by Clea Simon
But why would someone steal pedigreed show cats? Without their papers or the history of their wins in the show ring, the cats’ monetary value dropped to nearly nothing. Without proof of their breeding, they were just big, beautiful pets, and if that was the case, why grab the females instead of the larger, even fluffier males? I flipped to the jump again and read down the column of type that flanked the photo of the missing kitty. Underneath her mitten-like paws was the scariest news of all. This break-in, said the cops, was not unique. It fit a pattern of cattery thefts that had been occurring throughout the region, eight in four months, and for which, the source admitted, the authorities had no leads.
I looked over at my own prized pet, now emitting soft snores, and felt grateful for small things. Musetta was a beauty and I loved her, but objectively a random-bred (or, okay, stray) had no resale value. Still, I’d be bereft if anything ever happened to her. That’s why I’d taken our vets’ advice and had her microchipped, the small computer tag inserted into the loose skin at the nape of her neck when she’d been under anesthesia for her spaying. Though the idea of scanning cats like the checkout girl scanned groceries seemed more than a little futuristic, a number of the larger urban shelters were now doing just that when animals were brought in. It beat the “Lost Cat” posters that were constantly stapled on the lampposts of my city street, leaflets all the more heartbreaking because of the detail (“a little shy” or “slight left limp”) included. If Musetta ever got out, if she ever got lost, I’d have a little more chance of reuniting with her because of that chip, that tiny nub, which I could feel when I pet her just right.
I did so now, reassuring myself by finding the pea in my princess’ fur. “Nuff,” she snorted, stretching one white forepaw into a yawn and shifting on her bed of mail. “Eh.” She stared up at me. I was disturbing her, the overanxious mother my own mom had often been. I was getting too much into my own head, my debt and the news both contributing to a major funk. It was time to get some air. I stuffed a check in with the vet’s bill and wrote out one more that I thought I could cover, then tromped down the stairs and out into a ridiculously beautiful autumn day.
Chapter Two
Autumn is supposed to be New England’s best season, and true to form even my urban street had taken on a technicolor vibrancy in the clear, bright light of midmorning. My apartment building and its next-door twin, with their weathered brick and institutional trim, didn’t look like much. But all down the block a variety of houses—some restored Victorians resplendent with lacy woodwork, some with sagging porches, and a few newer boxes that seemed entirely constructed of concrete—completed the urban patchwork that I’d come to love. This was Cambridge, a city of poets and students and working people, where I’d settled after college and which I now called home. A hodge-podge enclave, part counter-culture and part working-class where, despite the skyrocketing housing prices, the average IQ still far outweighed the average income, at least in my neighborhood, funky Cambridgeport, tucked between the bustle of Central Square and the river.
We had our version of fall foliage here, too, despite the congestion that lined commuters up at each traffic light and had divided most of those grand old houses into apartments. Stranded in the sidewalk, its patch of earth surrounded by uneven red brick, the sugar maple out front of my place was doing its best, flaunting crayola-red leaves against an insanely blue sky, while half a block down I could see the bright yellow of a birch, set off by a peeling green wall. The U-Hauls of the previous month had disappeared, and most of the students had found their way around, settling into the city life with only the occasional interruption from suburban parents. Even the weather was cooperating: cool enough to not leach the color from that Kodachrome sky, but warming as noon approached so that my light sweatshirt felt just fine. Debts or no, I should have been happy as a clam with myself, my city, and my kitty as I strolled to the corner mailbox.
The truth was, I was lonely. Elsewhere, all across the Northeast, a weekend like this was an invitation for a romantic getaway. While we New Englanders might scoff at the leaf peepers, tourists from New York and farther south who clogged the highways for weeks around Columbus Day, in fact we were not much better. We know that the crisp days of October are our last gasp before a winter that can slog on endlessly, and we too fill Boston’s Common and Public Garden with last-chance picnics and frisbee games, or spend our spare hours biking along the river dividing Boston and Cambridge. But instead of heading out for the path along the Charles or a day on the Cape, I’d been closeted alone in my apartment pretty much since Friday. That’s when Bill Sherman, my sometime beau, had driven off to Connecticut for a family function, the wedding of a cousin that I too had been invited to attend and had decided to decline.
