The Kitty Committee

by Kathryn Berla

  To my ears, I sounded mature and supportive. I had no idea what else to offer beyond gathering the others to visit Maggie during her exile. Being there physically, I realized, was worthless without something more, but what that something more entailed, I hadn’t a clue. That was Carly’s job. Maybe even Jane’s. My job was done.

  “We all made sacrifices to come see you today, Maggie,” Carly said. “Well, maybe not Grace, but Jane and I did. And we didn’t do that just to be here for you, as Grace put it. I don’t know why Jane came, but I know why I did. You need to hear this from someone, and I’m not afraid to say it. You’re fucking up, and you need to stop.”

  Jane’s corn-silk hair swung as she turned from the refrigerator, a large chocolate cake balanced in her hands. She looks as surprised as I feel, but why should we be? I wondered. Carly was right. Maggie was fucking up, and she needed to be stopped. Carly was blunt, but who was going to save Maggie from herself if not her best friend?

  “Uh . . . thanks, Carly. Nice of you to stop by,” Maggie said. “A little moral support would be appreciated.”

  “Moral support for what? So you can drink and come to school drunk again? Get a grip, Maggie. School’s serious, and if it’s not serious for you, it should be because it’s the only way you’re going to get out of this shit town. Not only that, but you make the rest of us look bad by association.”

  “Rule number three,” Maggie deadpanned. “Alcohol is okay.”

  “Yeah, we drink for fun when we’re out having fun,” Carly said. By default, Jane and I had become passive bystanders. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life in Indian Springs while I’m out in the world achieving? While Jane and Grace are too? You really want to be here doing nothing? Because that’s just where you’re headed. Do you want to be a loser? Because right now, that’s what you are.”

  “Carly . . .” Jane said, leaving her sentence unfinished.

  I was surprised but pleased that Carly had labeled me as a future achiever, lumping me in with her and Jane. An hour earlier, I wouldn’t have thought of myself that way, but the mere suggestion from Carly’s lips straightened my spine. I nodded seriously, as though it was a known fact that I would be moving on from Indian Springs in pursuit of serious and important goals. But I couldn’t stop myself from biting the inside of my cheek at the callousness with which Carly called out Maggie. I sensed the faint metallic taste of blood on the back of my tongue. Carly and Maggie had known each other their whole lives. They could speak to each other this way, I reasoned, although I doubted Maggie would speak like that to Carly. But Carly didn’t do stupid things, did she? She was always in control, wasn’t she?

  “You guys too?” Maggie looked from Jane to me. “You think I’m a loser too?”

  “Of course not.” Jane looked down at her can of soda.

  “I don’t think Carly meant you’re a loser,” I said. “She just doesn’t want you to get in trouble.”

  Carly’s eyes glinted hard at me. “Don’t interpret what I did or didn’t mean. I said what I meant. Is that the way you want people to look at you, Maggie? To look at us, your friends? It’s one for all and all for one, isn’t it? That means we’ll take care of you, but you also have to take care of us, and I honestly don’t want my teachers to be looking at me and wondering if I’m some kind of a drunk loser. You have to be able to set limits between serious time and fun time.”

  She got up from her chair and stood behind Maggie, resting her hands on Maggie’s narrow shoulders. “You know I love you, right? I’d do anything for you, and I’m only saying this because I love you. So cut it out, okay?” Her voice had softened so convincingly that I could almost believe a different person was speaking. “Okay?” she repeated.

  “Okay,” Maggie said, her eyes glistening with tears. “It’s not like I could do it even if I wanted to, with Mom locking down the house the way she has. And I’m grounded for two weeks.”

  Carly rotated onto Maggie’s lap. She took Maggie’s face between her hands and pulled to within inches of her, where they could practically share each other’s breath. “We’re still going to have fun, I promise you,” she said. “And I’m sure your mom will let us visit even if you’re grounded. I’ll convince her. But you gotta try harder for me, okay? I want you to succeed.” She brushed Maggie’s cheek with a kiss that, to my eyes, seemed almost sensual. I didn’t know Carly was capable of such an intimate and emotional gesture—for lack of a better word, a human gesture. It aroused something within me that was close to jealousy, but was also longing for a kiss like that from Carly. I would never be that to Carly, I realized with a sudden sharp pang of regret. I could never take Maggie’s place in Carly’s heart.

