The Cat's Pajamas

by Soraya May

  Just for a moment, I’d dreamed about her coming with me, about waking up to her every day, and having her fall asleep in my arms every night. About making new memories with her.

  Now, that dream was gone, and all she wanted was to forget we’d ever met.

  If I’d been able to tell her that she might, just might, be able to keep the bar—would that have made a difference?

  Now, I’ll never know.

  “Ryan! Are you leaving already, mate?” I looked up, and saw Bob, bartender’s apron slung over one shoulder, one weathered hand shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun. Of course, he’s here to start work.

  “Hey, Bob.” I tried my best to keep my voice cheerful. “Yep, heading back to the city now. Lots to do.”

  He nodded. “I bet. Is Cat inside?” Gesturing at the door, he looked at me quizzically. “I thought she’d be out here seeing you off.”

  “Cat…had to go out for a bit.” I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon, though.”

  “Okay, no problem.” He fumbled in a pocket of his apron. “I’ve got my own keys, anyway. I’ll just head on in and start getting set up, then.”

  “Sure, Bob. You do that.” I forced myself to smile, and put out a hand. “Look, if I don’t see you again, it’s been great to know you.”

  He took my hand and shook it. “You too, mate, you too. You’ll be back, though, surely? What with,” he waved a hand in a carefully nonspecific way, “one thing and another?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, Bob. I don’t know. If I am back,” I turned and looked away, “I don’t think I’ll be staying long.”

  He looked at me carefully, gray eyes underneath white-haired brows. “I see.” He climbed a couple of steps toward the bar, and then turned to look back at me.

  “What’s that, Bob?” I let him talk out of courtesy, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what he had to say.

  “These past six months, I’ve gotten to know Cat pretty well. She’s quite a woman.”

  “She is that, Bob. She is that.”

  “And in that time,” he put a hand up to scratch his chin, “I’ve never seen her as happy as I have since you’ve been here. Like…like she was missing something, and you found it for her.”

  Down the road, I saw the taxi approaching, slowly. “Thanks, Bob. It’s,” I looked toward the sun, lowering in the sky, “it’s a shame Cat and I didn’t meet under different circumstances.”

  “Could be, mate. Could be.” He put his hand on the doorknob, and I picked up my cases as Jack’s taxi rolled to a stop. Inside, I could see Jack waving cheerfully at me. “Ryan, look. I’m not much of an expert on women.”

  “Neither am I, Bob. Neither am I.”

  He carried on, undaunted. “But from where I’m standing, you and Cat have had something pretty special going on. Maybe the thing to do is to tell Cat how you’re feeling, and let her tell you how she feels. Maybe that’s all you can do.”

  I stood, cases in hand, and looked at him. “Bob, I already know how she feels.”

  Turning away, I walked on toward my work.

  I gripped the armrests of my seat, and wondered again why I didn’t just drive on these trips. This time, though, the plane was empty except for me. My phone beeped, and I started guiltily, again.

  Ant: Hey, you still in Cable Bay?

  Ryan: Leaving now.

  Ant: How did it go? What about the girl?

  Ryan: Excavation went well. Girl did not.

  Ant: What? What happened?

  I turned off my phone; even to Ant, I didn’t want to talk about losing Cat right now. The memory of what she’d said, and the look in her eyes before she turned and walked out stabbed me again, so real and sharp that I drew in a breath as if I’d been jabbed with a needle. Shaking my head, I tried to think about my work.

  Come on, man. This is a major find, and one that benefits everyone. You have a chance to give everyone what they want.

  It didn’t work.

  I went over my notes for the meeting, and rehearsed my arguments, again and again, until I could remember every word by heart.

  If anyone can make this happen, I can.

  The cold feeling in my chest wouldn’t shift, no matter how much I tried to forget about it. Every mile the plane flew took me further away from Cable Bay. Further away from Cat, and further away from the silly dream I’d had of her being mine.

  Maybe if I’d tried to explain more. If I’d only—

  “Coffee or tea, sir?”

