Catwalk

by Sheila Webster Boneham

  fifteen

  Tom and I talked as we walked the dogs around the field behind Dog Dayz. I had raced to Shadetree after the call from Mom, spent about an hour there, and then raced off again to take photos for several new associates in one of the big real estate firms. They wanted location shots as well as conventional mug shots, so the whole thing took almost four hours—half an hour taking photos, three-and-a-half driving to the locations. It paid well, but when I made the appointment I hadn’t planned on squeezing those hours in between a heart-broken mother, a pending lawsuit, and agility practice. I felt frazzled and could only speculate on how I looked since I refused to look in a mirror. I also felt slightly dyspeptic from the blend of anger and sadness roiling inside me.

  “You know the really weird thing?” I asked Tom, more or less rhetorically. “I almost wanted her to slide into that other dimension so that maybe she wouldn’t hurt so much.”

  Tom shook his head. “So, someone who works at Shadetree called this Tony guy’s son and …”

  “Son-in-law.”

  “Okay, they called his son-in-law and tattled on Tony for sleeping with your mom?”

  “That seems to be the gist of it. And he goes by Anthony.”

  Tom’s jaw muscles tightened and twitched, and he said, “How is it anyone’s business other than To…Anthony’s and your mother’s?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “And why does the son-in-law have anything to say about it?”

  “Apparently he’s paying the bills, and he’s worried about his reputation, if you can believe that. Some sort of wheeler dealer.” What’s with all these belligerent rich guys who think they should run other people’s lives, I wondered. First Rasmussen, now Marconi’s son-in-law. “As if anyone cares what two elderly people are up to anyway.”

  “Who is he? Anyone we’ve heard of ?”

  I shrugged. “Jade didn’t mention his name.” A few more people and dogs had come out to the exercise area, so I lowered my voice and said, “You should have seen their faces, Tom. They were both devastated. It was like Romeo and Juliet for octogenarians.”

  Tom gave me a look that dropped an iceberg into my stomach. “Oh, no, I don’t think … Mom’s not sui … They wouldn’t, she wouldn’t … I mean, why …” I let the thought trail away. We were almost to the back door, but I gestured for Tom to go in without me. “I’ll be there in a minute.” Jay trotted by my side to a more private spot, and went back to sniffing while I made the call. Jade had left for the day, but Jerry Warner, her assistant, was there.

  “You know about my mother and Mr. Marconi, right?”

  “Well, yeah, I think everyone does.”

  Everyone did not know about their impending separation, though, including Jerry. I filled him in and said, “Look, they seem pretty, I don’t know, desperate. Sad. I’d really appreciate it if someone could check on them, you know, not to keep them from … Look, I’m worried they might …” I couldn’t make myself say the words, as if saying them might give them power.

  Jerry got it. He assured me that he himself would keep an eye on my mother.

  “What about Mr. Marconi? Or the two of them together?”

  “Marconi lives in the assisted section. Has an apartment there.” I had wondered when I met him why he was in a nursing home. That explained it. He had privacy, but also maid service, prepared meals, and access to entertainment and companionship. “But I don’t think he’s here anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think his family already took him away. They were getting into a car when I got here. I thought it was for the weekend, but …” A computer beeped in the background, and then Jerry said, “Yeah, here it is. His son-in-law checked him out. Doesn’t say for how long.”

  Talk about the morality police, whispered my little voices in chorus. I told Jerry I would call back in a couple of hours to be sure Mom was okay, grabbed my training bag from my van, and stepped into the warm, rich dogginess of Dog Dayz.

  Tom had already removed Drake’s collar and leash and had a slip-lead on him. Rhonda Lake was on the course with her sweet Golden Retriever, Eleanor, and several other dogs in the same size group were waiting ringside. I noticed Candace Sweetwater near the spectator chairs. Her little dog was snuggled into her arms and her sullen son was slumped in a chair, legs flung out in front of him and head drooping toward the e-gadget in his hand.

