Jumpstart the World

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “You know money is no object, right? I mean, my mother feels so guilty. No way she’s going to refuse me anything now. Whatever that cat needs—”

  “We’re doing the best we can for him, Elle. What do you want to drink?”

  I ordered a chai latte, and Frank ordered a cappuccino, and we shuffled around silently, waiting for them to come up. Then we sat at a tiny round table on uncomfortably high stools.

  I blew on my chai latte and felt the hot steam come up into my face. “I guess it would have been better if I’d caught it earlier.”

  Frank set down his cup and sighed.

  “Elle, that cat was voted least likely to ever get out of that pound on his own four paws. Do you know what the chances were that he’d end up with someone who would shout ‘Money is no object!’ on his behalf?” He waved his arm in the air as if he were waving a fistful of hundreds around.

  I smiled in spite of myself. “I didn’t do that, did I?” I imitated the money-waving gesture. I hated to think I was becoming that much like my mother.

  “No, I threw that in to try to make you laugh.”

  I looked at the expression on his face, kind of sympathetic but sad, and I did laugh, just a little. For just a minute, I got out of myself and laughed. It had been a bad day. Still was. It felt good to laugh. Even for just a minute.

  Then I said, “What are his chances?” And braced myself hard for the answer.

  “Better than fifty-fifty. I think. But maybe not much better. Look. Elle. There are things we can do something about and things we can’t. You figured out he was in trouble. You got him in the box. At great personal sacrifice, I might add. You got him to a good vet. Now comes the part that isn’t up to you. Same with the vet. She’ll do everything she knows to help him get better. But then it’s out of her hands. The trick is to do what you can do and then let go. Just go home and wait. I know you’ll still worry about it, but it really doesn’t help to stress. Hurts you and doesn’t help him. I’ll let you know if anything changes. You can call me. Or come by if you want.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  But I wasn’t sure how one goes about not stressing. Every time I got good advice, it felt like there was some kind of instruction sheet missing.

  I thought about going by. And whether all those people would still be there.

  “Not that it’s any of my business,” I said. I could feel my heartbeat pulsing in my ears. I felt a little dizzy. “Whose top surgery are you raising money for?”

  I tried to swallow but it didn’t quite work. I’d forgotten how.

  It’s like I had to ask sooner or later. It’s like it was just going to sit there on the table like this big pink dinosaur that nobody wanted to admit was sitting there. Until I finally just took a deep breath and asked.

  But I already knew. I swear I already knew. The noises of the other patrons seemed far away, like sounds do in the minutes before you fall asleep. I felt empty and dead inside from what I already knew.

  “Mine,” he said.

  Then I just sat there and drank most of the rest of my drink and said nothing. And thought nothing. Everything just seemed heavy and dark, and I was there in the middle of it. Thinking nothing. But no matter how hard I thought nothing, I couldn’t get my stomach to stop tingling.

  “Why do I care about that cat?” I asked. After quite a long silence. It kind of surprised me. Who knew I was about to ask that?

  “Well. He’s your cat.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t care about me. I’ve never even touched him. Except this morning. Which was hardly a cuddly experience.” I ran my hand over the sea of big Band-Aids. It hurt. “And here I am dying inside because he might not be okay.” And for other reasons I wasn’t ready to go back to. “Why?”

  Frank blew foam around on top of his cappuccino. “Human nature,” he said. “To get attached to living things. Especially if we’ve made ourselves responsible for them. You just look into an animal’s eyes and decide he’ll be yours, already there’s a bond. You feel for Toto because he needs so much help. I know it’s making you hurt right now, but let me tell you, that’s a part of human nature we would not want to lose. Boy, you look at how bad things are now … just think where we’d be if that empathy ever got lost.”

  Before he left to go back to his party, I thanked him for being so much help. I thought that was good that I did that.

  “No problem,” he said. Then he said, “I’m sorry if you’re having trouble with this.”

  “Oh. Right,” I said. Wishing we hadn’t switched topics again. “Well. I guess that’s not really your problem. Is it?”

  “Not really,” he said. “But you’re my friend. So I’m sorry if this is weird for you.”

  Awkward silence.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “I’ll call you if I hear anything about the cat.”

  “Thanks.”

  This officially began the period in my life I tend to refer to as After.

  After, I went home.

  There was no cat at home. It shouldn’t have felt all that different, to have no cat at home. If there had been, he only would have been hiding under the bed anyway. But he wasn’t hiding under the bed. And he might never be hiding under the bed again. So that was different.

  After, I listened as the party began to break up next door. Every time I heard laughter, it made my face burn and tingle. Don’t ask me why. I guess it reminded me to picture the people next door.

  After, I found I had this weird tendency to notice that the refrigerator door was open and I was standing in front of it, looking in. Every time that happened, I racked my brain trying to remember having opened the door. I knew I must have. That sort of went without saying. But there was no information available. I just woke up in that burst of cool air.

  Around the third time it happened, I began to lose patience with the process. I grabbed one of the four beers left over from the party and took it out on the fire escape.

