The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas

by Blaize Clement

  Before Guidry went away, I lay many nights thinking about all the reasons why my life would be less complicated without him in it. I counted them off like rosary beads. Then I would think of all the reasons why my body smiled when it was near him. More than likely, Guidry had been across town in his own bed counting the reasons his life would have been simpler without me—but his body must have smiled when I was around, too, because he kept coming back. We had been an odd couple, both of us on constant guard against getting cornered in a relationship but wanting and needing the intimacy and comfort it brings. Like two porcupines, we had kept our sharp quills on full alert but still came together to mate.

  I sat up and stared at my bedside phone. Peter’s voice sounded in my head: Do you know now what you must do?

  He hadn’t been talking about Guidry, but it was enough of a nudge to make me pick up the phone and dial Guidry’s number.

  He answered on the second ring. “Hi, Dixie.” Caller ID has now made it impossible to surprise somebody with a phone call anywhere in the world.

  I said, “I miss you.”

  A little voice in my head yelled, No! No! You’re supposed to be calling him to say you’re going to go out with Ethan!

  Guidry’s chuckle was a deep burr. I told the little voice in my head to shut up.

  Guidry said, “Planes fly every day from Sarasota to Louis Armstrong Airport. Takes about four hours. Of course you’d have to miss seeing your pets while you were here.”

  There it was, that little cutting edge to his voice when he talked about pets. Guidry didn’t particularly like pets. Ethan, on the other hand, had a dog he loved.

  I said, “You’re supposed to say, ‘I miss you too, Dixie,’ not give me flight schedules.”

  “I miss you too, Dixie.”

  He wasn’t laughing. He really meant it.

  I heaved a huge sigh. Judy was right, I was an idiot for letting Guidry leave without me. I was an idiot for not telling him the truth about Ethan. I was an idiot, period.

  He said, “Do you ever take a vacation from pet sitting?”

  I said, “Sure. You think I’m a robot?”

  I grinned when I said it, meaning “I’m just joking,” but the question had nettled me. The truth is that I haven’t taken a vacation since I started pet sitting. In the beginning, I never took time off because I couldn’t take the chance of all those empty hours with nothing to dam the river of pain and anger. Pet sitting was my escape. I could pour love into my charges and stifle the hatred I felt for the old man who’d killed Todd and Christy when he hit the gas pedal instead of the brake. I could discipline my mind by organizing my pet files and maintaining my pet-sitter insurance and making sure I observed all the professional ethics my pet-sitting organization required. I could wash away the aura of anguish while I showered off cat hair and doggie drool. Work had been my salvation, and I couldn’t let down my guard with a vacation.

  After I got reasonably sane, I didn’t take any time off because I didn’t know what I’d do with myself if I did. There was no place I wanted to travel, no adventure I wanted to explore. At least not by myself. I might have liked a cruise in the cold seas around Alaska, but not alone. I might have liked to watch great blue whales, but not alone. I might have liked to go whitewater rafting or mountain climbing or kiss the Blarney Stone, but not alone. And I knew without asking that Guidry wasn’t ready to go off and do any of those things with me. He might be ready later, but not now. Ethan, on the other hand, took annual vacations from his law office.

  Guidry said, “What do you know about the murder in Cupcake Trillin’s house?”

  “You know about that?”

  “Dixie, the entire world knows about that. Besides, Trillin’s from around here, so everybody in New Orleans is especially interested.”

  Even to Guidry, I wouldn’t repeat anything I’d just heard at Cupcake’s house. Or tell him what Briana had told me. Or tell him about the men attacking me.

  I could ask a question I’d been wondering about, though. “Guidry, do you know where Thibodaux, Louisiana, is?”

  “Sure, that’s where Trillin grew up. It’s not far from New Orleans.”

  I should have remembered that sports fans know every detail of an athlete’s history.

  I said, “Do you remember anything about a sixteen-year-old Thibodaux girl killing a man? She shot him in the head and then disappeared. It would have been while Cupcake was in high school.”

