Rusty Nailed

by Alice Clayton

  Shit was about to get real. Really real.

  Poor Clive didn’t know what was going on. After moving from Jillian’s house, back to the apartment, back to Jillian’s, back to the apartment, he barely knew where his litter box was. Luckily, the Stanford sweatshirt was long gone.

  Uncle Euan and Uncle Antonio had chosen to move out of our building when it went condo, so my cat sitters were gone. I didn’t want Clive at the new house until I’d had time to kitty proof it, so off he went to kitty day care.

  I felt like the shittiest mommy on the planet. And Simon’s feelings on the matter were not helping.

  My veterinarian had recommended this great pet hotel. I say hotel, because this was not your average boarding place. He had his own room, with his own flat-screen TV playing hummingbird porn 24/7.

  “It’s just temporary. I promise, sweetie.” When we went to tour the place I’d brought Clive along, and he and Simon looked around with the same expression.

  Are you kidding me?

  “We can’t leave him here, this place is ridiculous!” Simon whispered as we walked down the row of kitty rooms.

  “This place is great. Don’t you be ridiculous,” I whispered right back as we followed the owner down the hallway.

  “And this will be Clyde’s suite!” she sang out, opening the door onto the cutest little room I’d ever seen.

  “It’s Clive. Not Clyde; Clive.” Simon sighed, rolling his eyes at me. My eyes told him to shut up. I took Clive from him, setting him down to get the lay of the land. He looked around, scratched at one of the posts, and looked back at me. “Where’s my window ledge?” he wordlessly asked.

  These two. Honestly.

  Simon and I argued about it on the way home. Clive sat regally on the console between us in the Range Rover, hind legs tucked into the cup holders. The pet hotel was a little cheesy but it was great. And it was a means to an end. It would only be for a few days while we got a feel for the new space. I’d been with Clive much longer than Simon, and I knew if there was one loose floorboard, one cupboard with a wonky door, he’d go exploring and it’d be impossible to find him later. Simon protested that I was being ridiculous and a control freak.

  I simply wanted to kitty proof the joint. That’s it. And in order to do so, my cat had to spend a few nights in an overpriced pet hotel with room service. The way Clive and Simon were acting, you’d think I’d suggested he spend a few nights on Alcatraz.

  But here we were, moving day, and Simon had finally agreed it was in Clive’s best interests, as well as his own, to take him to the pet hotel before closing on the house. I’d kissed them both that morning, telling Clive to enjoy his adventure. He arranged his paw in a way that one of his little kitty fingers was sticking straight up. Not an accident, I’m quite sure.

  I planned on working through lunch that day, trying to get everything pulled together so that when Jillian came back to work on Monday, it would be like she’d never left. No, better than when she left. I really wanted her to know how seriously I’d taken running her business while she was gone, even bringing in a few new clients while taking care of our existing ones. And mentoring a new intern with the same patience and guidance that she’d given me when I walked through those doors for the first time.

  And that while, yes, we’d lost the carpet on the third floor, I’d replaced it with something even better.

  I’d put together storyboards showing the progress on the Claremont; very striking. I’d streamlined one of the payroll reports so she could see not only total hours worked for her hourly employees but how many hours had been allocated to each project. And I almost had all the invoices for all active accounts and projects categorized and color coded in different colored folders, which were spread out all over my office.

  I was checking my math on a particularly long itemized receipt when Simon unexpectedly sailed in with a pizza box at twelve thirty. He plunked it down square in the middle of my desk with a flourish.

  “Whoa, whoa, what’s this?” I exclaimed, looking up from my adding machine and realizing that I’d lost count for the third time.

  “It’s called lunch, babe,” he said with a proud smile, pulling sodas out of a bag and looking for a place to put them down. “Damn, woman, I’ve never seen your desk this messy.”

  “Simon, wait, don’t—”

  He’d picked up three of my folders and stacked them together to make room, mixing up everything I was working on. “There we go—much better.”

  I took off my glasses and glared at him. “Do you have any idea how much time that took me to organize this morning?”

