It was the kitten from the shop, all black except the patch of white on his chest. Thwarted in his hunt, he all but scowled, shaking the paw with the feather. It didn’t come loose immediately, and he spread his toes and yanked it off with his mouth. I could almost hear him say, Phloeey!
I laughed.
He hadn’t seen me until then, and turned around, hunched, as if to run away. Scenting my eggs, however, he seemed to change his mind, lifting his nose on the air curiously. I picked a piece of egg and cheese from the quiche and held it up, then tossed it gently his way. He didn’t move for a minute, but then the bird squawked again, as if in protest, and the kitten glared over his shoulder, then lifted his tail and sauntered over to the crumb.
“It’s not bird, but I guess it’s better than nothing, huh?” It occurred to me that it was bird, actually.
Not that the kitten cared one way or the other. He ate with the frantic rush of the starving, and looked up for more. Poor thing. I broke off a substantial-sized piece, making sure to get some ham into it, and tossed it to him. He attacked it with a growling ferocity.
I nibbled the food, too. I had a slight headache, probably as much from being in the smoky bar as gulping all that wine in two hours flat.
Worse than the hangover was the lump of writhing embarrassment lying in my upper gut, wiggling like maggots as memories of the little make-out session in the car came back to me.
“Ugh!” I exclaimed aloud, and rubbed the place between my eyebrows where it seemed the pictures were reeling themselves out, over and over. The worst moments were—
“Hangover blues?” Zara sat down beside me on the bench.
The kitten skittered away, into the bushes. At least he got a little something to eat. “A little,” I said.
“Thought so,” she said, and gave me a tall glass of tomato juice. “This will help.”
I tasted the mix, juice and lime and Worcestershire and other things. “Thank you.”
She held up a thin cigarette and a lighter. Annie didn’t allow smoking inside. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“No, go ahead.” Halfheartedly, I tossed another chunk of quiche into the bushes, but it just laid there. Maybe I’d come out after work, see if I could find him.
“Did you go out with Niraj?” she asked.
“Last night? No. With a friend to a bar by the apartments.”
She nodded, stretched her legs out in front of her. The long blond hair was still damp, and in the morning light, she was plainly well past forty. “There’s a pretty good blues band that plays Sunday nights over here if you’re ever interested. I go a lot.”
“Thanks. I might like that.” I frowned. “Didn’t much like the place we were last night. Grim, really. Everyone just depressed and living on Lean Cuisines.”
“Right. Like the old meat markets, remember?”
I smiled softly. “Right. I forgot that term.” I yawned. “Are you married, Zara?”
“Nope. Just me and my dogs.” She smoked meditatively. “Somehow, I missed that boat when I was off having adventures. Like I woke up one day and went, ‘Oops, I meant to get married. Have kids.’ ”
“Adventures?”
“Yeah. I was a tour leader for about ten years, small-group hiking vacations in Alaska.”
“That sounds interesting. Why quit?”
She shook her head. “You get tired of never having a home, you know? I wanted to put things on the wall and have a dog. My dad lives here and he was pretty lost after my mom died, so I came back two years ago. I got a pair of Akitas and rented a little house”—she pointed—“up the hill.”
I nodded, put the rest of my food aside. “I wish I’d thought about renting something over here.”
“You still can.” The phone rang inside and she jumped up. “Duty calls. See you in there.”
I nodded and glanced at my watch. Still had almost ten minutes before we opened. I would finish my tomato juice and see if the kitten would come back.
Adventures. Leading hikes. What would that be like? A breeze blew across the folds of my brain, opening doors, throwing back shutters. I was single and free. I could do anything I wanted to do. Anything. Wander across the world, take a job with a cruise ship, apply for the Peace Corps.
Anything.
Maybe travel was the answer.
The kitten crept out from under the bush and reached for the broken piece of quiche. I flicked it closer to him so he wouldn’t have to risk coming out again, then picked up my dishes and went inside.
