Like Cats and Dogs

by Kate McMurray

  “Rachel said something about a grocery store that used to be a bank.”

  “Oh, yeah! At Court Street. That’s the biggest intersection on Whitman Street until you get to Flatbush, so it’s kind of prime real estate for the food trucks.”

  “But…a grocery store that used to be a bank.”

  “That’s Brooklyn. Some developer bought a bank building that has been here since the nineteenth century, and the building was landmarked, so they couldn’t tear it down or renovate it, but they could add aisles. It’s this really beautiful building with huge vaulted ceilings and these columns and arches that separate the space. So you go to buy meat in the area I think used to be the vault, and then you can admire the ceiling best from the frozen food aisle. There are cashiers where the tellers once sat.”

  “This city, man. I bet most people don’t even notice the old parts of the building. Developers in New York never want to preserve, they just want to maximize profits.”

  “The basis of this city’s economy has been commerce and money for four hundred years. What do you expect? Plus, shopping at this grocery store is kind of a novelty because the architecture is so unusual. I go there sometimes because they’re the only shop in the neighborhood that sells this obscure brand of yogurt I like, plus they have an amazing cheese counter.”

  Caleb laughed. Lauren was never shy when talking about food. Kara had always acted in public like she never ate anything. Caleb liked trying new foods, though, and liked having someone who actually enjoyed eating to have elaborate meals with.

  He wound up following Rachel’s suggestion and got one of each kind of mini-empanada from the offerings available at the truck: three meat, three vegetarian. Rachel would appreciate it if he shared.

  As they walked back toward the Cat Café, Caleb admired Lauren, who seemed to be in fine form today, chatty without being too effusive. Her long hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail, which showed off her pretty face and the dusting of freckles across her nose. She wore a knee-length plaid dress and a baggy black cardigan that seemed to show she cared more about warmth and comfort than style. Still, she always looked put together, even if Caleb didn’t like how the baggy cardigan obscured her amazing body.

  He sighed. It was nice of her to walk around with him, and he was enjoying talking with her and checking out the fair. It was a beautiful day, sunny but still too cool for short sleeves. Contentment washed over him as he followed Lauren down the street at a slow pace. He noticed that Hank gazed at her with adoration, and his patience was rewarded when Lauren snagged a dog treat from a table in front of a pet food store and offered it to him.

  “I believe you just made a lifelong friend,” Caleb said.

  “Aw. You’re a good dog, aren’t you, Hank?”

  Hank barked happily.

  If they were a real couple, he could take her hand. He could lend her his jacket if she were still cold. He could buy her a necklace from one of the jewelry vendors or an ice cream cone from one of the food trucks. But they weren’t a couple, and none of that was appropriate.

  “Has business been good at the Cat Café table?” he asked.

  “We’ve gotten a lot of traffic. The goal is more to attract future customers than to make money on the spot. A lot of people have come into the café to check out the cats, but they aren’t really buying anything.”

  “You could charge a couple of bucks for people to sit in the cat room, you know.”

  “I could, yeah. But the point is to encourage people to come meet the cats and fall in love with them. Hopefully the people stopping by today will come back some other day and spend money on food and beverages. It’s about long-term business, not short-term gain.”

  “Makes sense.”

  Lauren grinned. “And I don’t even have an MBA. I’ve learned a lot on the job, though. I may make it look haphazard and accidental, but there is actual thought that goes into keeping that place open.”

  Caleb chuckled. He could appreciate that she was often self-deprecating.

  When they returned to the table, Paige offered a chair so Caleb could sit and eat his empanadas, but only if he was willing to answer questions about cats from random passersby. Caleb was game, so he sat and dug in. Lauren took Hank’s leash and held it tight after Hank started sniffing at Sunday’s crate. Hank didn’t seem to be anything but curious, but Sunday retreated to the back of the crate and stared at Hank.

  “You want me to bring him back inside?” Caleb asked. “Rachel can watch him while I eat.”