  He looked guiltily at the stack. “Oops?” he offered.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” I took the stack from him and started to separate them all over again.

  “It’s House Day, Nightie Girl.” He looked at me like I was crazy. “I thought we could celebrate with a little lunch, and I know what you’re going to say before you say it: You’re too busy. No problem—that’s why I brought lunch to you!”

  “Hey, Caroline, did you still want me to work on the cost projections for—oh, hey, Simon!” Monica said, breezing in from the hallway and stopping short when she caught sight of my boyfriend. She had a monster crush. It normally made me chuckle to watch her stammer and stutter around him, but today I didn’t even feel a flash of amusement.

  “Monica, how’d you like some pizza?” he offered, picking up the box from my desk. The papers underneath were now stained with grease.

  I pulled a colored pencil from my head and started to chew.

  “Oh no, I already ate a pizza, I mean I didn’t eat an entire pizza, I mean I went out for an entire pizza, I mean a slice! I had a small slice of pizza, and a salad, mostly salad and—”

  I stopped her. It was embarrassing. “Yes, Monica, please work on the cost projections for the Anderson account and let me know if you have questions. Thank you.”

  “Okay, sure, no problem, I’ll just be naked in the other room—I mean working! I just—crap. Bye!”

  I dropped my head to my desk. Monica was the most talented, most mature young woman I knew. I would have killed for the poise she possessed at such a young age—except when Wallbanger was involved. Then she turned to goo. I could relate. And she didn’t even know he had the power to move an entire bed with the strength of his hips alone.

  Speaking of hips, they moved into my field of vision, along with the pizza box.

  “So, lunch?”

  I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. I was at that point when you either laugh or cry, and the scales just happened to tip toward laughter. I looked up at him, celebrating House Day in his own sweet and unaware way, and cackled like a loon. “Sure, Simon. Let’s have some pizza.”

  I took the box from his hands, and right there on the top, surrounded by an army of dancing pepperoni and wearing a chef’s hat, was a picture of the devil himself.

  Cory Weinstein. Pizza chain owner. Discount giver. Self-described man about town.

  And the jackrabbit fucker who’d hijacked my O.

  My eye began to twitch. The floor, to pitch. My skin he’d seen just once now crawled and creeped and bunched and itched.

  The laughter that was ringing out from my lips turned to a shriek that stopped traffic all over town, upset several fruit carts, and may very well have been the slight earthquake tremor that was reported that night on the news. And my knees were kissing my chin as my body turned roly-poly in an effort to protect itself at all costs.

  “Oh, will you settle down? There are positively no anchovies on this pizza,” Simon said, rolling his eyes and handing me a napkin.

  • • •

  I’d had flashbacks all afternoon.

  Cory, cheers-ing me with his Natural Light beer when I met him for drinks on our one and only date.

  Cory, grinning as he slid behind the wheel of his stupid souped-up yellow Small Dick Mobile with the license plate IEETPIE. Point of order, he in fact does not.

 
; Cory, poised over me grunting and blurry while his hips ran a race he would never win.

  To be fair, I’d had every opportunity to stop this particular tragedy. And still chose to proceed with the single worst sexual experience of my life, resulting in the Great Orgasm Hiatus, as it came to be known to all mankind.

  I now blinked my eyes hurriedly, trying to get the images to stop coming. I turned onto my new street a little too quickly and the contents of my bag spilled all over the floor of the delivery van.

  Delivery van, you ask?

  Yes, delivery van. In our haste to make real estate history with the fastest decision ever, we both forgot about my commute into the city. Sure, I could take the ferry, but I hadn’t had a chance to figure out the ferry schedule. And I no longer had access to Jillian’s very sporty Mercedes. So I’d purloined the Jillian Designs delivery van, and was using that to drive over the bridge to my new address. As I pulled up in front of the old Victorian that I now called home, my lipsticks rolled around on the floor. I sighed heavily as I turned the ignition off, looking through the windshield at the house.