  “Nothing for me, thanks.” I didn’t even look up this time.

  Either this works, or it doesn’t. If it works, then I can give her back what she thought I was going to take away from her. If it doesn’t, then at least I tried my best for her.

  34

  Cat

  Every word of the email to my parents was hard for me to write.

  Mom and Dad,

  I know you don’t approve of what I did, coming here.

  I looked around the bar, aware that every word took me further away from this place, the only place I’d been really happy since I was a little girl.

  I understand your reasons for feeling that way. I wish I could explain to you why I made those decisions, but I’ve tried, and I know it doesn’t make sense to you. Some days, I’m not sure it makes sense to me, either.

  Things haven’t worked out for me here, and I have decided to come home.

  Stopping for a moment, I rewrote the last line.

  Things haven’t worked out for me here, and I have decided to come back to Boston.

  I may need to borrow some money from you for a plane ticket. I expect to receive a sum of money for the property I own here, so I will be able to repay you soon.

  ‘The property I own here’ sounded better than ‘the formerly-derelict bar that’s a hundred years old and about to be demolished.’, I thought.

  I will be packing up right away and I expect to be ready to leave within the week.

  Regards,

  Catherine

  My mother always hated it when I signed myself ‘Cat’—said it was childish—and after a number of arguments as a teenager, I’d trained myself not to do it around my parents. I stared at my laptop, fingers tracing the keys, over and over again.

  The sooner it’s done, the sooner it’s done.

  Clicking ‘Send’, I pressed my fingers against my eyeballs to hold back my tears.

  Start again, Cat. You’ve done it before.

  I was going to lose the one thing which gave me happiness, and now I’d lost the person who made me feel like I belonged somewhere after all. Without Ryan, or the bar, all I wanted to do was to run away again, to scrub this whole episode from my life.

  Maybe he’d never intended this to be anything more than a temporary diversion; maybe I was right when I accused him. But the pain behind his eyes when I told him that I wanted to forget him told me otherwise. It was done now, though; all I could do was move on, and try to forget.

  A knock sounded down below on the front door of the bar. I sat still for a moment, not wanting to move. Silently, I willed whoever it was to go away, and leave me to wallow in my own unhappiness for a bit. The knock sounded again.

  Well, that didn’t work, I guess.

  I stood up, closing my laptop lid heavily, and went to the landing, taking as much time as possible, still hoping they’d give up.

  Despite moving slower than I had ever done before, they hadn’t gone away, and the knock had sounded twice more before I made it down the stairs, crossed the floor of the bar, and pulled open the door. Okay, okay.

  “Hey.” Two sets of eyes looked back at me, one dark and questioning, one pale and framed by fiery red hair.

  “Hi, guys.” I had never expected to see Bea and Farrah standing together on my doorstep; in her heels, Farrah was about a foot taller than Bea, but the shorter woman radiated enough presence that they seemed about equal. “Bar’s, uh, not open yet.”

  “We’re not he
re to drink.” Bea waved a hand at me. “We’re here to talk.”

  Farrah snorted, and held up a bottle of wine. “Speak for yourself, Macfarlane. I can do both at the same time.” She looked at me. “Now, are you going to let us in, or do I have to swig this on the doorstep?”

  “Suit yourself.” I turned away, listlessly, and walked back inside. Bea and Farrah followed me, and as I leaned with my elbows on the bar, staring at the patterns in the wood, they came up alongside me.

  “So,” Farrah said after a pause, “you want to tell us what happened?”

  I put one hand up in front of my face, and studied it. “Do I have a choice?”

  “Not really.”

  I looked at Bea, who just stared back at me and shook her head. “Oooookay. Basically, it turned out that he’d made the decision about the bar as soon as he’d started, and this was all just a fling for him. He was stringing me along because he wanted me to…well,” I tried to find an appropriate gesture and couldn’t, “accommodate him.”

  “Oh, honey.” Farrah’s eyes were misty as she reached over the bar and fished out a wine glass. I shook my head. “I’m okay, Faz, honestly. Drowning my sorrows, as tempting as it is, probably isn’t a good idea right now.”

