“Sorry. Tell you what. I’ll call a truce and try and stop suspecting you of colluding with my mother.”
“Why are you so obsessed with what your mother thinks?” he asked. “Wait, let me guess. She’s really a witch, and that black cat is her familiar. She has you enchanted under a spell that only a handsome prince can break.”
“Are you applying for the position?”
“I can show you some positions.” His eyes sparkled in the candlelight and I felt warm and gooey inside.
After dinner we went out dancing. The club was nearly empty, and at Jack’s request, they played several slow dances. I forgot all about my mother and her lost cat. I was having too good a time.
Jack’s body felt so good against mine. His muscles moved in just the right way, and he had some moves on him. A couple of times we found our faces next to each other and we kissed, as if it was something we did all the time. My pulse raced and I kept having to push back a strand of hair that insisted on falling in front of my face.
After we danced for a while, Jack and I sat side by side in a wooden booth and drank Irish coffee. “I haven’t asked you,” he said. “How long are you staying down here?”
“I have a week off from work. I’m not sure when I’m going back. But the New Jersey Transit bus doesn’t require advance reservations.”
I snuggled into the curve of his chest. “I may not go back for a long time.”
The club got busy with end-of-season shorebirds soaking up the last few days of their vacation, and Jack and I went out to his car. We climbed in the back seat and made out like teenagers. By the time we pulled away from each other I was hot and flushed and worried I might have a hickey on my neck.
Luckily my parents were already asleep and I was able to sneak in the house without them knowing. Rajah had still not returned the next morning, and my mother was growing increasingly frantic.
We sat down at the kitchen table over chocolate chip pancakes and made a list of all the places we had found Rajah before. In the rose mallows at the water’s edge. On Mrs. Morrison’s porch, eating the African violets. In the attic, behind the cabinet on the breezeway. “We’ve checked all these places,” I said. “This is no use.”
My parents and I spent Sunday puttering around the house and waiting for the phone to ring. Jack came over when he closed the health club at six. “Any news?” he asked, when I answered the door.
“Nothing.”
He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Why don’t you make an excuse and we’ll slip away from here for a while?”
I felt dangerous and conspiratorial. “All right.” I told my mother I was going over to Debbie’s house. She was concentrating on composing a “lost cat” ad for the local weekly newspaper and she nodded.
We went to his house and snuggled in the living room, listening to albums. We made out, kissing and stroking each other, and somewhere along the way we both lost our clothes and ended up in his bedroom. It wasn’t my first time, but it felt that way—special, and sexy, and wonderful. I loved the way he smelled, the way his hands felt on my skin, the way he kissed with his eyes open.
I didn’t get home til midnight. My parents had already gone to sleep, but on the kitchen table was a big note. “Please check all around the house for Rajah before you go to bed.”
Rajah was still among the missing when I went to sleep. The next morning when I woke up, my parents were arguing in the kitchen. “I say you go back to the allergist for more tests,” my mother was saying.
“What more tests?”
“Maybe he missed something. Call him.” I walked in and they went quiet. I had agreed to meet Jack for lunch that day, and lacking invention, called on Debbie once more.
“You’re certainly getting friendly with Debbie again,” my mother said. “I thought you said she was boring because she was married.”
“She’s considering divorce,” I said, improvising. “I’m just giving her some advice, a shoulder to cry on.”
Jack and I had lunch at a deli next door to the gym, snuggled into a booth, talking a little and holding each other. It was nice. He was nice. “You know,” he said, “If you want to come down one weekend and not tell your folks, you could stay with me.”
“You mean come down on the bus in disguise?”
“Sure. Pull a hat down over your eyes. I’ll smuggle you into my house, and we’ll stay indoors all weekend and do wild and crazy things.” He kissed my earlobe.
“We could play house.”
“Or doctor.”
“I like playing house better.”
“I think I’d like to play house with you,” he said. “We could build a white picket fence, and you could wear an apron and stand in the doorway and call our make-believe kids in for dinner.”
“I’ll think about it.” Of course, I had been thinking about nothing else, almost since I met him. That is, nothing else except him and Rajah. The poor cat had been missing for four days by then, and my mother could not be consoled.
She and I spent the afternoon driving to the animal shelters up and down the shore, looking for Rajah. By the time we got back to Sea Isle City, I was driving the station wagon and she was near tears.
The next morning my father went back to the allergist and I went to the health club so that Jack could demonstrate the equipment and show me off to his employees. It was so enjoyable watching him work out, seeing his chest muscles flex, his legs spread wide as he lay on a weight bench, that I didn’t notice time passing.
“We should get some lunch,” he said, when he got up from a machine that looked like some kind of medieval torture device, all wires and pulleys. “It’s almost one o’clock.”
“Oh, no. I was supposed to be home at noon to take my mother to more animal shelters.”
“She probably thinks you got caught up in conversation with Debbie,” Jack said. “She won’t worry.”
“You’re right, she won’t worry. She’ll call Debbie.”
“You’d better get going then.” We kissed. “Go on, go.” We kissed again. It took an awful long time for me to get out of the club.