  From the street, it still looked melancholy and a bit run down. I knew that was temporary. Perhaps I was feeling a bit run down? This day had taken it out of me, and I wanted nothing more than to explore my new home, take a hot shower, and crawl into bed.

  A bed on the floor.

  Shit, I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted a bed. As I shut the door to the van, it squeaked in a way reminiscent of Cory Weinstein’s bed as he jackrabbited his teeny peeny in a mind-numbingly (and hoohah-numbingly) way, and I flinched once more.

  I slammed the door shut and walked up the steps. I could see Simon through the front picture window, moving boxes.

  I felt my load begin to lighten. And something else begin to tighten. This was my new home, and I was sharing it with Simon.

  Suddenly the crappy day disappeared. I couldn’t wait to get inside and make the sweet sweet love. And the nasty dirty love. And everything in between.

  I opened the front door, looking past the mauve wallpaper and the Pepto pink carpet and the dingy baseboards and the fingerprinted doorjambs and all of our boxes, and saw my boyfriend. Tall and handsome, strong and lean. He turned when I came in, and shot me a devilish grin.

  “Hey, babe.”

  “Hey, yourself,” I answered back. I dropped my bags and started to walk across all that pink toward him.

  “I waited to order some dinner till you got here. How does Thai sound to you?”

  “Sounds great, you big, hot homeowner, you,” I purred, and he looked up from his take-out menus. He grinned as he watched me walk toward him, so I threw an extra bounce into my step.

  “What’s got into you?”

  “Nothing. Not yet, at least.” I winked. “Now, where’s that blow-up bed? Let’s christen this pile of bricks.”

  I pulled him into me and kissed him deeply, winding my hands into his hair. He responded immediately, kissing me back urgently. I kissed along his jaw, along his cheekbones, drawing my tongue along his skin right where his neck met his shoulder. He always tasted amazing there.

  He groaned into my ear. “Shit. I forgot to get the blow-up bed.”

  “Whuh?” I said, my mouth full of neck and shoulder.

  “Yeah, sorry. I was so busy with everything this afternoon, it totally slipped my mind.”

  I pulled back and pulled my tongue back into my mouth. “So where are we going to sleep—aghh!” I danced away; something furry had brushed up against my legs. “What the hell was that?”

  My mind instantly conjured a task force of mice determined to take the house back from the invading humans.

  But it wasn’t mice. It was Clive. Wide eyed and bushy tailed. Now weaving himself in and out of my legs, saying hello to Mommy. I looked at him, then back up to Simon. Who had the decency to look the tiniest bit guilty.

  “I couldn’t leave him there; they called him Clyde!”

  It took me 120 seconds to fly around the house, closing each and every door to each and every room that had not been kitty proofed. And then another sixty seconds to unclench my fingernails from the inside of my palms.

  I returned to the living room. Simon was showing Clive the coat closet.

  “I can’t believe you, Simon,” I huffed, pushing past him to grab my bag from where I’d dropped it by the front door.

  “Oh, come on, it’s not that big a deal.”

  I whirled on him. “It is a big deal when this is something we’d already agreed on. I don’t have time tonight to run around this huge fucking house and make sure there’s nothing he can get into.”

  “I think you might be overreacting here a little. He’s probably going to stick pretty close to us tonight. He’ll snuggle up just like he always does and—”

  “Snuggle up with us where, Simon? In the blow-up bed we don’t have? Where the hell are we supposed to sleep tonight?”

  Clive wisely retreated to the dining room, where he pretended to explore the window seat. He was totally listening to us.

  “I forgot! It’s not the end of the world; I’ll run out and get one. No big deal,” he snapped, grabbing his jacket and starting for the door. I stepped into his way to stop him when I heard a rattling of glass. I turned around and saw Clive, halfway out the big window over the window seat.

  “Clive!” I shouted, and he froze, half in and half out. I snatched him up and held him close, Simon right behind me. The original casement windows were rusty, covered in years of old putty, and had no screens. Simon jiggled the window, finally got it shut, and turned back to face me.

