Cat in the Flock (Dreamslippers Book 1)

by Lisa Brunette

  Her grandmother had finally framed the copy of Vanity Fair with herself on the cover, Cat noticed. It was hanging there in the Yoga Yolk, its silver frame glinting in the candlelight. In it, Granny Grace was wearing a white bathing suit and sitting on an enormous beach ball. The prop had been her idea. "It was my photo shoot, and I wanted to have a ball," she told Cat. Granny Grace was a tall Mae West type, not thin like the waifs who appear regularly on the covers now. But that was 1957, when models were curvier. Standards of beauty had certainly changed.

  Cat gestured toward the image. "I'm glad to see you decided to hang that cover," she said, smiling. "I've always admired it. Sometimes I wish I took after you in looks—instead of this dreamslipping curse we share."

  Cat had meant this as a joke, but as soon as she said it, she realized it was something her grandmother wouldn't like.

  Granny Grace put her teacup down. "Cat McCormick," she said, "don't ever call our gift a curse."

  Cat bowed her head. "Sorry."

  Granny Grace gave a sigh, long and drawn out. "I wasn't really a model, you know," she said.

  Cat looked up in surprise. It was a long-standing family story that her grandmother had once been a model.

  "It was a ruse, Cat. I was undercover…" She paused, smiling. "But I ended up on the cover. Ha!"

  "You never told me that! I don't even think Mom knows."

  "There's a lot your mother doesn't know," Granny Grace said. "Or understand, even if she does know."

  Cat let that one linger in the air without comment. To put it kindly, her mother and grandmother did not always get along. The dreamslipping gift had skipped a generation, and so had the adventurous temperament. Cat's mother, Mercy, was as conservative as Granny Grace was liberal. And she hadn't been too happy about Cat's choice to move to Seattle and take over Granny Grace's PI business. She'd called the whole scheme a "fantasy." Cat and her mother had done nothing but fight about it up till the moment Cat left for Seattle.

  "Tell me about the modeling case," Cat prompted, pointedly changing the subject.

  "Thurston was the top modeling agency in the country at the time," Granny Grace explained. "It was an embezzling case, and the police leads had all run dry. One of Thurston's accountants discovered that money had been taken out of the firm and that it had been going on for a long time. But they didn't know how or by whom."

  "Were you able to use your dreamslipping to solve the case?" Cat asked. This was the crux of her apprenticeship with Granny Grace, to learn not just how to focus and control her dreamslipping ability, but how to use it in her work as a PI. She'd need to learn to do this well if she were going to take over her grandmother's agency.

  "Yes," her grandmother answered. "But not till I went with the other models on location to shoot a swimsuit series in the Florida Keys. We were all in a hotel together—Largo Lodge, I think it was called. And one of the models had a stress dream. She obviously felt guilty about what they'd done."

  "'They'?" Cat asked. "You mean a group of models were embezzling?"

  "Yep," said Granny Grace. "It was actually not that hard to track down the evidence, once you knew where to look. But the police hadn't looked. They assumed models weren't bright enough for white-collar crime."

  Cat smiled. "Are you sure you're ready to retire?" Granny Grace had been trying to do so for only the past twenty years but kept getting drawn back into one case or another.

  "Of course," she said. "After I teach you everything I know."

  Cat felt lucky to have Granny Grace's help. Not only was her grandmother going to train her in PI techniques and dreamslipping skills, but she had generously offered to let Cat live with her for free as well. Back in St. Louis, Cat had tried unsuccessfully to find a job. With her degree in criminal justice, she thought she had a shot at getting onto a police force, but all of them were cutting back, and none were hiring. Granny Grace's offer had been a godsend.

  "I can't thank you enough, Gran," she said.

  "Oh, you can thank me by carrying on my torch. Who else is going to keep the agency going? Over the years, I've had many assistants, Cat, but none of them have had your gift."

  Before they turned in for the night, Granny Grace put her hands on Cat's shoulders. "You're going to do well, Cat," she said. "I always knew this was your calling."