  I added my name to the wait list for the next group, found an empty chair, set down my bag, and got Jay ready to run. As I was heeling him to warm up, Giselle Swann waved from the next ring where she and her Maltese, Precious, were practicing the weave poles. They emerged from a series of weaves and Giselle called, “I need to talk to you, Janet.”

  “Let me get one run in, okay? I’m after the next dog,” I gestured toward the course-practice ring. “There are only two of us at this height,” meaning I couldn’t switch with anyone because they would be changing the jump heights after my run. Giselle nodded and started her little dog back through the weave poles. Precious may hit nine inches at the shoulder and seven pounds dripping wet right after a meal, but he’s a big dog on the agility course. I stopped to watch him rip through the weaves. His tail wagged the whole way and as he tore past the last pole he let out three sharp “Yippee” yaps.

  Jay also had a happy run when his turn came. A little too happy. He held his stay at the start line, but the instant I signaled him to run he switched to I-have-a-better-idea mode. Like many lightning-fast, shockingly smart dogs, he likes to make up his own challenges if the human is too slow with the next directive. I had positioned myself at the third obstacle, the chute, so was able to signal the first three obstacles easily enough—bar jump, tire jump, chute—but after that I played a game of catchup and redo. If we had been competing, we’d have scored a nonqualifying run when Jay flew up and over an unscheduled A-frame. After that, I was late arriving at another bar jump, so my goofy dog jumped it, jumped back toward me, spun around, and jumped it again. He also took an extra trip through the tunnel and an unplanned on-and-off at the pause table. When we left the ring I was panting, Jay was bouncing and grinning, and everyone else was laughing.

  Almost everyone. Peter Birdwhistle, a recent transplant to Fort Wayne, spoke as we passed him, “You need to discipline that dog and tighten up your run. I can help you if you like.”

  Yeah, right, I thought. Peter’s Golden Retriever was a nervous wreck. Obedient, yes, and fast and accurate. But he lacked the joy we see in most Goldens and most agility dogs.

  “Or I could run him for you sometime.”

  That made me turn around and ask, “Why would I want you to do that?” Because I’m too old and fat and, wow, treat this dog-sport thing like a great way to have fun with my dog, win or lose?

  “Well, you know, to get the best scores …”

  “Peter, I know you’re pretty new here, so let me put your mind at ease. I don’t do this to win. I don’t do it for scores. And I don’t have a dog so that someone else can play with him.”

  Peter’s head tilted back ever-so-slightly and his eyes narrowed. “Suit yourself. Shame, though, a dog like that …”

  Sylvia Eckhorn walked up, wrapped an arm around my shoulder, and said, “Janet, that was great! I love watching you and Jay. He’s such a spectacularly happy dog!” She squeezed me, let go, and made a quarter-turn away from me. “Oh, hi. Peter, is it?” She smiled. “Janet and Jay have such a great relationship.”

  Peter excused himself.

  She looked at me and shook a wild blonde curl out of her eyes. “What a dweeb.”

  Giselle joined us, Precious wrapped firmly in her arms. “That guy is too serious.”

  I bent down and kissed the top of Jay’s head. “Whatever. It’s his problem, not ours, right, Bubby?” Jay sneezed.

  “So, Janet?” Giselle had lost about thirty pounds, gotten some style, and gone ba
ck to school in the past six months, but she still spoke as if every statement were a question. “I really need to talk to you, but,” she glanced at her watch, “I have study group in half an hour? Can I, you know, talk to you tomorrow?”

  We made plans to meet at the Firefly for coffee. It was close for me, and Giselle could get there easily between classes at the university. Then I found Tom and told him I was going to go on home and call again to check on my mother. He had an early class and I had a morning photo shoot for a local cat rescue group, so I declined an invitation to follow him home. It seemed like the right plan under the fluorescent lights of Dog Dayz, but a blanket of pure loneliness draped itself over me as I settled into my dark van. You know, whispered a voice as I started the ignition and turned on the lights, you could do something about this. I drowned her out with the oldies station.

  sixteen

  Saturday promised to be crazy busy, so Tom and I were up before six. Indian summer had rolled back in and the forecast was for unusually warm and sunny fifties all weekend. That was odd weather for November in northern Indiana, but a relief for everyone involved with the agility trial, because we were hoping to run outdoors. The sponsoring club had lost their usual indoor facility due to a late-summer storm that had damaged the roof. They hadn’t had time to find another, so the trial was being held at Dog Dayz. Marietta Santini, the owner, was prepared to make it work indoors if we had freezing rain or other seasonal unpleasantness, but we would have been jammed in tight. It seemed we had lucked out.

