The Cats Came Back

by Sofie Kelly

  I was sitting at the table with a glass of lemonade and one of the last remaining chocolate cheesecake brownies when my cell phone rang. It was Ruby.

  “Hey, Kathleen,” she said. “I know it’s very late notice, but are Owen and Hercules available for another quick shoot tomorrow?” I could hear a piano in the background, which made me think she was still at the theater.

  “I could make later in the afternoon work,” I said.

  “Any chance evening would work for them?” She was talking about both cats like they were people.

  “They have nothing on their calendar.” Marcus was working on a case—he hadn’t been able to share the details—and I’d seen very little of him all week. I didn’t think things were going to change in the next twenty-four hours, so I had nothing planned for Saturday night.

  “How about the marina about eight? I’ll meet you at the far end of the lot, by the stairs to the lookout.”

  “We’ll be there,” I said.

  “Thanks, Kathleen.” I could feel her smile through the phone. “See you then.”

  I set the phone back on the table and reached for my lemonade. Both cats were eyeing me, curiosity in their eyes. “Ruby,” I said.

  Owen immediately began to wash his face.

  “You don’t know that was about more pictures.”

  He paused his paw in midair and meowed at me.

  “Okay, so it was, but there’s no way you could have known that.” He went back to washing his face after giving me a look that could best be described as condescending.

  * * *

  Saturday morning was busy at the library, plus I ended up having to make a quick trip over to Henderson Holdings to drop off some paperwork for Everett. So I was happy to finally sink onto a chair at a window table at Eric’s and let Michel charm me a little. He asked about my life, told me how much he liked being in Mayville Heights for the festival and gave me an old photo of Mom and me. I was touched that he’d taken the time to find the picture. I was going to put it on the refrigerator the way I’d done with the one Emme had given me.

  “You look so much like Thea,” he said.

  I smiled across the table at him. “I’ve always thought that both Ethan and Sara look more like Mom than I do.” I glanced down at the photo again. “But you’re right, here we do look a lot alike.” The similarities were less about actual physical features and more about mannerisms. We had the same smile, the same way of tipping our head to one side, the same thoughtful expression in our eyes.

  “Thank you for this,” I said, tucking the photograph carefully in my bag.

  He turned his coffee cup in a slow circle on the table. “How is your mom?” he asked. “I caught some of the episodes when she was doing that soap last fall. She was great.”

  “They want her back again,” I said. Mom’s appearances on the daytime drama The Wild and Wonderful had brought her a devoted and vocal group of fans that had been clamoring for a return visit to the show since her most recent appearance last fall.

  “I’m not surprised,” he said. “Do you think she’d be interested in doing TV full-time?”

  I shook my head. I knew the show had offered her a two-year deal but Mom had turned it down. “Her heart is always going to be onstage.”

  “I’ve been talking to the festival organizers about adding a workshop on stage presence. I have some very talented singers who don’t seem to have any idea how to work the stage or the audience—or even what to do with their hands.” He smiled. “Now that you’re living here maybe I can entice your mother to come and teach it for me another year.”

  I tried to imagine having my mother in town for a week or more. Mags would love being able to talk about The Wild and Wonderful with her. The show was Maggie’s secret vice. Owen and Hercules would follow Mom adoringly around the house—and not only because she tended to ignore Roma’s rules about what they should eat. And big, burly Burtis Chapman would likely invite her for breakfast at Fern’s Diner and flirt outrageously. It wouldn’t be boring.

  Michel and I talked for a few more minutes and then he glanced at his watch. “I have to get back to the theater.” I reached for my purse but he shook his head. “You’re my guest, my dear. I invited you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. We both got to our feet and I hugged him.

  “I’ll see you soon, Kathleen,” he said.

  I left the truck where I’d parked it—just a couple of doors down from the café—and walked up the street to the artists’ co-op store. I was meeting Maggie, and we were headed to Red Wing to check out a huge neighborhood yard sale.

  * * *

  The yard sale turned out to be a great success as far as Maggie was concerned. We loaded a vintage dressmaker’s dummy, an old Underwood typewriter and a royal-blue metal steamer trunk into the bed of the truck, securing them in place with the straps and bungee cords I kept for exactly that purpose. She also had a brown paper shopping bag full of old photos and postcards. The only thing I bought was a movie poster of West Side Story. We were planning a week of classic movie musicals in the fall, and I’d managed to snag several posters at different flea markets and yard sales in the area.

  I took Maggie and her treasures to Riverarts, and we managed to get everything up the stairs to her top-floor studio. “Thanks for coming with me,” she said. “And for lugging everything back here.”

  “It was fun,” I said. “I can’t wait to see what you do with everything.” I left with a promise that we’d get together soon and finalize the last few details for Roma’s upcoming wedding shower.

  I headed home to have supper with Owen and Hercules. I spread the movie poster on the table to have a closer look at it. It was in excellent shape—just a couple of creases near one corner.

  Hercules jumped up onto a chair and craned his neck as though he were checking out the poster. “Mrr,” he said, which I decided to take as his kitty seal of approval.

