The Cat Who Got Married

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “I think I see her,” Lisa said. “Stop the car!” I stopped and Lisa jumped out.

  “Let me go,” I said, hopping out on my side. “Be careful of your dress.”

  She ran down the sidewalk, holding her train with one hand. I heard her calling, “Pilar! Come here, baby!” Then I saw a small red, gold and black ball running through the snow toward her.

  I got there just as Pilar jumped into Lisa’s arms. “Your dress!” I said. Pilar’s beautiful coat was matted with dirt and briars, and she was wet with melted snow. Lisa stood there stroking Pilar’s coat, while my cat mewed contentedly in her arms.

  “We’d better get going,” Lisa said, turning back to the car. “We’ve got a wedding to put on.”

  I put my arm around Lisa’s shoulders, and she hugged Pilar tightly against her chest. Then the three of us headed to our wedding.

  The Temple of Lights

  As Robert Lehmann’s plane banked to the right for its approach to the runway, he looked out at the night skyline of Philadelphia. In the center of his window a small building, only three stories tall, glowed with light.

  It was out somewhere near the river, far from most places he knew. There was something about that building, some image of lurid beauty that made him fix his gaze on it until the plane reached land and all he could see was terminals and tarmac.

  It looked like a temple, he thought. A temple of lights. It was an uncharacteristically poetic description for him. He shook his head as if to clear it and stood up, bumping his head on the bulkhead above him.

  ***

  Robert Lehmann was an efficiency expert. “Have brain, will travel,” was the way he described his work to his friends. He worked for a think tank in Philadelphia and traveled around the country, visiting factories and offices and analyzing their operations. Back at his own uncluttered desk, he wrote reports for his clients explaining how they could improve their production lines or call centers.

  He was forty-two years old, never married, of medium height and build. A man who never stood out in a crowd, whom people often thought was older than he actually was. There was something about his manner that implied the kind of careful reflection and wisdom that come with age. He dressed conservatively, in dark pinstriped suits and white shirts, and was never called Bob, or Bobby, or any other nickname.

  Almost ten years before he had accepted the idea that he would never marry. He had even embraced it, at the time. He had his career, and friends, and books. There was no need for anything more.

  He lived in Queen Village, the backside of Society Hill, in an apartment that was a model of functional design. There was no clutter and the furniture was all simple and modern. He liked Willem de Kooning’s paintings, and the few lithographs on his walls gave the apartment the air of a very austere art gallery. Under a wide, south-facing window he raised exotic cacti, low-maintenance plants that could go days without water.

  The next morning, he stood at his secretary’s desk at nine-thirty, searching for a file in the clutter of papers, in-boxes and framed photos. She rushed in, her long scarf trailing down her back, and apologized for her lateness. “Are you looking for something?” she asked. “Can I help you?”

  “It’s all right.” Robert backed away. He was easily flustered around people, especially people he was supposed to know. He could still deal with strangers, but every day it was harder and harder for him to carry on ordinary conversations with his coworkers and his neighbors. He had begun to slink into his apartment, hoping no one would speak to him.

  He mumbled something about a client in Pittsburgh and walked down the hall. He knew there was something wrong with his behavior, but he felt powerless to change.

  ***

  He had been invited to dinner that night at the home of his oldest friend, Jeremy Summers. He spent nearly an hour that afternoon trying to come up with an excuse not to go, but at six o’clock he took another shower, put on a turtleneck and a sports jacket, and his down coat over that, and drove out toward Jeremy’s home in Ardmore.

  There was a lot of traffic on City Line Avenue, and fortunately Robert was stuck in the left lane, or he might have turned around and gone home. It was almost seven by the time he arrived at Jeremy’s house.

  Jeremy’s wife Shelly kissed him when she answered the door. He fumbled his nose into her cheek and then smiled in spite of himself when the children came up to greet him. He handed them each a package that had been wrapped for him at the science museum gift shop in St. Paul.