  She looked at me blankly as she unscrewed the cap and poured herself a glass. “It’s not for you, it’s for me. If we’re going to work through this, I need a drink. Help yourself if you change your mind, though.”

  Despite myself, I smiled. “Thanks.”

  “So, come on.” She wouldn’t stop once she started. “How did you find out, and what did he say?” On the other side of me, Bea coughed, and Farrah shot her a look. “Just tell us whatever you want to, okay?”

  “Arrgh.” I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes to try and stop the pulsing feeling that was happening behind them. I didn’t want to talk about this, not even to my friends, but if it was the quickest way to make them leave me alone, then I’d do it. “I was cleaning in his room, and I saw it in his journal. When I confronted him, he admitted that he’d known for some time.”

  “Did he explain why?” Farrah’s eyes were fixed on me, as her hands unconsciously traced the lines of her glass on the bar.

  I shook my head. “Not really. I didn’t much care. He kept on talking about something important he’d found, something about the building, but I didn’t want to know.” I swallowed hard, trying to clear a bitter taste from my mouth. “I knew this wouldn’t last—we wouldn’t last—but to have him not even bother to be truthful…”

  “Did you and Ryan ever talk about the…future?” The word was carefully chosen, and I shook my head.

  “It all happened so fast, and we were busy, and there was no time for a Big Discussion about the Future, was there? Besides, there was no point; he wasn’t staying, and we both knew it.”

  “You told me that you’d choose to be with him if you could, Cat. That sounds like a future to me.”

  I’m not going to cry. Whatever I do, I’m not going to cry. For God’s sake, Cat, you’re not a teenager. Grow the hell up.

  “But that was it, Faz. I didn’t say anything because how could I, but…I’d dreamed about one. About being with him not ending, and not having to give it up. I thought maybe I could go with him, or something, and I could find something to do, but I couldn’t say that, could I? Not after he’d lied to me.”

  I heard Bea grunt in acknowledgment, and I carried on.

  “I was so angry. He’d lied to me about the bar, and if that was the case maybe he was lying about how he felt about me? So I said something which I knew would hurt him and,” I could feel my breath getting short, and I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. “And I know I’ve driven him away, and I don’t know if it was the right thing to do or not.” The tears were boiling in my chest now, hot and choking, but I pushed them back down and kept talking. “And that’s the worst part, do you see? If I could only decide that he was a heartless asshole and he’d been stringing me along, then I could get on with being unhappy, and that would be okay, but being in this—this fucking limbo—where I don’t know, I don’t know, that’s the worst part, because if things had been different I would have gone with him if he’d asked and now that won’t ever happen, so…”

  I was running out of air; I hadn’t taken a deep breath for some time, and this monologue had gone on a lot longer than I’d intended. Finally, my lungs foreclosed on the mortgage my brain had been borrowing against, and I ended the sentence with a sort of strangled ‘hurk’ noise, my forehead descending slowly to touch the bar.

  Bea patted me on the back sympathetically. Farrah swirled the wine in her glass and looked at it. “Honey, it’s natural to feel angry, okay? He wasn’t honest with you, and that sucks. God knows I’ve had my share of men being less than honest.” She took a sip, and ran her tongue slowly across her teeth. “But maybe he did it because he didn’t want to lose you. I saw how he looked at you; that wasn’t no fling.”

  I angled my head to the side, my face still pressed on the bar, and looked up at Farrah out of one eye. “Then why would he lie to me?”

  She looked down and shook her head. “Honey, that pose is going to be terrible for your hair. It’s going to get all flat on one side.”

  “I do not care,” I muttered grumpily, “about my fucking hair right now.” The tears had receded, blessedly, and now I just felt weary.

  “Fair enough. Perhaps Ryan didn’t tell you the truth because he felt the same way you did. Maybe he didn’t want it to end either. It’s pretty scary to be confronted by a thought like that, and so maybe in the end, he just chickened out. That was a lousy decision, but it doesn’t make him a villain. It makes him a normal flawed guy. A guy who—I think—cared about you deeply.”