  Owen, on the other hand, was pretty much indifferent to my find. It might have been because he liked movie musicals about as much as he liked the music of Barry Manilow. Or it might have been because although he sometimes seemed to act like a person, he was still a cat.

  I ate supper, brushed my teeth and my hair and then went downstairs to the living room. I sat in the big chair and reached for the phone. Talking to Michel about Mom had left me missing her. Owen leapt up onto the footstool, cocked his head to one side and gave me a quizzical look.

  “I’m calling Boston,” I said.

  He seemed to take my words as an invitation. He launched himself from the footstool, landing in my lap, where he kneaded my leg with his paws.

  “Claws,” I reminded him as I shifted so he could get settled. Once we both seemed comfortable—me with one leg tucked underneath me and Owen sprawled half on his back—I reached for the phone again.

  My brother, Ethan, answered. “Hey, Kath, how’s life in the land of lumberjacks and Bigfoot?” Ethan loved to tease me about living “in the middle of nowhere” as he put it. He’d bought me Bigfoot pajamas, a pair of Bigfoot slippers and a red T-shirt with the words I’m a Lumberjack and I’m Okay emblazoned on the front, a reference to the Monty Python song. I’d worn it to the Winterfest supper back in February. It had been a big hit.

  “When are you going to come see me and find out for yourself?” I asked.

  “Maybe sooner than you think,” he said. “There’s a chance we might do a short tour out your way this winter.”

  “That’s great,” I said. Ethan was a drummer. He taught jazz drumming back in Boston and he was also in a band, The Flaming Gerbils. They’d gone out on tour several times up and down the East Coast and up into Canada.

  Owen lifted his head and his golden eyes gleamed with curiosity.

  “When and where?”

  “February, probably. Milwaukee, maybe Chicago, Springfield, Des Moines,
Kansas City, maybe Minneapolis.”

  “If you don’t make it to Minneapolis, I can see you in Des Moines or Milwaukee,” I said. “And maybe you could come spend a few days with me. You keep saying you’re going to.”

  I heard him exhale on the other end of the phone. “I know. I swear I really do want to see you, it just seems like there’s always more stuff I have to do. There’s my students and the band. I’ve been writing a lot and Sara has some ideas for our next video. Some days it’s midnight and I honest to God don’t know where the day went.” It was impossible to miss the enthusiasm in his voice. “There’s a really good chance that everything will work out for February.”

  “I hope so,” I said.

  Owen looked at me and yawned.

  “Is Mom around?” I asked.

  Ethan laughed. “Yeah, she’s right here. She’s been hovering ever since she figured out it was you.” I heard my mom’s voice say something in the background. “Here she is. Love you,” Ethan said.

  “You too!”

  “Hi, sweetie.” It seemed as though I could feel the warmth of my mother’s voice through the phone.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said.

  “How are you? How are Owen and Hercules, and Marcus? Oh, and Maggie? And what about the festival? Have you seen Michel?”

  “Fine, fine, fine and fine, going well and yes, we had lunch today.”

  Owen lifted his head again, nudged the phone with his nose and murped softly.

  “And Owen says hello.”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  Owen was eyeing the phone as though he’d somehow heard what she’d said.

  “Mom, he’s a cat,” I said.

  “I’m aware of that,” she said. “What’s your point?”

  I shook my head. This was an argument I wasn’t going to win. And it wasn’t like Owen hadn’t “talked” on the phone before. “Hang on a sec,” I said. I put the phone to Owen’s ear. “She wants to talk to you,” I said. No, this wasn’t weird.

  I had no idea what my mother was saying to Owen, but he seemed to be listening intently and he meowed twice. Finally he turned his head and looked at me.

  Nope. Not weird at all.

  “So tell me about the festival,” Mom said now that her conversation with the cat was over. “Has your Uncle Mickey charmed most of Mayville Heights by now?” I pictured her in the kitchen at home, holding the phone to her ear with both elbows propped on the counter.

  “From what Ruby tells me, it’s going well,” I said. “And based on the reception his talk at the library got, I think Uncle Mickey has charmed at least half the state.”

  Mom laughed.

  “Do you remember when you did Mamma Mia!?” I asked.

  Owen stretched, yawned again and then jumped down and headed to the kitchen.

  “Which time?”

  “The first one.”

  “Umm, I do,” she said. “Those platform boots did great things for my legs, but I almost broke my ankle learning to dance in them.”

  “Do you remember a young woman named Emme Finley? She was in the chorus.”

  “Gorgeous voice. Tall. Dark hair—I think it was all her own. Why? Is she there at the festival?”

  “She is. She’s going to be singing with Ruby and Everett’s granddaughter, Ami.”

  “Oh, sweetie, I’d love to hear them. Will you get me a copy of the CD?”

  “Of course,” I said, nodding even though she couldn’t see me.

  We talked for a few more minutes. I told Mom about the two photos I’d gotten from Emme and Michel and promised I’d make a copy of each of them and send them to her.

  “Give Dad a big hug for me,” I said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Katydid,” she said. She blew me a kiss and we hung up.

