Cattery Row

by Clea Simon

  “Pull in up here.” Violet motioned and I took my place in one of three turn lanes behind another car with Massachusetts plates. A green arrow motioned us into a spacious, well-marked parking lot, the entire complex designed to make going into one of the bright, factory-sized chain stores as pleasant as possible. “Pet Sets, there it is.” She pointed to a building the size of an airplane hanger, with a cartoon puppy and kitten outlined on a red-and-yellow sign the size of a movie screen.

  “Is this the latest manifestation of the military industrial complex?” I asked, sliding into a space.

  “They may be the devil, but they’re cheap,” Violet responded, striding to the lined-up shopping carts that all carried the same cutesy logo.

  We each pulled a cart free and, once inside, I could see why we’d come. No way our local independent pet supply place could compete with these prices. Stacked high on industrial metal shelving were sacks and cartons of every brand of feed, litter, and animal necessity I could imagine. The high impulse area, right up front, was glowing from its arrangement of bright chew toys and catnip mice. I found myself lingering by the greeting cards. “Sorry you’re feeling Purrr-ly,” read one, with a sweet-faced calico wearing an unlikely computer-generated frown.

  “Theda!” Violet’s voice roused me from my commercial daze. Following her around the store, I realized how well suited she was to the directorship of the little shelter. Going straight for the basics, and maneuvering around the few other midday shoppers, she soon had both our carts full up with unscented litter and the healthiest of the dry foods. When I reached for a catnip mouse, she raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s for Musetta,” I said, and she relented, grabbing a bulk pack of sixteen smaller mice and throwing them on top of her load.

  “These will be fun for the open house.” Violet was doing her best to turn Halloween, which could be a dangerous holiday for cats, into something feline friendly. “Give the kids a chance to interact with the inmates.” I noticed her eying a cat tree, with platforms at two, four, and six feet high.

  “I don’t think we can fit any more in the car.” She fingered the carpeted platforms. The plush was soft and green on the level areas, rougher and brown on the verticals to mimic a tree. “Besides, isn’t that something Caroline could make up for you?”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” With a sigh, Violet turned her cart away and we headed up to the checkout. “Rapture of the cheap.”

  We rounded the aisle and pushed our carts toward the line of waiting registers just in time to walk into a cat fight.

  “We most certainly do not! I can’t imagine where you heard that.” A well made-up brunette, her shoulder-length sable hair sleek and gleaming, was towering over a pudgy blonde matron in a baby blue track suit. Hands on hips, the black-haired woman glowered down at her, her lined lips pursed in a scowl over the pale blue, blond, and pink dumpling. Were it not for her red Pet Sets jacket, the taller woman would have seemed to be the customer, tongue lashing an errant clerk. “What do you think we are?”

  She was not expecting an answer, but the dumpling had some spunk. “But this is a pet store. That means you sell pets.” An unhealthy-looking blush began creeping up from her blue-and-white ribbed neckline. “I’d always heard that you had everything here. At good prices, too.” Her eyes bulged as the Pet Set manager leaned in for the kill.

  “We do have adoption days,” burst in one of the checkout girls, a chubby teen, earning a glare from her boss. “First Saturday of every month the local shelter brings its cats; third Saturdays they bring dogs. That’s how I got my Bootsie.” Oblivious to her boss’ displeasure, her round face lit up as she pointed to a photo of a reclining marmalade cat with white feet that she had taped onto the register in front of her. “She’s the best cat ever.”

  “No, my granddaughter wants one of those special cats.” The blue-suited customer seemed to be recovering. At least, she no longer looked on the edge of a coronary. “What do you call them? Maine coons?”

  “You should talk to a reputable breeder,” Violet answered before the manager, whose nametag said Denise, could start in again. “If you’re really sure you want a pedigree cat, that is. There are a lot of great cats out there in shelters, including many that look and act like some of the showy breeds.” Violet had a true punk attitude toward pedigree pets in general. DIY—do it yourself—was always better than storebought to her.

