Stressed!

by Deborah Martin

  I spent the weekend curled up with a good novel and by the time Monday rolled around, felt more like myself. When Ev walked in the door Monday morning, the first thing I did was reach up and slap his face, but good. It left a greenish mark on his puce-colored skin in the exact shape of my hand.

  “Ow. What did I do?”

  “Didn’t bother telling me Tony was a were, that’s what you did.”

  Ev looked confused. “But I didn’t know he was a were. I would never have thought to fix you up if I knew, or I’d at least have said something. Honest! What happened?”

  Without going into any gory details I simply told him Friday evening had been ruined when Tony changed and then mentioned his comment about a wizard’s potion. “I’ve heard of those and always wondered if they worked. I guess not, huh?” Ev said.

  “I thought non-humans could sense other non-humans but it looks like I thought wrong. From now on, no more trying to fix me up, Ev. I’ll make my own choices in men and I can guarantee they won’t be anyone from your side of the tracks. Now, we have some business to talk about.” With that, I picked up my notes and we got to work.

  Naturally, Tony called that morning. He knew I’d have to answer this phone. He started out with “Amy, I’m truly sorry. I’d like to see you again, at an appropriate time of the month.”

  I really didn’t want to date a were. With both of us having our ‘times of the month’, I could envision all sorts of problems, especially if they coincided. I blew him off with, “I don’t think we’re right for each other. Please don’t call again unless it’s business-related,” and hung up. He got the message and never called the office phone again. If he needed to speak with Ev, he called Ev’s cell phone. I saw him occasionally at parties and we always managed to stay on opposite sides of the room from each other.

  That was almost five years ago. I hadn’t exactly been celibate in that time but seeing as how my work and social life sometimes blurred together, I didn’t meet anyone I really wanted to get serious with. I decided only true humans or wizards were safe but none lasted more than a few dates. If they were fully-human, they had an ego the size of China. If they weren’t mundane, there was always something niggling in the back of my mind about how the relationship could go majorly wrong in a short period of time.

  OK. Enough reflection. I was half way through my pot of coffee and it was time to do something productive. I showered and sat down at my desk. I decided against perusing the want ads. I knew in my heart that despite everything, I liked my job. I also knew that there was no way I’d be able to replicate the income and benefits I currently had. So, it was time to start writing.

  Fudge bestirred himself to come off the window ledge and curl up on my desk as close to the keyboard as he could get without actually doing the typing himself. I initially found this arrangement unsatisfactory but after several attempts to get him to lie elsewhere, I gave in and as long as he didn’t touch the keyboard, we worked together – me typing and him supervising.

  On further reflection (I seemed to be doing a lot of that this day), I started writing about the time Fudge came to live with me. Was he my Muse?

  I’d been in the apartment almost two years and in that time, had convinced Mr. Owens to put screens on my windows so I could open them in nice weather without worrying about being bug chow. Don’t ask me how, but he’d managed to put a spell on the screen so when I had the windows open, the view from the street was obstructed. So I was able to have privacy along with airflow. There were perks to having a wizard as a landlord! (For some reason the spell didn’t work when the windows were closed so I still needed drapes. Nonetheless, I’d take the tradeoff.)

  I was sitting on the couch with my nose stuck in a book one lovely spring night with the windows open when I heard some caterwauling outside. This was really nothing new: the neighborhood cats occasionally had an argument about territory. What was different was the proximity. When I said ‘outside’ I meant ‘right outside my window’. It was loud. I was about to yell for them to take it elsewhere when the screen came tumbling into the living room followed immediately by a dark brown streak that after a pause with a crazed look around, headed down the hall to my bathroom.

  When I looked out the now really open window, I saw a large orange tabby staring in. He made one attempt to come into my apartment and stopped cold, as if he’d run into a brick wall. He did some more staring, tried again and again was rebuffed. The only thing I could think of was Mr. Owens’ wards were doing their thing but against a cat? I’d have to ask about that. I closed the window and slid the drapes back into place until I could get the screen back on and decided to deal with the interloper.

  I looked in my bathroom to see a kitten huddled behind the commode. He looked pitiful. I didn’t have a lot of experience with cats but he looked to be six months old at the outside and so skinny, he could have been the proverbial thermometer. His coat wasn’t in the best shape, either, but that could have been from lack of food, too.

  “Well, if you got through the wards, you must be OK,” I quietly said to him. When I moved to pick him up, he didn’t try to fight me, bite or anything. “Let’s see if I can find you something to eat and drink. Then we’ll worry about the rest of you, huh?”

  He stayed cuddled in my arm as I walked into the kitchen. The only thing I could find in my cupboards that might appeal to a cat was tuna, so I put down an entire can plus a bowl of water. He promptly devoured the food and looked at me as if to say, “More?”

  “That’s all I have and it’s too late to go to the store tonight,” I answered the unspoken query. Then I remembered that the two witches upstairs had a couple of cats. Maybe I could borrow some food from them. I picked up the phone and when Elinda answered, I described my predicament. She came right down with a large plastic container of kibble.