  “This is Louisiana, Dixie. That kind of thing is common.”

  “Do you know anything about Serbian criminals?”

  “Not a damn thing. Why?”

  I laughed. “Because I don’t either, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only ignorant one.”

  His voice took on a note of worry. “Dixie, you’re not mixed up in something involving European criminals, are you?”

  “Are you kidding? The only criminal I know is a cat who stole a slip of paper from a wastebasket. He’s taken it to his lair, and he won’t give it back.”

  “His lair? Cats have lairs?”

  “Not all cats. Just criminal cats.”

  “I do miss you, Dixie.”

  “Those planes fly both ways.”

  “As soon as I can get away—”

  “When might that be?”

  “It’s hard to say. There’s so much to set straight here.”

  So there we were again, both of us putting something else first but promising to get together as soon as we could. It was the perfect time to say what was true: Neither of us would ever make that flight, because we had other things that took priority over getting together. But I couldn’t say it. I wanted to, I tried to make my mouth form the words, but I flat couldn’t. Some force I couldn’t control wouldn’t let me.

  Instead, we murmured some more things, then ended the call. I sat staring at the phone for a moment, more frustrated and confused than ever. I had been a rank coward, merely putting off the inevitable, but Guidry had been an integral part of my coming out of the shell I’d crawled into after my husband and little girl died. He’d forced me to move on, to stop feeling sorry for myself, to let all the old anguish and resentment go and love again. While he’d been doing that, he’d let his own guard down and come to love me. To end what we had created together seemed to trivialize it, and it had not been trivial.

  It had been a long dry spell without sex after my husband died, and making love with Guidry had been like adding water to Magic Rocks and watching them explode into glorious colors. I couldn’t bear the thought of going back to a state of desiccation, but I also couldn’t bear the thought of sex with men I didn’t love. I didn’t know if the lust I felt for Ethan might grow into love or remain a purely biological urge.

  I got up and made a cup of tea. If I felt lonely and needy, it was my own fault. It occurred to me that I would make a fortune if I invented and patented a do-it-yourself create-a-man kit. It could be a large tablet that lonely women dropped in water. When it hit moisture, it would burst into the shape of a teeny man and then grow before their eyes into the exact man they needed.

  I stood at the kitchen sink and drank my tea and grinned while I remembered reading a book in high school called Gorilla, My Love. In the book, a woman had explained to her sisters how a woman needed a lot of different men in her life. A lover man, a money man, a handy man, a smooth-talking, sharp-dressed man to take out in public, and a sweet, sensitive man for quiet evenings. I figured I could design my build-a-man kit with tablets that would create any one of those men. Women could keep the kits on hand and create the right man for any occasion.

  The only problem I could see was that there’d have to be some system of disposing of one man when a woman was ready for another. No intelligent woman would create a man too dumb to know he was disposable, but it would be depressing to be with a man who knew his days were numbered.

  The whole idea was beginning to seem like real life, so I rinsed out my cup and decided I would never get rich selling do-it-yo
urself man kits.

  18

  Before I left for my afternoon calls, Cora Mathers called. Cora is the eighty-something-year-old grandmother of a former client who was brutally murdered. The client had left a chunk of money to her grandmother and a significant sum to her cat named Ghost. Much to my dismay, she had named me the executrix of the cat’s estate. But as it worked out, Cora thought it was cool that her granddaughter had left money to her cat, and I had found a good home for him. Tom Hale has invested the cat’s money so wisely that he’s a very rich cat. The rich part for me was that Cora and I have become good friends.

  Her voice thin and scratchy, she said, “Dixie, I hate to bother you, but could you pick up something for me?”

  She said she wanted a hot water bottle. Another woman in her condo had one, and just the thought of it had made Cora nostalgic for the hot water bottles she’d had when she was young.

  She said, “They make them smaller now, so they’re easier to handle. And there’s nothing like a hot water bottle when you have a stomachache or when your feet are cold. The woman got hers at a drugstore on Tamiami Trail.”

