The Kitty Committee

by Kathryn Berla

  “What is it, Carly?” I asked after an unbearable silence.

  “Well, if you even care,” she said, looking at Maggie. “The Kitty Committee. Because we each took one of the kittens.”

  “I love it,” I said. “The Kitty Committee.” It felt warm and fuzzy and cute like you’d want the name for your circle of friends to sound. Welcoming and playful. I ignored the obvious. There were three kittens and four people.

  Carly hadn’t taken her eyes off Maggie.

  “It’s good,” Maggie said. “But what about Jane?”

  “I thought it was supposed to be just the three of us,” Carly said, and, I admit, I still felt a tiny pang of jealousy at the intrusion of this new girl who was so clearly prized by Maggie.

  “C’mon, Car,” Maggie said. “We can’t just abandon her. She’s new, and she was my friend. My parents were friends with her parents. What am I supposed to tell her?”

  “Why does she even have to know about our group?” Carly said. “Why can’t it just be our thing that doesn’t have anything to do with anyone else?”

  I’d never seen Maggie stand up to Carly before. It was like watching your parents fight.

  “What’s the point of a secret group if we’re going to be hanging out with Jane? Why can’t we just include her? I don’t get it.”

  The bathroom door opened at the end of the hallway, and we heard the slapping sound of Jane’s flip-flops moving toward us.

  “She has two cats,” Maggie whispered urgently.

  Another unbearable silence that seemed to go on forever but couldn’t have lasted for more than a few seconds.

  Carly leaned forward and folded her arms on the table. “Okay, but only if she agrees to abide by the rules.”

  Chapter Seven

  The Kitty Committee Rules

  Members of the Kitty Committee come before anyone else

  One for all and all for one

  No drugs are permitted but alcohol is okay

  No boys should ever come before or between members of the Kitty Committee (see #1)

  Absolutely no one else will be permitted to join

  No one member is above the others

  If you leave the Kitty Committee, you are dead to the others

  The following day, Carly, Maggie, and I met at my house in my bedroom to draft the rules for the newly formed Kitty Committee. Maggie had told Jane we had a club, and she was invited to join. Jane just laughed and said it sounded like fun and what did we do, for which Maggie had no answer.

  “What do we do?” Maggie asked Carly. She’d been pacing nervously around my room ever since they got there. Carly sat calmly on the floor, bent over from the waist, leaning on her elbows and scratching out notes on the pad of paper in front of her. From Dad’s bedroom, the TV blared out a History Channel show about ancient Roman battle strategies.

  “We’re friends,” Carly said without looking up. “Friends who put friends ahead of everything else.”

  Who could argue with that?

  “This next year’s going to be the toughest year of our lives, our last year before getting ready for college applications and all. We’re going to need to be able to count on each other.” She straightened up and looked directly at Maggie, who had joined me on my bed.

  “I’m just going to junior college,” Maggie said. “But obviously, I want to be there for you guys.”

  “You should set your sights higher,” Carly said. “How about you, Grace? Where do you want to go?”

  “I dunno,” I said and then thought better of it. “Maybe Sacramento State?” It was more of a question that I threw out to see Carly’s reaction. Luke was there, after all.

  “You need to set your sights higher too, Grace,” Carly said. “You can do better than that, you’re smart.”

  And in that instant, Carly succeeded in infantilizing the two of us. Or perhaps stepping in to take the place of our parents. Either way, I knew I needed her to help me plan out my life. I was just a child but could already feel my future snorting like a raging bull breathing down my neck, ready to trample me if I didn’t get out ahead of it.

  The Kitty Committee would be my lifeline.

  The rules were agreed upon without Jane present since Carly said we were the founding members. I mostly sat silent while Carly and Maggie hammered out the details. Carly was responsible for the bulk of the rules with Maggie adding rule two as her homage to the musketeers and rule six perhaps to ensure her equal voice. Carly pointed out that rule two was already covered by rule one but then seemed to think better of it and agreed with Maggie that it was the perfect addition to our “constitution.”