  “Nah, it’s fine. He probably likes being outside.”

  Indeed, Hank lost interest in Sunday when a woman with a beagle walked by. Lauren let the leash out a little so that Hank and the beagle could sniff and bark at each other.

  Then two familiar faces approached the table.

  Caleb didn’t recognize them at first, or didn’t believe what he was seeing. The row of men in dark suits and sunglasses with earpieces behind them gave something away, though. Then Lauren said, “Wow, Mayor Martinez, Senator Schmidt. Thank you so much for stopping by.”

  So that was something significant. The mayor of New York City and one of New York’s United States senators were just standing right there at the table.

  Hank went looking for attention and barked at the senator. “Who is this friendly guy?” Senator Schmidt asked.

  “That’s Hank,” said Caleb.

  “Can I pet him?”

  “Absolutely. I believe he would love that.”

  Hank’s tongue rolled out of his mouth as the senator scratched his ears.

  “So tell us about your business,” said the senator.

  “We’re a café that allows customers to have coffee and pastries and then sit with cats in our back room,” said Lauren. “We’ve found hanging out with the cats is good for bringing down your stress levels.”

  “We also do cat adoptions,” said Paige. “Our goal is to find forever homes for all the cats in the café.”

  “Except Sadie,” said Lauren. “She’s kind of our mascot.”

  “What a clever idea,” said Senator Schmidt. “I’ve heard about animal cafés in Japan.”

  “I went to an owl café in Tokyo once,” said Mayor Martinez.

  “And business is good?” asked the senator.

  “Yes, very!” Lauren fidgeted like she was nervous, but it was pretty neat to be talking to high-ranking politicians about one’s business. “Oh, and this is Caleb Fitch. He’s one of the veterinarians at the clinic next door. We work with the vet clinic a lot.”

  Caleb stood and shook hands with each man. He felt a little overwhelmed.

  “Hank is Caleb’s dog,” Lauren said.

  Mayor Martinez chuckled. “So there’s a bit of a cats versus dogs rivalry, huh? Which is better, cats or dogs?”

  Caleb said “dogs” at the same time Lauren said “cats.”

  “We’re very excited to see such a wide range of successful, flourishing businesses on Whitman Street,” said the Mayor, still chuckling. “Anything else on this block we should be sure to see?”

  “Julie’s Closet across the street,” said Paige. “It’s a really nice thrift store. The owner is picky about what she’ll take on consignment, but you can get some amazing deals there if you’re shopping for clothes.”

  “Stories,” said Evan. “They sell new and used books.”

  “Bloom’s is the best florist in the neighborhood,” said Lauren. “And Stitches, the yarn store over there? They’re very popular.”

  “I’m glad so many independent businesses are thriving here,” said Mayor Martinez.

  Caleb had to swallow the snort. The development of downtown Brooklyn meant rising rents, to the point that a lot of mom-and-pop businesses were getting pushed out of the area. Whitman Street was like a unique bubble, where these little businesses could still thrive…for now. The
chain pharmacy on the corner and the fancy boutique gym across the street were signs that corporate giants were encroaching, too. Some parts of the street were populated mostly by banks and cell phone stores—the sorts of businesses that could afford the astronomical rents. Not to mention that empty café across the street that would surely be some new chain restaurant now that a big developer had gotten a hold of it.

  But why burst the mayor’s bubble today?

  This building at least was owned by an eccentric rich woman who loved animals enough to want animal-centric businesses occupying her first-floor storefronts.

  Speaking of the devil, Diane breezed outside then, floating out from the residential entrance to the building. “Oh, Marco, it’s lovely to see you.” She walked right up to the mayor, and they kissed each other’s cheeks. “I see you’ve met some of my fine young employees.”

  “This cat café must have been your idea,” said Mayor Martinez.

  “Yes, it was.” Diane chuckled. “Lauren does an amazing job running it, though.”

