Love Saves the Day (9 page)

Josh puts one hand on her shoulder. “It’s not too late to call it off,” he says gently. “My parents would understand if you weren’t ready yet for a houseful of people.”

“Don’t be silly. We’ve been planning this forever.” Laura turns
her head around so she can smile up at him, although her nostrils widen slightly the way humans’ do when they’re irritated. “And I keep telling you, I’m
fine
. Honestly.”

Laura carries one chair and Josh carries two as they pick their way around all the boxes on the floor. This is the only room Laura didn’t clean yesterday. She still doesn’t like coming in here, and I notice how her eyes don’t look into the Sarah-boxes on her way out, just around them to make sure she doesn’t bump into anything.

I think about that man Sarah talked about once—the one who lost his cat and all his reminders and didn’t want to be alive anymore after that. I wonder why Laura doesn’t want to look through these boxes and remember Sarah with me, so both of us can make sure she has a reason to come back.

The day seems to go by more slowly than usual while I wait for Laura and Josh to come back so tonight’s wonderful holiday dinner can get started. I try to pass the time by sleeping in the places I don’t get to sleep in when Josh is home, like the cat bed on the desk in Home Office and the spot on the couch where Josh likes to sit and watch TV sometimes while he waits for Laura to get home from work. I’ve learned, though, that if I roll onto my back and pretend to be deeply asleep, Josh isn’t as likely to make me move. “She looks so comfortable,” he says to Laura. “I feel guilty.” Whenever he says this it makes me feel sorry for humans, who are forever doing the wrong thing and then having to feel guilty about it.

I’m also drawn again and again into the kitchen, even though none of the holiday foods have started cooking yet. I should probably spend more time here, because kitchens are where some of the best things live. In Lower East Side, the kitchen was where I sometimes found things that are lots of fun to practice my mice-fighting with, like the twisty-ties that keep bread closed in its bag, or the plastic straws that Sarah sometimes uses to drink her sodas through. (I could never make Sarah understand what straws are really supposed to be used for, although I tried to show her many
times. Finally I started hiding my straws under the refrigerator or the couch, so she wouldn’t try to take them back from me to use the wrong way.) And there are delicious things to eat and drink in the kitchen even when there isn’t a holiday dinner, like tuna fish from a can, or the thin pieces of turkey meat that live inside crinkly paper in the refrigerator. Sarah had to stop keeping things in the kitchen like cream for her coffee and cheese when the doctor said dairy products would be bad for her heart. Maybe if I come in here more often when Laura and Josh are here, I could get some of those little treats again.

The day may have
felt
long, but I can still tell that it’s much earlier than usual when I finally hear Laura’s key in the lock. It isn’t even dark outside yet. I knew Laura was anxious about tonight, but I didn’t realize she was
so
anxious that it was worth leaving work early for.

Laura and Josh did something this morning to the dining room table to make it long enough to fit seven chairs. Now Laura reaches up to the highest cabinet in the kitchen for cloth mats (which are much nicer than the rubber mat she put underneath my food and water bowls and don’t have insulting cartoons of smiling cats all over them). Then she goes to the front-hall closet and drags out two huge, heavy boxes. From these she starts taking out fancy plates and glasses that are nicer than the plates she and Josh usually eat off of. Laura’s hands move slowly, and she lingers to look at each plate as she sets it out. Once everything is on the table, she looks out the tall windows behind the table and watches the coffee-colored pigeons across the street. She stares at them so long that I turn to stare, too, but as usual the pigeons aren’t doing much of anything except flying in pointless circles.

It isn’t very long until Josh comes home. He comes up behind Laura to give her a big hug. “I can’t believe you got home so early!” he says happily.

“Pass Over is a time of miracles and wonders,” Laura tells him, using her “dry” voice.

Josh goes upstairs to wash his hands, and when he comes back he starts helping Laura, pulling platters down from the higher cabinets
and taking bottles out of the refrigerator while Laura turns the oven on. “Do you think your mother will be offended we got all the food from Zabar’s instead of making it myself?”

Laura sounds worried, but Josh laughs. “She’ll respect you for it. Zelda hasn’t cooked voluntarily in years.”

