Courting Alley Cat (9 page)

              “How am I going to pick a movie in… Wal-Mart?”

              With a perplexed expression, he led her to the movie and book section.

              “Hmm,” she said. “They do sell movies at Wal-Mart.”

              He threw his head back and laughed. “You’re not that young.”

              “No,” she said, smiling, “It’s just been ages since I watched a movie that wasn’t streamed through NetFlix.”

              “Ah,” he said. “Right. I’ve heard of that.”

              She giggled. She couldn’t help it. “And you aren’t that old.” When did something so simple as watching a movie become so complicated. “We can stream one on Granny’s TV.”

              “We could. But there’s something about holding the box in your hand and loading it into the DVD.”

              There wasn’t much to choose from, but she could find something. He stood patiently as she picked up a couple of movies and read the backs.                            

              As they stood there, Justin was greeted by hand waves and a couple of “Hi Docs.” She might have been concerned if the wispy blonde of no more than eighteen had been the only one, but two young guys also joined in the welcome.

              He waved back and asked how it was going. As they looped around the aisle, looking at all the titles, Justin inquired about a middle aged woman’s cat named Spot.

              “Spot is just wonderful, Doc,” she answered, practically gushing. “He seems so much more energetic on that new cat food you recommended. That is, if you can call a cat energetic.”

              Alley moved along the line of current releases and watched Justin from the corner of her eye. He was at home here. He was well known and well liked. People actually struck up conversations with him in store. In the hundreds of times she had been to the discount store at home, she could count on one hand the number of times she ran into anyone she knew much less had a conversation with anyone other than the checkout clerk. And now she had propensity to use the self-check. It was just so much more convenient to do live streaming. But this life Justin led... it was just so unexpectedly nice. It was something she could thrive in.

              The only problem with thinking she could thrive here was that Justin was from here - born and bred. She had been born and bred in Dallas and it was still impersonal there. If she went to this store every day for the next six months, she wouldn’t see anyone she knew from her past- no neighbors, no old schoolmates, no co-workers, no relatives. It was really a lonely existence now that she thought about it this way.

              And now, even if she tried to live here with Granny, would she be accepted? Granny had always lived here. Granny was accepted. Her parents had moved to Dallas before Alley was born, so Alley had never lived here.

              No matter where she lived - Dallas or Hanover, Louisiana, she would never be a part of this intimate network.

              Suddenly feeling like an outcast, feeling like she had missed her opportunity in life to have the kind of life Justin had here, Alley pasted a smile on her face and turned back to Justin and the lady with the cat named Spot.

              “Is this your girlfriend?” The lady asked.

              “Yes,” Justin said, without hesitation.

              Alley’s smile faltered, but she quickly recovered and held out her hand to the woman.

              “She’s beautiful, Justin. You better hold onto her.”

              “Don’t worry,” Justin said, “I plan to do just that.”

              Before Alley had time to react, he excused himself and disappeared to get whatever it was that he had set out to get earlier.

              She picked up a movie she’d been wanting to see and Justin was back at her side, a six-pack of cokes in his hand.

              While they waited to check out, Justin clicked on his phone. “How about pizza?” he asked.

              “Sure.”

              He winked at her. “I know you don’t like surprises.”

              She smiled. “Pizza sounds good. Can’t beat pizza, coke, and a movie.”

              “And the girl,” he said, tugging gently on her ponytail.

              Turning away, she felt the heat flush her face and her heart kicked up a notch.

              She waited in the car while he dashed in to pick up the pizza. She had time to respond to a text message from her father. He was “just checking in.”

              She wouldn’t tell them about Justin. Not yet. It was too new. Too uncertain.

              Back at Granny’s house, they popped in the movie, ate pizza, then paused it to clean up. Justin took out the garbage while she put glasses in the dishwasher. The evening felt so… comfortable.

              They settled comfortably on the sofa, side by side, not quite touching. She gathered a throw pillow to her and got into her favorite position, legs tucked beneath her, chin resting on the pillow. He took her hand and lightly laced his fingers through hers. Their hands rested between their thighs. Alley’s heart rate distracted her through the credits, then she relaxed and drifted into the world of the movie.