  “Rule number seven seems a little harsh,” I said, feeling I should at least give the appearance of being part of the decision-making process.

  Carly and Maggie both looked at me as though just then remembering I was part of the rules committee.

  “Why? Do you plan on leaving?” Carly asked.

  “Um. No!”

  “How about you, Maggie? Are you planning on sticking around, or are you not okay with rule number seven, either?”

  Even if Maggie thought it was harsh, the wording of Carly’s question left no room for doubt.

  “Of course I’m okay with it. Nobody’s leaving the Kitty Committee,” she said. It was understood that although Jane wasn’t in attendance, Maggie spoke on her behalf.

  “Well, if everyone’s planning on staying, I don’t see any problem,” Carly said. “So we now have our constitution. All in favor say ‘aye.’”

  We all said “aye,” and, for the first time, I experienced a sense of happiness and purpose derived from being a part of a greater whole. It hadn’t happened in church, although I wanted it to—waited and prayed for it, questioned my worth before finally abandoning hope that it would ever happen for me like it had happened for my parents.

  “We’ll all probably join sororities when we get to college,” Carly said. “But there’s never going to be a sorority as meaningful or important as this one.”

  I nodded solemnly in agreement, and even Maggie murmured her assent.

  “And one last thing,” Carly said as if it was the most inconsequential afterthought. “We need to have some sort of initiation to prove our commitment. So we’ll have to come up with something soon. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said without hesitation.

  “Maggie?” Carly’s eyebrows shot up into question marks.

  “Sure,” Maggie said, less enthusiastically than me.

  Later, I came to understand that Maggie probably sensed the initiation was just another way to make it harder for Jane to commit.

  “All in favor?”

  “Aye,” we all agreed.

  SAN FRANCISCO

  When I heard Carly’s voice on the other end of the phone, I had already survived two years of college, one in an increasingly shaky relationship with Nathan, and three anonymous, vaguely threatening messages, spaced exactly one year apart.

  “I’m back visiting the fam,” Carly said. “And I’m already going bonkers in this cow town. Care to meet up in the city?”

  I suggested a time and place, but Carly wanted to meet at the residential eating disorder clinic where Maggie was currently in-patient.

  “I checked on visiting hours,” she said. “We can make it.”

  I’d had something of a transformation since the last time I saw Carly. Gone was the makeup and hairstyling. I wore my hair loose and air-dried, naturally curly or frizzy depending on the fog that day. I’d put on a little weight, which Nathan liked, saying it made me seem healthier. Ripped jeans, a Gypsy top, and an oversized sweater completed my look on that day.

  “God, what happened to you?” Carly said. She, of course, was sleek and groomed.

  “Nice to see you too, Carly.”

  While I had gone full-out S
an Francisco hippie mode, Carly had gone full East-coast preppy. Her displeasure duly registered, she pivoted to the next unpleasantness.

  “Let’s do this,” she said.

  This was Carly’s first visit since anorexia consumed Maggie’s life. I’d visited from time to time, never back in Indian Springs, which I was unable to face, but whenever Maggie was being treated in San Francisco. She was on a downward spiral but not yet the worst I would come to see. To see her like this was beyond distressing.

  Carly and I were buzzed through the entrance after announcing ourselves on the intercom. A young man greeted us warmly, then escorted us to the community room where Maggie waited. She looked up sheepishly, as though caught by surprise—the victim of a cruel prank. Other residents huddled with visitors, some painfully thin, others with no exterior signs of their disorder. The room itself was decorated in warm colors, using soft lighting. Private conversation areas were strategically placed. Soft classical music played in the background. I felt the sadness of that place like a well-worn and familiar sweater. I felt comfortable there.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” Carly said after only a few minutes of conversing. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “I can’t leave,” Maggie said. Her expression was doleful. “I have to give twenty-four hours’ notice and get permission.”

  “Or what?” Carly asked.

  “Or I can get thrown out.”