  Tears were running down my face. Clive was like my child. And like any mother who just saw her child go halfway through a window, I was half scared, half furious, and totally relieved. Clive was an indoor cat through and through; he’d never been outside a day in his life. He’d only seen streets from the comfort and safety of a window ledge. With a real window between him and the streets—not this rickety death trap.

  “I’m so sorry,” Simon said, and I nodded. I hugged Clive so tightly he squeaked.

  “Where’s his carrier?” I asked.

  “I’ll get it,” he answered, and left the room.

  I looked down at my cat, who turned in my arms to look up at me. “Don’t ever do that again, you hear me?” I warned, stroking his silky fur. He put a paw over my mouth. I kissed it, smiling down at him. When Simon came back with the carrier, my smile faded.

  “I’m going to run him over to the pet place, okay?” I said quietly, nudging him into his carrier.

  He nodded. “I’ll go buy one of those blow-up beds.”

  I started for the door. “Do you have my key? In case I get back before you do?”

  “Oh, sure—here it is,” he said, pulling a new key chain from his back pocket and handing me a key. I took it.

  This didn’t have quite the ceremony that I thought it might.

  I left with my cat.

  • • •

  I checked Clive in to his hotel, bought at least a dozen I’m-sorry catnip mice, and left after he was passed out on a pillow watching Lion King. As I drove back home, thoughts flew in and out of my head almost faster than I could process. Emotions too many to count. I was pissed, no doubt about it. About the bed? Yes. About Clive almost going out the window? Yes.

  But there was more going on than just that; shit that I couldn’t even begin to ponder. Too tired to ponder this pickle, I winced once more as the car door squeaked, then plodded up the walk. I was exhausted, I was starving, and more than that, I felt terrible that this very exciting day had been turned into a crapshow.

  I pushed open the door and found the biggest blow-up bed that had ever been created smack dab in the middle of the living room. Made up with sheets and blankets and mounds and mounds of pillows. And next to that? A table made out of a box covered with a furniture pad. And next to that? Two bags full of take-out Thai and a six-pack of beer cooling in a mop bucket full of ice.

  A
nd next to that? Simon. Sitting on the end of the bed. Which was very low to the ground. And quite squishy. So when he tried to stand? Not so much.

  I bit down on the inside of my cheek as my very good looking and oh-so-athletic boyfriend struggled to stand up straight, and when he did? He was beet red.

  “I got the bed,” he said quietly.

  “I see that.”

  “It’s pretty low.”

  “It would seem.”

  He came and stood in front of me, his body tense. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  “I know.” I smoothed his hair back from his face and looked into his eyes. “I’m sorry too.”

  “Can I have that key back?”

  “Already?” I asked.

  “Gimme it,” he muttered, one corner of his mouth lifting.

  I looked at him curiously, but handed it back to him. He looked at it carefully, then back at me.

  “I’ve never lived with anyone. You know that, right?”

  I nodded.

  He was quiet for a moment, his eyes thoughtful. Then he opened my hand and placed the key back in the middle of it. Closing my hand over it, he smiled. “Welcome home, babe.”

  I smiled back and let him pull me into a slow and tentative kiss. This was better.

  • • •

  We ate dinner sitting cross-legged on the inflatable bed, which proved more difficult than I’d thought. First on the list, get some chairs over here pronto.

  After dinner we walked from room to room, talking about what might go here, and what might go there. We had a pretty good idea of where we wanted everything, but there was nothing like walking through it together and making plans. When he said he’d never lived with anyone before, he wasn’t the only one. I’d had roommates, but never lived with a boyfriend.

  Until now Simon and I had been very much together, but still very much our own entities. That had changed now. I was “living with someone.” If someone asked, “Hey, is that Caroline seeing anyone?” the answer would be, “Oh yeah, she and her boyfriend are living together,” or, “Yep, she and her boyfriend just bought a house together.” We were taking a very big step here, but a step I was glad we were taking.