              An hour later, turning off the DVD player, Alley wiped a tear from her cheek. It was always the time-travels that seemed to get to her most. It seemed to her that if love was strong enough to transcend time, then it must be truly powerful.

              Justin switched the channel and the local news came on and a picture of a lovely eighteen-year-old girl splashed across the screen. Missing.

              Alley’s heart ached for the girl and her family. The father came on the screen and pleaded for help in finding his little girl. She had been the prom queen just a couple of months ago and had a promising life ahead of her, having been accepted to Stanford University.

              “That’s just horrible,” Alley said, turning to Justin.

              He didn’t seem to hear her, but was staring at the screen, his face hard as stone.

              “Do you know her?” Alley asked.

              “No,” he said, absently.

              “Are you sure?” she asked. “Because you look a little upset.”

              The news switched over to the weather and Justin pulled his gaze from the TV. “It’s just unnecessary,” he said.

              “I know,” she answered. He wasn’t looking so good. His mouth was set in a hard line and his eyes were hooded. She tilted her head at him questioningly.

              He shook his head. “She’s from here and that bothers me terribly. I like to think that Hanover is safe and this just shows me that it isn’t.”

              “Hopefully they will find her,” she said, optimistically.

              “Yes,” he said, his voice a little gruff. “I hope so.”

              Alley turned off the television and set the remote aside. Charlie jumped onto the sofa and curled into her lap, purring. “I like it when he hums,” Alley said, pulling the cat against her and rubbing his ears.

              Justin laughed.

              “What?”

              “I’ve never heard it called humming.”

              “He sounds so happy. Like humming.”

              “I’d be happy, too,” Justin said, shifting closer to her. Stroked Charlie’s tail.

              Alley’s heart rate tripped up again. It was intriguing that she could be so comfortable with him one minute and the next he had her heartbeat tripping. Contradictions?

              Or was this normalcy?

              He leaned over and touched his lips to hers.

              Nothing normal about this.

              He shifted and ran a finger along her cheek, then held her chin as his lips deepened the kiss. His tongue flicked along her teeth and lightly touched the roof of her mouth.

              Something inside her shifted. Shifted from finding Justin attractive to finding him… irresistible.

              Her hands found their way to the back of his neck and she pulled him closer. Vaguely, she heard Charlie jump to the floor. Time went into suspension and there was nothing other than this man in this moment.

              It was only when the grandfather clock struck midnight that, Justin pulled back, his eyes hooded. “I have to go now,” he whispered.

              She nodded. Her brain had no thoughts remaining.

              He stood up and led her to the door. Pulling her to him in one last kiss, that lasted at least twenty minutes, he sighed, pulled back, and opened the door.

              “Lock the door,” he said. And then he was gone.

              At ten fifteen the next morning, Alley grabbed a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around Charlie, carrying him out the back door. She had been happily tapping away on her keyboard when Charlie had begun throwing up on the kitchen floor. She hadn’t been overly concerned at first, and had still been in a writing daze as she tore off a paper towel and cleaned up the mess. Thirty minutes later; however, she had been snatched out of her imaginative flow. Charlie was not only throwing up again, he was throwing up blood.

              Alley panicked. This couldn’t be good.

              She stood at the door to the Bark and Purr and pounded again, louder this time. She couldn’t tell who was home, not with the garage door down. For all she knew, no one was home. She had no idea if there was another vet in town.

              Charlie meowed and she shifted his weight as he struggled to escape his towel. She hoped desperately that he didn’t need to throw up again.

              Finally, after what must have been nearly three gut-wrenching minutes, she heard someone coming to the door. Relief flooded her when Justin opened the door. His welcoming smile disappeared when he saw her distressed expression and Charlie in her arms. “What’s happened?” he asked, taking the cat from her.

              “He threw up blood,” she answered, nearly in tears as she followed him inside.

              “Ok, well, let’s take a look and see what’s going on. Has he swallowed anything?”

              “Swallowed anything? Just food and water.”

              “Have you missed anything that he might have eaten?”

              “No, I mean, I don’t know. He doesn’t bother anything.”

              “Has he been eating? Drinking?”                                         

              “I think so.”