  “Oh, I did that. I called some of those cat magazine ads,” said the older woman, her round cheeks returning to something like a natural color. “Did you know they wanted more than five hundred dollars? And both the breeders I called wanted to know if I was going to let the cat out, if I was going to have it fixed. What I was going to feed it. All sorts of questions, they had. It was like they were auditioning me . And all for a kitten!”

  “They should,” started Violet, but the woman wasn’t having any of it.

  “It’s just a cat, for Christ’s sake.” With a stomp of her powder-blue sneaker, she turned and stalked off past the line of registers to the exit.

  “People like that shouldn’t be allowed to have pets,” said Violet, grabbing one of the heavy food sacks and hefting it onto the counter. I hoisted the next one as the checkout girl began ringing up the sale.

  “Maybe having a pet would make her nicer,” the girl said shyly, pausing to push muddy brown bangs from her eyes. “Besides, we get all types here. And, well, she didn’t want the kitten for herself. Maybe her granddaughter would be good with it? A lot of people have been coming in lately, asking for the special breeds.”

  “Sandy, let’s finish the checkout, please. Don’t forget to enter the bulk discount.” Denise, the tall beauty, hovered over the mousy girl like a hawk. “I’m sorry, ladies.” She was addressing me and Violet, who raised an eyebrow as she grabbed another bag from the cart.

  “Some people don’t realize that pet supply stores don’t sell pets,” the manager continued. “It’s considered unethical and some say it may soon be illegal, without background checks or proof of breeding or health care. I just don’t want my store associated with any such practices, no matter how misguided the thought.”

  That pretty much closed the topic, and Bootsie’s young caretaker rang up the rest of our order in silence, helping us load the big bags back into our carts when she was done.

  “That was something, huh? I thought the manager was going to lose it.” I wanted Violet’s take on it.

  “Yeah, but she’s got a point,” said Violet. “She’s got her store’s reputation to think about. If you’re looking for a particular breed and you don’t buy from a reputable breeder, odds are you’re buying from a kitten mill, and those are pretty horrible. They keep cats in tiny cages and breed them as often as they can. The ASPCA did an exposé on one that they were able to close down, and the photos were disgusting. It looked like the cages hadn’t ever been cleaned and the animals they rescued were just in miserable shape. Eye infections, bad teeth, fleas, and worse. A couple of the cats were starving, too, the older ones. The owners don’t care. They just keep breeding those cats until they stop producing, then they kill them. It’s like the worst type of farming, only the government has a hard time cracking down on it. Kitten mills are cheap to run, once you’ve got a few good cats, and because they don’t spend anything on upkeep, they’re like pure profit. Half the time the authorities shut one down they just start up again someplace else.”

  We’d arrived at my car, and I opened the trunk. “I figure it’s got to be a sore spot for a ‘pet store’ manager. I mean, look at this.” Violet was standing on the other side of the cart, pointing out a handmade poster taped to a light post. “Maine Coon and Ragdoll Kittens. Bargain Prices! Call Now!” The phone number had the local area code, but before I could read any more, Violet tore the flier off the post, crumpled it, and threw it to the ground. Feeling a little more scrupulous about littering, of the paper sort, I tossed the ripped flier into the trunk, and we finished loading the bags of litter and foo
d in silence.

  Chapter Three

  The call jolted me from a deep sleep the next morning, although I should have been up and out already. I’d gotten in at a reasonable hour, but somehow, with Bill away and the change of seasons, I’d found myself tossing and turning until near dawn.

  “Huh?” I said, grabbing the receiver. My discipline had declined with my fortunes, and I hadn’t been up early to run in a week. The clock on my night table said ten.

  “Theda Krakow? This is Lannie Kurtz. From City Magazine ?” I agreed and sat up.

  “You sent me a package?” I took a surreptitious sip of water from my bedside glass and quietly tried to clear my throat. As much as I ridiculed the badly named City —the mag’s ad-heavy pages catered to suburbanites—if they were looking at my clippings this could mean money. I didn’t want to sound like I’d just woken up, even if I had. “Some of your features for the Mail ?”

