by Nick Pirog
The two other baby cats and I scramble to our feet.
I run forward to where the fence used to be, where the bath-floor turns into the carpet. The carpet is much taller than I remember carpet being. I’ve come to the realization I’m not living in a giant world. The giant she-human is just a she-human. Everything looks big because I’m so small.
I jump onto the carpet. It smells like I remember. I turn around and look over my shoulder. All five baby cats are on their feet, but they haven’t moved. They look confused.
I let out a little squeak. My loudest yet.
Come on; it’s okay.
The all-gray baby cat takes a couple of hesitant steps forward, then jumps onto the carpet. His eyes are the same color as the Big Cat’s eyes now. (All of the baby cats’ eyes have changed color. Some are green. Others are orange. I’m not so sure about this eyes changing colors thing.) Another quickly follows. Then another, until all five of the baby cats cross to the carpet. I wait to see if the Big Cat will come. She raises her head for a moment, then lies back down on her side.
I turn back around and run. It’s the first time I’ve run in, well, I’m not sure how long. I run toward the couch towering above me. I reach out my paw and scrape it against the side. Something happens. My paw sticks to the couch. (It’s my little tiny nails!) I reach out another paw, a little higher, and my paw sticks. I do this again. Then again.
I can climb.
When I’m halfway up, I fall. I should land on my back, but somehow I flip my body over right before I hit the carpet and land on my feet.
I try to climb again. This time I make it onto the couch. Another baby cat has done the same thing. He sees me and pounces on me. We roll around on the couch.
I hear the she-human laughing and look up. She’s holding her phone in her hand. Following us on the couch with it.
“You guys are so funny,” she says.
Then she walks away. I see her on her hands and knees. She is following another of the baby cats with the phone.
I squirm from beneath the other baby cat and climb one of the cushions. I make it to the top and I look around. I can see the TV across from me. There are no pictures moving on it right now. Between the couch and the TV is a table. The table was the only thing Jerry wouldn’t let me get on. (Couch—okay. Bed—okay. Table—not okay.)
I turn my head and I see it.
A window.
I know what is on the other side of the window.
Outside.
I love Outside.
I jump off the couch. I brace for impact when I hit the carpet, but it’s as though I weigh nothing. Like I’ve floated to the ground.
I run toward the window. It’s high. Higher than the couch. I won’t be able to get up there. I look around for the she-human. Maybe she can lift me up.
I let out one of my squeaks.
Come here, she-human! Lift me up so I can see Outside.
She doesn’t come.
There are things hanging around the side of the window. We didn’t have these at Home. I don’t know what these are called.
I look at the couch, then back to these things.
I can do it.
I climb back up the couch, then go to the far edge. Without thinking, I jump. I hold out my paws. I hit one of the things. My paws stick. I climb up the thing until I come to the windowsill. I crawl on the windowsill, which is twice as wide as I am, and press my face to the cold glass.
Outside.
I see big, tall houses that are nearly touching one another. And the street. It isn’t flat. It goes down at a steep angle. There are a bunch of cars on the street. The sky is gray.
Where is all the grass? Where is the little blue pool? Where is the wild mint? Where is the sun? Where are the big pine trees?
This is not my Outside.
~
“Go potty,” the she-human says.
She keeps putting me in this weird-shaped box filled with smelly sand and saying this.
If she wants me to go potty, then she should take me Outside. To the grass. I didn’t see any grass, but surely there must be grass somewhere. Surely, every Outside has grass.
I jump out of the sand and walk toward the white fence. It’s back. The she-human takes it away for a few hours a day, lets us explore the house, then she puts us back in the room. Then she puts the white fence back.
I paw at the fence.
The she-human picks me up and puts me in the sand.
“Go potty,” she repeats.
I squeak.
I am not pooping in this weird sand.
But the thing is, I really have to poop. And pee. And I don’t want to poop and pee on the floor anymore. It’s embarrassing. The other baby-cats don’t seem to care; they poop and pee whenever they want.