  “I know you do,” Maggie said, and Carly stood and walked to the refrigerator, surveying its contents before emerging with a ginger ale.

  “Grace thinks Kerry ratted you out,” Carly said, her sweet, soothing voice transformed to match the ugly accusation. I imagined a gangster in an old black-and-white movie: a machine gun pointed at the hapless victim; its rat-a-tat-tat ending the snitch’s life.

  “I know, right? And I always thought she was nice,” Maggie said. Princess Leia mewed from underneath the table, and Maggie swooped the nearly grown kitten onto her lap.

  “I think it was her,” I said. “I’m pretty sure, but I can’t be a hundred percent sure.”

  Jane reared her head, glancing up from the fingernails which had preoccupied her until that point—pushing down her cuticles, chipping off old polish, anything but looking at Maggie and Carly. She stared at me, her expression unreadable, a clean blank slate like her wide, smooth brow.

  Help me, I thought.

  “Oh, it was her,” Carly said. “Without a doubt. I mean, who else would it be? Mrs. Gossage? Give me a break.”

  “Yeah, I agree,” Maggie said. “I mean, Mrs. Gossage was really nice to me when we were talking. And she let me go, so I’m pretty sure she didn’t suspect anything or she would’ve just sent me to the office right then.”

  “So, I’ve been thinking,” Carly said. “We talked about proving our loyalty to the Kitty Committee—to each other—by performing an act of allegiance. And then we never did anything about it. I take full responsibility and admit I’ve allowed myself to get too distracted by school, and maybe I’ve been neglecting us.” She threw out both arms to virtually encircle our group. “Anyway, I’m willing to work on that, starting now. The timing’s perfect.”

  The dying fluorescent light sputtered and blinked as rapidly as a strobe.

  “What do you mean?” Jane asked. “Like how would we prove our loyalty to each other?”

  Maggie didn’t have to ask. She knew how Carly proved her loyalty. By then, I knew it too. Princess Leia was curled in Maggie’s lap, relishing her warmth, the soft touch of her fingertips.

  “Kerry has to suffer something. Something commensurate with the suffering she caused Maggie. It’s only fair.”

  Maybe Jane isn’t ready for this, I thought. At least I’d been prepared. What was needed was a degree of lightness—the air was too heavy, too toxic; the dying light was too anxiety-inducing. My heart fluttered as though escaping through my throat. I coughed, and it slunk back into my chest, resuming its normal beat.

  “Commensurate,” I said. “That was one of the SAT words.” Even though my intent was to bring levity, I regretted saying it the second it left my mouth.

  No one acknowledged the comment, through word or deed. It was like, at that moment, I ceased to exist. I’d served my purpose—being Kerry’s accuser. Now I was expected to shut up and let bolder and brighter minds take over.

  “Who wants to be the first person?” Carly asked. “We’ll all have our turns eventually.”

  Jane and I looked at each other from across the table. Her head shook so imperceptibly that I thought I might have imagined it—the flickering light bouncing off her ghostly locks. I wish
ed I knew. Nobody spoke.

  “So no one,” Carly said after a cringe-inducing moment of silence. I bit the side of my cheek again. Tasted blood again. Carly’s disappointment was palpable, and I felt like I was letting her down—betraying her, even. “If no one else is going to volunteer, I guess I will. Not exactly a promising start to the Kitty Committee, is it?”

  “I’ll do it,” Maggie blurted out.

  I exhaled the breath I’d been holding in.

  “You can’t, Maggie, because this one’s for you,” Carly said as though that should be obvious to any thinking being. Her hands were folded on the table, and I noticed her nails were perfectly manicured and gleaming. She didn’t have chipped polish or overgrown cuticles like Jane. Like mine, which were bitten down to the pink.

  “I’ll do it,” I said, trying my best to sound as if it was really my idea. Without thinking, I brought my hand to my mouth, cleaning under the nail with my lower front tooth.

