Ten Things My Cat Hates About You

by Lottie Lucas

  “Look, I know you probably think I’m a bit mad, but … no, don’t interrupt,” I command as he opens his mouth. Here we go; now I’ve started. I don’t know why I feel like I need to tell him this, but something in me wants to make him understand. Something about him makes me think that he might understand, if only I can explain it. “He’s very precious to me. He turned up in my life when I needed him most, and …”

  “I don’t think you’re mad,” he says simply.

  “He’s not just a pet, you see, and …” I draw up short. “What did you just say?”

  Humour flashes in his eyes. “I said, I don’t think you’re mad. Or at least I didn’t, until you forbade me from speaking in my own consulting room. Then, I’ll admit, I started to have a few creeping misgivings.”

  “Oh.” I’m stunned into momentary silence. Then the implications of what he’s said hit me, and I feel hot with embarrassment. Oh, God, he’s right. I did do that, didn’t I? “Sorry about that. I got a bit … carried away.”

  Casper buries his head under his blanket, as though he can’t bear to watch. I kind of wish I could join him.

  “I’m quite sane, I assure you,” I joke weakly. “What can I do to prove it to you?”

  A snuffling sound comes from beneath the blanket, which I studiously ignore.

  “I’d like to get the chance to find out for myself,” he says lightly.

  We look at each other for what seems like a very long moment, and then, out of nowhere, something amazing happens. Something which I haven’t felt for the longest time: a fizzing feeling, sparkling through my entire body like champagne. It takes me by surprise, makes me suck in a breath.

  Unfortunately, it seems he isn’t similarly afflicted because he’s already looked away, occupied in the task of attaching a label to Casper’s basket.

  “Out of my surgery with you, Miss Swift, before people start to talk. I’ll call you later with an update.”

  ***

  “You’re late, my dear,” Eve states in her sing-song voice as I clatter into the foyer in a whirl of frenetic activity.

  “I know, I know.” I’m in the process of attempting to unbutton my coat, unwrap my scarf and smooth down my hair all at the same time. It’s not working. Instead, all I’m succeeding in is getting hopelessly tangled up. “The time has not evaded my notice.”

  Eve watches me fighting with my own clothing, her perfectly made-up face as benignly impassive as ever. “Is everything all right?” she enquires mildly.

  “I had to run Casper to the vet …” I gasp as my scarf makes a bid to garrotte me. I tug it away from my throat. “Got held up.”

  Very pleasurably held up, I add silently. Although, of course, my thoughts are still with Casper, I do find them occasionally drifting back to that moment in the consulting room. Just occasionally. Not … you know, once every two minutes. That would be absurd. Except …

  I’d like to get the chance to find out for myself. What did that mean? Frankly, it could have meant anything from I’d like to get the chance to talk to you again all the way to I’d like to ask you out, and everything in between. The fizzing sensation returns as I consider that second possibility, and I bite my lip. Damn it, why do men have to be so obscure, anyway? Why can’t they just say what they mean in the first place and have done with it? Then women wouldn’t have to waste so much of their time and energy dissecting everything, trying to work out what’s going on in their minds when we could be doing other more useful things, like running the world.

  Of course, I also have to accept that the alternative to all of this is that it meant nothing at all, save that I’m a hopeless fantasist who’s reading far too much into a simple sentence.

  That’s a deflating thought.

  “Jeremy’s already been by,” Ruby pipes up from where she’s rearranging leaflets on the front desk. “We covered for you, obviously.”

  “And I knew you would.” At last I’ve succeeded in divesting myself of all malevolent accessories and I reach down to pick up the takeaway coffee cups I left on the marble surround. “Hence why I brought these.”

  Ruby’s eyes go round. “Are those pumpkin spice lattes?”

  I nod solemnly. “It is pumpkin season, is it not? We must make the most of it while we can.”

  “Ooh!” Ruby squeals, practically lunging for hers, the leaflets in a forgotten pile on the desk behind her.

  Eve accepts hers more gingerly, lifting the lid to peer at the contents with a wrinkle of the nose. “Is this another one of those young person things? Like unicorn porridge and mermaid stationery?”

