Cupid Cats

by Katie MacAlister

  He learned she was an occupational therapist, working primarily with kids, and it didn’t surprise him. Kids would love her. She’d never been married and dismissed her unattached state with a casual wave of her hand, saying she was “waiting for Prince Charming, but the bastard refuses to show up!” She liked many of the same things he did and held many of the same views. She even came from a family as tightly knit as his.

  But there was something . . . missing—some indefinable spark of attraction. At the same time, there was something reassuringly familiar about her. He didn’t realize why until they’d reached dessert and she was stealing the maraschino cherry off Melissa’s hot fudge mini-sundae: She reminded him of Stephanie. She even looked something like Steph, with her curves, blond hair, and her wide blue eyes.

  She finished the cherry and dabbed at her mouth, tossing the linen napkin lightly to the table. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said, pushing back from the table.

  Melissa started to get up to follow, but Candice waved her down. “Stay put, Mel,” she said. “This isn’t a group effort.” She headed out of the dining room.

  At once, Melissa’s head swiveled toward Jim. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What do you think of her?”

  Jim fidgeted, noting Phil’s sympathetic glance. “She’s really nice.”

  “Isn’t she?” Melissa enthused. “She’s just about the nicest woman I know. Everyone loves her. And”—she hesitated—“well, did you . . . did you notice how much she resembles Stephanie?”

  “Yeah,” Jim answered, “I did.” But she wasn’t Stephanie. She could never be Stephanie.

  “So, are you going to ask her out again?” Melissa asked.

  Jim squirmed. Was he? “Come on, Mel. I dunno. Maybe. Maybe . . . not. I—I dunno.”

  “Mel, it’s not really your business,” Phil said gently.

  She rolled her eyes and made a dismissive sound. “Anything I’m interested in is my business, and I’m interested in seeing that Jim isn’t lonely the rest of his life.” Her laserlike gaze swung to him. “This is the third blind date I’ve set you up on this year, and no one’s good enough. What exactly are you looking for, Jim?”

  He shrugged. What was he looking for? Melissa was right. Every one of the women she’d set him up with had been perfectly nice, smart, and pretty.

  “ ’Cause apparently you aren’t interested in smart, pretty, nice women. I know.” She snapped her fingers and intoned in a voice full of sarcasm, “How about someone like that weirdo at the cat shelt—” She stopped, abruptly having read something in his face. “Jesus,” she breathed. “You can’t really consider her dating material.”

  “No, no,” Jim denied. “Of course not. We’re just coworkers. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like her, and she’s not weird—she’s just different.”

  “So is a black hole . . . much like her personality.”

  “Really nice, Mel,” Jim said, surprised by his anger.

  Mel must have heard the warning edge in his voice, because the sneer fell from her face, leaving only concern and exasperation. “Look, Jimmy,” she said, reaching over the table and covering his hand with hers. “I know you loved Steph—we all loved Steph—but I can assure you, she would not want you to spend the rest of your life pining for her. It’s time to move on.”

  “I’m not pining,” Jim said, still irritated. “Just because I’m not sure I want to ask Quasi Steph out on a date doesn’t mean I’m pining.”

  “Quasi Steph?” Mel intoned, shocked.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s really . . . low.”

  “It’s true. I’m thinking of all the women you’ve set me up with over the last few years, and I just realized something. They’re all Steph knockoffs.”

  Melissa threw up her hands in obvious despair. “So what?” she asked. “You loved Steph. It only stands to reason that the things you found attractive about her would be the same things you found attractive in other women!”

  She was right, of course. It only made sense. The anger drained away, leaving him feeling unsettled and unsatisfied. Candice returned to the table, but even her effervescent personality couldn’t quite return the group to their former good humor. She knew something was up, and when he walked her up to her door after taking her home, she looked up into his face and said, “Knowing Melissa, I’m guessing she’s all ready to send out our first kid’s birth announcement.”

  Jim laughed, relaxing.

