How to Wash a Cat

by Rebecca M. Hale

  She glanced across the room at me, so I tried to introduce myself. “Hello, I’m . . .”

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said irritably.

  I shrugged my shoulders, speechless—before realizing that the woman was talking into a wireless device hooked over one ear.

  “Cut to the point,” she sniped into the headset, starting another frustrated lap in front of the windows lining the back wall of the office. “I don’t have time to listen to you babble.” Her voice shrilled sharply as the heels of her shoes sparked across the carpet.

  I stuffed my hands into my pockets and turned to study a bright, multi-colored painting hanging on a wall near the door. A large, barn-like structure dominated the picture. It sat on the edge of a body of water, fronted by a lush row of purple flowers. An illegible smudge of handwriting in the bottom corner presumably gave the artist’s name. I squinted at the blurred lines, but couldn’t make out any of the words.

  I peeked over my shoulder as the phone conversation continued.

  “You’re way out of your league. You should stay out of this.” Miranda’s voice silked acidly as she turned away from the window. “I don’t care what my mother told you.” She caught my look and motioned for me to take a seat in front of her desk.

  I collapsed into the indicated chair. The seat cushion was rock-hard and shaped so that my shoulders were pushed against the knobby buttons protruding from the back of the chair. I shifted uncomfortably and stared at the agitated woman on the other side of the room.

  Miranda Richards’s forceful figure wore a bright red, closely fitted suit. The red cloth glowed a tart shade of cranberry that matched chunk-sized rubies dangling from her earlobes and around her neck. Her vigorous pacing exuded the pulse of an insuppressible internal energy.

  She was in her mid-forties, I guessed from the thin lines that creased the corners of her face. A few unruly strands of gray popped out of her thick auburn hair, which was swept up into a clasp at the back of her head.

  The late afternoon sun started to sink into the horizon, sending piercing rays through the wide window, focusing on my seat like a spotlight. Wincing, I raised a hand to shade my bloodshot eyes. Without breaking stride, Miranda’s fingers deftly twitched a cord and the vertical slats of the blinds slapped shut. In the dimmer, artificial light of the office, I returned to the status of spectator.

  She came closer to the desk and raised her index finger to indicate, I hoped, that her conversation was coming to an end. The long, claw-like nails were painted to match the pungent red tones of the rest of her outfit.

  “Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. Miranda reached into one of her desk drawers and pulled out a container of lipstick. “Why don’t you stop by my office tomorrow?” Her voice oozed huskily—as if she were luring an unwitting prey to her lair. “Maybe I can persuade you to change your mind.”

  As she began to coat her lips with a glossy layer of the red paste, the thick, floral scent of her perfume reached across the desk and almost strangled me. It seeped into my sinuses and started closing down my nasal passages. My eyes began to water. I pulled off my glasses and reached for a tissue from a box on the edge of her desk as the twitching inside my nose became unbearable.

  “Ah . . . choo!” A loud, high-pitched sneeze exploded in the office as my nose expelled the noxious perfume. Miranda’s head whipped around at me, clearly annoyed.

  “I have to go,” she snapped testily, clicking off the device with a flick of one of her nails.

  “So,” she said, looking me over as she dropped into the springy, ergonomic armchair on her side of the desk. “You’re Oscar’s niece.”

  I nodded, scooting forward, trying to find a more comfortable position.

  We were separated by the wide, smooth surface of her desk. It was empty except for the flat panel of her computer screen, a slim legal file, and the box of tissues.

  “Miranda Richards,” she said crisply, introducing herself as she flipped open the file. “You have my condolences.” Her eyes flickered briefly before she rushed on. “It’s lucky I could fit you in today. Did you bring some identification? We’ll need to make a copy for our records.”

  She rolled her eyes impatiently as I fumbled through my shoulder bag for my wallet. Used tissues, a well-worn glasses case, and a collection of chewed up pens and pencils all poked out of the bag as I searched. Finally, I extracted the wallet and pulled out my driver’s license. One of the red claws pressed a button whose ringing echoed in the hallway outside. A meek, colorless woman scurried into the room.