  Ruby and I exchange a knowing look. Eve pretends to be disdainful of all things millennial, but the truth is that she absolutely loves finding out about all of this stuff. It gives her something to boast about at her bridge club meetings. I can already envision her, regaling them all with how she’s sampled the ultimate seasonal fad.

  “So …” I take a sip of my own coffee, mentally cursing as I burn the tip of my tongue “… anything I should know about this morning? No disasters of cataclysmic proportions?”

  “Not just yet, no,” Ruby chirps. “But then, it’s only quarter past ten. There’s still time. Oh, except … I meant to tell you, Eve. You were wrong about the Professor Warwick thing. He hasn’t got a wife. I checked.”

  I try to keep my choking to a discreet minimum. Honestly, the man is a plague on my life. Just the sound of his name is enough to give me convulsions.

  “It always was an unlikely guess.” Eve takes her attention away from her latte to raise an eyebrow. “I’ve never seen him wearing a ring. But I had to suggest something. Ah, well, I suppose I owe you twenty pence, then.”

  “I’ll put it on your tab,” Ruby quips. “Although I was wrong about the woman in the picture gallery last week. She really was just waiting for her friend. So, to be fair, we’re probably about even.”

  My head’s bobbing back and forth as I try to follow the conversation. Ruby and Eve are always making little bets to pass the time. It can be anything: what colour will Jeremy’s waistcoat be today; what time will the first water spillage happen; what will get left behind in lost property this week …?

  “What exactly are we talking about here?” I ask hopelessly.

  “Rumour has it that Professor Warwick was seen kissing someone in the Roman gallery yesterday,” Ruby says in a stage whisper.

  Suddenly my throat feels rather tight.

  Eve’s nodding emphatically, eyes shining. “More than that. Apparently she positively launched herself at him.”

  The word launched is uttered with such relish that I long to sink into the floor there and then.

  “Really?” I manage at last, although my voice comes out several octaves higher than usual. Luckily, neither of them seems to notice.

  “It’s all just so wonderfully unexpected,” Ruby says gleefully. “What a dark horse! He looks so stuffy, and all along he has this sordid other life. God only knows what else he gets up to. He probably …”

  “Yes, well, let’s not go into that,” I interrupt quickly, before the whole foyer is treated to some rather graphic terminology. I know how Ruby’s mind works.

  I’m actually starting to feel quite sorry for the besmirched Professor Warwick. I dread to think what sort of insinuations are flying around the place, especially now Ruby’s got involved with her very … er … active imagination. It’s a good thing she channels a lot of it into her art is all I’ll say.

  “This is very sweet,” Eve interjects plaintively, having taken a first tentative sip of her coffee. She looks around as though some passerby might offer the answer. “Is it meant to be like that?”

  “Stop moaning and drink it,” Ruby directs. “The sugar rush will do you good. Anyway —” she turns back to me, pouting “—I just wish I knew what really happened. This surmising is all so unsatisfactory.”

  She doesn’t mean that. She’s positively glowing with the thrill of a mystery. I know I should come out with it and bur
st her bubble, but I can’t bring myself to. And so I tell myself that I’m simply changing the course of the conversation with my next question.

  “What else do you know about him?”

  I fiddle with the lid of my coffee cup, trying to appear casual. Honestly, I don’t know why I’m asking anyway. It’s not like I’m interested or anything. I have far more important things to occupy my mind, like obscure sentences uttered by handsome vets. Why would I want to know about boring old Professor Warwick?

  “Not much.” Ruby drains her latte and puts her takeaway cup down on the edge of the desk, where it wobbles precariously. “Just that he’s some super-intelligent academic. I’ve heard Jeremy raving on about him. Apparently he’s the youngest professor in his college or something. Sounds pretty one-dimensional, if you ask me.”

  Eve rescues the cup and deposits it safely in the paper bin. “Or one could say committed,” she supplies kindly. “It does seem strange, though. A young man like that. He’s always here, and on his own too. One would think he’d have other places to be.”