  “Aw, what a sweetie!” she said. “Do you want to keep him? If not, we can try to integrate him with ours, although the age difference may be a problem.” I thought about it. The last pet I’d had was a dog that had died a year before my folks. He’d made the mistake of trying to cross a busy street at night and didn’t survive an encounter with a car. I wasn’t averse to pets. I just had never gotten around to getting another.

  “Sure, I’ll give it a try,” I replied. “As long as he stays indoors, that is. I don’t want the heartbreak of losing him to traffic or one of the neighborhood bully cats.”

  “Wonderful. I always like to see strays get good homes. We’d probably have twenty if we had the space. Over the years we’ve collected a ton of cat stuff. I’ll go get one of our spare litter boxes and some litter to tide you over. I’ll also bring back the phone number of our veterinarian. He needs to be looked at.” Elinda left and was back in less than five minutes with everything. We decided my bathroom was large enough to handle the litter box, too, and put it down.

  “You’re a witch. Maybe you know the answer,” I said as we arranged everything to my satisfaction in the bathroom.

  “What’s that, darlin’?”

  “How did the kitten race through Mr. Owens’ wards and his tormentor run into a brick wall?”

  “Ah. I’m not exactly sure because witches and wizards go about their spells differently, but I’ve got a good idea. This building is spelled to be a safe haven. It’s supposed to be for the residents but maybe the Universe decided the kitten was supposed to be a resident here. As for the bully, he had bad intentions, even if it wasn’t against a human resident, so the wards naturally wouldn’t let him in.

  “Now, you and he get acquainted. You’ll have to find a name for him, you know.” She left and with a promise to check in the next day, went back upstairs.

  While the kitten was chowing down, I went outside to put the screen back on. There was no sign of the tabby, for which I was grateful. There had been enough drama for one night. I tried to go back to the book I’d been reading but couldn’t get back into it, so I turned the television on just to have the noise.

  Af
ter the kitten had eaten about a cup of the kibble Elinda had brought down, he used the litter box without even having to be shown where it was, and then hopped into my lap. It must be a reflexive thing. With him in my lap, I automatically started stroking him. He started purring. “Name, huh?” I said to him. “Well, you’re a beautiful shade of brown – like a good chocolate dessert. How does ‘Fudge’ sound?” The purring intensified and he started giving himself a bath. I’d heard somewhere that cats only bathe when they’re content and somewhere they feel safe. I guess that was my clue. ‘Fudge’ it was.

  The next morning I woke to find him curled up in my hair. Apparently straight hair isn’t an acceptable bed because when I looked in the mirror, I saw the worst case of bed hair I’d ever had. It was a good thing there were no birds around. They’d have happily adopted the nest for their own. It took fifteen minutes to comb out the snarls and I was almost late for work.

  I made an appointment with the vet for that afternoon. Because the referral came from Elinda and Fudge was a stray, she squeezed me in. Ev wasn’t too happy about my leaving the office early but didn’t bitch too much because I rarely did so. Dr. Evans was a witch, one who could speak with animals. She gave the cat whatever shots she felt were necessary, and she gave me instructions on feeding, getting rid of the ear mites and the like. At the same time she told me ‘Fudge’ was a good name coming from a human – he liked it. (Cats do have their own names. We just can’t pronounce them.) “For the moment, allow him to eat however much he wants. He’s a couple of pounds underweight. We’ll adjust his diet once he starts looking really healthy.” I had to bring him back in two months’ time for a checkup.

  It didn’t take long for Fudge to declare himself master of the house. He altered my routine so he ate at appropriate times. I had to scoop the litter box every day. He was even more fastidious than what I imagined cats to be. If I forgot and left it too long, he used the bathtub to remind me that I was shirking my duties.

  Then there was the issue of the drapes. Within two weeks my lovely room-darkening damask drapes were in shreds. I sighed, thinking kittens did climb a lot, admonished him when I caught him hanging from them, and bought some replacements. A month after that the new ones looked like a lot of modern jeans: artfully ripped here and there. For some reason the sheers didn’t suffer the same injustice as the heavier curtains. I resigned myself to not having fancy drapes and purchased cheap ones that didn’t block the sun but did provide some privacy.

  Because of the drapery issue, I became a morning person in the summer months when the sun shined directly into my windows at an insanely early hour. Since I had an altered routine already, I kept it up even in the winter when my bedroom was dark until almost 8:00 a.m. (Getting up and into the office early also gave me an excuse not to go to as many parties as Ev would have wished. There are benefits.)

  As a young single woman with effectively no love life, I had started reading romance novels in between the literature I’d never read in school. I made my way through some fantasy, too, laughing at how much the authors got wrong about non-human species. Burying myself in the romance, I could at least enjoy the pleasures of a man’s company vicariously. But after the tenth one, I got to thinking that I could probably write as well, or even better.

  Just to see if I could do it, I sat down at my computer one Sunday afternoon and started writing. It wasn’t too difficult to create characters and then get them into bed, with a few hiccups along the way. Fudge did his part by ensuring that once I got going, I stayed at the computer for at least a couple of hours. If I tried to procrastinate, he batted at my hands, implying I needed to get back to work.