              He placed Charlie on the exam table that had become so familiar now and unwrapped him from the towel. After checking his temperature, which Charlie expressed his fundamental opposition to, and doing an abdomen check, Justin gave him an IV of fluid. “Has he been eating canned food or dry food? Any table food?”

              “Dry food. And no table food,” she answered, feeling relief that Charlie was here with Justin taking care of him in such a calm and methodical way.

              “What do you think it is?” she asked.

              “It could be a lot of things. He could have swallowed a foreign object or he could have eaten some food that didn’t agree with him.”

              “I don’t think he’s eaten anything unusual.”

              “Well, I’ll give him some reglan for the nausea and we’ll watch him for the rest of the day. The reglan is going to make him a little weak and dizzy after a bit.”

              “Ok.” Now that she was feeling calmer about Charlie, she found her thoughts wandering back to last night and her gazed landed on his lips. Lips that could and did kiss her senseless just hours ago. Was he thinking about that, too?

              Was he happy about last night? Was he optimistic that things were going in a good direction? Were they going in a good direction? Was she just being a typical female by worrying about such things? How could she be worrying about such things when Charlie was lying here sick and needing her to focus on him?

              “If this doesn’t help, we’ll do x-rays tomorrow. For now I’m treating it as a gastrointestinal disorder.”

              “Then it’s not too bad?”

              “We’ll just have to wait and see. Right now he’s alert and looks good. Actually, if you’d like we can go ahead and do x-rays.”

              “No, if you think we should wait, we’ll wait.”

              “Pick up all his food and don’t feed him for twenty-four hours.”

              Justin removed the needle for the fluid, picked up Charlie, and put him in one of the metal cages.

              “Are you keeping him here?” Alley asked, a note of panic in her voice. Perhaps it was serious after all…

              “No, I just wanted to do this,” he said, pulling her to him and finding her lips with his.

              She sank into the kiss, now familiar and welcomed.

              She knew she was heading for trouble. Justin’s kiss had become something that was no longer new, but it was still exciting. Sliding into the sensations, she wanted more - and more.

              She was definitely in over her head.

              Then he picked her up and backed over to a chair against the wall. Taking her with him, he dropped into it, never taking his lips from hers. Her arms wrapped around his neck and her fingers threaded through his hair as they molded against each other. His tongue moved against hers, taking her breath.

              Time failed to have any relevance. All Alley knew was that she did not want to stop. A dog barked. A cat scratched on the metal bars of its cage.

              Justin tangled his hands in her hair, moved to kiss her cheeks, her chin, her eyes. Then her already swollen lips.

              Then a bell rang in Alley’s head.

              Justin pulled back. “We have to stop.”

              “Why?” she asked.

              Justin chuckled. “Someone’s at the door.”

              “They’ll go away.”

              “Unfortunately, it’s someone with a sick puppy.”

              Her eyes came into focus. “Well, in that case, we’ll have to stop.”

              “For now,” he said, with a promise in his eyes.

              She smiled. “So, I’ll see you later.”

              “You’ll see me sooner.”

              “What about Charlie?”

              “You can take him home,” he said, taking Charlie from the cage, wrapping him in his towel, and handing him to Alley.

              “He’ll be ok?”

              “He should be. I’ll be over to make a house call to check on him after I finish up here.”

              With Justin walking her out, Alley smiled at the woman and her daughter with a puppy cradled in her arms.

              “I’ll see you soon,” Justin said, as she walked down the stairs.

              He found her in her kitchen, and their fingers linked.

              “So what should we do now?” Justin asked.

              “Hmmm. I don’t know,” Alley said, as he pulled her toward her desk. “What? You think I should work?”

              “I don’t know. Aren’t you on a deadline?”

              “Well, sort of,” she said, feeling a sudden twinge of guilt at spending so much time with Justin and not working on her manuscript as she needed to.

              “So, tell me about it,” he said.

              “I don’t know. It isn’t really finished.”

              “All the better,” he said, sitting in her chair and pulling her into his lap. “Maybe I can help.”

              Alley laughed. “Don’t be silly. You can’t help.”

