Shifter

by Jennifer Reynolds

  Trying to figure out what has her contemplating so hard, I turn to look at the monitor. A page full of exercise equipment stares back at me. A part of me wishes I was human enough to chide her for it, but I can’t fault anyone fat, skinny, or somewhere in between for wanting to get into shape. I’m glad she isn’t dieting. I hate when people diet. They always go to the extreme.

  Feeling bad about her sad mood, I nudge her hand with my head. She smiles down at me and begins to pet my head.

  Sighing hard, she says to no one, “I’ve got to do it. I don’t have the dedication for it. Maybe if I have it here, in the house, right in front of me, I will feel guilty and pushed into doing it. I’m sick of being this way, and sick of men like Devan being nice to me to save my feelings.”

  Knowing that what Devan thought about her matters to her annoys me. On the other hand, I really wish I could have told her that Devan was being honest. I could tell by the tone in his voice that he had thought she was something special. Devan had only one type of girl. He fell for any woman with a bright smile and intelligent conversation. The problem is that most of our women are pains in the ass, not that that is their fault. They are the product of generation after generation of man handling.

  Pack life has been getting better for them. We as a gender are learning to control our animal instincts. Our males tend to be more animal and primal. Whereas our women are more human and reasonable.

  Unfortunately, Devan prefers more laidback easygoing women, and most of the women we know are on guard at all times and very high strung. Abby is definitely his type, and this chaps my ass for some reason.

  “I have to do this,” she mumbles.

  I watch her turn back to the computer and order a treadmill and a set of wireless headphones. I assume she bought the headphones so that she can hear the television over the machine. With her order confirmed, she gets up and goes to the kitchen to make herself a grilled cheese. I follow her.

  “You are being exceptionally needy today,” she says over her shoulder. “Is it because of our visitor or because I cried? I know we’ve had an unusual day today, but I like that it has brought you out of your shell.”

  Wanting desperately to talk to her, to explain everything, something I never thought I would want to do, I hop into a chair and watch her. She pulls the low-fat butter and a package of cheese from the fridge.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she says with resignation in her voice. “I bought the sweat machine. I’ll worry about what I eat when it gets here.”

  There couldn’t be anything in the look that I gave her that would warrant such a statement. I don’t give a shit if she eats four hundred of those stupid sandwiches. I like that she eats. As a shifter, I am used to eating a lot. She doesn’t eat anywhere near as much as we do. If she ate half of what we did, then I would say she overate. One or two measly grilled cheese sandwiches were nothing for me.