The day went smoothly enough. I was beginning to notice that I felt good when I worked hard physically, that my body liked it, and my mind wasn’t so glum. Maybe I should have done it a long time ago.
My last table was a trio of women hikers who’d just come down from the mountain. The mountain being Pikes Peak, of course. Every day there were runners and walkers who jogged past the doors of the restaurant, or came in afterward for sustenance. These three dropped their daypacks and wiped their dusty faces and ordered beers to drink, and appetizers and salads. They were not young—ranging in age from mid-thirties to mid-fifties, I’d guess. One per decade. “How was the hike?” I asked.
“Great,” said the oldest, a fit, dark-haired women. “We went to Barr Camp and back.”
“Much snow left?”
“None at all. I was surprised.”
“Have you been to the top?”
“Not yet,” said the youngest one. “This summer, though— right, girls?”
They lifted their glasses of beer. “To the top!”
I put in their orders and wondered, what would that be like? To hike to the top of Pikes Peak?
The sun was bright and hot when I emerged after my shift, and on impulse, I dropped my things off in my car, bought a bottle of water at the taffy stand, and headed uphill on foot. I wasn’t dressed properly and didn’t have a hat, so I couldn’t go far, but there was a funny, growling hunger in me to put my feet on the trail.
Not everyone who walked the mountain was young or thin. They were fit, or it was a miserable experience, but my idea of what an “athlete” looked like had been slowly shifting over the past couple of weeks, watching the people coming into Annie’s. There were all ages, many sizes. There were the elite runners, of course, with their tights and socks with labels—“6L” and “6R” to denote which sock it was, and which foot it went on. My favorites were the older women, faces tanned to leather, with their slightly creepy upper arms and cropped curls. One woman walked the trail every day, and made a point of hiking to the top once every summer, just to remind herself what could be done. Zara told me she was seventy-four.
I walked up the street in my ordinary Reeboks, no fancy hiking or running shoes, and my jeans and my green polo shirt had a couple of food stains on it from the day. My legs were tired from working, and my shoulders, and at the base of my skull was the reminder of the excessive wine last night.
But it still felt good. I walked up to the trail, walked another ten minutes up, then came back down.
On my right as I walked to my car was the empty shop. The For Rent sign was quickly fading in the bright sunlight. The kitten, regal as an Egyptian god-cat, sunned himself on the inside of the ledge. He seemed to be smiling. I thought, suddenly, of the perfume cat my long-dead friend Mark had given me.
On impulse, I ducked down an alley and rounded the bank of old brick buildings. These shops, too, backed up to the creek, the cliff sides grown over with greenery and thick grass. I had to beat my way through to the little shop with the cat. I tried the door, and it opened.
Just in case there was someone there, I called out, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
The previous tenants had not done much cleaning on their way out. The back door opened into a tiny room with a sink and cupboards, and there were papers on the floor. It smelled musty, old, as if there had been no one there for decades, rather than just the short time it must have been. I couldn’t exactly remember what had been here before. Shops were al
ways coming and going with the seasons.
The room opened into a short hallway that mainly contained the opening to a stairway that led upstairs. I poked my head into the stairwell and called out, “Hello?”
Nothing.
I went toward the front room. “Kitty, kitty?” I called. I wished for food to coax him with, but when I came into the main room, he didn’t even move, just stayed right where he was, sleeping in the sunshine. I picked my way over a stack of papers—they looked like musical programs and old weekly newspapers—and to the window, worried suddenly at the foot traffic beyond. What if someone saw me in here?
Nervously, I paused. A counter with glass fronts stood facing the door, and a finger of light fell over the glass shelves, giving me a sudden vision of how pretty it could look with some velvet, and jewel-colored and crystal bottles inside. I wondered again what had been in here. I stepped on a piece of thin wood and it snapped beneath my foot.
The kitten finally seemed to hear me. He startled and poised himself to flee, shoulders hunched suspiciously as he stared up at me.
“I won’t hurt you, baby,” I said. “Remember me? I gave you food?”