  Tom and I also lucked out with a great parking place about thirty feet from the agility course so we decided to leave the dogs’ crates in the van and set our chairs up right there. Leo was fine in his crates on the back seat. I had clipped two small wire crates together and put his bed and water in one and a disposable litter box in the other. I stuck my fingers through the wires to scratch his cheek and then went inside to be sure everything was set up for the demonstration during the break.

  Alberta was already there setting up a display about feline TNR—Trap, Neuter, Release—as a way of managing feral populations. She had the money to back an informative, high-tech display, and she had used it to create a video, informational brochures, and a gallery of cat photos, many of which I had taken.

  “Oh, Janet! There you are!” Her face was flushed and she was wheezing, but that was normal for Alberta. She pointed at the feline agility area that we had set up in the middle of the building. “That’s going to be so much fun!”

  “I hope so. We’ve been practicing, but Leo has never performed anywhere but home.”

  “But the other cats have, yes? So even if you mess up, the others will be great.”

  Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, I thought. My inner demon didn’t take it so mildly, though, and I felt her heat up and whisper, Leo will show you! Jay’s not the only furry hero in the family! I did imagine Leo having a perfect run around the course that would wow the crowd, many of whom probably thought that cat training was an oxymoron, but mostly I hoped he wouldn’t be frightened by the whole crazy thing.

  Alberta emerged from behind her display table and, her arm looping around my waist, pulled me toward the open center of the room. I wondered why, since we were the only ones there. Then she spoke so softly I could barely hear her even at short range. “Janet, you’ll never guess what happened.” She waited as if she thought I should try.

  “You’re right. I’ll never guess. What happened?”

  “Louise came by last evening. She was roaring mad and said she’s hired an attorney!”

  Alberta still had her arm around my middle and it was making me uncomfortable. I squirmed free as politely as I could while she continued in a more normal voice. “Louise said that Charles threatened her father and that was the final straw.” Alberta made a sound remarkably like harumph and went on. “Not enough that he bullied her for the past twenty years, I guess. Her and everyone else he could boss around.”

  People were starting to drift into the building to set up displays, so I wanted to cut this conversation short. I’m not paranoid, but Norm’s warning echoed in my mind, so I checked that no one was close enough to listen in before I asked, “He threatened her father? What do you mean?”

  “She said that Charles was having him moved from his assisted living place to a different one, which would take him away from his friends.”

  Cymbals started to clang in my brain. What were the odds? “Do you know his last name maybe?” I asked. “You know, her maiden name?”

  Alberta gave me a funny look, then searched the ceiling. “Martini? Martoni?”

  “Marconi?”

  “Could be. Something like that. Why?”

  Three women pushed a cart holding a big plastic container and two wire cat cages to the table next to Alberta’s. A big gray Persian stared at us from one of the cages, and two short-haired kittens, one black and one black-and-white, curled up and clung together in the other.

  I gave Alberta what I hoped was a conspiratorial look and said, “Tell you later.”

  “Okay.” I turned to leave but Alberta called, “Oh, Janet, wait! Hang this on the door, will you?” She handed me two signs and a nearly empty roll of tape. One said “PLEASE—NO DOGS” in big red letters. The other announced “Agility—it isn’t just for dogs! Feline Agility Demo after the morning competition.”

  I spotted lots of people I knew either by name or, in a shocking number of cases, by their dogs’ names. There was Rhonda Lake and her Golden Retriever Eleanor, and Josie the Border Collie’s dad, and Candace Sweetwater with her perky Papillon and sullen teenager. I wondered why she was dragging him around with her when he so clearly didn’t want to be there. It couldn’t have been fun for her,

  either.