  Chapter 7

  ~~~Abby~~~

  Time seems to be moving slowly. My encounter with Devan feels as if it happened years ago, though it had actually only been a little over a month. Nevertheless, enough time has passed that I had all but forgotten about him. Okay, that is a lie, but we’ll pretend it’s the truth. Therefore, when someone knocks on my door, interrupting my playtime with Sebastian, I freeze halfway through throwing his favorite plastic ball that has a bell in the middle of it across the room. He doesn’t play fetch like a dog, but he does like to chase the ball, and sometimes he even manages to swat it back to me. I like to confuse him by throwing a second and third ball while he is chasing after the first. He gets all discombobulated and doesn’t know which he should chase after first.

  I had spent the last hour on the treadmill and am in the floor playing with my cats. I am supposed to be stretching—something I try to do before and after I walk—but it is obvious that I’m not doing any such thing. When I plopped down in the floor, Sebastian came running up to me and proceeded to attack my hands. Why, I’m not sure, but I think he thinks my hands are separate creatures not attached to my body that are always out to get him, so he attacks them when he is in a playful mood.

  Dimitri, on the other hand, has been steadily watching me sweat my ass off on the machine while I watched reruns of LOST. He does this every time I get on the machine. The horrid smell of sweat and my labored breathing must amuse him.

  The knock came again. Whoever it is knows I’m home because the television is on, and I had been laughing at Sebastian. Part of me prays it is Devan while another part prays it isn’t. I look like a sweaty mess. I am in sweat pants, a sports bra, and tank top. All three items are sticking to me.

  At the third knock, I yell for the person to hold on a second. I run to my bedroom and grab a large, white, sleep shirt out of my drawer. I will look funky, but at least the shirt isn’t clinging to every part of my flabby body. I jerk off the tank and replace it with the shirt.

  As I rush back to the living room, I straighten my ponytail. Sweat has matted my hair too much for me to let it down. I purposely avoid the large mirror hanging above the sofa. I don’t want to know how horrible I look.

  Per my usual routine, I latch the chain and look through the peephole. I sigh with relief and disappointment at the sight of a tall, beautiful redhead standing on my porch. My ego takes a serious beating at the sight of her. It takes an even worse one when I open the door to get a full view of her.

  “Can I help you?” I ask, fidgeting uncomfortably. A woman this beautiful shouldn’t be seen on my doorstep. I actually think there are laws against her being in my presence, or, at least against me being in hers.

  “Are you Abby Sinclair?” the luscious woman asks.

  “I am. Is there something wrong?” I reply, absentmindedly pulling at my clothes.

  “Sort of. I’ve been told that you purchased a cat from Smith County Animal Clinic and Shelter a few months back.”

  “I did.” My answering tone is uneasy and suspicious.

  “You see, it seems that my husband got a little angry with me over some little dent in the car and decided to drop my poor baby off at the shelter.”

  I don’t say anything and wait for her to continue.

  “I was told that you adopted a cat on the same day.”

  “Huh.” I wanted to ask from whom she had gotten my personal information. If the shelter was giving out my information there was going to be hell to pay. “Okay, I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has rescued an animal from there in the last few months.”

  “I am positive you have my cat.” The tone of her voice deepens and a hint of anger begins to seep through, bringing my guard up.

  “How do you know I’m the one with your cat? The shelter wouldn’t have told you anything. Speaking of which, how do you know where I live. They wouldn’t have given you my personal information either.”

  “I uh…um…well,”

  “Look lady, I don’t know who you are but...”

  “That’s my cat right there,” she says, pointing into my house.

  I turn slightly and look into my living room to see both Dimitri and Sebastian glaring at the front door. When the woman comes into full view, Dimitri hisses loud and scarily. A second later so does Sebastian. Almost at once, their backs raise, the hair on their bodies shoot straight up, and both look as if they are about to pounce. Quickly I put myself back in front of the door.

  “Which one is yours?” I ask, growing highly suspicious and annoyed with the woman.

  She doesn’t answer. She just tries to look passed me. I can see the indecision on her face. This confuses me. If she is a Maine Coon breeder or someone who knows the worth of the cat, she would have recognized Dimitri right away. But she didn’t. She didn’t seem to know which cat she should say is hers.

  “Look lady, I don’t know who you are, but I think you should leave. If you believe I have your cat, I think you should go down to the shelter and talk to them. If they think I am the one who has your cat, they will call me. If I have your cat, I