  The mayor and the senator left a short time later to talk to some of the other businesses along Whitman Street, leaving Caleb feeling a bit like he’d been integrated into the fabric of the neighborhood a little. Diane even turned toward him and said, “Hanging out with the girls today instead of seeing patients?”

  “We had some cancellations, so I’m checking out the festival,” he said.

  “The street closures are probably making it hard to get over here if you’re traveling by car.”

  “I imagine so.”

  Diane nodded thoughtfully. Hank sat at her feet and let out a little “whumpf” to get her attention. She smiled and pet his head. “Hi, Hank. How are you, big fella? I hope you’re not thinking about trying to get any of the cats?”

  Sunday meowed as if to register her displeasure.

  Diane laughed. “Oh, I do enjoy festivals like this, though. It feels like spring has finally arrived. That was a hell of a winter, wasn’t it?”

  It certainly had been. Caleb nodded. “I’m glad it’s over.”

  Diane pat his shoulder. “Well, have a good afternoon with my girls from the Cat Café. I’m going to go find a funnel cake.”

  Caleb took a deep breath and shook his head as she walked away. “I should probably get back to work and give Rachel the rest of these empanadas,” he said to Lauren. He reached out his hand to take Hank’s leash.

  Lauren handed it over. “All right. We’ll be here until sundown if you get bored again. Then Pop is hosting a party for the vendors who participated in the street fair today, so Evan and I plan to get our martini on if you want to join us.”

  “I’ll think about it, although I should probably get Hank home when my shift is over.” Trying to have a conversation in a crowded bar was not really Caleb’s idea of a good time. “Thanks for showing me and Hank around.”

  “No problem. I’ll see you around, Caleb.”

  “Yeah.” He went back inside, contemplating the fact that, had they been a couple, they might have hugged or made more concrete plans than “see you around.” It felt a little wrong to just leave Lauren after they’d spent a pleasant hour together, but… They weren’t a couple.

  That’s what Caleb kept telling himself, anyway.

  Chapter 18

  “So, okay,” Paige said at the next staff meeting. “Have you heard about these services that bring puppies to offices to help employees calm down?”

  Lauren and Monique glanced at each other. “That’s a real thing?” asked Monique.

  “Yeah. There’s a pilot program in Austin. I printed out an article about it.” Paige whipped a stapled printout from her folder and handed it to Lauren. “Anyway, I had a brainstorm. What if we had a kitten party at the café? Just before we adopt out Lauren’s kittens, we get them all over here and have guests come play with the kittens. We can market it as a stress-relief kind of thing.”

  It was a cute idea. Lauren nodded. “If you want to talk to Mitch to see if he has more rescue kittens, we could also potentially have adopted, please do. I’m not sure five kittens necessarily constitutes a party.”

  “So you want to do it?” Paige asked, sounding eager.

  “Sure, put a proposal together. We’ll run it by Diane to see what she thinks.”

  Shortly after the meeting broke, Evan walked into the café. “If I ordered a coffee, could you make it Irish? I’m having a day.”

  “Is there some astrological phenomenon at work this week?” Lauren asked. “Everyone seems totally frazzled.”

  “Mercury in retrograde,” said Paige gravely. “We drank all the booze from the party, unfortunately. If you’re nice, Monique might put an extra caramel shot in your latte, though.”

  Lauren cleaned up the table where her staff had just been meeting and was thinking about ordering a tea when Evan returned from the counter with a cup in hand.

  “What happened?” Lauren asked.

  “Mostly just stupid work stuff. There’s a new clothing boutique near the Atlantic Center that wanted me to design some signage for their front window, but they don’t actually want me to design so much as they want to give me a design drawn on napkins and Post-its and have me correctly interpret their chicken scratch into being exactly their vision. So there was that. But the real kick in the teeth just happened.”

  “Oh, no.” Based on Evan’s facial expression, whatever he was about to say had upset him a great deal.

  “Pablo has a boyfriend.”