  “Yes, I did.” Boy, did I sound perky.

  “Well, we have something here that could be just perfect for you. An assignment?” That was my hope, too.

  “I have some time in my schedule now.” I started searching around on my night table for a pen or pencil and some paper. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, do you remember our ‘Women of the Millennium’ feature? It ran in January 2000? We were thinking it would be fun to do an update on some of these ladies. You know, see what they’re up to? What would you think of that?”

  I didn’t really want to tell her. “Women of the Anything” stories always get me riled up, suggestive as they are of cuteness and the ghettoization of professionals who happen to be female. More than one editor had told me I was oversensitive. But really, when was the last time you saw a “Men in the Kitchen” feature about male restaurant chefs, or “Boys in White” about one gender of doctors? I didn’t care if we were still the minority in many fields, the treatment was degrading.

  “Who are the women you’re considering?” Then, swallowing my pride, “And what are the specs?”

  “Well, we have quite a few gals to choose from. You and I could select four or five together. We were thinking three thousand words? This will be a big spread, with photos. But we’re going to need it soon, by month’s end?” That was two weeks away. I sighed and immediately wished I hadn’t, hoping she couldn’t hear me. Editors know that, barring nuclear disaster, their magazines will keep coming out, every month, with stunning regularity. Why can’t they plan a little better? This wasn’t breaking news. But still…

  “And the fee?”

  “Well, since we’re pushing you a little on the deadline, I argued that we could start you at our higher rate. That would be fifty cents a word, so fifteen hundred dollars?”

  Her math was on, but I knew she was lying. Although I wasn’t one of them, I’d been around long enough to have heard that for City ’s regular writers and the occasional big-name author who deigned to pen an essay, the monthly regularly shelled out a dollar a word and sometimes more. But as I opened my mouth to argue, old saws about gift horses and choosy beggars stopped me.

  “That’s great,” I said instead, trying to muster some life into my voice. “Now let’s chat about the women.”

  Twenty minutes later, I had an assignment I could live with. From the ten millennial names, we’d chosen four to profile; the other six would get a photo and blurb, probably to be written by some poor intern for free. Of my lucky four, one was Monica Borgia, a Web whiz who had launched an e-business in ’99, gone bankrupt in ’03, and last anyone knew was starting over from scratch. The second, Lynn Ngaio, had a design studio doing high-end fashion. Word was, she was still around and still selling, her distinctive script-signature label showing up on velvets and lace in Newbury Street’s swankier boutiques. Rose Keller, the third subject, was someone I’d pushed for, when I heard her name on the list. Rose was an acquaintance, a sweet older woman who bred and raised show cats, Turkish Angoras, and had recently qualified to be a cat-show judge. I’d had her in my cat-show pitch for Tim, but that wasn’t going to happen now. Because I knew her, I toyed with declining to write about her—conflict of interest and all that. But this was City ; they ran big splashy stories on major advertisers! Besides, I figured the profile might as well be written by someone with some knowledge of the field, and, yeah, I did want to write about cats. That left just one profile subject, someone in the performing arts for balance. Our mutual choice was not only a natural, but sheer pleasure for me. Jan Coolidge—a.k.a. “Cool”—was almost a household name, at least among households that tuned in to the blues.

  Cool had been a fixture in my life all through the ’90s, when she’d played in rock bands in the nighttime hangs all around Boston and Cambridge. As different as day and night, she and Tess had been queens of the scene for a while. Cool was big, brash, always the last one buying, compared to Tess’ quiet elegance. That was when I was first writing about clubland and before Tess took off for New York City and studio work. It took a few years more to discover Cool’s true talent, her affinity for the blues, specifically the way her rich, smoky voice could make even the oldest songs sound fresh. But once she switched styles, giving up her loud rock for the rootsier music, it all seemed so natural—that voice, and the timing, just a hair behind the beat, that added so much nuance. She even looked the part, a “blues mama” all hip and bust and wild, curly hair. Since then, Cool had left New England also, although her particular muse took her out west to LA and a string of Grammy awards. The critics pegged her as somewhere between Billie Holiday and Bonnie Raitt, a description that had drawn on Cool’s flaming curls—a brighter red than mine—as well as her throaty phrasings. But the comparisons weren’t that far off: Cool had a gift, the sound of an earlier age. A timeless voice, and the fans knew it.