  “Look,” Candice said, “I know she means well, but I hope she didn’t push me down your throat. I mean . . . I think you’re a nice guy and, well . . . we could have fun together.”

  “I’m sure we could.”

  Putting her hands on his chest, she moved in closer and kissed him. He responded, wrapping his arms around her, liking the substantial feel of her, the softness and sheer physical presence. Their kiss deepened, becoming more ardent. “Do you want to come in?” she murmured against his mouth, sounding a little breathless.

  Did he? Yeah. But only because he missed a woman’s body next to his. “Better not. My niece is sitting and her mother will skin me if she gets home too late.”

  “Oh,” Candice said, disappointed. “Okay. Maybe . . . another time.” She just kept it from being a question and though he started to reassure her, something kept him quiet. He had her number. He could call. She could call, for that matter. She didn’t strike him as the type of woman who would stand on ceremony.

  “Thanks, Candice. I had a great time,” he said.

  Again, disappointment flashed across her open countenance, but she didn’t push. “I did, too. Good night, Jim.”

  He drove home feeling vaguely unsettled until at a stoplight he realized why. He was trying to determine if Melissa’s accusation had merit. He didn’t feel like he was pining for Steph. He missed her, but he didn’t still grieve for her. He didn’t think he had lived through his one and only shot at love and romance and companionship.

  So why am I still single? Come on, Jim. Married? You haven’t even dated anyone seriously. The most interest you’ve shown in a woman is in Edith Handelman, and that’s purely friendship. Well, maybe not purely. There are those intermittent pings of potent attraction.

  Perverse pings they were, too, since she’d told him the day they’d met she didn’t know why Global Genetics needed a “talking head.” Though that should have set the stage for an antagonistic relationship, it hadn’t because at the same time he’d been reeling from her comment, he’d realized she hadn’t meant it as an attack at all; she’d simply been relating the charge she’d overheard, unaware that it was an insult.

  So, instead of walking away, he’d stayed and explained Global Gen needed his talking head to attract investors. Then he’d walked away and straight to his computer where he’d opened her file. Nope. No mention of Asperger’s. But there were a lot of other interesting facts that shed some light on her social liabilities. Her parents, both army, had moved often when she was a kid—she listed eight addresses before she went to college at age twelve. She had no siblings and no close relatives, her parents now being deceased. Her education had been wildly accelerated, entailing frequent moves to various states for different fellowships. She’d never learned the social lessons—some good, most cruel—that middle and high school imparted. She’d never had much opportunity to practice purely social skills. He’d closed the file, intrigued and oddly touched—and maybe a little challenged.

  A horn honked behind him, and he realized he’d been sitting at a green light for who knew how long. He lifted a hand in apology at the driver behind and drove on, frowning. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking about Edith. He was supposed to be thinking about Candice and whether or not he wanted to go out with her again, and whether there was a future there. There was attraction, certainly. And she had a good sense of humor. And she was caring.

  Ah, hell. He was overthinking this way too much. Of course he should ask her—

  A sma
ll shadow dashed across the street and dove right beneath his tires. Jim wrenched the steering wheel hard to the right, and the tires squealed in protest. He slammed on the brakes, and the BMW fishtailed wildly as he turned into the skid, finally bringing the car to a standstill. His hands frozen on the steering wheel, he peered out at the roadway lit by the car’s headlights, searching for the animal he was certain he must have hit. Nothing. He looked up into the rearview mirror, expecting to see a flattened squirrel in the road, but the pools cast by the red brake lights revealed nothing. . . .

  Wait.

  A little cat stood on the edge of the road, its eyes glowing eerily. It looked . . . It looked like a ginger cat, though it was hard to tell in this light. Jim frowned. It couldn’t be Edith’s cat. Could it? Edith said the cat never left the premises, and there must be a thousand ginger-striped cats in this part of Chicago. As he thought these things, the cat moved back into the street. It moved daintily but arthritically. Geez. It was the shelter cat. What was she doing out? Had someone else convinced Edith to let them adopt her, but now having escaped, she was on her way back?