  Despite the soft, familiar feel of her bed in the Grand Green Griffin, Cat struggled to fall asleep, doubt creeping up on her. What if her mother was right? Maybe "fantasy" was the most accurate word to describe what she was trying to do here. People said Granny Grace was a legend, but no one had ever called Cat anything like that. Cat was the type who tended to blend into the background. Her grandmother left awfully big shoes to fill—and designer ones, at that.

  Chapter 2

  Cat was sitting in full lotus, with both legs crossed, a foot resting on top of either thigh. It was a position she had never been able to do; she knew right away she was dreamslipping in her grandmother's dream. All around her on the floor were bills Granny Grace couldn't pay: the heating bill, another in an exorbitant amount for her cell phone, a medical bill, and others, along with receipts for the money she continued to give to charity. But Cat could feel that she shared her grandmother's thoughts and attitudes in the dream, as if her and her grandmother's minds were fused, so despite the bills, she felt at peace. In front of her was a Buddha statue, and in his palm were coins. He winked and said, "Bless the bills, my Grace. Bless them."

  Then the paper bills on the ground around her morphed into hundreds of butterflies—orange and black monarchs and viceroys, pale yellow swallowtails, iridescent blue sulphurs, and delicate cabbage whites. They flew up and covered the Buddha statue, where they sat flexing their wings in the sun. She watched them there, a feeling of peace flooding through her. Then the butterflies rose into the air as if they were one being, circled around her for a time, and then flew off into a ray of sunlight.

  Cat woke early, still on St. Louis time and worried about her grandmother's financial situation, despite the odd feeling of peace the dream gave her. Was the dream accurate? Was Granny Grace having financial trouble? She tiptoed down the hall to her grandmother's study. She knew she shouldn't snoop, but the quiet in the house told her Granny Grace was still asleep, and she would have to do a bit of detective work on this one, as her grandmother wouldn't tell her the truth even if she asked. Granny Grace had an overdeveloped sense of pride; she carried herself well and was never one to accept help but was always helping others. Cat certainly had no intention of sponging off her grandmother forever, but if she were having financial trouble, there was no way Cat was going to accept her help in getting the PI firm started, no matter what cryptic, New Agey messages Granny Grace got from the Buddha.

  Cat was seated at a rolltop desk, absorbed in the saga of her grandmother's financial life and didn't hear the septuagenarian enter the room behind her.

  "I thought you came here to train as a PI, not serve as my personal bookkeeper," Granny Grace said.

  Cat turned with a start. "Gran, why didn't you tell me about this?" She held up the cell phone bill, which included calls all over the world, with a balance upwards of five hundred dollars, most of which were past due amounts carried over.

  "My cell phone habits are none of your concern, granddaughter," said Granny Grace, ripping the phone bill out of Cat's hands. "Besides, I'm in negotiations with them right now to get that lowered. They're going to fold it under a special 'international friends and family' plan."

  "Grandmother," Cat said sternly. "You're giving money away, and at the same time, your bills are piling up." Cat pulled out the statement from her financial advisor. "And judging by this, your investment accounts took a huge hit."

  Granny Grace ripped that statement out of her hand, too. "This is none of your business, Cat. And you should know better than to use a dream this way. You've got a lot to learn."

  Cat took a step back, realizing how far over the line she had crossed. "You're right," she said. "
I'm sorry. Let me make you breakfast, and we can calm down and talk."

  She toasted sourdough bread and put out preserves, butter, a bowl of fruit, and a pot of tea. Her hunger satiated and her grandmother cooled down and seated across from her, Cat had to ask, "What exactly does 'SPOETS' stand for? You gave them a couple hundred last year."

  "Specialist Pogoists of East Tacoma," Granny Grace quipped.

  "Grandmother," Cat groaned. "Be serious."

  "Sound Patternists of Elementary Tea Services."

  Cat giggled, and Granny Grace smiled. "They're a group of citizens devoted to the study of the largest earthworm in North America," she said.

  Cat stared at her. "Earthworm?"

  "That's right," she replied. "It's the Society for the Protection of Earthworm Triticales Somas."

  "Triticales somas?"

  "Yeah. T. somas. That's the Latin name. I'll have you know it's several feet long and almost as wide. It lives entirely underground on the Washington Palouse."

