by Gary Lovisi
Long after the mouse problem was solved, I still kept cats in my shop. Luckily, Muffin wasn’t a sprayer, and neither he nor Chatty was wont to rend their claws along the exposed spines of the shelved books (both the new ones I kept out front, and the used section toward the back of the narrow rectangle of a half-store), so as long as their litter pans were scooped clean, and their bowls of food and water were kept full, my two feline salespeople did their jobs well…so well, in fact, that within a couple of years, I found that I needed help in the store. Initially, Barrett and Browning was little more than a hobby for me; after my husband passed away, I’d leased the building with my insurance money, knowing full well that I’d never really be able to compete with the “big guys”—the chain outlets with their coffee stands on the side, and plug-ins for computers, and couches, and tee-shirt-cap-coffee-mug concession aisles—but I was content with being a niche market, one where a person might be able to find just the right book, at maybe not-quite-the-right price, but nonetheless it would be the right book, right in their neighborhood.
Muffin and Chatty were both getting on in years when I hired Rik (no “c” between the “i” and the “k”), to the point where he’d have to go hunting among the back shelves for them whenever a customer demanded to see “Barrett and Browning,” then carry them up front. He never seemed to mind, even after that time when one of Chatty’s claws got caught in one of the half a dozen earrings Rik wore and he almost lost the earring and a good chunk of the right earlobe. At the time, he was fresh out of high school, and working afternoons while taking morning and evening classes at the University over in St. Paul. I didn’t know what he was majoring in (aside from getting holes punched in his ears, and bleaching the top layer of his usually brown hair a sort of sickly orange), but he was good with the customers, and even better with the cats, so I considered him to be a good “hire.”
And he understood how to best arrange the books—especially the used ones—so as to make them more enticing for the customers. None of that orderly, library-like themed progression of books sorted by author, subject and so on…he understood that much of the fun of searching for a book was exactly that—the search. What he did do with the rows of used, slightly tattered volumes was to arrange them by color—black spines segued into deep blues and purples, which merged with the greens, then the garish yellows (usually reserved for self-help tomes), before dipping into the sunset hues. That way, the mix of paperback and hardcovers seemed to flow naturally before the eye, thus encouraging the browser to really hunker down and study each book, each row, then each shelf. And the longer one looks, the more one sees…and, it can be hoped, buys.
Rik also knew how to create cozy spots on each shelf for the cats—deliberately bare spots where a feline could curl up, or stretch out, without the fear of knocking books off the shelf itself. And it was at his urging that I began to add cat artwork to the store per se—a framed reproduction of Charles Wysocki’s “Frederick the Literate” with that lovely sleeping tabby draped around dozens of cat-themed books and bird knick-knacks, plus sets of nesting cats, and a sweet-faced white and gray cat pencil holder next to the cash register.
By the time Chatty and Muffin had gone on to the ever-full bowls of milk and eternally clean litter-boxes of feline heaven, Rik had brought me their replacements…Oscar and April, a pair of strays from a local downtown shelter. At first, their gray striped fur and white feet-and-faces contrasted oddly with the warm browns and beiges of the shop’s interior, but Rik (who himself was now sporting streaks of stark white in his straight dark hair) came to my visual rescue once again—telling me, “Once you see what these two do, you’ll understand,” he replaced the sun-stippled brown-into-bone swatch of material I’d had resting along the bottom of the window display with a brightly hand-dyed piece of canvas, adorned with an ombré of reds, pinks and corals. And sure enough, by the next morning, Barrett and Browning’s window had attracted another small crowd—Oscar and April were lovebirds of a feline variety, and when she wasn’t tucking her wedge-shaped face under his chin, he was licking the top of her head.
The only problem was, Oscar and April were so utterly devoted to each other, they failed to notice when a few mice got into the store during a particularly blustery February storm…it wasn’t until the mice had found an unopened box of used books I’d taken in trade the week before that I realized that love didn’t conquer all…especially when it came to getting rid of mice.