The air in front of the oven isn’t even hot yet, which means it’s still going to be a while before the food is ready. I decide that napping in the closet upstairs is the best way to make the time shorter between now and when I can eat. As I’m leaving, I hear Josh tell Laura, “I’m going to vacuum in the spare bedroom. I was noticing this morning how dusty it is in there.”

“Sounds good,” Laura says, in a distracted-sounding voice. My Prudence-tags ring softly against my red collar as I climb the stairs, and I hear the dull thud of Josh’s footsteps following me.

I’ve just settled down comfortably in the back of the closet when Josh flicks on the light in the ceiling. There’s so much extra light all of a sudden that I can’t see much—just the blurry shape of Josh standing in the doorway, pushing what looks like a tall triangle with a handle at the top and a flat square thing on wheels at the bottom. It’s attached to a leash, which Josh plugs into a socket on the wall right next to the door.

My eyes adjust to all the new light, and now I see Josh leave this strange object so he can walk over to the Sarah-boxes. He starts moving them around and pushing them into arrangements different from the one they’re supposed to have—the arrangement I’ve spent days memorizing. I rush out from the closet to leap onto the boxes, thinking that maybe the extra weight of my body will make them too heavy for him to move. But I don’t slow him down at all. He just says, “Come on, Prudence, out of the way,” in what he probably thinks is a friendly voice, nudging me gently on my backside with his foot until I’m forced to jump out of one box after the other.

Once the boxes have been lined up in two rows on either side
of the floor next to the rug, Josh goes back to the strange thing standing in the doorway. He kicks its base and a white light comes on. Then it begins to scream!

It screams and screams without stopping even to catch its breath. It doesn’t scream like something in pain, but like something that’s vicious and wants to hurt somebody. Maybe even a cat! It’s a monster—just like the monsters I’ve heard about in TV movies that everybody says aren’t real. Except this one is! It roars in anger because Josh holds tight to its neck and won’t let it get free, even though it gnashes and pushes itself back and forth trying to break away from him—glaring fiercely right at me from its one awful eye that lights up near its mouth. It gobbles up all the spilled litter from my litterbox and the little bits of my fur that have rubbed off over the last few weeks. It has to move over the litter a few times before it gets it all, but it sucks my fur right up. It’s trying to find me! It’s not satisfied with just the scraps of my fur—now it wants to eat a whole cat!

I knew Laura didn’t like having all the Sarah-boxes up here, but I never thought she’d send Josh to
kill
them—and me at the same time. I try bravely to defend at least one row of Sarah-boxes from this terrible monster. I puff up all my fur, to make myself look much bigger than I really am, and I hiss at it and rake its smooth head with my claws as a warning. Humans are usually intimidated by this, but The Monster is obviously much stronger than any human—except Josh. He just says,
“Shoo!,”
waving his hand in my direction as if I were a dog he was chasing away. That he can control this horrible beast with
only one hand
must mean he’s the strongest human in the entire world. Finally I give up and run to hide deep in the closet, my heart racing. I can hear The Monster roaring near the closet door, but it doesn’t come in after me. Probably it can’t see very well because it only has the one eye. Still, I don’t know how well it can hear, and my heart is beating so loud! I concentrate on trying to quiet my heartbeat, and soon I hear The Monster’s roar get fainter and fainter, until I know it’s gone to look for cats in another room.

I wait until I can’t hear it at all anymore before I dare to creep out of the closet again. None of the Sarah-boxes seems to be hurt, although everything’s in the wrong place.

I crouch in my upstairs room for a long time, so long that the sun is coming in low through the windows the way it does when it will be dark soon. The aroma of meat cooking in the oven is what finally draws me down the stairs again.

I walk cautiously through the living room and dining room. The meat-smell in the kitchen is so powerful that I hardly know what to do with myself.

I’m usually in perfect control of everything I do, but today the meat’s will is stronger than my own. It uses its scent to pull me to the spot right in front of the oven and hold me there, with so much power that I couldn’t resist it even if I wanted to.

So this is where I curl up and fall into only a half sleep. I want to stay at least a little alert, because as soon as that meat comes out of the oven, I’m going to demand that Laura or Josh feed some of it to me. Otherwise I won’t get any, just like with the eggs.

