Cattery Row

by Clea Simon

  “Really?” From the rising tone in her voice, I could hear how desperate she was. “Oh, that would be grand. But wait, let me try to call them one more time. I’ll put on my best dominatrix voice, see if that works. I mean, driving an hour for a receipt? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Hey, it’s the only way to get to spend time with you.” I meant it as a joke, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. Violet had a job with the shelter, which often stretched into the nights. She had classes, and—unlike me—she had a real relationship, one that she was committed to making work. Caroline was great, a real friendly jock-type, and she’d always been inviting to me. But being with a couple, gay or straight, was still different from hanging out with just your friend. That I didn’t have such a commitment of my own was at least partly my fault, and I hadn’t meant to throw her relationship back in her face. “I’m sorry,” I stammered out. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Things are just weird now, with Bill. You know?”

  “No, I don’t know, cause you never tell me anything anymore.” We were both silent, both feeling peeved and both, I suspected, a little guilty, too. “Look,” Violet finally broke the quiet. “Why don’t you come over tonight? I’ll tell Caro to go off to that reading series she’s always so keen on. I could do with one night away from my own books, too. We’ll have some dinner, maybe go hear some music. I haven’t been out clubbing in ages. What do you say?”

  “I say, great. And thanks, Violet.”

  “Say no more.”

  ***

  Bill’s voice mail, rather to my relief, didn’t say anything when I told it that I missed him too, but that I was spending the evening with Violet, so I wasn’t quite sure why I felt so guilty. But a long, hot shower and a good half hour of foil-ball play with Musetta exorcised some of those feelings. And after my rotund little cat had retired for a well-deserved nap, I started attacking that pile of bills: City would pay on acceptance so, at least for a while, I could be looser with the purse strings.

  Still, I told Violet she could pick up the first round when we went out that night. Nobody we knew was playing at Amphibian, but our fallback, the Casbah, was as loud as ever. As we made our way through the crowd in the club’s front room combination bar-restaurant, I felt myself warmed by the boisterous roar.

  “Krakow, Violet, yo! C’mon over here.” A booming male voice hailed us from the bar. “Hey, sweetie.” Fully aware of her preferences, Ralph, the large male owner of the voice, planted a big wet kiss on Violet’s cheek. Me, he smiled at. I’m quite a bit bigger than my friend. In return, I didn’t pull his skinny little rat-like ponytail. “What ill wind blew you in?” The jovial roll of his voice let us know he had a few beers’ head start.

  “Just looking for trouble,” I replied. I didn’t need to see Violet’s expression to know not to let our inebriated colleague invite himself to join us. I’d experienced enough of Ralph’s attention when I was writing for the Mail . He was their staff music critic, which meant he ran a drink tab at every club in town. And despite the slight blackmail involved in getting him to pay up—what bar owner would risk alienating him?—he wasn’t a bad guy. Just messy, especially when tipsy, and so sure he was the goddess’ gift to every female under forty that he’d become something of a parody of himself.

  “Love to have two beautiful ladies join me!” With only one barstool empty beside him, he patted his knee. We both backed away. Luckily Risa, the bartender, had sussed out the situation.

  “Theda? Violet?” She pointed to a table in the corner, a tight two-top that was just getting wiped down, and we slipped away as she drew another draft—and Ralph’s attention.

  “So how did the exam go?”

  “It went. I’ll hear next week, so I’m trying not to think about it.” Violet was suppressing a smile, so I pushed.

  “It went?”

  “Okay, I think I aced it.” A broad grin lifted her round face into dimples, making her look more pixie than punk. “But let’s not jinx anything. I mean, it’s just midterms.”

  “Yeah, I expect the same on the finals, too.”

  “So does Caro. She’s promised me a real blow-out at the Capital Grille if I do better than a B.”

  I felt a twinge of jealousy. Of course, Violet would celebrate with her partner. Why not at the ritziest steak house in town? “So you’re eating meat again?” The words had more edge than I’d intended.

  “Yeah, Caro’s a bad influence, I know.” Violet didn’t seem to have noticed. “But only once or twice a year. Maybe once a semester if I can keep the grades up. So, what’s up with you and Bill?”

