The Familiar

by Jill Nojack

  Cassie comes back. Shiny head talks.

  He goes. I'm free again.

  I purr, I rub.

  Say it. Say it. Good Tom, good Tom, good Tom, good Tom, good Tom, good Tom.

  She has the broom. Swickswickswick. She opens the door. One hand on the door. One hand on the broom.

  I chase to the door. The smells, oh the smells. I dart to it. Hand grabs. Broom falls. Door closes. Still inside.

  "What's wrong with you today? Be good, Tom!"

  Oh, it hurts, but it is good tom, good tom, good tom...

  I've gone nuts, right? Granny's kitten starts to stretch and grow and morph. Its little legs start to look like arms at the front and thighs in the back and oh, wow…that's not right to see that on a cat. And in just seconds, my kitten Tom is a naked man with shoulder-length, messy brown hair, green eyes, a smooth chest, thin hips, a smooth, nicely rounded bottom...and well...a naked man! What the hell? I scramble away, backing up fast, afraid to take my eyes off of him.

  He twists himself over to sit, his arms wrapped around his knees, rocking, looking up at me and mumbling rhythmically like that homeless, crazy guy in Boston who slept in the alley across from my apartment. It's crazy talk. It sounds like, “say it” and after that it's “goo tah”, “goombah”, or maybe “gouda”?

  How did a bum—a young, buff, naked bum—get into the shop, and why is he talking about cheese? He gets to his feet, standing there in all his hot hobo glory, and I have no idea what to do, so I just act.

  The door's open. I run at him and shove him in the middle of the chest. He staggers back. I push again, and he's outside, and I'm slamming the door closed.

  Then the man is changing, shrinking, until it's just poor little Tom out there, looking up at me with pleading green eyes. His meowing is pitiful. But, do I let him in? What's going on?

  I know what's going on: I've gone insane. I've lost it. It's the stress, right? My fiancé sleeping with my best friend. The wedding I'd been so busy planning is never going to happen, and the two most important people in my life betrayed me with each other. Then, my favorite Granny dies unexpectedly. Out of nowhere, I own a business and rental cabins and a bunch of other stuff she never even told me about, if Mr. Mayor Robert Andrews, Kreepy Kevin's daddy, told the truth while he talked my ear off today.

  It has to be the stress. There's no way I'm talking to a kitten and it suddenly presto-changos into a sexy guy.

  I'm having freaky-sexy hallucinations, but whatever my problem is, how can I leave a defenseless kitten out there by himself?

  I open the door, but Tom turns and runs after a scrap of paper as it blows by down the street. I run after him, but he slips through a picket fence and under a porch.

  All I can do is stand there calling, "Tom, come here kitty. Kitty, kitty, kitty. Come home!"

  I call for a long time, but Tom doesn't come.

  I walk back to the shop. The door is standing open for anyone to just walk in and take off with everything in the till. Granny would have given me an earful for that one. I start to tear up for the fifth time today.

  ***

  I don't sleep well. I miss Tom's warm body pressing into the small of my back. It's comforting to have him around so that I don't feel so alone. But I am alone, I feel that sharply. My dad always said, to anyone who would listen, that Granny Eunice was a crappy mom which is why he went to his father's to live when he was small, but she was a good grandmother to me, and I loved her. I miss her.

  I make breakfast, trying not to feel deranged. Trying not to dwell on the strange things happening in this house: the sexy catman, the weird writing on the vanity mirror, and the scary sounds it makes now that I'm alone in it. Whatever. Too much stress and too much imagination. Why wouldn't I dream up a hot guy and project him out into the real-life world? At least breakfast is completely normal, although I wish Tom was here to eat from his little blue bowl and keep me from feeling so deserted.

  If I'm going to make a home here, I want my kitten back. A girl needs another heartbeat in the house.

  Did I seriously just say I want to make a home here? You know, I think I did. It's as good a place as any, now that Boston doesn't feel like home any more. I'd spend every day afraid I'd run into Dan or Charlie—or worse—Dan and Charlie.

