social media, and sometimes I would see his posts from exotic places all over the world, from Peru and Bangkok, the Marshall Islands and Paris, Istanbul and Egypt, and he always looked so happy. There was always the same guy with him, it seemed, in many of the pictures and I was happy for him.

  But…sometimes, sometimes when I would see one of those pictures I would feel a pang, a sense of you really blew it…but I couldn’t feel sorry for myself for long because Jeff always looked so happy.

  “I didn’t know you were in town,” I said. I gestured down the street with my head. “I just live down the street. Would you like some coffee or something?” It sounded lame, and Trouble was looking at me, clearly thinking, you are so bad at this, no wonder you’re still single.

  “That would be…nice. You moved?”

  I nodded and we started walking through the crowd, which was getting thicker. It was almost time for the parade to start uptown, but even after its start time—if it started on time—it would take at least forty-five minutes for it to get to my neighborhood. “I sold the house,” I said. “Too many memories. I had to have Nicky put down, and I couldn’t really bear it there anymore.”

  He nodded. “Russ and David told me.”

  They didn’t tell me you were coming to town. I unlocked the gate and gestured for him to follow me around the house, down the path to the carriage house in back. I put out some food for Trouble, poured Jeff some coffee, and we sat down in my living room.

  “This is really cozy,” he said, that massive smile lighting up the room. “I’ve missed you, Terry.”

  He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, his tan arms roped with muscles. He still had that flat stomach, wide shoulders, and narrow, boyish hips. His dark hair was now shot through with streaks of gray. “I’ve missed you.” I sipped my coffee, not wanting to meet his eyes, afraid my own desperation, my own need, was written all over my face. “But you! You’re such a big star now! And you’ve been all over the world. I see your pictures on social media.”

  His face looked sad. “So you know about Tim?”

  “You both seem really happy.” I swallowed. “I’m happy for you, Jeff. I’ve always wanted you to be happy.”

  “Tim and I—we aren’t together anymore.”

  I was glad Trouble jumped into my lap at that moment so Jeff couldn’t see my face as I looked down at the cat. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It was great while it lasted, but…we just ran out of steam.” He gave me a wry smile. “It happens. How about you? This is a cute place.”

  “Yes, I like it here.” I smiled back at him.

  “And you’ve got a new cat. He’s sweet.” Trouble jumped into his lap like he knew what Jeff was saying. He headbutted Jeff a couple of times, and was purring so loud I could hear him.

  “Trouble? He’s not mine, not really. He just started hanging around and I started feeding him.” But you missed him when he wasn’t here this morning, didn’t you? You’re attached now, whether you want to admit it or not.

  “No, I meant are you seeing someone.” He was stroking Trouble, who was eating the attention up with a spoon. Jeff’s gray T-shirt was already covered with black hair.

  I laughed. “I’m single.” How pathetic do I sound? “I don’t really date anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Now that I’ve turned fifty, I don’t know. It’s just—you know, all those phone apps and the bars…I just don’t ever meet anyone.”

  “No one tries to fix you up anymore?” A ghost of a smile played at the corners of his mouth, and I wanted him to smile at me again, wanted to see the dimples deepen and the bright flash of his teeth, the way his eyes would light up from behind when he smiled.

  Five years later, I still had feelings for him.

  How embarrassingly sad. I should be over it already, righ
t?

  “No, I think everyone sees me as such a lost cause now,” I replied, surprised at how the joking words stung a bit inside. I looked around the room. How bare the walls were, how sterile my little apartment must look to him. “What about you?”

  “I never say no to a chance at finding the right guy,” he said, the corners of his mouth twitching, the green eyes twinkling.

  Is he flirting with me? And how sad that I couldn’t tell anymore.

  I could remember how his arms felt against me, how smooth and soft yet firm the bare skin of his chest felt as we spooned after a date.

  Yeah, it had been too long.

  “So what brings you to New Orleans again? Carnival, or is there something else?”

  “I’m kind of tired of being homeless, just roaming.” He laughed. “I still want to travel a lot—there are so many places I still want to see—but I need a home base. And I’ve always loved New Orleans, and you know, Carnival.” He shrugged. “I’m actually looking at a condo in this neighborhood. We’ll be neighbors.”

  My heart leaped a little bit. “It’s a great neighborhood.”

  “It’s also nice to know I have a friend in the ‘hood already. It won’t be as lonely.”

  A friend. Well, what did you expect? Of course, he only sees you as a friend!

  “If there’s anything I can do…”

  Trouble jumped out of his lap, crossed the room and leaped into mine. His green eyes stared at me, his tail twitching, as though he were saying, you’re hopeless.

  “I’d like that.” Jeff laughed. “You know, I’m staying at the Hotel Modern at Lee Circle. It’s such a great day I thought I’d walk up St. Charles Avenue…I had no idea I was going to run into you.” He paused, seemed to consider his next words. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me again.”

  “Of course I would!” I blurted out without thinking, and felt blood rushing into my face. “Why wouldn’t I?”