“Go potty,” she says for the one-thousandth time.
Fine.
I go poop.
“Good job,” she says, clapping her hands.
I hate being a cat.
Chapter 4
“FARMERS’ MARKET”
Cassie
The tadpoles are bigger. Over the course of the last month, I’ve watched them grow (I haven’t had a whole lot else to do). Each day they are a little bigger. But each day, there are fewer of them. The ones that don’t make it float to the surface. Sometimes I will give them a little tap with my paw to make sure they aren’t sleeping. Sometimes they flutter, then zip around, but mostly, they just lie there. The ones that have made it this far—the Chosen ones—have tails now, zipping around the small pool like little fish.
This is my fourth year watching the tadpoles. Jerry likes to make fun of me for just staring at the water. He would say, “I bought that baby pool for you guys, not for those silly tadpoles. Don’t you want to get in?”
But I don’t want to go in, Jerry. I don’t want to kill any of the frog babies.
Sometimes Hugo would want to get in and I would have to guard the pool. Hugo was nearly as big as the pool; he would send half the water spilling out. (Not on my watch!)
But now it’s just me and Jerry. And the tadpoles.
I watch the water and count the tadpoles.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. (There are more, but this is as high as I can count.)
After another few minutes, I make my way to the fence and peek through one of the cracks between the boards. Sitting in the dirt on the other side of his yard is Storm.
I bark.
Hi, Storm.
I’ve known Storm since we moved here. He’s a Husky. We have different walking schedules, so I’ve only gotten to sniff him a few times. (He has the same color eyes as Jerry!) I mostly know him through the fence. He used to come up to the fence and say hi, but he doesn’t do much these days. He just lies in the dirt. And in the winter, he lies in the snow.
I bark again, but Storm doesn’t flinch. I don’t think he can hear anymore. (But he can still sing. I hear him singing to the moon every once in a while.)
I hear a rustling and turn around.
Jerry is standing in the doorway. He looks different. The fur on his face is gone. I can see his cheeks! And he’s holding something. It takes me a moment to realize. My leash!
I bark a couple times and twirl.
Twirl, twirl, twirl.
I run to him and put my paws on his chest.
This better not be some sort of sick joke, Jerry.
“Let’s go for a walk, girl,” he says.
Did he just say the W-word?
Twirl, twirl, twirl.
I can’t stop twirling.
Jerry clips my leash to my collar.
“Slow down!” Jerry yells.
I’m pulling him toward the gate.
Sorry, Jerry.
I sit and take a couple calming breaths. It’s just a walk, Cassie. You’ve been on hundreds of walks.
Jerry opens the gate and I dart through.
; “Cassie!”
Oh, right.
“I know you’re excited, girl, but you’ve got to calm down.”
Okay, Jerry. Only for you.
I calm down and Jerry and I start our walk. Jerry is a good walker. Sometimes when I see other dogs with their humans, the humans are always pulling them along. Not Jerry. He lets me stop and sniff things as long as I want.
I sniff a couple of flowers, then turn around and glance up at Jerry. He’s wearing a head-hider, shading his blue eyes from the sun. He looks at me and his lips curve. It isn’t quite a smile, but it’s the closest he’s come since Hugo died.
We continue down a few more streets, then I smell it. One of the most glorious smells in the world. A smell called Kettle Corn.
It’s been almost a year, but I immediately know where we’re going. The Farmers’ Market.
Julie!
We walk another couple of blocks. I don’t stop to smell anything. I just want to get to the market. To the kettle corn and Julie.
We round a corner and all the tents come into view. There are lots of humans walking around the tents and a few other dogs. One of the first tents we come to is the blueberry tent. Jerry asks for a sample. That’s the thing about Jerry; he’s always asking for “samples.”