“They have to go,” I told Rik, when I confronted him with the remains of what had been several vintage 1950’s Robert Heinlein paperbacks, now gnawed and chewed and clawed into fluffy mice mattresses. “I realize that Oscar and April are adorable, but I don’t think either of them would know what to do with a mouse if it came up and blew a juicy raspberry in their muzzles.”
“That I’d like to see,” Rik laughed, until he took a good look at my expression, and became serious…or at least as serious as someone sporting three hoops per ear can look. “But the customers really do like them…couldn’t we set traps? One of those no-kill—”
“And let the customers see that? Once word gets out that a bookstore has a rodent problem, there go the customers to the Big Guys. And I’m sure they sell mouse motels emblazoned with their logo—”
“No, I think that’s the coffee guys,” Rik smiled, before glancing over at the display window, where our resident Garfields were washing each other’s faces, their combined purrs loud enough to be easily heard by Rik and me as we stood by the cash register ten feet away.
True, they were a wonderful couple—April was a little over half of Oscar’s size, and their markings were almost identical, even though he was several years her senior. You couldn’t imagine a better-suited pair of cats…although I could picture just about any other cats in the world doing a better job of de-mousing my bookstore.
“Suppose we keep these two on as window-dressing, and get some real mousers? Ferals, maybe? My room-mate’s dad has some live-traps,” Rik offered, all the while watching my face as he spoke. By that time, he’d been working for me long enough to get a bachelor’s degree—even though I still had no idea what he was actually studying at the university—and knew how to “read” me. My face must have said “Yes’ before my brain was able to react, for he smiled, and said, “I know a place near a mall where lots of cats hang around…maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll get some young ones.”
“Not too young,” I admonished, realizing that Oscar and April might not make for the best surrogate parents, not the way they literally followed each other into the litter-pans, in their effort to stay close.
Rik was always such a self-confident young man, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary for him to say, “No, these will be old enough to take care of themselves…and the bookstore. You’ll see.…”
* * * *
I didn’t realize that Rik had come in late the next day until he backed into the store, his arms bent akimbo, and said over his shoulder, “Have I got the right cats for a bookstore—Hemingway kittens!”
It had been such a busy morning (a few days before Easter) that I hadn’t really had the time to think, let alone remember our conversation from the previous afternoon. For a moment, I was unable to figure out what Rik meant by “Hemingway kittens”—until I remembered those pictures of the writer’s place down in Florida, of all those many-toed cats running around. Polydactyl cats, with the bifid paws that resembled a splayed-out human hand—
“Ugh!” I blurted out, thinking of how the customers might react to seeing mutant kitties in the window, then Rik turned around, showing me the pair of kittens he’d zipped into his brown suede jacket.
The female was a tortie, long-haired, with a narrow face, while the male was a tuxedo with the characteristic stripe of white dividing the black patches over his eyes. He was long-haired, like his companion, but obviously bigger, so he probably wasn’t a sibling—
“You caught two of them? In one live-trap?” Years ago, when my husband was alive,
we’d tried to catch some stray cats living under our porch before winter set in, and it was slow-going at best; if we caught one, it might be days before any of the others would venture into that noisy springing trap, even if we baited the rectangular cage with sardines. Ferals were as wary as they were smart.…
“Uh-huh,” Rik grunted, as he hurried over to the counter to deposit the kittens near the cash register. I started to wave him away, saying, “No, no…they might have fleas or who knows what—” but he shook his head of bi-colored hair and assured me, “Oh no, I checked them over…they’re clean. No ear mites, nothing. Believe me, they’ll be fine—”
Before I could continue my protests, he’d unzipped his jacket and spilled out the kittens on the counter next to the register. The female sat there in a bundle of brown ombré fur and too many toes, looking up at me with close-set greenish-yellow eyes, while the other one—also soft-furred, and remarkably clean-looking—darted off the counter, and ran between my booted feet (it had been a busy morning, so rushed I’d not had the time to take off my boots) toward the rear of the store. He’d made a perfect four-point landing on his many-toed fuzzy paws, then scurried off in an undulating ripple of patchy black-white long fur-and-feet.