  Even though most of the kids I hung out with during my summer visits have moved away or are at college out of state now, Gilly's an old sweetie, and if Robert really does need someone to run the gallery when Mr. Simmons retires, it would be too good an opportunity to pass up. Well, at least as long as Kreepy Kevin wasn't around all the time. I don't like him one bit. And Gillian told me Daria is back now! She graduated this year and hasn't found a job either. We had fun when we played softball together. I could look her up. We could hang.

  After breakfast, I scrabble through the kitchen drawers, looking for any other keys I might have missed. Nothing. I don't want to get a locksmith for the back room, but I can't just leave it locked and not know what's in there if it's related to the shop and its inventory. Omigod, inventory—when do I have to do that for taxes? Is it already done for the year? I haven't even found the accounting books for the business yet.

  Okay, that's enough, stop panicking! You'll give yourself another psycho hallucination. Granny wouldn't have left all of this to me if she thought I couldn't handle it. I have to face up to the rest of what needs to get done in the house by going into her room to sort through her things. I refuse to go round-the-bend bonkers again today.

  I wash up the breakfast dishes and then head upstairs. I pause in the doorway for a while, taking it in. When I was young, I loved the reds, the crimson satin bedspread that matched the curtains, the lushness of her room. I was a kid. I didn't realize it was decorated in southern gothic whorehouse.

  The bed, bedspread, and pillows are gone, the weird writing on the mirror hasn't come back, and the room still smells strongly of disinfectant. Which is lots better than it could smell. Wow, I really didn't need to gross myself out.

  How must Gillian have felt walking into the house and knowing right away what was wrong? Not that there was any love lost between her and Granny, but she's been like an extra grandmother to me ever since her husband Marty was my softball coach every summer. She was always there to cheer us on and bring us goodies. They never had kids. I guess they liked borrowing other people's. I know she feels bad for what I'm feeling. She's so kind and so dear.

  Once I've cleared the boxes from the top of the closet, and they're sitting neatly in a pile, I pull Granny's plush, bedside chair over and pluck one from the stack. Hats. Granny loved hats. There are three beautiful little pillboxes covered completely in brightly colored feathers. They're exceptional: beautifully preserved, colorful, and amazingly well made. These have to be from the sixties. I appreciate them for a while and then set them aside. Maybe I'll keep one and take the others to a vintage shop. Or maybe I'll just throw them in the attic until I decide what to do with them.

  Box number two. Gloves, hankies, brooches, and other pieces of costume jewelry that are tucked up in their original boxes for safekeeping. They're out of style, at least for now, including some extremely ugly things from the eighties, but a few of the rhinestone pieces are just dazzling. I pick out a couple that I want to keep, and the others go back into the box for the vintage shop / attic pile.

  I'm getting weepy again. All of Granny's precious things...

  Nostalgia isn't going to get me through this. Shake it off, girl.

  I pick up the third box.

  Whoa! I didn't expect that.

  Or that.

  Or that.

  And, wow, ugh! I'm not even sure I know what that is.

  Huh. Granny had a much more interesting history with men than I ever wanted to have to think about. I put the lid back on the box and stuff it into a waiting trash bag. If there's something of value in there, it can stay a secret.

  With that, I need a cup of coffee.

  I check the upstairs kitchen, but it's j
ust tea up here. I have better luck in the downstairs kitchenette, so I get a pot brewing.

  I hear a slight sound, a high-pitched cry. I poke my head into the hallway and look out to the shop—there's Tom, with his little paws pressed up against the door glass, looking back at me expectantly. Well, thank goodness.

  "So, where have you been all night?" I ask as I open the door. Tom sits there proudly with a dead mouse at his feet. "Yeah...not really my kind of gift, Tom. I preferred the jewelry."

  I pick the mouse up by its tail and flick it out into the street, where it lands with a soft, meaty smack. Tom blinks at that, but he gets up and walks into the shop. He follows me into the kitchenette, where I fill his bowl with something I hope is better than the mouse I rejected. He soon has his nose deep in his food and is fully engaged in his meal like nothing freaky ever happened.