  She stopped in the middle of the road, lit by the headlights, and looked full at him. He could swear she saw him behind the windshield. He hesitated. If she’d lived all her life inside that building, she wouldn’t know her way home. She might get lost. She might get hit by a car. He opened the car door and leaned out. “Here, kitty-kitty. Come here, kit. You can come home with me for the evening. The street isn’t any place for a girl to be out by herself.”

  The cat looked at him. He got out, intending to go fetch her, but the little cat leaped away, arching her back and sidestepping. Clearly she did not want to be picked up. He got back into the car and watched as she began hobbling away down the street.

  “Ah, come on, cat. At least get off the freaking road.”

  The cat ignored him, heading away into the night, angling back into the main traffic thoroughfare.

  “Shit,” Jim grumbled, and slammed the door shut. He pushed the car into gear, muttering under his breath. At least the cat, if it was Ishy, was heading in the right direction. He could follow behind her the few blocks to the shelter and make sure no one came cruising up on her. And if she left the street and popped off into the darkness, he could rest with an easy conscience. If she didn’t, he’d figure something out when they reached the shelter. He could always call Edith at home. . . .

  It didn’t take long. Sure enough, the cat followed the road all the way to the intersection where she unerringly took a left turn onto the street where the shelter was located. Five minutes later, as Jim pulled to the curb in front of the shelter, she disappeared into the alley behind it. Even though it was past eleven, there were lights on inside, illuminating the small lobby.

  He frowned. There was nothing in the shelter worth stealing, which meant anyone in there could only be up to no good. He got out of the car, reaching back for his cell phone and preparing to call the cops before he did a little investigation by himself. If anyone was hurting those animals—

  He stopped as a figure walked in front of the lobby window. It was Edith. She was cradling a mottled white and caramel cat in her arms, her usual cool expression gone, replaced by one of tender amusement as the cat she held batted lightly at her chin. He watched, entranced, as she dropped a kiss on the cat’s head. He realized he was smiling.

  He went up to the front door and knocked, calling out at the same time, “Edith? It’s Jim Curran.”

  A few seconds later the door opened and Edith peeked out. “Jim?” She sounded confused. Her hair was held back in some sort of clip, and the harsh overhead lighting sculpted shadows beneath her cheekbones and in the delicate hollows of her temples. She looked naked, vulnerable. . . . She was holding a Taser.

  As soon as she saw it really was him, she tucked it back into the pocket of her smock.

  “Geez. I didn’t realize you considered me threatening,” he said, a little unnerved. “Listen, I swear there’re no current restraining orders out against me,” he said, trying to make light of it.

  “Current?” she echoed, a fleeting smile turning up one corner of her mouth.

  He liked teasing out these sneak peeks of her humor, the slow unfolding of the mystery that was Edith. “Current.”

  She gave a sound that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “I didn’t hear the name clearly,” she explained laconically. “And I certainly have no reason to expect you to be banging on the shelter door at”—she glanced at her wristwatch—“eleven twelve at night.”

  “Hi, Edith. I know this sounds weird, but I was driving home from a date when I swear that old ginger cat of yours almost made himself roadkill under my tires.”

  Rather than alarmed, she only looked more confused.

  “The old ginger cat?” Jim said. “You must have let someone try to adopt her. Well, she’s not having it. If you look in the back alley, you’ll find her. I followed her all the way from Forty-fifth Street to here.”

  “Ishy?”

  “Yeah. Ishy.”

  “No one tried to adopt Ishy,” she said.

  “Well then, she must be leading a secretly much more adventurous life than you give her credit for, because she’s been out, well, catting around. She must have slipped through a door when you weren’t looking.”

  “No.”

  “Edith, if you’ll just look in the alley.”