  I said, “Do you have a stomachache?”

  “It’s not bad.”

  “Have you told your doctor?”

  “It’s not anything to worry about, Dixie. People get stomachaches.”

  I told her I’d be happy to bring her a couple of hot water bottles and hurried to get dressed so I could pick them up before I started my afternoon rounds.

  Outside, the sun hid behind a scrim of ragged clouds, giving a trio of red-tailed hawks the look of dive bombers gone off course. The sun had moved away from dead center of the sky, making the light slant onto the ripples on the Gulf so their top edges glittered. A few sailboats made neat white triangles in the distance, and shore birds had come out of their siesta hideaways to stalk along the beach looking for snacks brought in with the frothy surf.

  Michael was also on the beach, bare feet planted in the sand, legs braced like tree trunks while he looked at waves piling up on the shore. With a beach at our front door, we are generally considered privileged, but that only means we had ancestors smart enough or lucky enough to make choices that would one day be of tremendous value. Our grandfather bought our beachfront property for less than a thousand dollars. Now it’s worth more than Michael’s firefighting income and my pet-sitting income combined will ever total, but we still get to live here. If it’s true that we choose our families, we chose well.

  I slipped off my Keds and walked out on the beach to stand beside him and dig my toes into the sand’s cool dampness.

  I said, “What’s wrong?”

  He didn’t pretend to be surprised that I knew something was wrong. We’ve been together a long time, and we know each other’s moods.

  “Just a little concerned about Paco. He’s really stressed about something.”

  “A job?”

  His voice grew sharp. “Of course a job. What else? And no, I don’t know what job it is, and yes, it’s none of my business so I’m not asking. He wouldn’t tell me if I did.”

  I nodded. People with family members who do undercover police work are always a little bit anxious, a little bit worried, and a little bit resentful because we can’t talk to them about it. They do their strong silent acts and we do our pretending-we’re-not-worried acts, and sometimes those different acts create great swaths of distance between us.

  I said, “I’m just guessing, but I think the homicide in the Trillin house was more than just a local murder. An FBI agent questioned me and the Trillins this morning. Not a real FBI agent, a guy on loan from Interpol. So whoever the murdered woman was, it has attracted international attention. I think Paco’s involved in something to do with it.”

  Michael looked hopeful. “Interpol?”

  I knew what he was thinking, that a murder investigation that attracted FBI agents and Interpol officers wouldn’t be as dangerous for Paco as infiltrating a terrorist group or a local drug gang. It would be, of course, but I didn’t burst his bubble. I told him I was going to buy Cora some hot water bottles and left him looking less stressed.

  As I drove under the trees lining the lane, parakeets made friendly swoops from their leafy shelters and swirled overhead. Parakeets are prima donnas, but they earn it.

  I stopped at the end of our lane and waited for a break in traffic on Midnight Pass Road. As I turned, I caught sight of a white convertible half a mile away pulling out of a private lane like mine. It wasn’t something I paid attention to, just one of those subliminal details that drivers notice.

  I zipped to a Walgreens on Tamiami Trail and bought two hot water bottles for Cora. They were cuter than I remembered hot water bottles being. Sort of snuggly, actually, so I bought two for myself. I thought they might come in handy some chilly night when I had cramps or a backache or cold feet. Now that it looked like I would be sleeping alone for the rest of my life, I figured my feet might need something to keep them warm.

  With the hot water bottles in tow, I sped off around the marina and its moored boats toward Cora’s condo. Waiting at a red light, I spotted another white convertible way back in a line of cars behind me. It could have been a Jaguar like Briana’s, but it was too far back to tell for sure. Lots of convertibles in Sarasota, many of them white. Nothing to pay attention to, really, but I sort of did. As I left the marina behind and followed Tamiami Trail to Cora’s condo building, I noticed that the convertible hadn’t turned to go over the bridge to Longboat Key or St. Armands or Lido Key. When I turned onto the short lane to Cora’s condo, though, the convertible went straight ahead on Tamiami Trail, headed north. I felt a ridiculous relief. Nothing like being involved in a murder investigation to make a person start imagining being followed.