  “I’m so sorry. How do you know?”

  “Well, I was walking here from the meeting with the boutique ladies, and then I thought I’d just pop into the bookstore and say hello, and then there was Pablo, making out with a beardy hipster near the romance novels in the back, which is just fucking perfect.”

  Lauren reached over and put her hand on Evan’s. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m too late, aren’t I? All the queer men in Brooklyn are paired up and none are left for me.”

  “I don’t think that’s how any of this works,” said Lauren.

  “It’s not even about Pablo per se. I mean, I think he’s sex on legs, but we’ve never had a conversation that lasted longer than ninety seconds. So I’m disappointed, but I think it’s more about the fact that it’s been so hard to meet people lately.”

  Lauren nodded. She could relate to that. Perhaps her whole plan to swear off men and focus on herself wasn’t so much about Derek getting married as it was about the fact that it was hard to meet people in New York City—despite there being eight and a half million people to meet—and she hadn’t wanted to put in the effort. It was…easier not to.

  And instead she’d met Caleb.

  A strange thought popped into her head, probably because of all the event brainstorming they’d just done at the staff meeting. “Maybe the café should do a singles mixer.”

  Evan guffawed. “Are you serious?”

  “No. I don’t know. Just thinking aloud. Do people still meet at mixers?”

  “You talk like you’re eighty years old. I appreciate that you’ve chosen yourself, but I for one would like to have sex again before I die.”

  Lauren pointed at Evan’s phone, which was in his hand. “Aren’t there apps for that?”

  “Sure, if you’re twenty years old and look like an underwear model.”

  “You serving wine at your pity party?”

  Evan rolled his eyes. “Shut up. I just mean…well, of course Pablo has a boyfriend. And Derek is married. And you and I are still single because there is no justice in the world.”

  “Our cases are not that terminal. It’s just…a dry spell. A rough patch. You’re a good-looking guy, Evan. There’s gotta be an out-of-work actor or adjunct faculty member or someone out there waiting to be with you.” And it was true. Evan had dark hair and olive skin—he was half Colo
mbian on his father’s side—and went to the gym with more regularity than some nuns went to mass, and he probably could have passed for a guy five years younger. He ran a successful graphic design business, he had a nice apartment, and just like Lauren, he had a lot going for him as a potential mate for someone. Lauren knew she wasn’t a lost cause, but it was hard sometimes to venture out of her comfort zone, and dating hadn’t been a major priority lately.

  Except that she did have someone.

  “Well, thank you,” said Evan. “You’re not so shabby yourself. Actually, you’re the best person I know, and if I were even a little attracted to women, I’d marry you tomorrow so we could be a Brooklyn power couple and have our perfectly designed penthouse in one of those new high-rise buildings close to the Manhattan Bridge. I like the peen a little too much, though.”

  Lauren laughed, but it bothered her that she couldn’t explain what had been happening with Caleb. She had a regular fuck buddy, but they had no future.

  On the other hand, neither she nor Caleb was seeing anybody else, and they’d spent three of the last seven nights together, and it sure seemed like they were in a relationship, albeit a secret one. They still bickered sometimes and disagreed about everything from what to watch on television to if they liked rainy days to whether or not bagels should be toasted. She was afraid to ask his opinions on political issues, because she’d probably find out he had opinions she couldn’t stomach.

  Still, they had something between them, and they got along more than they fought lately, and it would be nice to be able to tell her friends she was seeing someone, or at least be able to explain what was happening in her life. She didn’t like keeping things from Evan. But she didn’t feel like she could say anything, either.

  “There’s no way you’re the last single gay man in Brooklyn,” Lauren said to deflect attention off herself.

  “Don’t say things like that out loud. You’ll jinx me.”

  “I’m just saying, the man you’ll end up with is still out there somewhere. So it’s not Pablo. That doesn’t mean there are no other men in the world. And also, maybe what you saw isn’t what you think you saw.”