  "I didn't know you had a soft spot for earthworms."

  "Only this one. It's special. Not to say the ones you use in your garden aren't special as well, but this one is unique."

  "But Granny Grace, why didn't you tell me you were having trouble?"

  "I'm not. Weren't you there, in the dream, Cat? I could feel your presence. So you know that bills are to be blessed."

  Cat wouldn't be put off so easily. She pressed her grandmother further. "But why do you give so much away when you're not in a position to do that? You gave another small amount to a group that studies a rare type of moss that only grows on the eastern side of the Olympic Mountains. And the Dykes with Bikes? Do they really need your help? I think there's even a Bisexual Basket-Weaving Bar Mitzvah group in the mix."

  "Oh, I only wish. If there's one thing a bar mitzvah could use, it's more bisexuals weaving baskets." Granny Grace crossed her arms and leaned forward on the table. "Look, Cat. I'm seventy-seven years old. This karmic approach to money has held me in good stead for many years. You get back what you put out in life. It works. You wait and see."

  "Okay, but listen," Cat said. "You told me I could stay here for free and that I wouldn't have to work while I trained for the PI exam. But I don't think that's practical. I can't do that. I'm going to get a job."

  "You'll be putting everything off that way," Granny Grace countered.

  "There's no way I can let you support me," Cat said. "I'll keep training with you and working toward my goal, but I'm going to pay my own way." She nodded her head affirmatively, as if to seal the deal.

  "Well, if you insist..." her grandmother replied.

  "I insist," Cat said.

  There was a long silence while they sipped their tea before Granny Grace changed the subject in a tone that meant she was resuming Cat's training there and then.

  "You broke the first rule of dreamslipping this morning," she said. "Don't ever use the information gleaned from a dream to invade the privacy of someone you love."

  "But isn't dreamslipping by its very nature already an invasion of privacy?"

  "Yes, it is," Granny Grace said, a shadow of sadness flickering across her face. "Why do you think I live alone? That's why you can't ever use what you learn like that again. I know you were doing it with concern in your heart, but you crossed a line."

  "I'm sorry," Cat said.

  Granny Grace reached over and squeezed her chin. "Don't be sorry, Cat. Just remember the rule."

  "I will."

  "Good. By the way, don't chide yourself for invading the privacy of your dreamers. That's a waste of time. This thing is involuntary—it's not like you can turn it off. Believe me, I've tried. That's why I call it dreamslipping. We can't help slipping into other people's dreams."

  Cat sighed, feeling pressure inside her chest release. "Thank you for telling me that," she said.

  "Our first appointment today is with a meditation guru," said Granny Grace, clapping her hands together. "Your training has begun."

  The guru—Guru Dave was his name—held meditation classes on the top floor of a record store, so in addition to the singing bowls he employed, there were the ever-present strains of whatever music the clerks downstairs happened to be playing. For Cat's first class, it was polka music, which the hipsters must have been playing ironically. So when the guru asked her to empty her mind of everything and to cultivate nothingness, she couldn't help but picture a bunch of men in lederhosen and women dressed as Heidi hefting huge beer steins into the air.

  When Guru Dave spoke, he drew out his syllables so that it took him twice as long as everyone else to say the same thing, but the effect on the listener was trancelike. "Let goooooooo of attaaaaaaaachment," he intoned. "Reeeeeleeeeease your eeeeeeegooooo."

  The only thing Cat felt herself let go of was the contraction in her lower abs, the "root lock," as Guru Dave called it, which she was supposed to hold, it seemed, for an eternity.

  At the end of class, which consisted of sitting cross-legged (Granny Grace was in full lotus, of course) till her lower back hurt and her brain was screaming insults at Guru Dave, he asked what insights she had to share with the rest of the class.

  "The rhythm of life is in everything," Cat said. "Even beer."

  Guru Dave thought this was profound, and Cat inadvertently became his star pupil. But nothing got past Granny Grace. After class, she teased Cat. "You've been to one too many Oktoberfests."

  "I could use a little bit of the rhythm of life after that class," Cat said. "This tea isn't quite cutting it." They both burst out laughing.