“What the—”
“Don’t worry about Scooter, he’s like that. Loves to run. He’s just getting the lay of the land—he’ll be back.”
“Not like The Terminator, I hope…don’t tell me he’s already litter-trained,” I added, as I wondered how Rik had managed to not only find me a male/female pair of kittens, but true literary oddities, genuine Hemingway kittens, all within the space of less than twenty-four hours of our conversation about possibly getting some new store-cats.
“Well…Jake and I left them in the bathroom with a litter-pan, and they’d used it come morning. Maybe they were dumped?”
Hoping that they’d used clay litter, and not shredded paper (I didn’t want them associating any kind of paper with going to the bathroom), I turned my attention to the female cowering on my counter. “So, what’s her name?”
Gently scooping her up in his many-ringed hands, Rik slid one of his fingers under her right paw, and showed off her hand-shaped toes, saying, “Mittens…I know it’s rather mundane, but I couldn’t think of anything else on short notice. Cute, isn’t she/”
Mittens avoided my stare, but she didn’t jerk away or growl when I patted her head. Certainly not feral.
“They couldn’t have been dumped…I suppose some people don’t know what a Hemingway cat is. Yes, she’s cute,” I lied, giving her smallish head another pat, before I asked, “Don’t you think you’d better find Scooter? Before he finds those boxes of books I bought on Tuesday?”
“Scooter wouldn’t go in those…he’s too smart for that,” Rik said a little too confidently, as he shucked off his jacket and made for the back of the store, leaving me with the stoically silent Mittens.
When Rik was out of earshot, I leaned down and whispered to the kitten, “I just hope he didn’t pay too much for you two…you didn’t crawl into any life-trap, did you? I’ve seen ferals, and you two don’t fit the bill.” Mittens looked up at me as I spoke, then ducked her head off to one side as I finished, as if she couldn’t bear to look me in the eye. You know, don’t you? I thought, then dismissed it; the kitten was just shy. I’d spent too many years working in a shop whose living mascots were routinely anthropomorphized by my doting repeat customers, I decided; even if she had been purchased rather than live-trapped, there was no way she could understand what I’d just said. Not with that tiny little walnut-sized brains of hers—
“Why don’t you take a break, show the new arrivals around?” Rik was carrying Scooter in his left arm, cradling the kitten like a baby, so that all four of the animal’s over-sized paws were extended toward me. The pads were soft, shell-pink and that grayish oxblood color, and as I reached for the kitten, I realized that those paws hadn’t been in contact with asphalt, concrete or any other outside surface in all of Scooter’s life—which looked to be perhaps three or four months so far. And his fur was deliciously soft and smooth—he was definitely either a pet store or possibly a shelter kitten.
He’d been so active so far, squirming, scooting and wiggling around, that I hadn’t gotten a good look at his face—but when I finally held him in my arms, and looked into those clear leaf-green eyes, I was enchanted. While I thought that most cats were beautiful (save, perhaps, for those hairless Sphinx kittens, which had originally hailed from a Minnesota farm cat), Scooter was special—it wasn’t just the way his eyes shone, or that “smiling” expression of his, but he was simply unique, above and beyond his mitten-like paws, or, as I noticed when he nestled into my arms, his twisted, truncated stump of a tail. He just had…it, that spark of pure personality that leaps out through the eyes, and touches a person to the core. Like finding a genuine first edition in among a box of book-club reprints.
And, as if to prove to me just how special he was, he placed one of his wide paws on my arm, just above my watchband, and blinked up at me, giving me “kitty kisses” as one cat-breeding customer of mine called them.