It wasn’t the wedding exactly. I’ve got nothing against an evening of free food and dancing, even if the music has been chosen by a committee of the relatives and the chicken breasts are guaranteed to be rubbery. It’s just that at this point in our relationship, I wasn’t sure I wanted to make the statement that showing up with Bill would be. We’d been thrown together by circumstance, as much as choice, and we came from very, very different worlds. For a while, our differences had fueled our passion. But recently? Well, we’d gotten together in May, six months ago, and I had a theory about relationships that had made me drag my heels when this invitation had come up.
Call it the theory of threes: Now, maybe this didn’t hold for really solid long-term romances; at thirty-three I had scant experience with these. But for those emotional entanglements that I and my girlfriends had stumbled through, there seemed to be distinct markers in the run of romance. For the first three months, we’d all agreed, dating was casual. It was fun and, even if you weren’t seeing anyone else, you didn’t comment on that fact. At around three months, if the connection was going to grow into anything stronger, then you both started talking about exclusivity. Of course, some of my friends had a sweet tooth for boys in bands, and with them the whole monogamy thing rarely happened. In fact, if you were smart, you knew better than to bring it up. And that could be okay too, as long as you recognized this particular musician factor up front. But for those of us who wanted more, three months was the time to say so, and Bill and I had crossed that hurdle with ease. But then six months was time for the next step, the move into serious couplehood, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to take it.
Yes, I cared about Bill. A lot. Although he was about ten years older than I, we seemed to see eye to eye most of the time. He talked to me like I was really there, and his tough-guy surface—that broken nose from high school baseball, his gruff voice—belied a gentle nature. Tall, still mostly lanky, with salt-and-pepper hair and a smile he usually ducked his head to hide, he was sexy in an understated way. As a result, not to get too intellectual about it all, our physical connection was appropriately playful and hot. And although his on-duty life as a homicide cop both thrilled and repulsed me, his off-duty life, full of books and music, good food and wine, provided for the kind of cozy Sundays that I was missing right now.
So why, when he’d told me about the wedding, did I dig my heels in and say no? He’d acknowledged the probability that the function itself, the nuptials of a cousin he barely knew, would be dull. But he’d sweetened the pot with the promise of an overnight by the sea. He’d even booked a spot, an inn somewhere between Cambridge and Connecticut in Rhode Island’s unspoiled South County, where we’d get our fix of that fantastic autumnal color but also the sound and smell of breakers and sand. I’m a sucker for the seaside, as he well knew, and I’ve got a fondness for the clear, briney chowder particular to New England’s smallest state. So his invitation had been appealing, as he’d known it would be.
Maybe that was it. Maybe it was the package nature of his invitation that had set me off; his confident assumption that I’d accept his itinerary and that I’d have no other plans of my own. I’d spent too long in my last relationship out of habit and hope, going along with whatever my ex-boyfrie
nd suggested in the vain belief that such passive acquiescence would lead to more of what I wanted, like fidelity or commitment. It didn’t, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. Sure, Bill was willing to see only me, but I didn’t know what else was lurking around the corner. This time, I was going to be conscious of my choices and not just slump into the habit of monogamy. What I would do, I would do with my eyes open. Which meant that on a perfect October Sunday, I found myself standing on the corner, staring at the mailbox, bored to tears and desperate for the sound of another human voice.