              “Of course I can. Just tell me what you’re doing.”

              “Kissing you,” she said, kissing his cheek, enjoying the stubble of his chin against her cheek.

              He responded by kissing her back, full on the lips.

              After about five minutes, he turned back to her computer. “Ok,” he said, “now tell me who these people are.”

              “That’s Allora,” she said, nodding to the princess in a flowing black gown.

              “Why is she dressed in black?”                           

              “Because she’s powerful and in her world, black means power.”

              “I see. Then why aren’t you wearing black?”

              “What do you mean?”

              “You have power over me,” he said.

              Alley laughed. “I don’t have too much.”

              “Of course you do. Who is that poor guy?”

              “That’s her friend, Winston.”

              “He may be a friend, but he wants to be more. Look at how he’s looking at her.”

              “You’re quite perceptive.”                           

              “I’m perceptive?” He asked, a strange look on his face. “You drew him. You must have an idea of what’s going on.”

              She studied the drawings of her characters. Winston admired Allora. That much she knew. She shook her head. “No, that’s admiration.”

              “If that’s what you want to call it, it’s your book.”

              “I’m glad you say so,” she said.

              “So, how much do you have left to go?”

              “I’ve barely gotten started,” she said. “Maybe I’ve finished about a third of it.”

              “I think you’d better get busy,” he said.

              “I will.”

              “Go ahead. I’ll watch.”

              Alley laughed. “You can’t watch. I can’t write with you watching.”

              “Why not? Ok, then draw something.”

              “I can’t do that either,” she said, feeling a little annoyed. “Writing is solitary.”

              “I know,” he said, nudging her cheek with his. “I just don’t want to leave you and I don’t want to keep you from working.”

              “Oh, well, that’s easy. I can work when you’re working.”

              He nodded. “That makes sense. Of course, there goes my idea of having you assist me in surgery.”

              “I don’t think I’m cut out for that anyway.”

              “I think you would be just fine at it.”

              “Could be. I think I’m more suited to write and draw it though.”

              He studied the images on her desk. “I think you’re right. I know I couldn’t do anything like this. You’re really impressive, you know?”

              She lowered her eyes. “Thanks.”

              “No, really. You’re good.”

              “You’re sweet.”

              He stood up, taking her with him to the couch. “I think you’re the one who’s sweet,” he said as he settled his mouth onto hers.

              Later that afternoon, after leaving Alley at her house with Charlie, Justin took a coke from the refrigerator, opened the can, and went out to sit on the back deck. His interlude with Alley that afternoon had left him relaxed and anxious. Relaxed because he so enjoyed kissing her and he would be seeing her again in a few hours. Anxious because he didn’t know what would happen with her next. Anxious because she was here only for the summer before she would be moving back to Dallas. Anxious because he had known for some time that he had loved her, but now that he was IN love with her, the whole texture of his feelings had changed unexpectedly. He’d never quite gotten to the point of what he might actually do if given the opportunity to actually be with her. He never once, in a million years, thought that his fantasy of being with Alley Cat would ever really happen.

              She was beautiful. She was funny. She was charming. She was caring. Unlike so many desires and fantasies, the actuality of her was better than he had imagined. Now he couldn’t bear the thought of giving her up. He had to figure out a plan of what to do when it was time for her to leave. There was no possibility that she would stay here with him. She was a city girl, through and through. That much was obvious. He had a life here. He had been content with his life.

              He didn’t think he would be content after she goes back to Dallas. He watched a squirrel scamper up the old oak tree and nibble on a nut. There were two wrens throwing bird food from the wooden feeder onto the ground.

              He allowed himself a moment of sadness. He would miss it here. He would miss the familiarity, the comradery, the serenity. His life would be different in Dallas. He supposed he would have to open his own clinic unless he could find someone to take him on. Since he didn’t have any contacts in that area, finding someone to go in with would be unlikely. He could do it. He had a nice savings account that he had planned to use to build a house. That’s how life was. Everything was subject to change.

              If Alley would have him, he would go with her. He wouldn’t ask her to give up her way of life. His own personal sacrifices would be worth it to spend his life with Alley. He nodded to himself. It would be worth it. She was worth it.