  Because nothing did happen. It couldn't have. Whatever insanity grabbed me yesterday is far away now. I've had a good night's sleep and what was obviously transient psychosis precipitated by my exhaustion and stress has passed. I give Tom's little ears a scratch, and he has a hard time trying to decide if he should eat or purr. The solution he comes up with sounds like a broken engine as he purrs, then swallows, then revs up again.

  ***

  I'm sorting through another box from Granny's closet when Tom joins me from downstairs. He's playful this morning, that's for sure. He decides to do some sorting of his own, pushing the lid off a shoebox and managing to tip it over so that the photographs inside come spilling out. Oh well, he's not hurting anything spilling boxes of photos. They'll be easy enough to pick up later.

  I'm sorting through the clothes in Granny's closet, separating the beautifully preserved vintage stuff—there's a lot of that—from the modern day-to-day stuff that can go to Goodwill. There are also some men's clothes pushed to the side of the closet: an embroidered red satin robe, a couple of pairs of bell-bottom jeans, a turtle-neck, and two colorful, loose cotton shirts. Dashikis? I think that's what they called them.

  Looks like her boyfriend was kind of a hippie. I wouldn't have guessed that. Granny Eunice was such a Daughters of the American Revolution type. Very classic, very buttoned down. There are a lot of surprises tucked away in here.

  I nearly step on Tom when I turn away from the closet with an armful of clothes. He's looking up at me with a photograph in his mouth. Another present? Better than the mouse, I hope.

  I reach down to take it, and he drops it on the floor at my feet. When I pick it up, I see it's a picture of Granny in the sixties. She's with two other people, leaning against the fender of a classic car. Granny is wearing a tailored skirt and sweater set. And wait—the other woman is Gillian. Omigod, she's such a hippie! And next to her is a handsome guy with longish, curly brown hair, wearing a brightly patterned dashiki.

  No. Freaking. Way.

  I'm holding that dashiki draped over my arm, and although it can't be possible, the guy in the picture is the guy I pushed out the shop door last night.

  I put the clothes on top of the cedar chest and turn back to the closet. My imagination can do what it wants. I'm going to ignore it. I'm just going to keep sorting things and pay no attention to the ghosts. Tom meows furiously, but I shut it out.

  It's good to be dealing with the day to day problems of the shop instead of having my imagination run wild and take me with it. Stock of a few herbals is running low, so I put in a call to Granny's supplier. With it just turning spring here, I can't source a lot of the herbs locally, but once summer is in full swing, I'll be able to get a lot of the raw ingredients and single herbs that are stocked in the shop from local gardens. I realize I do know an awful lot about the business as I get to work. I had no idea I was paying that much attention during those summers I spent here.

  I decide to give Gillian a quick call so I can ask her about the guy in the picture before I open up. Not that I believe I saw him the other night any more than I believe Granny's writing me cryptic messages about 6000 tons of something from beyond the grave, or even that somebody in town wrote it to freak me out. It was probably there before, and I didn't notice. It's just stress. None of it is supernatural.

  And the picture? It's just a piece of Granny's history I want to fill in. I mean, she's got this guy's clothes in her closet, so what happened to him? And why did she keep his stuff so long? Did he die, and she couldn't give them up? I can't see Granny being that sentimental. I mean, I loved her, but she wasn't anyone you'd call a warm person.

  Gillian doesn't pick up, so I leave a message to give me a call whenever.

  The shop is busy today with a slow but steady stream of tourists wandering in and then wandering back out. With the better weather, Giles is starting to get a decent number of weekend visitors through town for the gallery and antique shops. That's another thing I have to do! I need to find a caretaker for the cabins and get them ready to open for the summer—Granny's records indicate they're fully booked through the fall already. I don't even know who Granny's had as a caretaker for the past few years since Joshua retired.

  Whatever. Another thing on the list that I need to get on paper before I forget it. Sure. The minute I've got these candles bagged and six ounces of fresh fennel measured out and packaged up nice times ten. The second I get a break, I'm on it. It's good that I'm busy. At least I'm no longer crying nonstop.