When I got home my mother was pacing in the kitchen. “I can’t take this,” she said. “First Rajah is missing, then you.”
“I wasn’t missing.”
“And you weren’t with Debbie either.” She put her hands on her hips and stared at me. “I called her.”
“That’s nice. How is she?” The words slipped out before I realized what I was saying.
“Very happy. Not considering a divorce at all. She said she hasn’t seen you in over a year.”
“I need to get some air. When I come back we can go to the animal shelters.”
Her mouth gaped open as I turned and walked out the door again. I stood between our house and Jack’s and looked at the porch, thinking about Mrs. Morrison’s African violets. I knew people who raised them on the windowsill, and they did all right, but there was something in that fluorescent light that helped the plants to grow and flower.
Like the plants, there was something about the shore air and light that helped me to be at my best. Maybe it was just that the shore was my home.
But what about my career? There sure weren’t any high-fashion magazines in Sea Isle City. Of course that meant there were no anorexic models who made me feel guilty every time I snagged a croissant from the crew table. No temperamental photographers who grunted complaints in heavily-accented English. No picky editors who second-guessed every decision I made.
I walked past the porch, half-dreaming, thinking about Jack and life down the shore. I had no idea what I should be thinking, or doing, though I knew my mother was waiting for me to drive her to more animal shelters, so I returned to the house. On the ride up and back, we never mentioned Jack’s name.
My father was sitting at the kitchen table when we got home. “The doctor tested me again, and then checked his records. He figured out why I’ve been sneezing so much.”
“So what it is?” my moth
er asked. “Or are you going to keep us in suspense?”
He looked down at the table. “It turns out my sensitivity to cat hair has gone through the roof since we got Rajah.”
“I have a headache,” my mother said. “I’m taking out the garbage, then I’m taking aspirin and going to bed.”
My father and I stood in the hallway watching her walk away. “I’m glad you found out what it was, Dad. I’m just sorry it turned out to be Rajah.”
“Maybe we can get a bird,” he said. “I’ll have to ask the doctor.”
Jack called a little later and I told him about my father’s allergy results. Then I said, “By the way, my mother called Debbie and she knows I haven’t been going over to see her. But she didn’t say anything about you.”
“She was taking out the garbage when I drove up, but she didn’t say anything to me.”
“I hate that you know my parents and talk to them. I know it’s not rational, but that’s the way it is.” I hesitated for a minute. “Look, I think I’m going back to the city tomorrow. What with my father turning out to be allergic to Rajah, things are going to get crazy over here.”
I paused. I didn’t like what I was going to say but I didn’t see any other choice. “It’s been real nice seeing you. I’m sure my mother will tell you when I come back.”
He was at the door a few minutes later. “We need to talk. We do it here, or at my house. At least at my house, we’ll have privacy.”
“There isn’t anything to talk about.”
He stepped forward and kissed me, hard. Once again my blood pressure raced and my heart beat faster.
“I’m going next door,” I called toward my parents’ bedroom, then slipped quickly out the door.
I followed Jack out to the street and around the sea grape hedge that separated our house from his, then up to his front door. “Follow me,” he said. “I’ve never showed you the workout room. We can talk in there.”
The new quarry tile floor shone. Jack had cleaned Mrs. Morrison’s windows and the remnants of the sun glittered through them.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at a square box mounted halfway up the wall.
“It’s a speaker. I turn the music on in the living room and it gets piped out here. I don’t like to work out without music.”
He turned to me. “Listen, I know you don’t want to talk about this, but you can’t ignore it. There’s something between us and I want to see where it goes.”
I walked over to the window. If I craned my head to the right, I could see the ocean. I was staring at the surf when I thought I heard a small meow.
“Susan,” Jack said. “You can’t deny it. I know how you feel.”
I wasn’t paying attention to him, though, because I heard another meow. “Listen,” I said. “Do you hear that?”
The meow sounded again, slightly softer. Jack nodded. “Could it be?”
“Sometimes when he got out, my parents used to get a call from Mrs. Morrison. He found some way to break in here to get at the African violets.”
“You know, when I put down this new flooring, I took up the old linoleum. Some of it was pretty shot.”
“He had to get in somehow.” I opened the porch door and stepped outside, then got on my knees next to the porch. “Rajah? Here, kitty. Are you under there?”
He heard me. He was meowing just on the other side of the wall. “How did he get in there?” I asked.
“He might have dug his way in, under the wall,” Jack said. “There must be a hole there that never got patched.” He was on his knees next to me.
“Through all this mulch? There must be twelve inches here.”
“The gardeners were here Friday,” he said. “Your house and mine. That’s when they put the mulch down.”
“And that’s when Rajah disappeared.” I listened closely and heard a faint scratching. “He’s digging, on the other side.”
We moved slowly down the wall until we heard Rajah exactly across from us. I started pulling the mulch away while Jack ran to the garage to get a shovel.
“Careful,” I said when he returned. “Rajah may be coming out any time.”
Jack took away shovelfuls of mulch. Then the last layer began to move from underneath. Rajah’s black head, considerably dirty, emerged. He jumped into my arms, spilling dirt and mulch all over my dress.