  “There’s no way they’ll throw you out,” Carly said. “And lose the income stream your insurance is paying? C’mon, grow some ovaries, Maggie.”

  I was horrified, but the smile that lifted the corners of Maggie’s mouth made me rethink my initial reaction. I hadn’t seen Maggie smile for a long time.

  “Maybe,” she said, and I watched her face transform to a more youthful expression as we waited for what would come next. “Okay, follow me and I’ll act like I’m going to show you my room. There’s an exit door near there that leads to an alley in back of the building. It’s not locked from the inside.”

  Carly’s glee was instant. “Ahhh, so maybe you’ve done this before?” She waggled her eyebrows conspiratorially.

  “Nah, I just go out there sometimes to smoke because there’s no smoking inside. I leave the door propped open so I can get back in.”

  In the alley, Carly took the lead, and, just like that, Maggie and I followed her and the rules of her alternate universe. I poked my finger through the tiny tear in the curtain separating the now from the then, and yanked. For an instant, I felt absolute freedom like I was feeling it for the first time: the intoxicating siren of recklessness after overpowering its jailor—good judgment; the bond that turned me into a superhero, stronger than I could ever be on my own—my life, no longer just a life but a fantastic adventure. The Kitty Committee.

  But by the time we got to Carly’s car, I knew we were wrong. We were putting in jeopardy Maggie’s standing with the people who were her only current hope for recovery. How could that be a good thing, no matter how much it made her smile? Once again, I had conspired with Carly to ruin a life. From my place in the backseat, I allowed myself a closer look at the prominent vertebrae just beneath the thin fabric of Maggie’s shirt. Her shoulders were sharp and bony—inhospitable as a place for anyone to cry on or a place of nurturing—too fragile to carry the weight of the world. The day was cool, and Maggie hadn’t brought a jacket. Gooseflesh ran down her arm. Her hair was dull and lank. I felt sick and, as usual, my complicity had been not speaking up. I’d managed to come so far, and yet I hadn’t gotten anywhere at all.

  “Where should we go, Grace? It’s your city.” Carly broke into my thoughts.

  I directed her to a small neighborhood coffee shop where Nathan and I sometimes went to read or sit outside at one of the sidewalk tables when the weather was fine. Its main draw that day was its proximity to Maggie’s clinic and the hope that we could get her back quickly before anyone noticed she was gone.

  “Why don’t you and Maggie grab a table? What do you want? My treat.”

  Was it my imagination or did everyone turn to look when we walked in? Was Carly’s voice the loudest thing in the room? Louder even than the angry hiss of the espresso machine, the animated discussion at a corner table—politics, Russian literature, the politics of Russian literature.

  “I’ll have a croissant,” I said. “And a hot chocolate.”

  “Just get me a glass of water please,” Maggie said to Carly’s bemused expression.

  When Carly returned to the table, it was with a tray overloaded with muffins, cookies, croissants, and three hot chocolates.

  “Did you get my water?” Maggie asked, and when Carly didn’t answer but proceeded to unload the contents of the tray onto our table, I got up to fetch the water myself.

  “So, Indian Springs is just as pathetic as always,” Carly was saying when I returned. I set the glass of water in front of Maggie, and she smiled gratefully. “I don’t know how you stand it, Maggie.”

  “Well, I’m here now for a while, at least.”

  She was still beautiful, I thought. With her prominent cheekbones and height, I could imagine a talent agent giving her his business card, not knowing or caring about the sickness that carved out those features. They wouldn’t notice the loss of sheen in her hair or eyes. They wouldn’t have known the old Maggie. She could still be a living, breathing mannequin one could easily drape with high-fashion clothes. Soon, she would not even be that.

  “So let’s catch up,” Carly said. “What’s been going on, girls? No holding back, especially you, Grace. It goes without saying what’s going on with Maggie.” The disapproval in her tone was impossible to miss, and Maggie visibly winced at the coldness of her judgment. I ripped off a piece of my croissant and stuffed it in my mouth.

