Magnolia Bay Memories

by Babette de Jongh

  The Josh human made whooping noises and ran around as if ants were biting him. Cat had been bitten by ants before too. He understood how that sort of itching, stinging pain would make anyone run and make noises like that. He wondered, though, why all the other humans seemed unconcerned. Maybe there was nothing they could do to help Josh.

  Finally, Mom said something to Josh, and he ran out of the barn. Cat had figured out that the word barn meant the place they were all in right now.

  Caroline climbed up on a big stack of hay and looked into Cat’s crate. She stuck her fingers through the wire and said words in a high-pitched voice that sounded sweet and soothing. Cat didn’t know what any of the words meant, but he kept listening and trying to learn. Maybe learning the words people said was the way animals earned their names.

  “Don’t fall off that stack of hay,” Mom said. “Be careful.”

  “I won’t fall, Mama,” Caroline answered.

  “I stacked that hay myself, Heather.” Adrian stopped brushing Charlie and started strapping various objects onto the horse’s body. “Are you questioning my hay-stacking skills?” No one but Adrian called Mom that name: Heather. Her other names were said with love, but not with as much affection. Cat couldn’t decide which of the woman’s many names he liked best, but he thought that if he could talk the way humans did, he would call her Heather, the way Adrian did.

  Cat watched with amazement as Adrian climbed on top of Charlie and sat there!

  Adrian and Charlie seemed to understand each other so well that Charlie walked over to Caroline so Adrian could pluck her off the haystack and set her in front of him on top of Charlie.

  Humans, Cat decided as he watched those two ride out of the barn on Charlie’s back, were very odd creatures. And he was beginning to think that animals who hung around humans were maybe even odder than that.

  Heather and Erin talked while they used long sticks to move Charlie’s poop from one place to another. It hadn’t taken Cat very long to learn that particularly odd fact about humans: They were very interested in collecting poop.

  Humans were an unfathomable bunch. The more Cat saw of them, the more he worried that he might have made a mistake in choosing to throw in his lot with them.

  Adrian and Caroline and Charlie came back into the barn, and it seemed to Cat that they all looked very pleased with themselves and each other. Caroline was saying words so fast that it sounded like birds chattering in the trees.

  Adrian said something to Heather in his deep voice, then she replied back in her light, soft tone. Then Adrian lifted Caroline up and over the horse, and Heather reached up to take the small human and set her on her feet. “Go find Josh and Erin,” Heather said to the little one. “Then y’all three go inside and wash up. I’ll be in to serve dinner in a few minutes.”

  Adrian got down off Charlie, and Caroline wrapped her arms around his legs. He picked her up and squeezed her, and she giggled. They made words, then he put her down and she ran off. Josh came whooping into the barn—still being eaten by ants, Cat figured—and leaped about until Adrian picked him up.

  “Your sister is looking for you,” Heather said, her voice not as soft as before. “Go wash up for dinner.”

  Adrian undressed Charlie and brushed him again, then led him into a big wood-and-metal box, similar to the one Cat was in now, but horse-sized.

  “Are you sure you can’t stay?” Heather asked Adrian.

  “I wish I could.” Adrian wrapped his arms around Heather. “But I am so far behind on my work, and with this all-day Sunday thing thrown into my schedule…” He looked over at Cat. “Plus this cat to deal with. I’d better get home.”

  Adrian and Heather started gently swaying together, similar to the way Adrian had rocked Cat to soothe him while walking to the shelter building. Then the two humans started doing things that looked a lot like cats fighting. While alarming, Cat had to admit that it didn’t seem nearly as violent. Cat didn’t feel that either of the humans was in any real danger. In fact, it seemed as if they both liked what they were doing, even when they started to eat each other’s mouths, which to Cat looked very painful.

  Erin stomped into the barn, and she must have also thought the mouth-eating thing was painful because she made a surprised sound, similar to the way a rat or a rabbit sounds when it is about to become someone’s dinner.