  “You’re spoiling these kids.” Shelly and Robert both squatted down to children’s level. “Well, open them up,” she said to the kids, a boy and girl. “Let’s see what you got.”

  Robert had bought them both wooden model dinosaur kits. “I hope they like them,” Robert said to Shelly as they stood up. “I never know what to buy kids.”

  “They love dinosaurs,” Shelly said. “And besides, I don’t think you’ve ever bought them a bad present. Come on, Jeremy’s in the kitchen.”

  After dinner Shelly went upstairs to put the kids to bed and Robert and Jeremy sat by the fireplace. Logs from an apple tree Jeremy had cut down the previous summer sparked and crackled. “Are you all right?” Jeremy asked.

  “Sure,” Robert said.

  “You seem kind of tense.”

  “No, really, I’m fine,” Robert said. After a while he said his goodbyes, kissed Shelly again on the cheek, and pulled on his down coat.

  It was cold in the car and he turned the heater on full blast. He drove slowly down City Line Avenue to the Schuylkill Expressway towards Center City. Driving past the zoo, he remembered that beautiful lit building he’d seen from the plane, the temple of lights. He looked at the dashboard clock.

  It was only a little after nine. He passed the Vine Street exit and kept going south, towards the airport. It was the first impulsive thing he could remember doing since his childhood, and it made him feel strangely giddy.

  He remembered a few landmarks from the plane, but he still had to drive down street after street without success until he stumbled on the riverbank. He stopped the car and got out.

  The Delaware was wide and slow there. Across it he could see lights from Camden, from the Campbell’s soup factory, from homes and stores. The neighborhood around him was quiet and dark, and he scanned the heavens, looking for familiar stars. It was cold but not freezing, and his down coat was quite comfortable.

  Then he saw the temple of lights, just down the block. He decided to walk. He set off briskly, with his hands in his pockets, keeping one eye on the aura of light ahead. The streets were deserted and his footsteps echoed.

  As he came closer, he realized it was a big Gothic-style funeral parlor with a mansard roof and many windows. A young woman sat in front of its door, up three stone steps from the pavement level. She was surrounded by four gaily colored shopping bags from stores Robert thought it was unlikely she patronized herself. The bags were tied up with twine and the one nearest him had ripped down the side.

  The girl had blonde hair cut in a way that reminded Robert of an F. Scott Fitzgerald flapper, and she wore a knee-length cloth coat that she had pulled her knees up under. Her hands were locked together in front of her calves and she eyed Robert with interest.

  “I’m not a hooker,” she said, after they had stared at each other for a minute. “Or a bag lady either.”

  “I would never have assumed that.” Robert looked down at his polished black dress shoes.

  “Get real,” the girl said. “I’m freezing my ass off out here on the street with all these goddamned bags around me. Unless you’re a moron, you gotta think I’m a hooker or a bag lady.”

  When she paused, Robert looked up, and saw her appraising gaze.

  “You’re not a moron, are you?”

  No one, in his prep school and Ivy League experience, had ever believed Robert Lehmann was a moron. “If I am, I’m a moron with a Ph.D. But I wouldn’t be the first.”

  “A Ph.D.,” she said. “Neat
. What are you, a professor or something?”

  “Something. A researcher.”

  “Gee, with that kind of smarts you’d think you could be a professor. I went to the community college for a year but none of my teachers had any degrees worth sneezing at.”

  With her old-fashioned hair style and lack of makeup, Robert realized she might be a teenager. Should he call the police? His cell phone was in his coat pocket.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “You should never ask a lady her age,” the girl said primly. “I’m twenty-four, but people say I look younger.”

  At least she wasn’t some teenaged runaway. A chill wind swept by and Robert shivered. “Don’t you have any place to go? It’s awfully cold out.”

  “Don’t I know it. I left my apartment. It was just a bad scene, you know? My roommate, she was always fighting with her boyfriend, and tonight he started to smack her around. Well, I got in the middle ‘cause I wouldn’t let him, and what do you think? She turned on me! I said, ‘I’m getting out of here. This is too weird.’ I gathered up my stuff and walked out.”