  “I don’t have to look in the alley. Ishy’s in the Meet and Greet room, asleep on the couch where she’s been all night. I was just with her ten minutes ago.” She stepped aside and motioned him in. “See for yourself.”

  His brow furrowed, but he accepted the invitation, moving past her and heading through the door she indicated, then entering a small hallway. “It’s the door at the end,” she said.

  He strode to the door and opened it. It was dark inside, only the streetlight in the alley offering any illumination. He made out the dark silhouette of an armchair and an old couch. He didn’t see a cat. Edith reached past him and flipped on the light switch.

  Light blazed on from overhead. Dazzled, he squinted against the sudden brilliance. For a second he thought he saw a sort of shimmering cloud hovering above the couch cushions, but it faded quickly, revealing only a small, roosting ginger cat, blinking myopically at them.

  Impossible. There couldn’t be two antique ginger cats with an attachment to this place.

  He swiveled around, facing her. “Where’s the door to the alley?”

  She pointed at a door in the far wall, and he headed toward it, flinging it open and stepping down into the poorly lit alley. He turned slowly, scanning the alley-way, searching for the tiny semicrippled cat. “Pixie? Ishy?” he called.

  Nothing.

  “It’s very kind of you to curtail your date by attempting to rescue a stray cat, even if it’s not the cat you assumed it to be,” Edith said from behind him.

  “Oh, it wasn’t curtailed. I’d already dropped her off.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I could have sworn it was your cat.”

  “The cat’s not mi—”

  He turned around, smiling at her. “Yeah. I know. Technically she is the responsibility of the shelter. Have a problem with owning things, Edith?” he teased lightly.

  “Yes,” she answered bluntly, surprising him. “I find the very notion of owning another sentient being presumptuous.”

  So concrete, she was; so exacting. Conversation with her was always interesting, unexpected, thought provoking.

  “How about saying she belongs to you, then?” he said. “As in, she is attached to you by virtue of your having accepted responsibility for her and her dependence on you for those things she requires. Like a child belongs to its mother, or friends belong to one another, or other sorts of interconnected people.”

  She gave his suggestion serious consideration, tipping her head as she commenced some inner debate. She caught his eye and asked for elucidation. “The requirements in the cited relation
ship differing, but the dependence on each other to fulfill those requirements forming the bond?”

  “Yes.” Had Edith ever belonged to someone?

  “Like lovers?” she asked, startling him.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I suppose, then, that lovers could be said to belong to each other,” she explained, clearly trying to work out whether she could agree with his semantics.

  “Many poets seem to think so.”

  “I wouldn’t know too much about that. My romantic involvements were never . . . very romantic.”

  No, he supposed not. And it saddened him.

  “And do you consider that you belong to the person whom you dated this evening?” she asked, so quizzically he could not mistake it for personal interest. She was simply collecting data.

  “No,” he said. “No. It isn’t that sort of relationship.”

  And never would be, he realized, looking into Edith’s lovely clear brown eyes. He didn’t want to date Candice Connor. He just wasn’t interested. He just might, he realized, want to date Edith Handelman. He was definitely interested.

  “Oh,” she said, and then began to fidget, most uncharacteristically. Did he make her uncomfortable? In what way? He wouldn’t be opposed to making Edith Handelman uncomfortable. “Well, now you’ve seen that Ishy is safely within and apparently the cat you followed is nowhere to be found.”

  It was obviously a hint for him to take off. Not subtle, but then, this was Edith, and in the Edith-verse something as understated as a hint came damned near to being Machiavellian.

  Uncomfortable he might want to make her but not unpleasantly so. “I’d better go. Sorry to bother you,” he said.

  “Not at all. Your motives were commendable,” she said.

  He headed back toward the front of the building. She followed him, turning off lights. At the front door he stopped and turned, noting as he did so that Ishy had followed them and was standing behind Edith, her milky green eyes fixed on him with unblinking concentration. Without thinking, Edith bent down and scooped her up into her arms.