  That first couple of weeks in Seattle were a whirlwind for Cat. She accompanied Granny Grace to more meditation classes, and while nothing broke through her skepticism about them, she did find herself enjoying both the time to sit and think, as well as the strains of music from the store downstairs, which ran the gamut from classic rock to folk to R & B. They practiced yoga twice daily—an energetic round in the morning at a studio near the house and a slower style called yin that Granny Grace led in the Yoga Yolk each evening to wind down.

  Her grandmother also took her shopping, and over protests that they didn't have the money, she helped Cat create a wardrobe "more befitting a PI." Granny Grace had a knack for how to find deals at consignment shops, cobbling together a selection of well-made pieces with less expensive accessories, so that the overall look was sophisticated and fun.

  There were more direct lessons in dreamslipping as well, but Granny Grace took her time. Instead of showing Cat how to do "fancy tricks," as Granny Grace called them, they were taking an inventory of Cat's dream life up till now, which for the most part meant excavating through some awkward revelations Cat had had about her various boyfriends and how the dreamslipping had interfered with her ability to have what she called "normal" relationships with them. For example, she'd dated an emotionally unavailable soccer player for far too long, mainly because he wasn't an active dreamer, and there were no issues to confront. Prior to that, she'd dated a psych student whose own dreams bordered on disturbing, and he was only too willing to spend hours analyzing them, to the point where Cat felt she should be charging him for her therapy services.

  "You can use the information in dreams to solve a mystery or catch a crook," Granny Grace said, "but healing someone like that—that's a different kind of work."

  "Yeah, and I'm not cut out to be a psychotherapist," said Cat.

  "It's really hard to know things about people that you can't talk about with them," said Granny Grace, as if she were thinking about her own past. But then she shook it off, changing the subject, and Cat didn't want to press her.

  Cat also immediately set about looking for a job, with dismal results. She tried to find something as close to her chosen profession as possible. She sent out more than fifty résumés, interviewed with six recruiters, and heard nothing in return. She couldn't even get a part-time job at a supermarket, as the hiring manager there said she was overqualified and would be gone at the first opport
unity. She sent résumés into the ether, and she imagined them evaporating into ones and zeroes in some large central database where bored clerks sat typing all day.

  What finally got her a job were her grandmother's connections.

  Granny Grace took Cat to a fundraiser for one of her favorite charities, City Goats, which promoted goats as an alternative method for removing noxious weeds from vacant lots, as well as a more environmentally friendly way to trim back grass lawns. The fundraiser was at a hotel on the Seattle waterfront. Dale Chihuly glass sculptures tastefully referenced the shapes of goats everywhere you looked, from the horned chandelier above the ballroom to the bearded chin sinks in the bathroom.

  Granny Grace was busy networking for future PI clients; Cat could hear the melody of her laughter across the room. Cat took a breather from the talk to stand at the window facing the Sound. She watched as two green-and-white ferries, their lights reflected on the water, passed each other on their ways to and from Bainbridge Island. She remembered her first ferry ride in Seattle, when she and her parents came to visit when she was six. She thought Puget Sound was a river like the Mississippi, but it startled her for being so blue. The Mississippi was muddy, like coffee with lots of cream.

  "We hear you're starting up Grace's PI firm again," said a voice that brought her back into the room. It was Simon Fletcher, one of her grandmother's best friends. Following close behind him as usual was his partner, Dave Bander. The two were never separated; they seemed to function in every respect as a unit. They both wore immaculate tuxedoes that looked tailor-made for them as opposed to rented, and both men's hair was close cropped and spiked slightly with gel.

  But it's not as if they were truly twins. Dave worked for a nonprofit with a creative, accepting environment, and, particularly at fancy events like these, he wore makeup—a little "manscara," as he called it, and sometimes "guyliner." Simon, an architect, had a Roman nose, stylish frames perched gallantly upon it, as if he'd personally designed the sweeping features of his own face.

  "Hello, Simon!" Cat said, giving him a hug. "Word does get around. Yes, I'm hoping to take over Granny Grace's firm. But she's training me first."