  Every time I look up at the condo building where Cora lives, I imagine a bunch of architects coming back from an inspiring but drunken weekend in Venice before they designed it. Instead of old-world charm, the building is tarted up so it resembles a giant wedding cake decorated by kindergartners let loose with frosting cones. Cupolas perch in weird places, columns soar without any purpose, little fountains spurt water from the lips of cherubic gargoyles. I get off balance just looking at it.

  I pulled up under the porte cochere, and a valet trotted out to take my Bronco away. Well, he was too old to trot, but he moved as fast as possible. With so many retirees in Sarasota, most of our valet parkers and supermarket bag-boys are over seventy. I suspect that most of them have been pushed to it by wives who grew weary of them constantly underfoot. The Sarasota joke is that wives committed to their husbands for life, but not for lunch.

  The valet who parked my car was new, so we didn’t waste time chatting. I told him I wouldn’t be long, grabbed the bag of hot water bottles, and scooted through wide glass doors that slid apart when they felt me coming. I like that about posh places. Even the mechanical objects make you feel special. The lobby was crowded with youthful gray-haired people headed to golf courses or tennis courts or movie theaters. Old people are the only people who have the time to enjoy themselves. Gives me something to look forward to.

  The concierge waved at me from her French provincial desk and picked up her phone to alert Cora that I was on my way up. I like that about posh places. Even if they know you couldn’t afford a down payment on the doormat, they treat you as respectfully as they treat the paying residents.

  Most of the residents of Cora’s building are the epitome of good taste and old money, but a woman with bright red hair teased out to Jesus was waiting for the elevator. She wore high heels, tight leggings, and a drapey top made for adolescents. Cosmetic surgery had pulled out all her wrinkles and sculpted her nose thin as a baby’s finger bone, but when she turned to look at me, the eyes peering from under a fringe of red hair looked like the desperate eyes of an aging fox caught in a trap. I wondered if she’d had the surgeries hoping to snag a rich husband. Or maybe she’d had all the work solely for herself, just because she refused to look her age. R
egardless of the reason, it didn’t take a makeover artist to know the woman had the same hunger for attention and love that makes unhappy teenagers draw heavy lines around their eyes and lips and trowel on thick makeup to cover every blemish. Not surprisingly, she reeked of cloying perfume.

  Before the elevator opened for us, a handsome white-haired man rounded the corner. When he saw the woman, he came to a momentary stop with a look of panic on his face.

  With an arch smile, she said, “There you are! You thought you could hide from me, didn’t you! But now I’ve got you! You promised to come up and have a drink with me, and I’m not letting you slip away again!”

  She had a prissy voice and held her too-red lips as if they were a pouch-purse with tight-pulled strings.

  I could tell the gentleman felt cornered. But he smiled grimly, too polite to tell her to get lost, and allowed her to motion him into the elevator where he backed into a corner.

  I followed them in, which made the woman turn round on me as if I had intruded into a private meeting.

  With a haughty look at my shorts and the Walgreens bag in my hand, she said, “What is your business here, dear?”

  The man looked sharply at her.

  I smiled sweetly. “I’m going to see some gentlemen on the sixth floor. They’re having a party.”

  I raised the Walgreens bag and waggled it so the hot water bottles shifted around. “I’m bringing interesting goodies!”

  Her smile faltered, and her hand with its red talon fingernails rose as if she might clutch my shoulder to try to become my best friend.

  The man’s eyebrows rose and he pushed his spine closer to the wall, but his eyes were on the woman rather than on me. She was like a retriever on point, every inch of her quivering with excitement.

  She said, “Who are they? Which apartment?”

  I shook a playful finger at her. “Sorry, I’m not the kind of girl who spreads secrets.”