While that was not reason enough to seek out a man, it was a damned fine incentive to reach out to a friend. After depositing my scant envelopes—each check going down the slot making me wince a bit—I turned up the corner and made my way to the Helmhold House, properly the Lillian Helmhold Home for Wayward Felines, a small cat shelter that since last spring had been staffed by my buddy Violet. Whether it was the half dozen blocks of fresh air or the prospect of companionship, I felt like a new woman as I followed the slate path around back, to the glassed-in porch where three large tabbies lay sunning themselves.
“Yo, Violet! Are you in?” I rapped on the door and opened it, careful to block one of the feline inhabitants who sought to sneak out to the yard. “It’s me!”
She recognized my voice. “Hey, me!” I heard her call from the cavernous interior of the ornate, three-level Victorian. “I’m up here.” Since Violet had taken over as resident caretaker, the decaying grande dame had shaped up, with new paint outlining its shutters and detailwork outside while inside the former occupant’s mountains of old newspapers and magazines had been carted away, making room for cat beds and some decent second-hand furniture. Violet’s girlfriend, a buff caramel-skinned carpenter named Caroline, had even added a bunch of carpeted perches up near the high ceilings, where the current crop of cats could retreat to observe the world below.
I climbed the front staircase with its curving banister and found my friend seated at a heavy oak desk in her living quarters. With a huge book open in front of her and the sunlight streaming in to illuminate the pages, she looked almost right for the period of the house. Except, that is, for the bright namesake color of her hair and the spotted cat draped around her shoulders, suckling on the ear that didn’t have multiple piercings.
“What’s up? Ow, Sibley!” My friend unwrapped the cow-spotted cat and lowered him to the floor, disturbing the dust that had captured the light. Her face turned up to me looked tired and pale against her habitual black baby-tee, her eyes circled with a darker purple than her short, spiked ’do.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be in.” I sank into an enormous velvet armchair and watched more dust and cat hair float into the sunbeams. “I was hoping I might be able to drag you out for coffee before you went off to practice.” Violet’s band, the Violet Haze Experience, with its wild blend of “riot-grrrl” punk and screaming metal guitar, was one of my favorites on the circuit and not just for the sake of friendship. I looked at her unusually sallow face. “Or a walk by the river.”
“No walk and no practice today.” She placed her hands flat on the text in front of her. “Midterms.”
I knew that this job had made it possible for Violet to go back to school, but right now that didn’t look much like a benefit. “You’ve been studying all weekend?”
“That and taking care of the cats. Someone dropped off three kittens sometime late Friday. Left them in a fancy carrier right by the door. Cute little furballs but definitely sick as all get out.”
“Not distemper?” I held my breath. There was a vaccine for adult cats, but in kittens too young for the shot the disease was a death sentence. In a shelter like this, it could spread like wildfire.
“No, upper respiratory infections. Really just bad colds. But they needed intravenous fluids and antibiotics, and I stayed up to keep an eye on them.” She rubbed those eyes now and yawned. “Strange, really. They’re adorable tykes. Fat and fluffy and almost pure white with maybe a little brown on their paws. The carrier they were left in was one of those pricey ones, too, lined with fake fleece. So someone had money, and the kittens were totally treatable. All someone had to do was take them to a vet. Most of that upper respiratory stuff is stress related, and these looked too clean and well fed to be strays or even shelter kittens.”
“Maybe they were someone’s vanity pets?” It was all I could think of. “They were cute at first, or they matched the furniture, but once they got sick they just weren’t worth the hassle.” It was an awful thought, but I’d heard of worse.
“But why drop them here? I mean, we’re only known around the neighborhood, and usually the folks who bring cats to us have a story about their landlord or a litter they found. We don’t usually get kittens just left on the doorstep, not sick ones. Why not take them to the city shelter? They’ve got a vet hospital right on the premises.”
She was just musing, and I didn’t have an answer. Besides, as much as I loved kittens, what I needed today was human companionship.
“Bast knows! So, you’re set on studying?” I leaned over to check out the title of the tome in front of her: Organic Chemistry . Violet wanted to be a vet, which basically meant following a pre-med curriculum. Today, however, I had no sympathy. “It’s gorgeous out. Can’t I tempt you into a little R&R?”