  I thought I was thinking nothing. Doing nothing. My brain was in a total state of idle. But then all of a sudden I got this mental flash of Toto hiding under the bed and hissing at me when I looked in at him. With his one gold eye shining in the dark.

  And I started to cry.

  Fortunately, it was pitch-dark. So when Frank stuck his head out, I’m pretty sure he didn’t know I was crying. At least, I hope he didn’t.

  “Hey, Elle. Want me to come sit out with you?”

  It struck me suddenly how utterly ridiculous it is to ever think you know anybody. Or to ever think you’ve found anybody you can love.

  Because you don’t know anybody.

  Ever.

  Especially when you haven’t even known them all that long. But, really, not even when you’ve known them all your life. I never thought my mother would trade me for some dork named Donald. And I sure as hell never thought Frank was anything other than a guy.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I was just going in anyway.”

  And I did.

  EIGHT

  Frank Who?

  I skipped school the next day. Took the subway back down to the vet’s. Everybody who worked there knew I was a friend of Frank’s. So this older woman from behind the desk let me come in the back and see Toto.

  I don’t think they do that for just everybody.

  A couple of women passed us in the hall, and smiled at me like they felt sorry for me. Like they wished we could have better news.

  She took me into a room full of cages. The dogs were all on one side, and two of them stood up and wagged their tails at me. One pawed gently at the bars. I guess we all just want to go home.

  Toto was in a cage at about eye level. Flat out on his side. I’d never seen him looking relaxed. Well, I mean … I guess he was more than relaxed. He was unconscious. But it was still the only time I’d seen him not looking scared.

  He had an IV dripping into his front leg. Taped to a patch of shaved skin.

  “He’s still trying to sleep off the anesthe
sia,” she said.

  “The swelling is better already.”

  “Well, yes. But that’s easy. That’s the main infection site. That’ll start to drain right away. Now that the bad tooth is out.”

  “He looks so sweet when he’s out like that.” By the end of the sentence, I could feel my lip quivering like it was all I could do not to cry.

  “Well … maybe he really is sweet. Under there somewhere.”

  “So, what now?”

  “He’s on some really powerful antibiotics. So we just have to wait and see if he responds or not. See which is stronger. The infection, or the combination of the antibiotics and his own immune system. The next forty-eight hours are …”

  I’m pretty sure she must’ve kept talking. But I didn’t hear any more. I looked up and saw Frank standing over by the door.

  He caught my eye, and then I looked down at the floor again.

  I didn’t want to look at him. Because I didn’t want to do that thing. That obvious thing. Where you look at him in a whole new light. Use the new information to look at him and see something entirely different. I didn’t care to try on any new views of Frank.

  “How’s he doing?” Frank asked.

  I just shrugged.

  “Still a little touch and go,” the woman said. “But he’s still with us. He’s a fighter.”

  My face felt hot, and I hated knowing I was probably blushing in front of both of them.

  I was trying to think of the fastest way to get out of there when the woman said, “I’ll be up front if you need anything.” And bustled out.

  I looked at Frank and he looked at me. Just for a second. I could feel something heavy between us, like a metal partition. Something you can’t see or hear through. Even Superman’s X-ray vision would’ve been no match for it.

  It was a lot like the energy two people tend to have when they like each other but they’ve been fighting. But Frank and I hadn’t had a fight. He’d been nothing but kind to me.

  He came over and stood beside me and looked into the cage with me. “I liked him better feisty,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  “You doing okay?”

  “With what exactly?”

  I would have bet you money I wasn’t going to say anything like that. That I wasn’t going to refer to that other matter in any way. I’m not sure what happened. It’s like a capped volcano. Or a tube of toothpaste someone has been leaning on. Give it the slightest opening, you’ll find out it’s just waiting to spill.

  “Take your pick,” he said.

  “I’m fine.”

  I said it the way people say they’re fine when they’re obviously not.

  He put one hand on my shoulder. I ducked out from under it. It’s not something I really thought out in advance. It just happened.

  “I’m just upset about my cat,” I said. “I’ll call later and see how he’s doing.”

  “Want me to call you on your cell if anything changes?”

  “No thanks. I’ll just call later.”

  I just wanted to go somewhere else. Anywhere else. Somewhere where I’m not always about to lose something. And maybe even where everyone is just about what you thought they were.

  Wherever the hell that is.

  I didn’t look back on my way out. I wasn’t anxious to see the look on his face. So I just walked away.

  I went home, but it seemed weird and pointless to be there. There was nothing I wanted to do. I felt like I needed to throw myself into something. But identifying the something was proving tricky.

  I felt like it would be a good time to have a friend. I could tell my friend all about my cat, and how worried and stressed out I was. And if it was a really good friend, I might even be able to talk about the thing with Frank. But that would have to be a pretty damn good friend. I didn’t have anybody who was even close to that category.

  I looked down at the leather bracelet on my wrist—I’d been wearing it pretty much every day—and I did think briefly about Wilbur. Maybe I could tell Wilbur about my cat. But I didn’t even know Wilbur well enough to know if he liked cats. If he would understand.