will willingly return it. Until then, we have nothing more to discus.”

  I shut the door in her face, and lock and dead bolt it, then call my next-door neighbor. He is slightly older than I am, very good-looking, but despite my sister’s nagging, I have never been able to approach him. Doing so seems weird, considering his wife has only been dead about two years. He stays to himself, as I do, but on occasion, if I desperately need something, he will come to my aid.

  “Jack, its Abby, do you have a second?” I say into the phone when he picks up the other end.

  “I do. What’s wrong?” is his immediate concerned response.

  “I’m not sure. Can you look out your front door and see if a tall, red headed woman is still on my porch or anywhere near my house?”

  “Yeah, hold on… Nope. I don’t see anyone.”

  “Good.”

  “What’s going on, Abby?”

  “I don’t know. This woman came to my door saying I have her cat and she wants it back, except she didn’t know which one of my cats was hers. She seemed somewhat off somehow. She was tall, real tall, and beautiful, with flaming red hair. You couldn’t miss her.”

  “Did she threaten you in anyway?”

  “No, she just acted weird. Shifty. I’m sure I’m being overly paranoid, but she gave me the creeps.”

  “Listen, I’ll keep an eye out for anything unusual. You be sure to keep all the doors and windows locked up tight. You have an alarm system, right?”

  “Yeah, but I only set it when I leave and when I go to bed.”

  “Might not be a bad idea to set it now. You know, just as a precaution.”

  “I’ll do that. Thank you, Jack.”

  “Welcome, Abby. I’ll see you around.”

  “You too.”

  Two minutes later, I’m on the phone with the shelter, explaining to them what had happened. Jody started to inform me that no one had been in making such a claim when she had to put me hold due to a customer. Seconds later, Dr. Smith picks up the line and asks me to come in and to bring my cat with me. At the time, she hadn’t known what I had named him. He had had most of his shots and vaccinations by the time I had given him a name.

  On some instinct I can’t understand, I place Dimitri in Sebastian’s carrier and not in the one the vet sent with him. If he is her cat she would know what kind of carrier he was in, still I don’t want to take it. I want an excuse to have to bring him back to the house, or at the very least delay the transfer process.

  Dimitri doesn’t fuss or argue as I load him in the carrier and drive to the shelter. The entire prospect seems to have actually saddened him. For some reason, I suspect he knows the woman, that she had been his owner, but she had done something terrible to him, and he doesn’t want to go back to her.

  “I won’t let her take you. I promise,” I say, unlatching the carrier while sitting at a red light and reaching in to pet him. For the first time ever, he purrs under my hands. This makes me cry.

  I’m a cat person. I love cats. I love their independence. Their ‘forget the world’ personality. I love that they can be sweet and charming one minute and have a ‘don’t touch me’ attitude the next. However, I have never been this way about them. I am sad when one dies or is sick, but never have I felt like this.

  There is something human about Dimitri, something sad and demoralized about him. He has been through something, something traumatizing. Something deep inside me wants to protect him. It tells me that he needs protecting.

  I wait in the parking lot of the shelter for a long moment, cleaning my face and getting my emotions under control before I head inside. I don’t want that redheaded bitch to know that she has affected me in anyway.

  “I’m sorry it has to be this way,” I say to Dimitri as I close the front of the carrier. He comes to the front of the carrier and does another thing he has never done before; he licks my hand. “Now you start being affectionate.”

  Dr. Smith is waiting for me when I enter the shelter. The look on her face shows anger and annoyance. The look isn’t for me, I’m sure of it. I take a small amount of satisfaction in that expression. The look means the redhead, despite her beauty, is not winning friends and influencing people here. This gives me a happy.

  “Hello, Dr. Smith, how are you?” I ask with a tremble in my voice, holding out my hand in greeting.

  “I’ve been better. I’m sorry to have to call you down here,” she says with a sad grin, taking my hand and giving it a quick shake.

  I feel a slight tingle at her touch, but it quickly fades, passing out of my hand as suddenly as it occurs. Dimitri shifts in the carrier, and I see his little nose peeking through the bars as if he is looking up at the doctor. He is probably a little worried about what is about to happen to him.

  “It’s all right. We both knew this day was bound to happen sooner or later,” I say as she bends down to touch the end of her finger to his nose.