  “Mother,” Erin yelled in a loud, angry voice. This was an entirely new name for Heather, one that Cat didn’t like because of the way it was said, similar to when Cat had been called Stupid Damn Fucking Cat.

  Cat had changed his mind about the name Stupid Damn Fucking Cat sounding important. As he spent more time near humans, Cat realized that names sounded better when said in a tone of love and acceptance. But Erin didn’t sound very loving or accepting when she let out a stream of words that ended with “What are you doing?”

  Chapter 14

  After Adrian left, Heather went inside to face Erin. She halfway expected Erin to be standing at the door, ready for a fight. She wasn’t. Instead, she had set the kitchen table for dinner, turned off the oven, and set the foil-covered dish of chicken noodle casserole on top of the stove. “Erin?”

  Heather followed the sound of the television to the den, where the twins were sprawled on the couch. Caroline looked up. “Is dinner ready yet? I’m starving-up hungry.”

  “Not quite yet,” Heather said. “You can keep watching TV for a bit. I’ll come get y’all when it’s time.”

  At least it seemed that Erin hadn’t blabbed to the twins.

  Heather found Erin in her usual spot: flopped belly down on her messy bed, scrolling through her phone. The bedroom door was all but closed—a good sign, since it meant Erin hadn’t run upstairs and slammed the door. Heather tapped on the door before pushing it the rest of the way open.

  Erin looked up, but only briefly.

  Heather sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you want to talk about what you just saw?”

  Erin sat up cross-legged and set her phone aside on the rumpled bedspread. “Is there anything to say? I caught you making out with a hot guy. I guess you’re entitled; Daddy’s…dead. I just wish you hadn’t been quite so brazen about it.” Erin made a mock shudder. “I mean, ew, Mom.”

  “I’m sorry you saw that. I thought all of y’all kids were inside.”

  “I hope you’ll be more careful in the future,” Erin said, her tone stern.

  “Yes, we will.” The reversal of roles wasn’t lost on Heather, but she wasn’t quite sure how to turn it around. “But I think it is time for you and me to talk about the fact that I may start dating in the future. How would you feel about that?”

  Erin rolled her eyes. “If you want to date, date. Just don’t make out with your boyfriends in the barn.”

  “Adrian is not my boyfriend,” Heather said. “We’re just…good friends.”

  “Yeah? You’re also good friends with Quinn and Mack. Do you kiss them in the barn too?”

  Heather had to laugh at that one. Thankfully, her surprised chuckle made Erin’s lips turn up at the corners. “No, I don’t kiss Quinn or Mack. Just Adrian.”

  “Yeah. The guy you just spent a whole night with.”

  “Yes. We—” Heather didn’t want to lie, but there were some things her kids didn’t need to know. “We had to stay over to pick up the dog because Reva got the dates wrong. You know that.”

  Erin snorted. “Yeah, right. Whatever.”

  Best not to poke at that subject too deeply. “So, how would you feel if I decided to start dating Adrian?”

  “Fine, I guess.” Erin looked up at Heather under her lashes. “At least he’s not a troll.”

  Heather grinned. “No, he’s not a troll.”

  “So, okay.” Erin picked her phone up and scooted to the edge of the bed. “Is it time to eat yet?”

  Heather leaned over and gave Erin a h
ug. “Yes. Thanks for setting the table and taking the casserole out of the oven.”

  “There’s buttered bread warming in the oven too. I turned the oven off, but it was still hot.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for understanding about Adrian.”

  “You could do worse.” Erin bumped against Heather’s shoulder in a teasing way. “Janelle’s mom is dating an old, bald guy with a beer belly.”

  “And I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice man,” Heather answered. “Looks aren’t as important as what kind of person someone is on the inside.”

  “And I guess you think Adrian’s a nice person on the inside?”

  “Yes, I do.” Heather smiled. “I really do. But…until I know for sure that things are going to work out between us, I think it would be best if we don’t tell the twins.” Keeping secrets in the family was something Heather had always preached against, but she knew it was best not to let the twins know about her and Adrian just yet. “I don’t want to get Josh’s hopes up or upset Caroline over a relationship that might not happen. Adrian and I haven’t yet decided what our relationship is going to turn out to be, but when we figure that out, we will let everyone know. Does that make sense?”