  “Nothing,” I said, although everything was going on. I could have filled an hour with just what was going on in my head at that very minute.

  “Ooh, that sounds exciting,” Carly said. She broke off a tiny piece of a muffin, hardly bigger than a collection of crumbs, and held it between her thumb and forefinger as though it was something she should dispose of before finally popping it into her mouth. “Where did you get that water?” she asked, ignoring the hot chocolate in front of her.

  I raised my hand to motion toward the entrance where a counter held sugar, cream, coffee stirrers, and a pitcher of water. And only then did I see him coming through the door. Of all the coffee shops in all the towns in all the world, he walked into mine, to reference a line from Casablanca. But when Nathan walked in, it really wasn’t so surprising. I’d chosen this spot because it was one of ours, one of many but still one. I just hadn’t foreseen the coincidence of him dropping by at that time.

  Carly and Maggie followed my deer-caught-in-the-headlights stare which led to Nathan standing in the doorway looking at me. He walked over to our table and put his hand on my shoulder. I hoped he couldn’t feel me shrinking from under his touch. He did.

  “Grace,” he said while looking first from Carly to Maggie then back again. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Nathan, this is Carly . . . and this is Maggie. Carly’s visiting, but we don’t have much time before Maggie has to get back.” My voice felt high and tight in my ill-fated attempt to come across as casual.

  “Oh, okay. No problem, just thought I’d say hi.”

  It was a problem, I knew that. I knew it was a problem so significant it would keep us up all night arguing about why I hadn’t mentioned it to Nathan. Why I’d chosen to exclude him from the part of my life that most frustrated him. Was most unreachable.

  “I’ll see you soon,” I said weakly. “We won’t be long.”

  Carly took it in like a circus show. Maggie ducked her head and sipped self-consciously and nervously from her glass of water. Even if I’d been a stranger, it would be hard to miss my body language, and these girls we
re anything but strangers.

  “Nice to meet you, Nathan.” Carly beamed. “I’m sure Grace will fill us in all about you. You’ve been keeping secrets, you naughty girl,” she said to me while looking at Nathan.

  “Yeah, nice meeting you.” Maggie shifted her gaze to the table and squirmed in the hard chair, which couldn’t have felt comfortable under her protruding pelvic bones.

  “Sure, okay,” Nathan said. “Nice to meet you all. See you, Grace.” He gave my shoulder a perfunctory squeeze and left without ordering the coffee he’d come in for.

  “Oookay. I think we have something to talk about now,” Carly said, her eyes flickering with interest.

  But I wasn’t in the frame of mind to share Nathan with Carly, who was in the box I’d built around her three years earlier. That was where I needed her to stay. Nathan was in a different box and I wasn’t prepared to let him out either.

  “He’s just a guy,” I said. “Nothing much to tell.”

  “He’s cute,” Maggie said. “Does he go to school with you?”

  “No, he goes somewhere else.”

  “Someone serious?” Maggie asked, her voice lifting on the last word.

  I wanted Maggie to have a respite by focusing the attention on me instead of her. But there was the fact that I knew Carly was getting a read on me, making me even more determined not to reveal anything to her. She was enjoying every minute of it.

  “Nobody serious. Just a guy I’m seeing, sorry to disappoint.”

  I left out the part about living together and silently begged for Nathan’s forgiveness.

  Carly pinched off another piece of muffin, having forgotten about the water by then. “It’s obvious Grace doesn’t feel like sharing with us, Maggie. So let’s talk about something else. You. When’re you getting out of that awful place?”

  “Carly!” I shot her a poisonous look, but she didn’t even blink.

  “It’s okay, Grace. I’m a big girl,” Maggie said, but she wasn’t. She was childlike. Fragile. “I have to stay until I get better, so however long that takes. But you already know that, don’t you?” She exhaled a lungful of regret in a sudden heavy sigh. The smile that had transformed her back at the clinic was gone. She needed to return, I could see it in the slump of her normally graceful posture.