  “Why are you so interested in him all of a sudden?” Ruby asks with a suspicious glance at me. “Surely you can’t be thinking about it … I mean, you and him?”

  Damn it all, but I can feel myself blushing. Why am I always blushing? It just makes me look guilty, even when I’m not.

  “Of course not!” I bluster. “What a thought.”

  “You had me worried for a moment there. Believe me, Clara, he is really not your type.” Her eyes light up. “Now, if you’ll just let me set you up on that app I was telling you about …”

  “And … that’s my cue to leave,” I say, scooping my bag up off the floor and making for the stairs.

  “Don’t run away,” Ruby says warningly. “You always run away when I start talking about this.”

  “Work to be done,” I trill, drowning her out.

  “Clara!” she yells after me.

  But it’s too late. I’ve already gone.

  Chapter 9

  So, about the online dating thing.

  It’s not that I’m against the idea per se; after all, how could I be? I have friends who met on dating apps who are perfectly suited for one another. And Ruby seems to be a roaring success across multiple algorithms; she has a new date pretty much every night of the week. So, great. They work. For lots of people. They’re just so … not me.

  And yes, I know lots of people have probably said that in the past. Lots of people who then went on to meet someone and had to admit they were wrong. But I just … Look, for one thing, I’m pretty old-fashioned. I still use the word date, for crying out loud. Nothing about Ruby’s cheap and cheerful hook-ups could possibly be described as a date. A date suggests conversation, for one thing, not to mention a beverage which hasn’t been bought from the nearest off licence.

  I suppose a part of me still thinks it’s romantic to meet someone in person. The happenstance of catching someone’s eye across a bookshop, or sitting next to one another in a café. Being introduced by a mutual friend at a party; that’s how Freddie and Jess met. And yes, I know it was a freshers’ party, and it probably wasn’t in the least bit romantic, and I know that no one really meets in bookshops because, come on, I haven’t lost all sense of reality. Although, to be fair, we are in Cambridge, and if ever there was a decent chance of meeting someone in a bookshop, then this is the place to do so.

  But I’m digressing. I just like the idea of chance, of fate, of bumping into someone and looking in their eyes. Beginning to speak and perhaps not realising that in that moment something has begun. Something magical. Something life-changing. Something like my parents had.

  I’m sure I can’t be the only person who feels like this.

  Can I?

  Although I’ll admit that sometimes I do wonder if Ruby might be right. Perhaps I’m just too stubborn for my own good. Perhaps the world really has changed, and I’m still looking for something that no longer exists. The chance meeting, the moment that you look up, and you see …

  The smile slides from my face. Professor Warwick. Again.

  Believe me, I’m doing everything in my power to avoid him. But clearly the universe is in a puckish sort of mood because every time I turn around, there he is.

  He was in the print room this morning when I popped in to ask the attendants a question. He was on the landing when I took a shortcut back to my office at lunchtime. I even caught a glimpse of him through the banisters at one point; he was downstairs, talking to Eve. It was only the briefest glimpse, and of the top of his head at that, but it was him.

  I knew immediately that it was him. That was what maddened me more than anything else. I’d know him anywhere, and he didn’t even recognise me when I was sitting right in front of him. It seems unjust; I don’t want to be so aware of him, but it seems I can’t help it.

  With a scowl at my own misfortune, I dart behind a pillar, considering my options.

  There’s only one way across the gallery, and it compels me to pass right in front of the window seat he’s currently occupying. So, really, there aren’t exactly a lot of options to consider. After all, I can’t linger here indefinitely. A couple of people have already started to look at me strangely. Which, to be fair, is nothing new, but I feel that as my card is already marked by what happened yesterday, I should aim to keep my eccentricities to a minimum. I’ve already drawn quite enough attention to myself for one week as it is.

  I look thoughtfully back at Professor Warwick. He seems pretty absorbed in what he’s doing. Perhaps if I just breeze past him quickly, then he won’t notice …

  My thoughts trail off as I find myself absorbed in studying him. Sitting there, with the late afternoon sunlight gleaming in his black hair, he doesn’t look half as unapproachable as his reputation would suggest. He’s wearing the same battered-looking tweed jacket as before and, beneath it, his shirt collar is askew. So far, so unremarkable. And then I see them.