  “To a funeral home?”

  “My uncle works here. In the morning he’ll help me out.”

  “Why don’t you just go to his house?”

  The girl shrugged. “He lives with this lady who doesn’t like me. If I went there it’d be a scene.”

  “Don’t you have parents? Friends?”

  “My parents are dead. And I just moved here maybe six months ago, and I don’t have a regular job, just temp work when I can get it. You don’t make many friends that way.”

  Robert Lehmann rubbed his hands together. “My car is just down the block. Why don’t you come with me and warm up?”

  “I told you I’m no hooker,” the girl said. “You don’t even know my name.”

  “I don’t need to know your name to see you’re turning blue. I won’t hurt you, I promise. I’ll turn the heater way up for you.”

  The girl looked as if she was considering her options. “All right,” she said. “But no funny stuff.”

  Just as no one had ever called Robert Lehmann a moron, no one had called him funny either. The girl stood up and shook her coat back into place. She picked up two shopping bags in each hand and walked down the steps. One bag in her left hand split open.

  “Damn!” she said.

  Robert helped her pick up the scatter of women’s toiletries, the exotic products he saw only in the drugstore and passed by without a second glance. Hair spray, lip gloss, moisturizing face cream, mousse. “I think I have another bag in the trunk,” he said.

  Together they carried everything to his car and piled it all into the trunk, where he always kept a kit including flares, several plastic bags, and some old rags. Like him, Robert Lehmann’s car was prepared for ordinary emergencies.

  This one, however, seemed out of the ordinary. None of the bags were big enough, and Robert was confused as to what his proper response should be. He couldn’t leave this poor girl to sit on those steps until morning, but he could hardly sit in this corner of South Philadelphia with his car running all night, either. He was accustomed to his eight hours of sleep, to say nothing of the gas that would be consumed. And what would he say to this woman for eight more hours, until it was daylight and her uncle came to work?

  He did not know what to do. So he got in the car and turned the heat up. The girl got in the front seat next to him, and the automatic seat belt slid into place around her. “Neat.” She peered forward at the complicated dash board. “I was never in a car like this before.”

  Robert stuck his hand out to her. “My name is Robert Lehmann.”

  “I’m Gayle.” She spelled it for him. “My last name is Korzeniowski, but I won’t spell that.”

  “That was Joseph Conrad’s real name,” he said. “Heart of Darkness?”

  “What was that, a book? I got an uncle Joe, but he lives out near Scranton.”

  A plan was forming in Robert Lehmann’s mind. He could take this girl back to his apartment, and let her stay there overnight. Then in the morning, on his way to work, he could bring her back to her uncle. It would be out of his way, but it was a more workable solution than leaving her here to freeze, or staying with her all night.

  When he suggested it, though, she was insulted. She started to get out of the car but got caught in the seat belt. “What do you think I am? You must be a moron. I told you I wasn’t a hooker.”

  “And I didn’t ask you to sleep with me,” Robert said, pulling her back into the car. “I just want to give you a warm place for the night.”

  “Why?”

  The simpleness of the question stumped him. He had never considered not helping her. It was a given. Something in that mysterious building of lights had lured him here, on this night, for this purpose. Even though he was profoundly skeptical of mystical phenomena, did not believe in astrology, fate, tarot cards or crystal balls, he believed he had been drawn here to help her.

  He tried to explain, but as usual around people other than clients, he was tongue-tied and stumbling and hated himself. He remembered how he’d get when trying to ask a girl for a date, stuttering and stammering and nearly spitting out the invitation. And having it rejected, more often than not.

  “You really are a nice guy, aren’t you?” Gayle said.

  Robert nodded. “It’s a curse.”

  Gayle laughed. “That was almost a joke. There’s hope for you yet. All right, I’ll go to your apartment. But I’m warning you, if you try anything I’m calling the cops.”