  “Maybe.” I didn’t want to admit any of this. “But it doesn’t matter now, anyway. He’s gone, and after what I said, he’s not coming back.”

  “I hope you’re wrong, Cat. What are you going to do now?” Farrah refilled her glass, and played with a lock of her hair while she waited for me to answer.

  “Now?” The idea of now was a deeply unappealing one, but not quite as unappealing as the future, stretching ahead of me like a gray fog. “Now I’m about to be an ex-bar-owner, I need to find something to do. I sent my parents an email asking for money to go back to Boston.”

  Bea exhaled, audibly. Farrah reached out and grabbed my shoulder. “Oh, honey. Is that what you want to do?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ll give you three guesses. But I don’t know what else to do, Faz. Where else do I belong?”

  “Now you listen to me, Cat Milsom.” Farrah slid down off her stool and came close to me, holding up a finger. “I know you don’t feel like it, but you belong wherever you damn well choose to belong. You’re a part of this town now, and if you don’t want to leave, you damn well don’t have to. Sure as hell no-one here wants you to leave. Right, Bea?”

  Another grunt came from behind me, which Farrah took as agreement. “See?”

  “Thanks, guys. I know must seem ungrateful right now, but I’m not. This would be ten times harder without you guys here, and I’d be a complete mess.” I thought for a minute. “Instead of a partial mess.”

  “You’re not a mess. So are you staying?”

  I paused for what seemed like an age, looking into Farrah’s face, then turned to look at Bea behind me, then back at the bar. I swiveled around on my stool, and looked out at the floor of the bar, chairs and tables, across to the little stage, and the terrible little dip in the floor that always caught people out as they came offstage which I’d never gotten around to fixing. All these memories.

  I can’t. Not without him. Not any more.

  Slowly, painfully, I shook my head. “My memories of this place…they’re all bound up with Ryan, now. Every time I look around the bar, I’ll think about him being here. Every time I see or do something in the town, I’ll think about how I could have shared it with him if things had been different.” I stood up straight
er now. “I wish I could stay, I really do. But I’ve had to live with those memories for a day, and it’s been bad enough; I want them to fade, so I don’t have to live with them for a lifetime.”

  There was another pause, and slowly, regretfully, Farrah nodded. “Okay, hon. I’m not going to pretend I like your decision, but you’re my friend, so I’m going to accept it.” Her face brightened. “But we’ll have a party before you go, okay? No way are we letting you leave Cable Bay without one hell of a party.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair—she was right, it was all flat on one side—and smiled. I didn’t much feel like it right now, but I knew she was trying to help. “You got it. One hell of a party.”

  The two of them walked to the door with me, and we stood for a moment in the doorway like three sides of a very scalene triangle. Bea looked up at me, pinning me with those dark, serious eyes. She didn’t smile this time, but if I looked carefully, I could see the slightest sparkle of what might just have been moisture in the corner of her eyes.

  “Thanks for coming, Bea. I’m really glad you were here.”

  Without any preamble or discussion, Bea took one step forward and hugged me, fiercely. She smelled—well, slightly of diesel, to be honest—and from the stiffness of her embrace, I suspected that hugging wasn’t something she did often. She certainly meant it, though; she hugged like she had a personal grudge against whoever she was hugging, and I was glad I’d taken a breath just beforehand. Over her head, I met Farrah’s eyes, and they were as wide and disbelieving as my own. Farrah put a finger to her lips, silently, and I somehow managed to indicate ‘Yes’ with my eyebrows.

  After a moment, Bea stepped back, and with a slightly accusing look at Farrah, turned on her heel and walked out the door. Farrah, still wide-eyed and shaking her head, blew me a kiss and followed her. I closed the door behind them, slowly, and turned back to the bar.

  On the bar, at the end, almost directly in front of where Ryan was first sitting when I’d met him, stood the little wooden cat. I reached out, extending a finger, and knocked it on its side. It rolled a little, and lay still.