Jerry holds out a blueberry for me. It’s huge, twice the size of the blueberries I’m used to. I take it and bite it gingerly, letting all the juices flow out and swim over my tongue. It’s amazing. It’s the best blueberry I’ve ever had.
We walk past a few more tents, then I see her.
Julie.
Julie is my favorite human. (Well, after Jerry. Jerry is my human. Julie is my favorite human who isn’t mine. She’s Alex’s. I know that.)
I bark.
Julie!!!
Julie’s eyes open wide when she sees me and she runs around the table filled with head-hiders. She falls to her knees and wraps her small arms around my neck and screams, “Cassie!”
Jerry
I watch as Cassie’s golden/white-tipped tail helicopters and she licks Julie’s face. Cassie’s tail doesn’t helicopter often. Only when she sees a few different people: my dad, one particular UPS delivery man, and Julie.
“Hi, Julie,” I say.
Julie glances up and says, “Hi, Jerry.”
Julie is ten years old. She has brown hair, big brown eyes, and adorably crooked teeth.
“Where’s your dad?”
“He had to run to the car real quick. He should be back in a few minutes.”
Alex, Julie’s dad, is my best friend in Tahoe. It can also be said he is my only friend in Tahoe. We met a few months after I first moved here. He jump-started my car in the Safeway parking lot, then told me I was buying him a beer at the bar across the street.
Three beers later and we were BFFs.
Alex is a website designer, but he also owns a custom hat company, of which he sells a good many at the weekly Farmers’ Market over the course of the summer.
I’m wearing one of his hats now. It’s blue with the words “Tah Ho” embossed in yellow on the front. Not the cleverest of brand names but catchy enough that plenty of the tourists—primarily of the female variety, which no doubt was the driving force behind the name—will drop $25 for one of his custom “lids.”
After giving Cassie a nice rub behind the ears and a kiss on the nose, Julie stands up. She’s all legs. She looks like someone is pulling her apart like a piece of warm taffy.
She comes up and gives me a hug and says, “Sorry about Hugo.”
The last time I saw Julie was a few days before Hugo died, when the three of us went to see the latest Pixar film. Alex split custody of Julie with his ex-girlfriend, so he has her half the week and every other Saturday.
“Thanks,” I say, forcing my voice not to break.
So far, I’ve done a good job of keeping Hugo out of mind. But the Farmers’ Market was one of his favorite places, and I can feel the soldiers of sadness getting ready to storm my brain. Thankfully, there’s movement at the back of the tent—Alex dipping under the back, carrying a load of hats—and I’m able to fight back the surfacing memories.
Even after being friends with the guy for more than three years, it’s impossible not to see him and smile. With his curly blond hair, giant handlebar mustache, and Buddha gut, he looks like the grown version of a rosy-cheeked cherub who has made a lifetime of poor decisions. At first glance, it’s easy to write him off as a buffoon, but according to his IQ and Mensa status, he’s closer to a genius.
Alex’s eyes and mouth both open wide. He drops the hats, rushes around the display table, envelops me in his rotund arms, and shouts, “You finally got out of the house!” loud enough so that all the surrounding booth owners pause for a moment to glance up.
“Yeah.”
He smacks the bill of my hat and says, “That’s good marketing right there. A bestselling author wearing one of my lids.”
I laugh.
He grabs my arm and shouts, “Hey, this is a bestselling author right here!”
I feel the blood rush to my cheeks and I stare at the ground. (Alex does this all the time. It doesn’t matter where we are: the beach, the casino, the movie theater, a restaurant, the grocery store; it’s relentless.) I glance up and see nobody is even looking at me.
My stomach unclenches.
“Can I take Cassie to get some kettle corn?” Julie asks.
The big kettle corn truck is at the far end of the Farmers’ Market. Julie had been the one to first slip Cassie one of the sweetened pieces of popcorn a couple of years earlier and Cassie has been obsessed ever since.
“Sure.”
I pass over Cassie’s leash and the two disappear into the crowd.