  Robert Lehmann held up both his hands in front of him. “I give you my word.”

  Gayle chatted as Robert drove, and though he usually preferred silence in the car to music or talk radio, there was something about her open, easy language that made him feel warm. He parked in the garage of his building and led Gayle to the elevator.

  “This is real fancy,” she said. She looked up at the camera that surveyed the garage. “Good security, too.”

  He unlocked the door of the apartment and ushered Gayle in ahead of him. “Wow, this is neat,” she said. “It’s so clean. It makes me want to mess things up.”

  Robert’s apartment was just as he had left it. He had washed the breakfast dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and made the bed before he left for work. Nothing was out of place, not a magazine, not a shoe, not even the dropped petal of a dying flower.

  Gayle plopped down on his overstuffed leather sofa. “This is so great,” she said. “I could fall asleep here.”

  “Take my bed. I’ll sleep out here.”

  Gayle shook her head. “I don’t get into men’s beds. I’ll be just fine here.”

  He brought her a blanket, towels for the morning. “Is there anything else you need?” he asked.

  She had taken off her coat and draped it over a chair. Her shopping bags were spilled out all around her. She shook her head. “Well, then I’ll say good night,” he said.

  He started for the bedroom. “Robert,” she said. He stopped and turned around. “That’s too formal. I’ll call you Bobby.” She nodded her head, as if that name suited him. “I just wanted to say thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, and went into his bedroom.

  It was already after midnight. He yawned, realizing how tired he was. He stripped off his clothes, but he was too tired to hang up the pants and jacket, and carry the shirt, socks and underwear to the hamper by the washing machine. He left it all in a tangle on the chair next to his bed, and climbed beneath the covers.

  It felt so good and warm there. He thought of the girl on his sofa, and wondered who she really was. Would he wake up in the morning to find he’d been burglarized? Would she stab him as he slept? He found both those ideas ludicrous.

  Robert was notorious for his insomnia. He often stayed up several hours, doing puzzles to relax his nerves so that he could sleep. But that night he slipped quickly away, into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  When he awo
ke, light was streaming through his window. He turned on his side to look at his clock, and realized with horror that he had forgotten to set the alarm and had overslept. It was already after nine.

  He would have to call the office. He reviewed his appointments and found that he had nothing pressing until eleven. If he moved quickly, he could shower and dress, then deliver the girl back to her uncle, and still get to work in time.

  He put on his robe and walked out to the bathroom. He smelled bacon.

  He turned down the hall to the kitchen. Gayle was standing by the stove, frying bacon. She had cracked eggs into a bowl and had another frying pan ready. “Boy, you sleep late,” she said. “I’d like to have your job.” She smiled and started to turn the bacon over. “I’m going to make you my special omelet. I hope you like omelets.”

  As a matter of fact, Robert Lehmann liked his eggs sunny side up, the yolks intact and not runny. He was very particular about them. “Fine,” he said. “Let me hop into the shower.”

  “It’s great! So much hot water. I took one before you got up and I didn’t want to get out.”

  When he came out of the shower he dressed quickly, avoiding most of his early morning rituals like polishing his shoes and flossing his teeth. The omelet was delicious, and somehow she had cooked the bacon to just the degree of crispness he preferred.

  “I’ll drop you at your uncle’s on my way to work,” he said.

  She shook her head. “Don’t bother. I already called him. It was just a local call.”

  Robert waved his hand. “What did he say?”

  “He can’t do anything for me. His wife’s really been on the rampage lately. He wished me luck and told me to keep in touch.”

  “Any other family?”

  Gayle shook her head. “I was gonna check out the YMCA. I hear they have rooms.”

  “Call them now,” he said. “I can drop you there.”

  Robert washed the dishes while Gayle called. “Nothing at all?” he heard her say. “Not even some kind of little dark room in the basement?” There was a pause. “Yeah, I understand. It’s been cold. Can you recommend any place?” Another pause. “Yeah, I get it. Thanks anyway.”