  Still, her appetites sometimes got her in trouble, and the temptations of fame didn’t help. Everyone here had read of her bouts in rehab, seen the coverage of the no-show concerts and recording sessions. But word was that she’d pulled through. She was clean. No more booze, no more diet pills. Besides, we’d also all heard that at heart she was still the same-old earthy Cool, someone you could count on for a deep belly laugh or a raunchy joke, if not for closing the bar any more. So her troubles merely lent some street credence to the hard-luck lyrics she sang. I’d been told that she was back in town, and Lannie confirmed it. Seeing Cool again would be a joy.

  In fact, if I could get over my attitude about the magazine, this was going to be fun. Good money, too, despite my griping. The only drawback was the photographer Lannie assigned me. Because of the tight deadline—and the necessity for big pictures in a feature of this type—I was supposed to coordinate with Sunny Letourneau. Sunny had been the photographer for the original feature story, the quizzical Lannie had told me. And though I doubted she’d be the “font of information” the City editor had promised, I couldn’t find a good reason to object. I could hardly explain it was because she was annoying. But she was—all talk all the time, with an anxious edge that got on my nerves. Worse, she could get embarrassing, particularly in professional situations. Too often, I’d seen her on assignment and instead of simply shooting, she’d take up everyone’s time making desperate pitches of half-baked ideas. Or she’d start cadging drinks, making lame jokes about how taking photos was thirsty work. I tried to be charitable. Maybe she just didn’t know how to conduct herself, when it was cool to push your own projects or play, and when to just do the job. Maybe, she was, just like me, flat broke. But I didn’t like her, and I sure didn’t want to be paired—or compared—with her.

  ***

  I’d run into Sunny the night before, when I’d gone to hear Tess play. Violet stuck with her resolve to study, but there was no reason for me to stay home and ten o’clock found me in the tiny, downtown room called Amphibian. Situated underneath a boisterous bar and grill, the self-consciously Irish Stone of Killeen, Amphibian drew a somewhat less inebriated crowd. Basically a refurbished basement, it had one room and a
couple of dozen rickety chairs. A threadbare rug defined the “performance” area, a space just big enough for readings and music of the quieter sort. There, in front of the day-glo salamander painted on the black back wall, Tess had tried out some new material and a new instrument, a 12-string guitar that rested easily on her knee.

  The setting had to be a lot lower profile than what she’d been used to in her New York City days, but she’d pulled her glossy black mane into a simple ponytail and I could see her smiling as her long fingers danced on the strings. The music—part of a song cycle, she said—was far from finished. But what she had created with her clear alto and the acoustic guitar was a lyrical and darkly pretty whole, a folk-style musical full of sadness and loss. There were echoes of reggae rhythms in her strumming, but everything was simple somehow, as if she’d pared each chord down to its essentials. Her forty minutes passed like five, and when it was time to vacate—a young poet was already waiting, pages in hand, for her turn at the carpet’s edge—the small crowd was hushed, listening so intently there was a pause before the applause. Bowing her head graciously, Tess ducked off the little stage and sat by me. A waitress brought her a beer and, while the next act recited abstract verses that seemed to deal with love, we’d caught up. Or tried to, until Sunny came by.

  “So, this type of gig”—I motioned around the small subterranean space—“is okay by you?” In New York, Tess had been a big deal, earning serious money putting down bass lines for many of the best bands that came to the city to record. If she’d wanted to step out in front of a band, she might have been famous, too, maybe as successful as Cool. She obviously still had connections: It was Tess who’d told me that Cool was back in town, living in a suite at the Ritz, and I couldn’t help making the comparison.