Evidently not. He streaked out, knocking over an empty soda can as he fled. It clanged down to the wooden floor and rolled into the wall, bumping into a baseboard as tall as the middle of my calf, carved and ornate beneath a thick layer of aqua paint.
I picked up the can and settled it on the counter. The floor was wide planks of hardwood, maybe only pine, but in pretty good shape. The light was excellent, and would be all day, thanks to the southern exposure. It was tiny, but how much room would I need for perfume?
For one long moment, I allowed myself to consider the possibility. I imagined the window washed clean and stenciled with Scent of Hours in a properly Art Deco script, and beautiful bottles displayed on shallow shelves throughout the room, and soft music playing—
The can I’d put on the counter fell off again with a hollow clanging. A brush of dust flew into the sunlight, and I saw the actual condition of the room. It would take more than elbow grease to make it attractive—it would need paint and polishing and inventory, all of which cost money, and that was something I didn’t have at the moment.
Shaking my head, I turned around and headed back out. The kitten had not fled outside. I saw the flash of his yellow eyes in the stairwell, and slowed my feet to patiently approach. This time I wouldn’t talk. He waited in the doorway, bright eyes wary. I thought again of the way he’d eaten the quiche this morning, with that fierce growling at the back of his throat. I eased my hand forward for him to sniff, and he managed to hold his nerve until I almost touched him, then he bolted up the stairs.
I followed him. Obviously the place was deserted. I was surprised by the light cascading down the stairs, some of it colored, and with delight I climbed upstairs into a wide, open room with long casement windows facing the street. This room, too, was dusty and neglected, with a worn-out couch shoved against the wall and an extremely ugly indoor-outdoor carpet on the floor. It smelled, vaguely, of old cooking.
But the space was generous, with a kitchen at the far end, and a door to what must be a bedroom. Feeling slightly guilty but not enough to leave, I wandered around, opened the door, and peeked in. Dark, and somewhat cold, and very dusty. Still, it was pretty enough. A stained-glass window faced north. The walls were bare wood, which was a lot better than the ugly carpet.
I closed the door again and looked through the window in the kitchen area. It overlooked the creek, and through the trees I could see waves of mountains. Another door was tucked over the stairs. I opened it.
The bathroom. And, oh! I stopped in the doorway. In spite of the years of grime on the graying walls, in spite of the dirty fixtures, I was smitten. Tucked below the eaves, it was aglow with amber light from a stained-glass eyebrow window close to the floor. The floor was plain wood planking, and the fixtures were antique—a pedestal sink and an ancient toilet and the biggest, most gorgeous claw-footed bathtub I’d ever seen.
I knew immediately that it didn’t matter how much work it took—this apartment was going to be mine. I would do anything for that bathroom. In my mind, I saw a line of strongly scented, feathery French lavender plants in clay pots, and maybe some lemon geraniums for the sun to heat.
Behind me, the kitten squeaked. I turned around and he was poking his head around the door, his eyes big and yellow. “Hey, you,” I said in a soft voice. For a minute, he wavered, wanting to come forward, achingly hungry for both food and touch, but when I dared take one step toward him, he bolted. By the time I got through the door, his tail was disappearing down the stairs.
“I won’t hurt you!” I said, as if he could speak English. “I promise!”
Taking one last look at the magnificent bathroom—though it, too, would need a lot of elbow grease—I went back downstairs and wrote down the number on the For Rent sign. The kitten was gone, but I figured we’d see each other again. Soon.
I found Roxanne by the empty pool when I got home. She was laying out, tanning in a bikini a little larger than an envelope. “That is so bad for your skin,” I said, sitting down beside her.
“I know,” she said, and put her cigarette to her lips. “So’s smoking. I don’t intend to live that long.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Go get some shorts on and lay out with me. You’ll like it. And they’re saying these days that it’s a cancer preventative.”
“You know what? I think I’m going to. You want a soda? Or a snack? I have some fruit in the fridge. Grapes? An orange?”