  Princess Leia stood and arched her back before dropping silently to the floor.

  “You’re amazing, Grace,” Carly said. She pulled my hand gently away from my mouth, tenderly positioning it on my lap. Even my mother wouldn’t attempt such a blatantly humiliating gesture, and yet I took it as a sign of affection. Carly cared for us. She didn’t want us to embarrass ourselves. She wanted us to achieve like her. To be beautiful like her. Carly’s hand was smooth, slender, soft, and warm. Mine was big, large-knuckled, chapped, and cold. My hand would never be Carly’s hand. And yet. “I knew you’d come through for us,” she said.

  “Yeah, Grace, thanks,” Maggie said. “It means a lot that you’d do this for me.” She leaned over to pick up Princess Leia, who was cleaning herself at Maggie’s feet. She held up the cat, front legs pointing toward me, hind legs dangling. “Thank you, Grace,” she said in a high-pitched voice I took to be Princess Leia’s human incarnation.

  “Amazing, Grace,” Jane said, but only I seemed to hear her.

  “What do I have to do?” I asked. I was feeling a little more confident after Maggie and Carly showered me with their approval. A little less anxious. I was coming to the place where I believed I’d done the right thing. And how hard could my assignment be? Maybe I’d have to watch Kerry in class, and if I saw her do something wrong, I’d report it after class to Mrs. Gossage. Maybe even anonymously. I would prove my allegiance to the Kitty Committee before anyone else and then sit back and relax when it was the next person’s turn.

  “I’m going to think of something,” Carly said. “I’ll let everyone know in a few days.”

  I speared a chunk of chocolate cake with my fork, mostly icing, and brought it to my mouth. It was moist and delicious. I helped myself to a second forkful.

  “Wait,” Jane said so abruptly that I gulped the forkful of cake, making ugly, throat-clearing noises to help push it down. “Isn’t there something about every member having an equal voice? I remember that was one of the rules.”

  “Rule number six.” My voice was raspy with cake crumbs, but I was anxious to prove myself as the most serious member; the only one of us who had memorized the rules verbatim; the only one who would soon prove her allegiance. “No one member is above the others.” I had studied these rules at home in the days after we created them. I could recite them in my sleep, and sometimes I wondered if I did.

  “So what I want to say is,” Jane went on, unimpressed with my recitation versus the rule’s underlying significance. “How do we really know that Kerry told on Maggie? What proof do we have beyond Grace’s theory? I demand that we address this because we’re all equal in the Kitty Committee, and I’m not comfortable with what the others have decided.”

  I was stung by her words. I’d actually wondered the same thing myself, but hearing it come from Jane, with an almost sarcastic inflection, suddenly fed my own growing doubts—not only about my conclusion but about my self-worth. Maggie turned to Carly for the answer.

  “Fair enough,” Carly said. “That’s a valid point, so let’s address it.”

  Jane’s shoulders visibly relaxed, elongating her graceful neck. She’d been heard, and that’s all she wanted. Carly had disarmed her. Alleviated her concern that we were rushing into something intrinsically wrong. I glanced at Carly, whose body, in contrast to Jane’s, seemed to have coiled tighter.

  “I trust Grace—” Carly began.

  “I do too,” Maggie interrupted.

  “I trust Grace,” Carly repeated, shooting Maggie a warning look to hold her tongue. “But anyone can be wrong. So tomorrow I’m going to do a little investigating. Kerry has PE with me, and I know some of her friends. I’ll get to the truth before Grace does anything. Before we do anything.” Her fingernails clicked out a drumroll on the tabletop. It almost seemed like a comical insert to the black-and-white gangster movie I’d envisioned earlier. “Does that make you feel more comfortable, Jane?”

  I already wanted to believe in Carly. Always. So I had no trouble accepting whatever she came up with. But even Jane, whose tension with Carly was almost a tangible thing, appeared persuaded. The strain in her ice-blue eyes melted away. Carly could do that if you let her and didn’t know better. And if Jane’s concerns were assuaged, mine would be as well.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Jane said. “You should really replace that light bulb, Maggie. It’s giving me a headache.”