She sighed and bit her lip. “Well, I do have some errands that have got to get done. Prep for the Halloween open house and all. What do you say to a drive up to New Hampshire?”
Which is how, twenty minutes later, I found myself retrieving first my old Toyota and then Violet for a shopping expedition to the land of huge malls and no sales tax. As we cruised north, through the crazy quilt of hues that lined the highway, my equally colorful friend seemed to relax.
“Thanks, Theda. I really needed to get out of the house. And we really need the supplies.”
“No problem.” I resisted honking at a BMW with New York plates that had swerved in front of me. Interstate 93 wasn’t a major foliage route—too many people driving too fast to enjoy the technicolor drama of the scenery, the red maples and gold-leafed birches, their white trunks slashed with black. But the six-lane highway was one of the main thoroughfares to and from New Hampshire, and to the many smaller New England byways that let the leaf peepers meander. “Have you been doing this run regularly?”
“Whenever I can,” said Violet. “But Caro’s working today, and Debbie needs the band van for her florist job.” We were losing my favorite college station on the radio, so Violet reached in the back for the bag of CDs and began rummaging around. “When you’re buying twenty-five pound sacks of food and litter, you’d be surprised at the difference no sales tax makes. And if I have it delivered, that eats into the savings. So…”
“Live free or die,” I quoted the New Hampshire motto. “Tax free, that is.”
“Amen,” she replied, pushing in a disc. A moment later a nasal voice sailed out of the speakers, accompanied by the scratching of a fiddle that played more notes blue than straight.
“Canray Fontenot?” I arched an eyebrow at my companion, who grinned a great broad grin back at me.
“Yeah, ever since you turned me on to this Cajun stuff, I’ve craved it.” Violet put her black high-tops up on the dashboard. When you’re under five-four, you can do that, even in a Toyota. “It’s rad.”
“That’s a word for it.” I loved the old Creole tunes as much as rock ’n’ roll. Maybe there was a connection, if Violet felt it too. Something in the raw delivery, in the willingness to stretch tonality to serve emotion.
“Hey, are you going to see Tess tonight? She’s doing the solo acoustic thing at Amphibian.” Our friend Tess, a superb songwriter in her own right, had established herself as a studio bassist in New York. But she’d come back to Boston a few months ago, citing a desire to work on her own tunes exclusively.
“You kidding? This is my outing for the day.” She turned to look out at a stand of maples, their brilliant red a shockin
g background to her own purple hair. “That chemistry exam is at ten tomorrow.” She turned back at me and grimaced. I regretted reminding her of it.
“What do you think of Tess moving back?” I wanted to distract Violet, but the question intrigued me, too. “I mean, she was making a living on her music and now she’s got a day job.” Tess’ university gig, number crunching in a bio lab, paid well and was easy lifting for a woman of her computer expertise, I knew. But it still seemed an unusual choice.
“I don’t know.” Violet sounded more thoughtful than usual. “I mean, I’d give anything to be able to live on my music. If I could do that, and also take care of the cats, I’d consider myself a success. But, you know, part of why I went back to school is ’cause I don’t think I ever will make it. Make enough, that is. I mean, will I end up being a vet who rocks out nights and weekends? Will that be enough?”
“That’s a tough one, Vi.” Traffic thickened, and we sped on in silence. The trees grew more bare as the border approached, and a high sad voice sang to us in French about hard times and the will to carry on.
***
We were on a second disc, a somewhat jollier compilation of bouncy zydeco tunes, when we crossed into New Hampshire. We didn’t need the sign—the one declaring “The Granite State Welcomes You”—to announce our impending arrival. All we’d had to do was watch for the malls, huge sprawling complexes that replaced the colorful country within yards of the state line. They weren’t hard to miss, extending, with one megacomplex running into another, nearly the length of the border.