Alex slaps me on the back and says, “So what have you been doing?”
“Sleeping mostly.”
He nods.
Alex’s mom died of cancer a few years before I met him. If anyone knows what it’s like to lose someone you love, it’s him. And if anyone knows how attached I was to my dogs, it’s Alex.
“Oh, shit,” he says. “You got to check out this girl behind you. She’s perfect for you, man.”
I turn and glance over my shoulder.
Alex and my tastes differ considerably, but for the first time, I agree with him. She’s a petite brunette. She’s wearing little yoga pants. And the best part: she’s with her dog, a German Shepherd. She is perfect.
“Go talk to her, man,” Alex prods.
I think about it. I think how easy it would be to go over there and say, “Hi, I’m Jerry.” Then ask about her dog. But my feet are frozen. They are stuck in concrete.
I will myself to take a half-step in the girl’s direction, but then I waver and turn back around.
“You’re such a wuss,” Alex says.
My inability to talk to women drives Alex crazy. I’ve attempted to be his wingman a few times at the casinos and it’s never ended well. Though far from a Casanova, Alex is fearless and moreover, persistent. He will often cozy up to a girl who shows zero interest in him and wear her down over a number of hours until she finally gives up and goes home with him.
Alex would continue shaming me if not for the two young ladies approaching his booth. The girls are cute, probably sisters, either still in high school or just starting college. They are undoubtedly on a family vacation with their parents. This should deter Alex.
It doesn’t.
He raises his eyebrows a few times at me, then heads back to his booth and begins hawking his wares.
I inwardly sigh.
On the attractive scale, I certainly have Alex by a point or two. Sure my hairline is running away from my forehead like a frightened gazelle, and sure, if I wear a red shirt to Target people will think I work there (I learned this the hard way), and sure, I’m somehow simultaneously both skinny and fat, but all things considered, I’m a decent-looking guy. People always comment on my eyes and how blue
they are and my teeth are freakishly perfect even though I never had braces. And technically, I am a bestselling author. How many guys can say that?
Then there’s Avery. She’s one of the most beautiful girls on the planet. A ten in most men’s considerations. She couldn’t enter a room without all the men literally stopping for a half-second as if hit by stun guns. And I dated her. No, I was engaged to her.
But the thing is, she hit on me. She overheard me talking to my agent at the coffee shop. Chuck called to tell me a few movie studios had expressed interest in buying the movie rights to Pluto Three. He threw out numbers. Numbers in the high six-figures. Numbers I may have repeated within ear-shot of a stunning brunette. Avery pounced the moment I hung up. She asked if I wanted to take her out for sushi.
I suppose in the long run this was a curse. For the last three years, I’ve been waiting for another girl to hit on me. But that isn’t how it works. Maybe in San Francisco, but not in Tahoe.
I glance back over my shoulder at the girl. She’s moved over a booth, to a guy who sells honey.
I take two breaths.
Okay, Jerry, you can do this.
On three.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
I let out a long sigh, then walk to Alex’s booth. The girls are still there. Alex glances up at me and gives me a quick shake of the head. Then he says, “Girls, this is Jerry. Jerry, this is Amanda and Hannah. They’re here on vacation. And guess what, their parents got them their own room.”
Cassie
The kettle corn is even better than I remember.
Julie takes a kernel out of the bag and throws it in the air. I follow it with my eyes, then snatch it out of the air in my mouth. I bite into it, hear the gratifying crunch, then swallow. The sweetness lingers on my tongue for a moment and just as it recedes, Julie throws another kernel in the air.
We play this game for a while and I catch most of them. But Julie loves it when I miss, sometimes doubling over with the giggles, so I miss a few on purpose to make her happy. I love Julie’s laugh. It’s maybe my favorite sound in the world. (Well, one of them. My very favorite is the sound that Jerry makes when he sleeps. Urnggggggg. Urnggggggggg. Urngggggg.)