  I ate some crackers and then decided that my camera was my only real friend. I loaded up all my lenses and a couple extra rolls of film and took it all out to the street in search of Crazy Harry. I decided I would do a sort of photo essay on Crazy Harry. Maybe someone would look at the pictures and see what was so desperately lacking in his life. Maybe I could photograph the hole in Crazy Harry and it would mean something.

  I’m not sure why I thought that. Except that something in my life had to mean something.

  I sat on the stoop in front of our building for almost two hours. Until the sun moved across the sky so that I wasn’t in the cool shade anymore, and then it got too hot to hang out and wait.

  I never saw Crazy Harry. Maybe he was back on his meds and I’d missed my shot. Or maybe even crazy people need to take a day off now and then. One way or another, he never showed.

  First, it made me mad. Here I’d lost all my friends except my camera, and I couldn’t even get a break on something to shoot.

  Then I decided it wasn’t reasonable to assume that some perfect shot was going to be sitting there waiting for me just because I needed one.

  I hated moods like that, where you feel like you need something to fill this big hole in you, and it has to be now. The hole never gets filled, somehow. The something is always just out of reach.

  But then I thought, Maybe you can’t just expect the shot to be there. Maybe you have to find it. Pursue it.

  Maybe even create it.

  I actually did go to school later that day. Briefly. But it wasn’t so much about attending classes. Which I was still too upset to do. I don’t think I would have been able to pay attention anyway, so it seemed pointless.

  I actually went to find Wilbur.

  And I did find him. After about twenty minutes of looking. Sitting cross-legged in a corner of one of the stairwell landings, reading a dog-eared paperback.

  He looked up and smiled.

  “Hey,” I said. And sat down next to him.

  “Hey.”

  “Where are you supposed to be?”

  “Gym class. It’s unbearable.”

  “Oh.”

  “Where are you supposed to be?”

  “Home, I guess. Since I’m skipping school today. And I’ll probably have to say I’m sick.”

  He put down the novel. “So if you’re skipping school, isn’t showing up here a little counterproductive?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. But I wanted to ask you something.”

  I was hoping he wouldn’t ask why I’d come all the way down to school to do it. Rather than just ask next time I saw him. Because it would have been tricky to explain. Part of that whole needing-something-right-now thing.

  “Okay.”

  Now that I thought about it, Wilbur didn’t ask a lot of questions.

  “I wanted to know how you would feel about me taking pictures of you.”

  He glanced at the camera hanging around my neck. I’d brought it along in the hopes that we could do something immediate.

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. Just for me, I guess. I’m trying to learn photography. I just need a subject who’s … you know … interesting.”

  “Interesting as in weird?”

  “No. Not at all. Interesting. As in, somebody who looks like they have a story to tell.”

  He seemed to like that. I could see the difference on his face.

  “Okay. I’ll try it. So long as I get to see the pictures before you do anything with them. And you have to let me really be me. Which is a little more extreme than the way I come to school. And I’ll have to get dressed and made up at your place. I can’t leave home looking like that.”

  While he talked, I was having to let go of the idea of getting what I wanted on the spot. It hurt to feel it pulled away.

  “When, then?”

  “Maybe Sa
turday.”

  “Okay. I guess Saturday would be okay.”

  Which still left me with today to fill. But that really wasn’t Wilbur’s problem.

  We sat there awhile longer in the corner of the landing, and he didn’t pick up the book again. There was a beam of sunlight slanting down from a high window over our heads, and I watched bits of illuminated dust swirl in it.

  “Do you like cats?” I asked after a time.

  “I love cats. I used to have a cat. But my stepfather gave her away.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  My problems didn’t seem so big compared to that. So I wasn’t sure whether to say more or not.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Oh. I guess I just wanted to talk to somebody because my cat is sick.”

  “Is he gonna be okay?”

  “Not sure yet.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  We sat awhile longer. I watched dust swirl. Thinking it was probably always swirling like that. Everywhere. I just didn’t usually see it so clearly.

  Then Wilbur said, “If there’s anything I can do …”

  I was able to think of something immediately.

  * * *

  Wilbur and I walked all the way to the vet’s office after school. I thought it would be better to walk. Like it would calm me down and tire me out and make it easier to be there.

  Or maybe I just wanted to get there as slowly as possible.

  I purposely didn’t call ahead because I was scared of what they’d tell me. My gut felt like there must be bad news, and it would be better if I didn’t know.

  The woman with the wildly curly hair—who I’m pretty sure was a vet—was standing behind the counter with the receptionist when we came in. They were looking closely at a prescription bottle together. She looked up as I came through the door.

  “Hey, you,” she said. Kind of brightly. “Guess whose cat just sat up and drank some water?”

  Even if she hadn’t said anything at all, I knew just from the look on her face that I could stop bracing for the worst. I felt myself breathe—really breathe—for what felt like the first time in ages.

  She said, “That’s one strong cat you’ve got there.”

  I could feel myself smiling too widely.