  Kevin and Robert walk in the door just as I've got that second to myself and am picking up a pen for my to-do list.

  "Hi Robert," I say, "What's the haps?" Honestly, I wish they'd just turn around and go back out. Robert's fine. I like him when he's on his own, but Kreepy Kevin is well, creepy. He's around my dad's age but he stands way too close to me, and I can feel his eyes burning into my ass every time I turn away from him. Still, the Andrewses own most of the town. If I'm going to be staying, I have to be nice.

  Kevin replies, "We're great, Cass. I just wanted to bring Dad by because he's had a talk with Mr. Simmons, and it looks like you could go right into training to take over the gallery. He expects to retire within the year. What do you think?"

  "Ummm...wow. It would be a great opportunity, but..."

  Robert cocks his head, "You're not interested? Kevin led me to believe…"

  "Truthfully, while we talked about it, I haven't had a second to think. I'm still going through the house, and with the shop open again and getting the cabins ready because they're completely booked for the summer..."

  Kevin's scary grin droops at the corners. I don't think he's happy with me. What did he think? I'd make snap decisions and just give up all of Granny's history because he offers me a job? He's leering now, and I step back from the yuckness he's broadcasting when he says, "I was under the impression you were excited about it—after I sold Dad on the idea, it's disappointing for you to suddenly change your mind."

  Not like I actually did that. Wow. But he's looking at me with squinched-up eyes, and I'm not feeling my most relaxed right now, that's for sure.

  Robert steps in then, "We'd be happy to give you a fair offer on the shop and campgrounds to take them off your hands immediately, if that's what you're worried about."

  "I...yeah, I need more time. I haven't even gotten Granny's personal things sorted out, much less dug into what the businesses are worth. I'm sure you understand?"

  Kevin's grin is entirely forced now. But he tries to keep up the front. "Sure, sure. We can give her a little more time, can't we, Dad? Simmons will still have time to get her trained, particularly since he isn't retiring until the end of the year. But you don't want to let it go too long. We have other options."

  Why does that sound like a threat?

  Robert smiles, not threatening at all. These guys are like night and day. "I don't see a problem with waiting. I admit I got excited when Kevin told me someone with a relationship to the town has the qualifications to take on the gallery. It's always nice when we can keep these things 'in the family', so to speak. But I see enthusiasm has caused him to get carried away and
put the cart before the horse. Of course, take as much time as you need."

  "Thanks guys," I say, really only talking to Robert, because Kevin is still trying to pretend he's being nice instead of glaring and leering and generally giving me a case of shivering icks. "It's not that I don't appreciate the offer."

  I see Tom stalking toward Kevin out of the corner of my eye. I don't want to risk him getting hurt, so I walk over and grab him just as he's getting ready to pounce. He bats at me with his little claws out.

  "I see you're learning that kitten is much wilder than most of Eunice's cats have been," Kevin says, giving his opinion without being asked, as I give Tom a stern look for the scratch he's left on the back of my hand.

  "Yeah, I don't know what's gotten into him."

  "If he's going to continue attacking your customers, you can't afford to leave him in the shop. Bad for business. Plus, well...left alone with Eunice like that, are you sure he didn't get...how do I say this delicately? Hungry?"

  I'm completely grossed out now. I don't like what Kevin just made me imagine about Tom, about Granny. My stomach churns, and I set Tom on the counter as I run for the bathroom in the back. I throw up for what seems like an extra long time.

  I rinse my mouth out several times when I'm done and wash my face to get rid of the watery-eyes-because-I've-just-been-sick look and return to the front of the shop, hoping that the Andrewses have taken off. But no, Robert's still standing where I left him, although Kevin is behind the counter, appearing to have come from the direction of the storerooms. What business does he have back there? Absolutely none, as far as I'm concerned.

  In response to my curious look, Kevin says, "I apologize for taking the liberty, but I went to the storeroom to look for the monthly package Eunice puts aside for a friend of mine. It's rather a large package, and very heavy, so I'd usually pick it up so she didn't have to. I can't get into the far storeroom, though. I assume you have the key?"