I had thought that I’d be able to circle around the food until it was ready, the way all my instincts are telling me to do. But it turns out that I won’t get to. That’s because the moment Josh’s family finally gets here, I’m forced—most rudely—out of the kitchen.

Josh’s family are his mother and father. They’re older than any humans I’ve seen in real life (other than on TV, I mean). They drove a car here from a place called New Jersey. Josh’s sister also comes and brings her litter with her, a small girl and an even smaller boy. They’re the
youngest
humans I’ve ever seen up close and not on TV.
They
took a train here from Washington Heights. I know this because when Josh opens the front door, everybody says how funny it is that they all got here at the same time, even though they came from different places.

“Chag Pesach,”
Josh says as he kisses them all on their cheeks. Then he says to the little girl and boy, “That means
Happy Pass Over
in Hebrew.”

The little girl says, “I
know
,” in a voice of such offended dignity that, for a moment, I think I’m going to like her. “They taught us that in Hebrew school. Actually,” she adds, “you’re
supposed
to say,
Chag Pesach sameach
.”

“Duly noted.” Josh sounds amused. “I keep forgetting how smart ten-year-olds are these days.”

I decide the little girl is like me—somebody whose intelligence is underestimated by humans just because she’s small. But when she and the little boy walk past the kitchen and spot me guarding the food, they squeal, “Oooh, a
kitteeeeee
!” Then they both run at me with their hands outstretched, not even giving Josh a
chance
for an introduction. And when I turn and flee from this attack, the little wretches
chase after me
! I race for under-the-couch as fast as I can. The two of them kneel and plunge little hands that smell like fruit juice and snack chips after me, trying to grab at my tail and bits of my fur!

I’m in so much shock from this display of horrible manners (has
nobody
bothered to teach these littermates
anything
?) that I can think of no better way of handling the situation than to hiss and swipe at their hands with my claws. My breath becomes loud and rapid as my fur twitches, what Sarah called “chuffing.” I don’t like reacting this way, but the whole thing is simply more than dignity or patience can bear. Finally, Josh’s sister says, “Abbie! Robert! Leave the kitty alone. She’ll come out and play with you when she’s ready.”

Not likely
, I think, twitching my tail back and forth as I try to calm down. “I’m sorry,” Laura tells Josh’s sister. “Prudence isn’t really a ‘people cat.’ ” Hearing Laura try to pass this story around again just makes me madder. If she was telling the truth, what she’d say is,
Prudence will only play with humans who have good manners
.

Josh’s parents come into the living room where Laura stands in front of the couch pouring wine into glasses. “There’s my gorgeous daughter-in-law!” Josh’s father says in a loud voice. They each hug her, and Josh’s mother murmurs, “We’re so sorry your mother couldn’t be here with us tonight.” Laura hugs them back a bit
stiffly and says, “Thank you,” in a polite but brief way that means she doesn’t want to talk about Sarah right now. Then she and Josh’s sister kiss each other on the cheek.

The couch has a long side and a short side, and I’m crouched beneath the shorter part. The littermates come to sit right above me, kicking their legs and playing with a kind of small black plastic box that has buttons and moving pictures all over it. Sometimes they try to grab it away from each other, saying things like,
You’re taking too long
, or,
It’s my turn now
.

Josh and his father sit all the way on the other side of the couch, where I can just see their faces if I peek out far enough. Josh’s father wears shiny black shoes with laces on top and black socks that slide down his ankles when he crosses one leg over the other. Laura is sitting between Josh’s mother and Josh’s sister on the other side of the coffee table. Josh’s mother is sparkly all over with more jewelry than Sarah ever wears. The rings on her hand catch the light as she keeps grabbing Laura’s arm while she talks, which makes Laura look uncomfortable. Sarah once said that Laura and I were alike, because neither one of us could stand being petted unless it was our idea first.

I notice how carefully Laura is watching everybody. It’s like she wants to make sure nothing happens that she isn’t prepared for or doesn’t know how to react to. I realize that Laura grew up in Lower East Side with Sarah, where holidays were celebrated differently than they are in Upper West Side. Laura’s an immigrant, like I am. She must also be trying to understand the way things are done in this country.