  An hour later I was on deck to run Jay in the twenty-inch jumpers class. Tom and Drake had already qualified in the twenty-four inch class. Tom was hoping for another Q, or qualifying run, on Sunday to finish Drake’s AXJ—Agility Excellent Jumpers—title. Jay and I were just starting to compete in excellent, which everyone assured me was a giant step beyond the open classes.

  They were right. It was a tight course with lots of quick turns. Jay ran perfectly. Me? Not so much. I got in his way on the second turn and accidentally sent him over the wrong jump right after he nailed the weave poles. But here’s the thing with dogs. Just when my mental demon started to call me a bumbling idjit and worse, Jay raced to me and bounced up and down as if to say, “Wasn’t that great? We played together and we ran and jumped and had fun and I’m so happy and I love you so much!” I caught him in my arms on the next bounce, buried my face in his coat for a couple of heartbeats, and let him down to put his leash back. We left the ring laughing and walked to the far end of the field.

  “Can’t stay out here long, Bubby,” I told him. “Leo gets to run today, too.” Jay’s upper lip was caught on his tooth when he looked at me, giving him a “say what?” expression. “Yep, Catman is going to show ’em how it’s done. And you’re going to rest for a bit.”

  We ran into Jorge Gomez, Marietta’s groundskeeper, about half-way back to the van. “Hola, Jorge. ¿Cómo está?” That’s about all I

  remember from high school Spanish, but Jorge seems to get a kick out of my feeble effort.

  “Hola, Señora Janet.” He pronounces my name with a soft, breathy “j”. “Haff you seen a cat here?”

  I thought he was asking whether I had brought a cat. “Yes, my cat is here. You should come watch him do agility after the dog classes finish this morning. Will you be here?”

  “Oh, yes, bueno. But did you see a cat here? The little colored cat?” He gestured with one hand along the tree-lined fence that defined the limits of the Dog Dayz’s property. “Little cat, many colores?” Jay wriggled up to him, nose lifted and sniffing like a shop vac. Jorge raised the other hand out of the dog’s reach and made a clucking sound at him. “Oh, no, Mister
Jay. You no get the little cat’s lunch.”

  I had Jay lie down and mind his manners, and asked Jorge, “Is it your cat, Jorge?”

  “No, no my cat, but I feed. I think she have gatitos somewhere.”

  “Oh, my.” I thought of Gypsy and her kittens, and how much harder it was to raise them outside than in the safety of a house. “I’ll watch for her, Jorge. You said she has many colors?”

  “Yes, many colors, like arcoiris.” He saw that he had passed my vocabulary limits. “Like, you know,” he made a wide up-and-down motion with his arm, “like rainboo.” He grinned at me. “Yes, she is little rainboo.”

  seventeen

  The other three agility cats had arrived with their people by the time I carried Leo into the building in his travel carrier. I knew Sue and Dave O’Brien and their Abyssinians, Dessie and Jimma, from photo shoots I had done at several cat shows. They introduced me to Jared Spencer, eleven years old, his mother, Dawn, and his well-named Maine Coon, Moose.

  The demonstration would take place inside a portable enclosure that the local cat club owned. The sides were made of eight-foot-square PVC frames with netting stretched across them linked four to each side to form a square. Long strips of netting were stretched at the top edges of the panels and extended about eighteen inches toward the center to block any cat who tried to climb out. Heavy blue fabric hung along the bottom three feet to block the cats’-eye view of people’s feet outside the ring. For extra security, Marietta had set up a portable kennel as a sort of foyer at the enclosure’s entrance. We kept our cats in their carriers until we were inside the closed kennel and then got them out one at a time. No one wanted a loose cat running out the door.

  The others seemed to have decided the running order earlier, and Leo and I were first. No one said so, but I had the distinct feeling they all expected Team Janet to botch the thing. I looked at Leo, and felt my throat thicken with pride when I saw how calmly he was taking the whole weird situation. Marietta appeared outside the kennel-cum-staging area.