  Miranda flung my license across the desk towards the assistant. “The security box, too,” she said, wasting few words on her subordinate. I watched sympathetically as the woman scraped my license off of the slick surface of the desk and scampered out the door.

  Miranda briefly consulted the top page of the file, clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and looked up at me.

  “Well, it’s pretty straightforward. He left everything to you.” She studied me with a casual interest, as if I were a fly she was about to swat.

  “I’ll handle the liquidation for you. I’m sure there will be some offers. It should bring you a nice little nest egg.” She smiled at me for the first time. “After my commission, of course.”

  “Um, well,” I murmured.

  “Yes,” she replied slickly, her calculating eyes glittering as they bored into me.

  “I don’t know that I want to sell it, actually,” I said tentatively.

  Her smile slithered into a sneer. “Why wouldn’t you? The Green Vase can’t be of any use to you.”

  The nails began to click threateningly against the smooth surface of the desk. I felt as if my stomach had left the office and soared down the elevator shaft in the lobby.

  “What do you know about running an antiques business?” she asked icily. She looked down at her file. “You’re a—secretary or something?”

  “Accountant,” I replied, feeling my face flush.

  Miranda rested her powdered chin on the palm of her right hand and flashed her long, manicured nails at me. “Look sweetie, that place is a pit. It needs a lot of work. Frank Napis will be all over this at the next board meeting. The new owner is going to have to make some improvements.”

  I tried not to blink as my weary, watery eyes met her heavily mascaraed ones. She shifted her weight, put both hands on the desk, and leaned towards me.

  “You don’t understand,” she said condescendingly through gritted, pearly white teeth. “Oscar had a lot of clout. He was an old-timer. He’d been in the neighborhood since before they started fixing it up. The board let him get away with just about anything—with my help of course. But you,” she twisted one side of her mouth upwards into a curl. “You, they’ll eat for lunch. Sell the place and be done with it.”

  That settled it. “No thanks,” I said firmly, mustering every available ounce of determination. “I’m going to keep it.”

  At that moment, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with the Green Vase, but I wasn’t about to share that information with the woman on the other side of the desk.

  Miranda let out a harassed sigh. “Well, there’ll be some money left in his accounts once the estate has been probated. Somehow, Oscar managed to do pretty well over the last couple of years.” She shook her head resignedly. “You’ll need to present your renovation plans to the board for their approval.”

  Miranda pulled open a side drawer to her desk and flipped through an index of business cards. “Here,” she pulled one out and handed it to me, “talk to this guy about doing the work.”

  I took the card and slipped it into my shoulder bag.

  “I don’t see the board’s schedule in here,” Miranda said, halfheartedly rifling through the file. “My secretary will call you with the dates.” She snapped Oscar’s file shut as her assistant returned with a small metal box. Miranda eyed her reflection in the glare of the computer monitor, licked one of the red-tipped fingers, and used it to smo
oth down an errant strand of gray hair. She glanced over at me and nodded towards the box in an irritated, expectant manner. “Go ahead and open it. Oscar left it for you.”

  I reached over and grasped the flat, cold surface of the metal box. The long, rectangular lid had been painted with a shiny, black lacquer. As I stared down at it, Miranda’s pushy, red figure and her stuffy, imposing office faded away. The metal box began to morph into the wooden coffin I’d buried earlier that day. I leaned forward in my chair, watching the small, black coffin drop slowly down into a deep, muddy hole. The dank, earthy smell of the cemetery seeped through my nose.

  My trembling hands rattled the metal box against the polished wood surface of Miranda’s desk. I gripped the edges and pushed the lip of the lid up over a single metal rib underneath. The flimsy metal top creaked open, and I willed myself to look inside. The cemetery air vanished in my lungs as Oscar’s placid, frozen face stared up at me.