  I spilled it all: my ambivalence, the desire not to repeat the Rick experience, and my fear that maybe I was becoming as distant and cool to Bill as Rick had been to me by the time he left town. By the time I finally got around to telling her about the phone message from my ex, she and I were finishing up our mixed plates: falafel and hummus for her, the Casbah’s garlicky lamb and a feta-studded salad for me.

  “You didn’t call him back, did you?” We were both licking our fingers, and I could taste the garlic in my breath. Heaven.

  “Not yet.”

  “Good. He doesn’t sound like he’s worth the trouble.” Violet pushed her plate away and grabbed a napkin, which she started shredding. “And I think you’re right to get your own head clear first.” Her eyes darted from the paper pile in front of her to the condiments. One hand began drumming on the tabletop. “God, I can’t believe I’m still looking for an ashtray. I can’t believe there’s no smoking here now!”

  “Since when do you smoke?” I’d welcomed the citywide ban that made even clubs and bars more breathable, but I also didn’t mind changing the subject.

  “Organic chemistry.”

  “Meat, beer, tobacco…so much for the ‘edge.’” When I’d met Violet, she’d only recently abandoned the hardcore straight-edge punk lifestyle of no stimulants and meatless, dairy-free vegan food. “What happened?”

  “It was working in the coffee house,” she smiled back now, a tight sly smile. “You kept telling me how fine that caffeine hit was, and it only took a little push.”

  “Well, I never said anything about tobacco.” I stared at her for a moment, resisting the guilt. It’s true that when we met, she was responsible for feeding my caffeine habit—I was a regular at the Mug Shot, when she’d been behind the counter. But she knew how I felt about smoking, even if I had helped edge her from her hardcore purity. She stared back. “Okay, okay. I can’t stand to see you jonesing,” I said finally, and her tight smile opened up. We got Risa’s attention and paid the bill. Two steps out the door and Violet was lighting up.

  “Don’t tell Caro, will you?” she asked between puffs. The shelter was only a few blocks away, but she was walking slowly, dragging out the time as she sucked in the smoke.

  “She doesn’t know?”

  “I don’t think so, though who knows? I’ve been chewing Tic-Tacs like they’re going out of style and, until the ban, I could always say I was just smoky from all the other nic fiends in the clubs. Second-hand smoke and all that. But I’ve been really careful about not smoking in the house. Besides, it’s not good for the cats.”

  I bit my tongue to keep the obvious lecture from rolling out and walked beside her in silence, thinking evil thoughts about each of my friend’s deep desperate drags. By the time we reached the shelter, Violet had power-smoked almost an entire extra-long. The porch light illuminated three cats in the window, two on the lookout, one deep in her dreams, and cast a glow onto the sidewalk, but Violet stood to the side, savoring the last of her butt. I stood with her, thinking I should enjoy the clear autumn sky. Soon, it would be too frosty to stand out here taking in the smell of the leaves, the faint woodsmoke. Above the university’s towers, I could almost make out the Big Dipper, October giving us one of those rare nights when you can actually see stars in the city. But beer will out.

  “Hey, Violet, I’ve got to pee.”

  �
��Enjoy.” She handed me her key ring. “I’ll be along in a minute.”

  I didn’t like seeing how hungrily she drew on the glowing ember, but I had more pressing needs. Crossing behind the house to the back door we always used, I fumbled for the right key. I almost didn’t notice that further along the enclosed porch, one of the shading yews was trembling, as if something was shaking it.

  “Hey, Violet, do you have a raccoon problem?” She couldn’t have been silly enough to leave the cat’s food out. Maybe I could shoo it away. I stepped toward the hedge-like plantings and started to separate the branches when something pulled me back. Had I caught my jacket on a branch? Then I was looking at the sky, but all was black.

  ***

  “The kittens are gone!” Violet’s voice seemed to come from miles away, but the panic in it made me sit up, a move I instantly regretted. Dizziness and pain spread from my head down to my stomach. A spasm caught me. I threw up on the lawn, and sat there, too weak to even move away. “Theda, Theda, where are you? The kittens are gone!”