  Bright pink socks with turquoise polka dots, just visible beneath the hem of his trousers when he’s sitting down. Something about those socks gives me a feeling of triumph, like I’ve uncovered a thrilling secret. The bookish young professor, so serious and repressed. And yet look! Those socks suggest the possibility of something else, of redemption, even. Maybe I’ve been too hard on him. Rude and sarcastic he might be, but I mean, surely no one who wears socks like that can be all bad?

  Maybe I should go and talk to him. It would put an end to this awkward creeping around, if nothing else. It’s somewhat difficult to get on with my job when I can’t walk freely about the museum.

  Just then he looks up and our eyes meet.

  Oh, balls. Automatically, I duck back behind the pillar, then immediately berate myself for doing so. Way to make it all so, so much worse, Clara. As if it weren’t bad enough that he caught me staring at him, then I had to go and hide as well. Now he’ll think that I’ve got some weird fascination with him or something. Or worse, that I’ve developed a deep-seated crush after our accidental kiss yesterday. I press a hand to my forehead as my imagination dreams up worse and worse scenarios.

  I’ll have to leave the museum under a cloud, having been accused of stalking a visitor. And not just any visitor, either. A bloody Cambridge professor, of all things. A bloody superstar prodigy of a professor. In this city, that’s the equivalent of an A-list actor. It’ll be his word against mine. I won’t stand a chance. He’ll tell them all that I kissed him on purpose, that I followed him around the museum like a lovestruck teenager.

  The temptation to slink away to my office and die quietly is overwhelming.

  I take some deep, steadying breaths. All right, Clara. Calm down. You’re overreacting, as usual. It’s not that bad.

  I risk another glance around the edge of the pillar.

  Professor Warwick raises a hand in a wave.

  I bolt back into the shadows.

  Okay, so it’s quite bad. But it’s not entirely irremediable if I just go over there, act li
ke everything’s normal … Adopt my cool, professional persona – if I can drag it out of whatever dusty cupboard it’s been hiding in all these years. I think I last saw it at my interview for this job. Well, at the beginning of the interview, at least. It abandoned me after I upended an occasional table when they called me in, and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of it since.

  Leaving the safety of the column, I walk over to the window seat. Quickly, before I can change my mind.

  “Good afternoon, Professor Warwick,” I say pleasantly.

  There, I’m quite pleased with that. I’ve struck just the right note. No one listening to me would imagine that anything was even remotely amiss.

  He looks up, one eyebrow slightly raised in question. “You know who I am.”

  “Of course I do,” I say primly. “It’s my job to know what’s going on in the museum.”

  “Yes, you’re obviously quite … actively involved,” he says blandly. But something in the undercurrent of his voice makes my eyes narrow.

  Why can he not just be civil? Is it beyond him, or something? At least I’m trying to be nice.

  He must have seen something in my expression, because his face immediately softens. If I didn’t know better by now, I’d almost say that he looks apologetic. But it seems I’m destined not to find out because, just as he opens his mouth to speak, a very different, very unwelcome voice fills the air between us.

  “Ah, excellent. Just who I was looking for.”

  I freeze to the spot and, judging by the set of the professor’s shoulders, he does the same. But then, I can hardly blame him. Jeremy tends to have that effect on people. He inspires a sense of doomed resignation which is quite unique.

  “Good afternoon, Mr Haynes,” he replies graciously, although I notice a flicker of wariness in his eyes. “What can we do for you?”

  Jeremy casts a perfunctory glance in my direction. “Ah, Miss Swift. I didn’t observe you there.”

  He practically mowed me down in his haste to beat a path to the window seat. I glower at the burgundy velvet-clad back which he turns upon me. But, to my amazement, he almost immediately turns again, including me in the conversation. “Actually, it’s somewhat providential that you’re here,” he continues, in a tone which makes my heart sink. “Clara, my dear, you never told me that you were so well acquainted with the professor.”