  The assistant placed a careful hand on my shoulder, and I felt myself sway under her light touch. Miranda was clearly preparing to leave for the day, and the assistant was eager to remove me from the office before the dragon lady scorched us both with her fiery, impatient breath.

  I took in a gulp of sickening, floral-infused air and my mind rejoined my body in Miranda’s office, still suffering in the stiff, unrelenting chair. As my eyes refocused, I saw a thin, white envelope lying on the bottom of the metal box. I recognized the cramped handwriting that had scrawled my name across the front.

  My left hand dove into the box and plucked out the package. I jumped up from the tortuous chair, grabbed my shoulder bag off the floor, and sprinted down the hall outside Miranda’s office. I took one look at the swooping elevator in the lobby and opted for the stairs, gripping the envelope in my sweating fingers as I hurtled down its endless well of steps.

  I didn’t stop until my feet hit the sidewalk outside. Somewhere out in the bay, a steamer hooted a long, low whistle as I stared down at the envelope in my hands.

  A passerby jostled my elbow, and the envelope tilted.

  Something inside rustled against the paper as it slid towards the bottom corner.

  Chapter 3

  A WET, APRIL wind had skipped into the bay while I’d been sequestered behind the blinds in Miranda’s office. The curling cape of clouds that trailed behind it chilled the intricate, stone faces of the towering downtown office buildings.

  I crossed the street for the open door of a coffee shop as the first flecks of rain playfully slapped my cheeks and beaded up on my glasses—Oscar’s sealed envelope riding safely inside my coat pocket.

  A hissing column of steam rose up from a collection of stainless steel appliances. I stood in line, my senses swamped by the overpowering aroma of freshly ground coffee beans, waiting for a tattooed man on the opposite side of the counter to take my order.

  “Cream? Sugar?” The attendant punched the words out mechanically as he slipped a cardboard sleeve around a paper cup emblazoned with the coffee shop’s logo.

  I shook my head and handed him the total.

  I spied a wooden chair at a wobbly, three-legged table in a back corner of the room and headed towards it, threading my way through a knot of highly polished thirtysomethings. I wrestled past a bulky designer handbag and hurdled over several Italian leather loafers before finally reaching the open seat and sliding into it.

  I closed my eyes as the first invigorating sip soaked through my weary body, and the casual din of conversation filled in around me. A bevy of salon-slick urbanettes twittered noisily nearby, trying to assess the availability of a hunky espresso drinker at the next table. He stared broodingly into his laptop, seemingly oblivious to their speculations.

  Tucked into my corner, I felt somehow isolated from the buzzing room around me. The warm comfort of the coffee seeped through me as I pulled the envelope out of my pocket, slipped a finger under a corner of the flap, and pulled down along the seam, expanding the opening the length of the package.

  A long, metal key fell out of the envelope and flopped onto the sticky surface of the table. I picked it up to examine it more closely, rolling it back and forth in my fingers.

  The tarnished gold surface glowed warmly in the dim light of the coffee shop. The surface of the key was nicked in several places, as if it had seen regular use.

  A slender, metal rod made up the trunk of the key. On one end, three dime-sized, interlocking petals formed the shape of a tulip. The opposite end had been tooled into a series of nubs and bumps. I stared at the tulip design, wondering if the matching lock was as elaborately decorated.

  Curiosity now overcoming dread, I decided to investigate the remaining contents of the envelope.

  I took in a deep breath and pulled open the mouth of the package to reveal a single sheet of paper snuggled inside. I spread out a discarded sports section from the Chronicle as a shield against the day’s sticky coating of spilled drinks; then I gently freed the sheet from the envelope and unfolded it on the table in front of me.

  Just a few lines covered the top half of the page, written in Oscar’s large, easily identifiable handwriting.

  Don’t worry your pretty head about me. I’ve had a good run of it. Take good care of the Green Vase—she’s got plenty of life in her yet.

  There are so many doors left for you to open. All you need is the right key.