  “Here,” I said weakly, my own voice hurting my head, and in a moment the back porchlight was on, it’s white flood piercing my eyes as it illuminated Violet. Backlit, her hair looked positively luminescent, but her face, pale with worry, was what I looked up into, blinking weakly.

  “You okay? What happened? I thought you’d gone in to use the bathroom. The door was open. Eww!” She sidestepped my vomit. “Are you sick?”

  “Something, someone jumped me. I’m not sure.” Still sitting, I rested my head on my folded arms and tried to breathe evenly, hoping the dizziness would pass and knowing that I was going to have to get up soon. At least I hadn’t wet my pants. “I think you should call the cops.”

  “I’m calling Bill,” said my friend. Shaky as I was, I had to smile.

  When I first started seeing Bill, my atypical beau was something of a hero. He worked in homicide, as a detective here in the city, and in his thoughtful, careful way he’d helped solve the murder of a neighborhood woman, the founder of the shelter where Violet now worked. That case—and the fact that he seemed to consider the victim as a person—won him a lot of slack among my friends. But the idea of the police is not one that is usually welcome in our circle. We’re more the type to automatically hit the brakes or look for the bong when someone says “cop.” Not that we’re lawbreakers, per se, but we’re anti-establishment on principle and habits left over from college die hard. Violet had reasons: back when she was straight edge, not even indulging in coffee, she’d been picked up for a band mate’s stash. She didn’t like to talk about her night in the lockup, but I knew it was a sign of something good when she warmed up to my soft-spoken, but still sometimes macho beau. Of course, as she said, he wasn’t “cops.” He was Bill.

  “Violet, Bill’s homicide. I’m not dead.” Reason seeped back in behind the pain.

  “Bill is going to want to know that someone bashed you over the head.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re bleeding, honey. Here, can you stand?” She put one wiry arm around me and practically lifted me from the ground. “Come inside. I want to get some ice on that and then I’m getting your boy on the phone.”

  ***

  The rest of the evening passed in a blur, though I remember the lights were way too bright at the emergency room, the doctors much too loud, and the lines around Bill’s blue-grey eyes looked more deeply ingrained than I remembered. He met us at the hospital, after telling Violet to call an ambulance for me, and after a couple of hours he was able to sign me out and take me home, with the caveat that he was going to have to wake me up every few hours, presumably to see if I was still alive. The prospect didn’t seem to bode well for a romantic reunion, but I didn’t mind being coddled a bit. I held the artificial cold pack to my head and let him support me to his car and then to my apartment. The rough warmth of his sweater as he helped me up the stairs almost had me in tears, and I confess I leaned on him more than was physically necessary as he took my keys to open the door. He knew just how to hold me, and that a nuzzle on the ear could be reassuring as well as sexy.

  As comforting as it was to have him take momentary control, though, there remained something that wasn’t right. Maybe it was the sour taste that lingered in my mouth, even after all the hospital mouthwash. Maybe I felt too much was unresolved between us. Maybe I just don’t like being vulnerable, but it wasn’t until he’d opened the two locks on my apartment door and I felt a warm, soft pressure against my shin that I lost it.

  “Kitty!” I murmured, dropping the cold pack to scoop up my purring pet. “Oh, kitty.” I burrowed my face in her long, thick fur and felt the pinpricks of her front claws kneading my shoulder. We stood there for a few moments, and in the warm weight of her I felt my reserve dissolve. “Oh, kitty.” My eyes welled up, the pain and confusion of the last few hours hit me and I stumbled to the sofa. Musetta clung to me like she needed comforting, too, and I curled myself around her, rocking and nuzzling my pet’s silky, vibrating back.

  “Um, I’m going to put this back in the freezer, okay?” I looked up to where Bill was standing, holding the abandoned cold pack, and nodded.

  “I almost feel I should leave you two alone.” He smiled awkwardly, and then bent down to hide it, reaching to pick a magazine from the mess on my floor. “But the doctors said that you should be woken up every four hours, and I’m not sure Musetta can be trusted to tell time.” Almost too tall for my tiny kitchenette, he stood there like a supplicant, twisting the latest issue of Mojo in his hands. I was so comfortable on the sofa, with my purring cat in my arms. But I reached one arm up to him and took his hand, and he settled in behind me, wrapping his arms around me and the cat. “I was so afraid when I got the call,” he murmured into the damp, tangled mess of my hair, his bristly stubble just making itself felt. “I didn’t know what had happened.”