“I guess I never heard him before, over the music,” Jack said. “But what are you going to do now? Your father can’t have Rajah back in the house.”
“I don’t know,” I said. I rested my head against Rajah’s soft fur and he snuggled into my shoulder.
“I have an idea,” Jack said. “You may think it’s crazy, but I want to tell you.”
He was quiet, and I started to get that pulse of nervous energy through my body that I got when he kissed me.
“Tell me,” I said.
“You don’t want to go out with me because your parents like me, isn’t that it?”
I sat there looking at him. He was cute, he was sweet, and I did like him. But he was right, I hated that my parents liked him. “It’s not so much that they like you, it’s like they picked you out for me.”
“Is that bad?”
“Yes. I want my own life. If I came home, I’d just be their daughter again.”
“You’ll always be their daughter,” he said. “Whether you live next door, or a thousand miles away. But I think you like the life they have, and that you want one of your own. And that you might be ready to share one with someone. If the right person asked.”
“What do you mean?”
“Suppose you took Rajah to live with you. Your mother could still see him, and your father wouldn’t sneeze.”
I shook my head. “My building in New York doesn’t allow pets.”
“I don’t mean in New York. I mean here, in Sea Isle City. Come live with me for a while, and we’ll see how things work out between us. And if you’re worried about living next door to your parents, I’m not opposed to moving.”
I took his hand in both of mine and smiled at him. Rajah meowed and slid into my lap. He looked much thinner than I remembered. “Rajah seems to like the idea. And I do too. I guess the only thing left to do is tell my mother, and get Rajah something to eat.”
I stood up, cradling the dirt-streaked cat in my arms. “One more thing, though,” I said. “If my mother says I told you so, then you have to be the one who tells her to shut up.”
If you like stories that feature clever animals, you might also like my golden retriever mysteries, IN DOG WE TRUST and THE KINGDOM OF DOG. Give this first chapter a try, as Steve Levitan returns home after some tough times, meets the dog who will change his life—and discovers a dead body, too.
In Dog We Trust - Chapter 1 – Three Shots
Santiago Santos sat down at my kitchen table to examine the audit trail on my laptop. One of the conditions of my computer use while on parole was the installation of keystroke software, which tells Santos, my parole officer, which keys have been pressed, and which windows they were pressed in. It captures emails, usernames, passwords and chat conversations, and only he has the password to see what’s been recorded.
While I made coffee for both of us, he looked at the log. “Computer looks fine,” he said, pushing it away as I brought two mugs to the table. In the Pennsylvania state parole system, officers visit parolees at their homes. I’d been to his office in Bensalem, for my first visit and to fill out paperwork, and he’d been out to my townhouse in Stewart’s Crossing once a month since then.
Like many computer hackers, I had little formal training. I had a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English, but I’d never taken more than a couple of introductory courses in programming
Yet I had a talent for it. I could sit down in front of a screen, hit a couple of keys, and find my way into even the most secure website. I never sent anyone a virus, and I never caused malicious mischief; all I ever wanted to do was find hidden data, explore protected directories,
read confidential memos. It was knowledge I was after, not material gain.
Try convincing a judge of that.
My skills had brought me cash, an underground reputation—and a year’s sentence in a minimum-security prison. The corrections system in the state of California was operating at maximum capacity, so as a non-violent offender I was released after six months, with two years on parole.
By the age of forty, I’d lost my career, my marriage, and both my parents. So I’d left Silicon Valley and come back home, to Bucks County, PA, to regroup and start over. Just before his death, my father had moved to a townhouse in River Bend, a development on the edge of Stewart’s Crossing, and I took the place over when I was paroled.
One of the conditions of my parole was that I find a career that did not involve regular computer work. I was allowed to use the internet only to send and receive emails, to look for work, and other ordinary purposes—reading the New York Times, playing solitaire, and so on. Every time I turned on my computer, my fingers itched toward forbidden sites, but I held back, not least because of the tracking software.
Santiago Santos opened a file folder he’d brought with him and gave it a quick glance. He’s Puerto Rican, with a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Drexel, and looks like an amateur boxer, about 5-8, stocky, with muscular forearms. I wasn’t sure which of those characteristics helped him most in dealing with his clients.
“How’s the writing going?” he asked.
When I returned to Pennsylvania, I began trying to develop a freelance technical writing business. I had ten years’ experience, but I knew the felony conviction I’d have to admit to on job applications would lead to a constant stream of rejection from potential employers. As a freelancer, I could avoid the kind of paperwork that would keep me from full-time employment.
“OK. I got a new project last week, modifying a manual for a blood pressure machine. If I do a good job with this, they’ll have me update all their documentation.”
“You know about that?” he asked. “Blood pressure machines?”
I sat down across from him. My own blood pressure was high; I worried about saying the wrong thing in front of him, about his power to violate my parole and send me back to prison in California. “I’m just cleaning up the grammar, making sure the steps are easy to follow,” I said. “If I have any technical questions about how the product works, I email the project manager.”
The Cat Who Got Married Page 9