  “I’m not so sure about all of that.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, some of her story doesn’t add up,” she says, standing up and nodding her head in the direction of the room the redhead is in. “I want you to do me a favor.”

  “Anything.”

  “Take the cat…” I was about to cut her off to tell her what I named him, but she waves a hand. “No names right now.”

  I nod.

  “Take the cat to Dr. McCray. He’s waiting behind those doors.” She points to a set of double doors to the right of her. The doors lead to the showroom where Joy had taken the day I adopted Dimitri. “He’s going to put him in amongst a group of other cats we have.”

  I start to ask why, but then decide it is probably better if I don’t know right now. I nod and walk over to the door. Just inside of the showroom, I hand Dimitri to the doctor, then follow Dr. Smith down a long narrow hallway to her office at the very back of the building.

  The redhead’s face lights up with satisfaction when she sees me. The look quickly turns to annoyance when she realizes I don’t have the cat with me.

  “Ms. Sinclair, I take it you have met Miss Hathaway,” Dr. Smith says to me, pointing to the redhead.

  “We’ve met,” I say curtly.

  “Ms. Hathaway here says that she lost a cat a few months back.”

  “Did she?” I say a hint of resignation in my voice.

  “Yes. She thinks that whoever took him dropped him off here.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say to Miss Hathaway with sincere sympathy. I don’t want her to have Dimitri, but if he really is her cat then there is nothing I can do.

  “There is just one problem,” Dr. Smith says.

  “Oh,” I say, turning to face the doctor.

  “We haven’t had a cat come in here that looks like the one she has described. Nor does it look like the ones she saw in your house. How many cats do you have Miss Sinclair?”

  “Just the two she saw.”

  “That is what I thought. Our records didn’t indicate that you had any other animals. Miss Hathaway,” Dr. Smith says, turning to the other woman, “when I spoke with Miss Sinclair, I asked her to bring in the cat she adopted from us not truly knowing how many cats she had or which cats you have seen. You said your cat would have been in a dark green, plastic carrier, and that he was a solid, dark amber of no particular breed.”

  The redhead nodded slowly, looking worriedly between us. Something was going on here, and she knew it wasn’t anything good for her.

  “See that’s the problem. We did find a cat in a green carrier but what was inside wasn’t a dark amber cat.”

  I visibly relax at all of this. There was no way that my Dimitri is her cat. If I hadn’t been so relieved by this I would have noticed that Dr. Smith was screwing with this woman. Intentionally irritating her.

  “If you like, I can take you to where our cats are and let you have a look at them all. The one Miss Sinclair adopted is also there.”

  “Please,” Miss Hathaway spits.

  I follow the two women back down the
hall to the cage area. I smile when I see that Dimitri isn’t in one of the cages, but is hanging lazily out on one of the center tables, trying to ignore Dr. McCray who is trying to tease him with a stuffed mouse. If he had been any other cat they might have left him in his carrier, but he has proved numerous times to be a calm and agreeable animal.

  I see Mave eye him annoyingly as if she knows he is her cat but she can’t prove it. But how she could think he is hers, considering he looks nothing like what she described, I don’t know.

  “These are all of the cats we have up for adoption. I don’t have any pictures of the cats that came in sick and have since passed away or that were healthy and adopted in the last few months. There was one or two that might have been him. However, their coloring wasn’t completely dark brown. One had white paws. The other was several different shades of brown ranging from light amber to near black.”

  “They wouldn’t have been my cat and neither are any of these,” she said bitterly, flinging her hand in the direction of the cages.

  “I can confirm this is the cat Miss Sinclair adopted,” Dr. Smith said, pointing to Dimitri. “Because of his breed, I photographed him. I can show you all of that if you would like.”

  “That’s not necessary,” the woman said, her voice edged with venom.

  I stand back, watching the interaction with amusement and with admiration for Dr. Smith.

  “Jody, would you take Miss Sinclair into my office. There are some papers that I need her to sign. Some stuff we forgot the last time she was here. I’ll bring him out in a moment.” She reaches down and starts petting Dimitri. I spin around to the door. I hadn’t known Jody had followed us into the showroom.

  Jody smiles and says, “Yes, ma’am.”

  I turn to look back at the doctor in confusion. She has purposely not asked me what I named him. I wonder if this is because she doesn’t want me to give the woman his name. That makes no sense. He hadn’t come in with a name, and I have just recently given him one. There is no way this woman could know his name or claim it is the same name as her cat. Dimitri isn’t a cat name.