  The letter was signed with Oscar’s characteristically looping “O,” trailed by a long, squiggling paraph.

  I picked the key back up. “I bet you’ve got a story to tell,” I murmured, trying to imagine what Oscar meant me to use it for.

  I refolded the piece of paper and slid it and the key back into the envelope. Memories of my uncle flooded over me.

  Oscar had been in the army during WWII and had served as an ambulance driver during the campaign in Europe. He’d told me several hair-raising stories of the things he’d seen there. The experience had immutably shaped his philosophies and beliefs.

  “When your time comes,” he’d say, “that’s it. There ain’t nothing you can do about it, so there’s no point in worrying on it.” He’d pause and look me straight in the eye. “You have to enjoy your life while you can.”

  In the fog of that war he’d seen strong men cut down while weaker ones survived. There was no rational explanation for who lived and who died. He had understood the cruel randomness of fate, in a way that my accountant’s mind could never quite grasp hold of.

  One event in particular had left its imprint on Oscar. Midway through the war, he’d come down sick with an unknown illness. The hospital had been overwhelmed with casualties, and the doctors hadn’t had the time or resources to try to diagnose what afflicted him. His fever raged for days until he finally lost consciousness. A nurse pulled a sheet over his head and marked his body to be carted away to the morgue.

  “I was gone,” he said, mouthing his dentures contemplatively as he reflected. “But something told me to turn back. It just wasn’t my time.” He leaned across the table towards me and pulled out the misguided mortuary tag he always carried around in his wallet, waving it at me for emphasis. “I’ve tried to make the most out of every day since.”

  I sighed heavily, feeling the loss of Oscar all over again like a swift punch to the stomach. The nausea was only exacerbated by my overwhelming confusion over what to do next.

  Oscar had never accepted the merits of my accounting job. He’d been trying to convince me to quit for years. He’d seen through the façade of my career for what it really was.

  Hidden away in my cubicle amid the impersonal piles of balance sheets and business plans, it was easy for me to avoid the uncomfortable complications of human interaction.

  Numbers were so much more reliable, so much easier to handle than the fickle transience inherent to human nature. Numbers could always be called out on a lie or a manipulation. Numerical entanglements never lasted any longer than the summation line of their equation.

  When I did emerge from the dark c
ave of my cubicle, I walked through the city cloaked in an invisible veil of self-isolation, maintaining a careful distance from the surrounding sea of people as I navigated my way through them.

  I was a shell, living vicariously off the hum of the city’s ceaseless heartbeat. I could walk the constantly changing streets for hours, soaking up purpose from the lives that swirled around me.

  I was a bystander, not a participant. My life was quiet and peaceful, like the deep, untroubled sleep of my cats. I had curled myself up into a ball, porcupined against the world.

  I didn’t realize it at the time—sitting in the crowded coffee shop, staring down at Oscar’s handwriting on the crumpled white envelope—but I was slowly, subtly, being unwound from that complacent slumber.

  “The right key,” I repeated his phrase to myself, pondering Oscar’s message.

  I looked up from my table and out through the front window of the coffee shop. Misting droplets were smearing the glass, but I could just make out the street sign on the corner outside. I was only a couple of blocks over from the Green Vase.

  I stuffed the envelope into my shoulder bag, squeezed myself through the maze of tables to the front door, and stepped onto the street outside.

  Those people who hadn’t crammed their way into the coffee shop were rushing through the increasing drip to their buses, BARTs, and ferryboats. Despite my trepidation over the possibility of taking over the Green Vase, I couldn’t ignore the exuberant tingling in my toes as I turned my soggy shoes towards Jackson Square.

  Somewhere in that evening’s soupy fog, lurking well beyond the reach of my subconscious, there was a faint clicking sound as a door pulled shut behind me.

  Chapter 4

  THE STREET WAS empty as I rounded the corner and turned up the block towards the Green Vase. What meager Friday afternoon traffic had trickled through Jackson Square was now long gone.