She opened one eye. “You are such a mom, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m just nice. Unlike some people here.” I stood up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
It was hard to find anything that would fit and didn’t look obscene—there was too much of me spilling over the top and coming out of the behind of the suit. My butt, I noticed with despair, looked like a pair of overripe grapefruits. Finally, I settled on a tank top and some stretchy old shorts I used for painting, and carried a can of soda to the empty pool. I popped the top as I sat down.
“So, how did your evening go?” she asked without opening her eyes.
I thought of Wolf. “It was over when I left you.”
“You didn’t sleep with him?”
I was glad she wasn’t looking at me. My ears were hot as I thought of myself undoing my bra and telling Wolf to kiss my breasts. “No.”
“I did.”
“Slept with Wolf?”
“No, Alan.” She smiled slightly. “He was a surprise. Very well hung.”
I clapped my hands over my ears. “Don’t tell me, don’t tell me!”
She laughed.
“I thought you weren’t going to do that anymore.”
“What? Have sex?”
“No, just . . . you know, sleep with strangers.”
“Oh, we aren’t strangers. Alan is my boyfriend.” She moved her arm to look at me.
I took the hint. “I am now minding my own business.”
“Excellent.”
The sun really did feel very good, and I stretched out on the chaise lounge. Closed my eyes. “When does the pool open?”
“Memorial Day. Just like everything else.”
In the small trees planted around the area, birds twittered. Light blazed against my eyelids, turning the world red, and I let go of a breath. “I explored a shop in Manitou after work. I’m thinking of renting it.”
“Yeah? What would you sell there? Are you an artist or something?”
“I make perfume. It’s a very tiny shop, and I’m sure it wouldn’t support me by itself, but I’d still like to try it.”
“Go for it.”
I turned my head to look at her, surprised by a lightness that bloomed through my chest. “You don’t think it’s stupid?”
“No, why would I?”
“It’s kind of impractical.”
“Maybe.” She opened on
e eye a slit. “What has practical gotten you?”
“Good point.”
Turning over, like a roasting chicken, Roxanne settled on her elbows and looked at me. “Life is short.”
“Jeez, your eyes are really red,” I said without thinking, then put a hand over my mouth. “Sorry. That was rude.”
She pulled her sunglasses down from the top of her head. “I had to talk to my ex this morning. Usually I can avoid it, but my son had to get stitches in his toe, and he needed the insurance card.”
“Ow! Is he okay?”
“Yeah.” She settled her face into her elbow, and there was something fragile about the turn of her neck. “It was only a couple. A skateboard injury. He should have been wearing his shoes.”
That didn’t really explain her very red eyes. “I don’t mean to pry, but I don’t get it. Did you have a fight with your ex or something? You look pretty miserable.”
“We always fight if we talk.” She sighed. “No matter how hard I try not to yell at him, something always makes me mad.”
I thought of the e-mail I’d had from Giselle. “I know what you mean. My daughter sent me a picture of her and her dad in London, and it was a great photo of both of them, and then I realized she took it, the new little wifey, and I wanted to”—my hands twisted themselves into fists—“strangle somebody.”
“Exactly. Grant’s wife—Lorelei, believe it or not—”
“Gag.”
“I know.” Warming to her subject, she raised up on her elbows. “Lora-Lies-A-Lot is what I call her. But anyway, she was going to take him to the ER for the stitches, and I lost it. Why couldn’t Grant take him?” She touched her chest, that place of burning. “It just infuriated me to think of some doctor thinking she was my son’s mother.”
“Oh, God! I haven’t even thought of that angle.” I flung an arm over my eyes. “And it would be so easy to think so. Sometimes strangers don’t know she’s mine.”
“It makes me crazy. How are you supposed to belong to someone and then you don’t anymore? How are they supposed to belong to you and then they don’t? They just belong to someone else. They get naked together!”
Madame Mirabou's School of Love Page 14