  “I know. I was just going to say that,” I laughed, harder and more falsely than was appropriate.

  Maggie got up and flipped the light switch, darkening the room but lightening my mood. It was good to have us together again—a family. The Kitty Committee on solid ground. It was like seeing your parents present a united and cheerful front after a terrible argument—something I’d only witnessed once in my life and hoped never to see again. Carly was smart. Smart in more ways than just school-smart. Carly knew things about people. She could get them to talk about things they might not even want to talk about. She could get to the truth, whatever it was. And maybe Kerry hadn’t told. Maybe it was Mrs. Gossage. Maybe I wouldn’t have to do anything after all, and we could find a fun way to prove our allegiance to each other. Our oath to the Kitty Committee.

  “In the meantime, let’s go over everything that happened,” Carly said to Maggie. “Tell me every last detail, and whatever you don’t remember, Grace can fill in.”

  The investigation began like a court procedure. Maggie was the witness taking the stand. Carly was the prosecuting attorney. Jane was ready to jump in with an objection if it was necessary. I was the witness waiting in the wings, waiting to be called to the stand when Maggie’s memory failed her.

  Maggie recounted the story, beginning with the moment we walked into History until the moment she lay her head on the table and fell asleep. I eagerly filled in every detail I could remember after that, even the ones that didn’t seem relevant. After a while, Jane seemed to lose interest and got up to visit the bathroom, content to leave the investigation in Carly’s capable hands, now that she had extracted a promise that the truth would prevail. When Maggie got to the part about sitting in Mr. Sutherland’s office, she didn’t hold back, concluding with, “I really don’t know how you can stand him, Carly. He’s a such a pervy old man.”

  Carly didn’t brush off Maggie’s concerns the way I thought she might. Instead, she asked, and Maggie told about the bra-strap grope. Carly claimed she had felt the same sort of squeamishness about Mr. Sutherland but could never put her finger on exactly what it was about him that bothered her so much. Still, he was an amazing SAT tutor, and her practice-test scores had improved dramatically, so she would just have to put up with his creepiness for the time being. He was tutoring Tim LeClerc too, and there was no way Carly was going to drop Sutherland and let that scumbag Tim outscore her on the SAT.

  Maggie was quick to state that it was never her intention to suggest Carly should give up her private tutoring sessions with Sutherland. She could d
efinitely appreciate that sometimes people had to put up with bullshit to get what they wanted. We were all walking on eggshells with each other.

  The Kitty Committee didn’t start the day we drew up its constitution or even the night at Lake Tahoe when we recited its rules for the benefit of Jane. The Kitty Committee began that day in Maggie’s kitchen with three of us unwittingly embarking on the path which would lead to the conviction of Kerry for the crime of Maggie’s shame. That was the day the Kitty Committee truly came into its own, displaying its sharp claws for the rest of the world to feel.

  SAN FRANCISCO

  The loneliest place on Earth is an airport when you’re traveling alone. You arrive there on your own, and no one says goodbye when you leave or hello when you arrive. Sitting in my chair, waiting to board, I watched hundreds of people purposefully striding to their assigned gates, where airplanes would swallow them whole and deliver them to cities in which someone would be waiting—a wife or husband, a friend or business associate. For the first time in my life, the absolute unknown was my most positive option, but at the same time, I was blue and wallowing in self-pity. Only the idea of summer in other lands held back the onslaught of the gray San Francisco gloom.

  To distract myself, I made mental calculations of flight times and layovers on the twenty-plus hour flight I’d booked in the interest of saving money. I added the ten-hour time change and calculated when would be the best time to sleep, if any, on the plane. I weighed the option of arriving exhausted and toughing it out until I adapted naturally by necessity, when I could no longer stay awake.

  I chose Turkey for the beginning of my journey. It was as far away as I could get from anything which hinted of familiarity. I was also impressed by its geopolitical significance, straddling two continents, their cultures and traditions bleeding into each other. Even its flag enchanted me—a field of heart-stopping red and a white crescent moon, sharp points poised to snip the tip of an adjacent star. It seemed magical, and I was in need of magic.