“Here, take Mittens in the other arm—there—now you can show them the store,” Rik said, before sliding behind the counter in anticipation of the post-lunch crowds. What he was suggesting was rather silly, me, showing them the store, when all they really needed to know was where the food and water dishes, as well as the litter-pans, were located, but somehow, after the way Scooter had regally placed one paw on my arm like that, it didn’t seem all that ridiculous to show the kittens my store. It was going to be their home, after all—
“Ok, guys, here’s the bestsellers rack…a case of each title, stacked alphabetically. Positioned close to the cash register because I’m too cheap to buy one of those surveillance cameras, and bestsellers cost too much—am I doing ok, Rik?” Behind me, he laughed, “Ok—fine…they’re smart kitties, aren’t you guys? Just listen to the Boss-lady,” before turning his attention to the door as it jingled open with our next customer. Not wanting to show the kittens off too soon, I hurried down the aisle, toward the middle of the store, saying softly to the kittens, “And this is the place where bestsellers that aren’t end up…the remainder rack. Followed by the place I like best, the used books. You smell the other kitties on these, don’t you,” I found myself saying, as the two kittens leaned forward, their pointed faces seemingly scanning the hundreds of mixed paperbacks and hard-bounds, their moist pink noses working vigorously. I supposed that the smell was enticing to a cat; all those hand-oils rubbed on the worn, cracked spines, not to mention the hundreds of other things which had either rubbed onto the books, or had been spilled on them at one time or another…perhaps they’d even made contact with food. Plus the previous bookstore cats had undoubtedly rubbed against them, maybe even (even as I hoped they hadn’t!) sprayed them. The layers of scent here had to be akin to cat heaven for them.
But as they sniffled the rows of books as I walked slowly down the aisle, I found myself trying to look at the store through their eyes—I’d read up enough about cats to know that they probably did see all colors, albeit not as intensely as humans, so I wondered what they made of Rik’s color-coded filing system, that flowing sweep of blues into reds. Perhaps they noticed the unexpected highs and lows of paperbacks standing next to hardcovers and vice versa, the pleasant undulation of assorted books nestled close—but not so close that you’d have to pry the books off the shelf—for row upon row. Did they notice the abrupt gaps on some shelves, where he’d left some space for the other cats? Or were they merely sensing the traces of old odors on the books?
I did find myself wondering how high a five-foot tall bookcase might seem to a young kitten—would they want to climb from shelf to shelf, seeking the lofty flatness of the top of each bookcase, or would they scurry in fear between the aisles? I also wondered what would happen when Oscar and April finally noticed that they had feline company—I could picture the kittens puffing out l
ike blowfish, rising high on their toes, before backing away from the older gray tabbies…but then again, the lovebirds seemed to have eyes only for each other, so perhaps they might not notice the kittens at all. They certainly hadn’t noticed the Heinlein mice.…
Acting almost as one, the kittens suddenly wanted out of my arms, and jumped down before the lone bookcase positioned along the far narrow wall of the store, close to the back room where I kept the food and litter-pans, as well as whatever incoming books I hadn’t sorted yet. I seldom had customers wanting children’s books, so I routinely placed those titles in the back.… I supposed these books were the most highly-scented, especially since children are wont to try to eat and read at the same time, for Scooter and Mittens were all over the books, rubbing against them, standing up on their hind paws to smell the exposed spines of each book, then batting at them with their mitten feet. “No, no, bad kitties…don’t tear the books,” I said, and they actually stopped. As one, both of them sitting in place, merely staring at the books, before looking up at me with that ubiquitous “Who, us?” cat stare.
Yet, there was something eager about them, apart from mere kitten high spirits. As if they couldn’t wait to explore the bookstore—
“—a nice day,” Rik was telling the departing customers, as I hurried to the front of the store, taking backwards glances every couple of steps to make sure the kittens weren’t following me. They seemed content to sit near the lone children’s shelf.
“”Rik, I think they’d be better off locked in the back room, until you leave this afternoon. I’d hate to have them run out into traffic—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that…they know they’re supposed to stay here. Jake was in and out of the apartment all this morning, and they stayed put there—”
“‘There isn’t here, though. And your apartment opens out into a hallway, right? That’s not like the street—”