  “God, yes,” Erin agreed fervently. “Josh would be begging Adrian to marry you and be his new daddy. It would be way too embarrassing.” She pretended to shudder. “And Caroline would be so shy of him that she’d forget how to talk. Better not say anything to either of them until you have a ring on your finger.”

  Heather laughed, then remembered that she did have a ring on her finger. She quietly stacked her hands on top of each other to hide it from view. “Adrian would probably run screaming, wouldn’t he?”

  “If he had any sense, he would.” Erin’s eyes widened, and her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. A lot of guys date women who have kids. He probably won’t really run screaming.”

  Heather smiled forgiveness. “If he does, that’ll be his loss, right?”

  “Definitely his loss,” Erin agreed with a relieved smile. She hugged Heather. “But I hope things turn out however you want them to. You deserve to be happy.”

  “We all deserve to be happy. And I promise that no matter what happens between me and Adrian, you kids will always be more important to me than anything.”

  Heather stood, then she and Erin walked arm in arm to the bedroom door. Heather decided that she would show her new ring to the kids during dinner when she gave them the gifts she’d bought for them in New Orleans. And she figured that it wouldn’t be too horrible for her to tell a little white lie about who paid for the ring.

  This whole dating thing was getting a little too complicated.

  ***

  Adrian had to make two trips from the car to his loft: one to carry the cat and another to carry all the cat’s stuff. Reva had filled his trunk with bags of cat litter and food, plus bowls, toys, catnip, and a big-ass litter box—with a pooper-scooper that Adrian figured Reva expected him to use.

  Reva had told him to put the cat in a small, closed-off area at first, so Adrian put the cat and all his junk in the guest bathroom. He set everything up, then opened the door of the crate and waited for the cat to come out on his own. Meanwhile, Adrian sat on the closed toilet lid with his phone in his hand and his laptop on the sink cabinet and took care of texts, emails, and phone calls.

  He called Heather first but got a text back: I’m talking to Erin. Call you later.

  He sent a thumbs-up emoji and started working. After a while, the cat came creeping out of the crate. Back hunched, neck stretched out, moving slowly, he acted more like a turtle than a cat.

  “What’s up, Stinky Cat,” he started singing softly, but then he realized that the cat wasn’t stinky anymore. Those vet techs must have taken their lives into their own hands and given the cat a bath. His black-and-white-spotted coat was now smooth and sleek, shiny and non-stinky. He changed the words slightly. “What’s up, Winky Cat?”

  The cat’s cornea-scratched eye was half-closed and clearly irritated, causing him to blink a lot. It did sort of look like he was winking, so the new name fit—at least for now. “You like the name Winky?” Adrian asked the cat out loud.

  The cat didn’t seem to care much one way or the other. He sniffed around the edges of the room, then stuck his paws through the small gap between the bathroom door and the T-mold where the bathroom tile met the hallway’s wood floor.

  After a few minutes of that, Winky explored the litter box, scratching around a bit before coming out looking dubious. He sniffed at his food and water, then sat in the far corner by the door and stared at Adrian with a you did this to me expression.

  “Well,” Adrian said in his defense, “it wasn’t my idea.” In fact, he wasn’t sure how long he was going to be able to handle this cat-fostering thing. Hopefully, the cat would soon be tame enough to go back to the shelter and get adopted out.

  Winky huddled in the corner, and eventually, his eyes drifted shut. He seemed to be napping, but only lightly. Adrian worked a while longer, but the toilet lid wasn’t the most comfortable seat, and the sink countertop didn’t make the most ergonomic desk.

  Maybe Winky would do better, sleep more deeply, if Adrian moved his stuff to a more comfortable location, like, for example, his office desk in the guest bedroom. “But first, medicine.” Then he could leave the cat alone for the rest of the night, and they could start again on the taming program tomorrow.