  “I’m okay, Bill.” I pulled his arms closer around me, so I could bury my face in the thick wool of his sweater. He smelled warm and slightly spicy, of soap rather than any perfume, and I felt myself relax. “It was just a bump on the head, and a fright.” I was mumbling now. “I’m tough.”

  “Maybe too tough.” I stiffened, and I could tell he felt me straighten out. His voice rose. “I mean, what the hell were you thinking of, Theda? Interrupting an attempted burglary?”

  “I didn’t know it was someone breaking in. You read the report.” I’d been over this at least twice with the uniform cops. At Bill’s urging, Violet had finally called 911. “I thought it was a raccoon or something. Some animal.” I could hear the peevishness creeping into my voice, but I was tired and hurting and didn’t want a lecture. “And what do you mean ‘ attempted burglary’?”

  “Nothing was stolen, sweetheart. The big window on the porch was forced open and it looks like someone had been inside, but nothing had been taken.” Violet didn’t have much cash in the house, but when she’d gotten the job she had splurged on an amazing sound system. It relaxed the cats, she claimed.

  “What about the kittens?” I remembered Violet’s cry, dimly recalled that the new arrivals, the white ones, had gone missing.

  “They might have gotten out on their own, through the open window.” I tried to visualize where Violet would have stashed them—new cats were always kept in isolation—but my head hurt too much. “Besides, they’re lost or strays. Why would someone want to steal stray kittens? They’ve got no monetary value.”

  “Violet values them.” My headache was suddenly worse.

  “I know, honey. I’m sure she’ll find them by morning, too.” I didn’t answer. My head pounded, the pain spiking down through my left eye. I wanted to pretend Bill wasn’t there. Just me and Musetta, curled and warm and comfy on the couch.

  “Come on, sweetie, let’s get you to bed.” I don’t know how he got me into my old flannels or all tucked up, but I do recall him putting Musetta back down next to me. Normally adverse to being placed anywhere, this time she circled a bit and then se
ttled down against my belly, letting me curl around her. I felt Bill slide in soon after, molding his tall, lean body against my back. He’s conscientious enough so I believe that he set the alarm to wake me, checking for signs of concussion, but I had no memory of anything until mid-morning the next day when I woke alone and ache-y, the towel-wrapped cold pack on the pillow beside me.

  Chapter Six

  Bill had left a note, promising to call in—and threatening to leave work if I didn’t answer—but closed with his assurance that I seemed to be sleeping quite normally. He signed it “love,” which I took as a tribute more to my vulnerable condition than to our actual relationship. It also served to soften his postscript, which suggested that perhaps I might take it easy for a day or two. An innocent suggestion, and probably a good one, but Bill, whether because he’s a cop or almost a decade older than me, tended to act as if he knew best. I could hear the pressure in his voice as I read his carefully worded note. It was an order, no matter how he couched it. That was his habit: one of his less endearing ones, even when he was right. My fist tightened around the slip of paper: One of my particular weaknesses was my tendency automatically to do the opposite of what anyone in authority suggested. I was a pusher, a questioner, which made my personality perfect for journalism and, at least until recently, for freelancing. Of course, it also made me broke. That thought, and the throbbing it produced in my temples, argued the wisdom of his words. So I smoothed out the paper that had crumpled in my hand, set it aside, and put on the water for a mint tea.

  Even after a pot of tea liberally laced with honey and a good long soak in the tub, I couldn’t seem to get moving. The glowing screen of my computer aggravated the throbbing behind my eyes, and I wasn’t in the mood to finish paying bills. I thought about returning those phone calls from Bunny and, even more, from Rick. But the same issues that had stopped me from calling them back yesterday only loomed larger today, magnified by a headache that two extra-strength Advil had barely dulled. Once Bill checked in—I allowed myself full grumpiness, knowing he’d give me slack—I thought about going for a walk, but just then it started to rain.