  * * *

  It was about five to eight when I pulled into the marina driveway. I parked the truck at the far end of the parking lot. The view out over the river was beautiful, even though it was almost dark. Several sailboats, navigation lights shining like tiny stars, were slicing their way through the water, the breeze curving and filling their sails.

  Marcus had called just as we were about to head out the door. He was at the station doing paperwork after helping break up a smuggling operation that had been moving knock-off health supplements from Minnesota into Wisconsin and on to Chicago and likely farther east. He sounded tired but I could also hear the satisfaction in his voice. For now, at least, the bad guys had lost, the good guys had won and some dangerous products were out of circulation.

  I’d imagined him leaning against the wall in the hallway at the police station, where he usually went for a bit of privacy when he called me, one long leg crossed over the other, his dark, wavy hair mussed because he’d run his hands through it so many times.

  “I’m going to be a while,” he said. “I’m sorry. I feel like I haven’t seen you all week.”

  “Hey, it’s okay,” I said, happy just to hear his voice. I explained about the photo shoot with Ruby.

  “Owen and Hercules are turning into celebrities,” he said.

  “Maggie says if we’re lucky maybe they’ll be invited onto The Tonight Show.”

  Marcus laughed. “And let me guess. They’d give everyone little pawprint autographs.”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  Both cats were in the porch, waiting not very patiently. Hercules meowed loudly, annoyance in his green eyes. “I have to get going,” I said, sliding a foot into my canvas shoes. “If you get away before midnight, please call me.”

  He’d promised he would and said good-bye. I thought about how we’d butted heads when we first met. If someone had told me we’d end up falling in love, I would have thought they were crazy.

  I saw Ruby coming across the grass now as I held the bag open for Hercules to get in. Owen tried to climb over me, making the process more complicated.

  “Wait, please,” I said.

  He made a grumble of protest but sat down on the seat again.

  Hercules got settled and I backed out of the truck, holding the cat carrier bag with one hand and scooping up Owen with the other.

  Ruby caught sight of us and smiled. “Perfect timing,” she said.

  “The key to a happy life,” I said. “At least according to my dad.”

  “I thought the key to a happy life was cute shoes and lots of chocolate,” she countered.

  I smiled back at her. “That works, too.”

  “Thanks for coming on such short notice,” she said. “I got thinking last night that the marina is something that could attract tourists.” She waved a hand in the direction of the water. “It’s quiet. It’s beautiful. I think it’s exactly what people from the ‘big city’”—she made air quotes around the words—“are looking for.”

  I nodded. “The first week I was here I walked up to the first lookout three times, and there was still snow on the ground.” I smiled at the memory. I’d been amazed at how peaceful it was to stand by the wooden railing and just let my mind wander.

  “I’d like to take some photos of both cats up on the lookout and over on the grass as well,” Ruby said, gesturing back over her shoulder. “I want to see how it will work with the flash and the parking lot lights. And maybe a few of them actually on the stairs; I mean, if they feel like doing that.”

  “Where do you want to start?” I asked. Owen was getting restless. He kept craning his neck toward the water. Was he watching the sailboats? Somehow I didn’t think so.

  “How about on the grass first?” She gestured at a red metal bench. “Maybe there?”

  We walked over to the bench and I set Owen down first. Instead of taking a couple of swipes at his fur he looked past me out toward the water again. I put the carrier bag down, and Hercules climbed out, shook himself and then followed his brot
her’s gaze. I looked back over my shoulder, wondering what they were looking at, but I didn’t see anything other than the boats.

  I knew Ruby was trying to create some kind of special effect with the parking lot lights, so I just took a few steps back and let her get to work.

  Every shot seemed to take a long time. Or maybe we were just spoiled by how easy the previous photo shoots had been. Twice Ruby stopped and took a couple of deep, cleansing breaths, the way Maggie had taught us to do at tai chi class to get centered. I wondered if there was some way I could get Owen and Hercules to do the same thing.

  Both cats were distracted, looking over in the direction of the water multiple times. I took a few steps away from the bench to see if I could see what had taken their attention, but I couldn’t see anything anywhere that would interest a cat.

  Ruby was lying on her stomach on the grass, trying to get a photograph of Hercules walking in front of the bench, but it wasn’t working. He kept stopping, staring out across the grass and then turning his gaze back to Ruby.

  The third time he did it she gave an exasperated sigh and got to her feet, brushing grass and dirt off the front of her cut-offs. “Is there something out by the water you want me to see?” she said to the cat.

  Owen was still sitting on the bench where Ruby had taken the last photo of him. “Merow,” he immediately said. Hercules turned to look at his brother and they exchanged a look.

  Hercules turned back to Ruby and meowed.

  “Okay,” she said. She looked at me. “Just give me a minute.”

  Before I could bend down and pick up Hercules he started purposefully across the grass.

  “All right, I’ll just follow you.” Ruby shrugged and trailed the little tuxedo cat.

  I sat down next to Owen and put a hand on his gray fur just in case he got the idea to go after them. He looked at me and then leaned to the right so he could watch his brother’s progress, but he made no move to follow.