  Adrian followed Reva’s instructions for medicine dosing. Moving slowly so he didn’t alarm the cat, he prepared a dropperful of the oral antibiotic, then sat cross-legged on the floor with a towel spread over his lap. Then, by slow degrees, he eased closer to Winky, close enough to reach out and touch. Winky drew back, but he didn’t hiss. With the tube of ointment and the dropper of oral medication on the floor beside him, Adrian reached for Winky with both hands, then brought the reluctant cat up into his lap. Adrian was supposed to quickly wrap the cat as tightly as possible in the towel so he couldn’t scratch, then dose him.

  But the damn cat started purring! So Adrian took a few minutes to stroke Winky’s fur and hum a tuneless tune before sneaking a bead of ointment onto his finger and stroking it over the infected eye.

  Winky stopped purring and stiffened but didn’t run or hiss. Adrian hummed a little and petted the cat some more until he started purring again.

  So far, so good.

  Feeling confident, Adrian stroked Winky’s head and neck with one hand while he brought the dropper up close, then held the cat’s head still and stuck the dropper in the corner of his mouth. Winky struggled to break free, and Adrian squeezed the bulb to dispense the medicine.

  The cat’s claws all came out at once, and he knocked the dropper out of Adrian’s hand, sending a stream of pink medicine across the floor and onto the wall. Backpedaling over Adrian’s thighs, he leaped onto the sink cabinet and tried to jump through the mirror. He tried once more, jumping at the mirror with such force that he bloodied his nose.

  Adrian stood, trying not to panic. “Winky, don’t do that.” He reached out to restrain the cat, who was sitting in the sink, gathering himself to jump again. But when he touched Winky’s back, the cat rolled, slashing out with his claws. “Stop. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  Winky hissed and scrambled to jump off the slick marble countertop, knocking Adrian’s phone and laptop onto the hard tile floor in the process. Upset even further by the clatter, he ran behind the toilet and hid, trembling.

  Adrian was trembling too when he retrieved his phone and laptop and examined them. Both were fine; they were well protected by the best covers money could buy. But Adrian didn’t think he was up for trying again with the pink medicine.

  It wouldn’t hurt Winky to miss out on one dose, and Adrian didn’t want to do any more damage to their relationship than he’d done already. Tomorrow, he would try again. And tom
orrow, he would follow Reva’s instructions about wrapping the cat tightly in a towel before dosing him.

  “Okay,” he said to Winky. “You win this round. I’m gonna leave you alone for the rest of the night. Try to get some sleep.” He turned out the light. “See you in the morning.”

  Adrian settled into his desk chair in the next room and handled a bunch of texts, emails, and calls, though in many cases, handle meant scheduling back-to-back Zoom meetings and conference calls that would eat up the entire day tomorrow.

  In one of those meetings, he would explore the possibility of working with a new client he’d been courting for nearly a month.

  If he landed this account, it would entail quite a bit of travel at first—and he would be raking in a serious amount of money—but once the work of merging the two companies was done, he would have forged an ongoing relationship that could produce a steady stream of small consulting jobs that stretched far into the future. Bread-and-butter jobs.

  Heather called the second he’d shut down his laptop and plugged it into the charger. “Perfect timing,” he answered. He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the desk. “How did your conversation with Erin go?”

  ***

  Heather leaned against the headboard, put the phone on speaker, and closed her eyes. Hearing Adrian’s voice, even over the phone, dropped her stress level. “Talking to Erin seems like walking a minefield some days, but I guess I could claim that the conversation went okay. She promised not to blab to the twins.”

  “Yeah?” His voice was deliciously deep and calming. “Did you promise her a car or something?”

  “No, I just explained that I didn’t want to get anybody’s hopes up or, conversely, upset anybody prematurely. I told her that you and I haven’t yet decided what our relationship is or if there even is a relationship and that when we figure that out, we will let everyone know.”

  “Sounds reasonable. How did she take all that reasonableness?”