  It didn’t take long to turn my experience with Tony coupled with an inventive imagination into a full-length novel. Once I’d written it, though, I had to know if it was any good. I turned to my closest friend, Cassandra, for her opinion.

  Chapter 5

  I’d met Cassandra on my first day of work. I was used to running out for lunch, picking up something at a drive-through, bringing it back and eating at my desk. However, on this particular day, I had walked to work and the closest fast food joint was about a mile away. I decided to check out the deli downstairs to see if their food was edible.

  I walked through the door that opened on the stairs, rather than go outside and enter by the front door. I was greeted by lovely smells: fresh-baked bread, spices, cheese, meat, everything I associate with an old-fashioned deli. It was fairly small: five bistro-type wrought-iron tables with glass tops and four chairs each were the only seating. A glass-fronted case held various meats, cheeses and breads with the usual machines on a counter behind the case. One door behind the case led into what I presumed was a kitchen and another at the far end led to the bathrooms. All the tables were full with five people in line, waiting to order. All-in-all, a brisk business.

  The lady behind the counter appeared to be about my age (she’s actually five years older). She was tall and skinny with long, coal black hair coiled underneath a hairnet, and bright green eyes. No tits to speak of meant the amethyst spear she wore on a chain swayed all over the place when she moved but it didn’t appear to bother her at all.

  “Hiya. What can I get you?” she asked when it came my turn.

  “I just started working upstairs and I’ve got more work than I even want to think of. How about a sandwich of some kind that won’t drip anything on the papers?”

  “You mean Ev finally broke down and hired someone? I’ve been trying to convince him to do that since he opened the agency two years ago. No ogre I know has any sense of organization and he’s the poster child. D’you think he’ll finally pay the rent on time? My name’s Cassandra, by the way.”

  “I’m Amy. I knew I had my work cut out for me when I saw the mounds of paper on his desk at my interview. Is there anything else I need to know?”

  “Nah. Ev’s a good guy, especially for an ogre. Just stay assertive and you two will get along fine.” Her eyes went kind of blank for a moment. “As a matter of fact, you’re going to get along well for quite some time.”

  “Excuse me?” I said. “How do you know about this ‘quite some time’?”

  “Oh, sorry. I forget sometimes. I get visions and forget to think before opening my mouth. Did I say something to worry you?”

  “No. I’ve just never had any part of my future blurted out quite like that. However, it’s good to know the job will work out. I hate to cut this conversation short but I really do need to get back to work.”

  “Of course. Do you have any preferences for a sandwich, or any allergies I should be aware of?”

  With the exception of peas, ‘No’ to both questions yielded a BLT on homemade wheat bread with homegrown tomatoes and lettuce; and homemade mayonnaise. The mayo was so thick there was no danger of it dripping out of the sandwich. She paired it with fresh, hot potato chips only lightly salted, and a glass of iced tea with a sprig of fresh peppermint served in a hard plastic tumbler with a plastic lid.

  “Bring the glass back and I’ll refill it anytime. I hate using anything that can’t be recycled or composted. Consider this lunch a welcome to the neighborhood. I have a feeling I’m going to be making enough money off you that I can afford to give away a freebie the first time,” she grinned.

  I took my meal back upstairs and the first bite told me she was right: I decided I’d be having all my lunches from her. That girl could cook!

  It only took a couple of weeks for us to become fast friends. Cassandra was a witch from a long line of witches. (Do not shorten it to Cassie unless you want to experience what it’s like to be a frog for an hour or so, and ‘Cass’ will get you the retort that she is skinny and can’t carry a tune.) She had grown up around the deli and inherited it and the house next door just a few years earlier from her grandmother, who had died when a spell when horribly awry. Her parents lived in Arizona, enjoying the sun and fun that came with retirement from the mundane world.

  Cassandra owned the entire buildi
ng, actually. The floors above the deli used to be her grandparents’ living quarters. When the house came up for sale they bought it and after moving, renovated their old apartment into offices. There was a large garden in the backyard of the house which was what her grandmother wanted. It’s where she grew most of the vegetables and herbs she used at the deli during the warm months and Cassandra carried on the tradition with her sickeningly green thumb.

  She and two helpers ran the deli. With two employees she had enough time to tend to that garden and still deal with other things. The deli was closed on Sundays and Mondays, effectively giving her an entire weekend, and leaving her free to do things on a Saturday night. We had our first girls’ night out within a month of meeting and over the course of several months, she and her friends showed me all the places a single girl could go without having to worry about fending guys off … and some where you could go if you didn’t want to fend guys off.

  She was also an avid bicyclist and in addition to helping me buy my bike, took me on my first tour of all the lakes. Thankfully, there were plenty of places to pause since I wasn’t quite as in shape as I’d like to be. The ice cream shop just a step away from one of the bike paths became another one of our hangouts in the summer months. From their patio you could watch all the other cyclists and rollerbladers go by. I had no idea just how tight an ass rollerblading gives a guy until that point.

  Naturally, when I wanted a girl’s opinion about something, Cassandra was the one I called. So one Saturday evening I called to make sure she was going to be home, printed off a hard copy of the manuscript and headed over with a couple bottles of wine.