The Cats that Surfed the Web (5 page)

“Then take it to the university, but wherever you take it, I want that damned plant out of this house today, you hear me?”

“Whatever,” the other voice said dismissively. “I’ll take it out when
that
woman leaves.”

“Where are you going? Come back here. I’m not done talking to you,” Mrs. Marston said angrily.

A door slammed, and then another.

The woman must have taken the rear stairs
, Katherine thought. She hurried to the kitchen to head her off at the foot of the stairs, but was stopped by Mark outside the dining room door.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said, startled. She hesitated for a moment, then said cheerily, trying to mask her curiosity, “I just heard Mrs. Marston talking to someone upstairs.”

“Patricia’s here. I saw her car parked out back. Did you want to speak to her before we leave?”

“Oh, no. That’s okay,” she said. “But I overheard a conversation between the two of them, something about a dangerous weed.”

“Dangerous weed,” he said, startled. “I’ll look into it.”

“Listen, Mark, if I accept the terms of the will and move out here with my cats, I don’t want something like that in the house.”

“Understood. So let’s carry on. There’s more to see.”

The day went on. Mark showed Katherine every piece of real estate and landmark in the town. He even showed her where he lived—a sprawling, ranch-style house a few streets away from the Colfax mansion on Lincoln Street.

She was immediately shocked by the size of his cat, and remarked that he looked more like a tiger than a Maine Coon. While Mark pulled out his Blackberry and called the B&B’s owner to suggest more heat, Katherine remained on the sofa and petted his cat. The Maine Coon had taken an immediate liking to her. His loud purr rivaled the sound of a jet engine taxiing for a takeoff.

Mark returned and said he had left a message for Carol at the front desk. Then he observed his supposed woman-hating cat sitting on Katherine’s lap. Mark remarked that he couldn’t understand what had come over Bruiser. Katherine explained that she had a way with cats.

They had lunch in a quaint restaurant near the town’s limits. At six p.m. they attended a reception—in Katherine’s honor—at Mayor Ralph Newman’s residence. There she met the mayor and his wife, the town’s only physician and her husband, and a university professor who had written several books. Afterward, Mark drove Katherine to the city thirty miles away. They spent a few minutes at the mausoleum where Orvenia Colfax was interred, then had a quiet dinner in an Italian restaurant.

By eleven p.m. when Mark dropped her off at the Little Tomato, Katherine was exhausted. She desperately wanted to curl up in bed—under the covers—because she was still chilled to the bone by the short walk from Mark’s car to the front door of the bed and breakfast.

Once inside, Katherine hastened up the carpeted steps. She turned the key in her guest room lock and went inside. She immediately noticed a feather comforter draped over the wicker chair by the bed. She read out loud the note signed by Carol Lombard:  “I apologize for the cold. Our furnace is doing the best it can, but when the temperature outdoors is ten degrees below zero, it’s very difficult to keep an old house like this warm. I hope this feather comforter does the trick. The key to warmth is layers.”

“Warmth in layers,” Katherine huffed. A feather comforter and a heavy, quilted bedspread were already on the bed, she noted. She envisioned her body being crushed into the soft mattress by the tremendous weight of warmth in layers. Then she laughed and wondered if there were other twenty-six-year-old curmudgeons.

The wind started to howl outside and whip around the bed and breakfast, rattling the antique windows. Katherine opened the heavy draperies and brushed some of the frost off the glass. She pressed her nose against the glass and looked outside. It had just started to snow. She began to worry. She envisioned mountains of snow preventing her from ever leaving Erie. She feared it would take months to make it back to Manhattan. She would miss her meeting on Monday. She snapped out of her reverie.
I’m just tired
, she thought.

She threw on her fleece pajamas and rushed to the bathroom. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, then headed back to her room. She jumped under the covers and fell fast asleep—with the light dimly glowing overhead.

*  *  *  *

She had been dreaming. She was eating a Zaro’s carrot muffin at Grand Central Station during the early morning rush. Commuters scurried past. She studied the nameless faces, searching in vain for Gary, who promised to meet her before work. Gary was late, as usual. She finished her muffin, then grew tired of standing, so she started to make her way through the throng of people when she heard a steady staccato sound.

“Iris,” she murmured, still asleep. “Stop that.”

The persistent staccato sound continued.

“Lilac, stop chattering at that damned pigeon and go back to sleep,” she said sharply, sitting up in bed.

She sleepily looked around and realized she was still in Indiana. The intensity of the wind had picked up dramatically since she had gone to bed, but it seemed warmer. Something was hitting the glass of the window.

She darted out of bed and ran to the window. She pulled the heavy draperies back and looked outside. She was startled by the total transformation of the landscape—a thick white blanket of snow covered everything.
There must be a foot of snow out there
, she surmised. And, the sound—rapping insistently against the glass—was sleet.

Sleet,
she thought.
Ice storm
, she worried.

She watched the sleet pelt the window glass until she imagined her feet were frostbitten. She leaped back into bed, and immediately jumped out again to check her watch—it was only four a.m. She decided to sleep for another hour or so and quickly lapsed into a deep slumber.

At eight o’clock there was a knock at the door.

“Ms. Kendall,” a woman’s voice said. “I’ve brought you coffee.”

“One moment, please,” Katherine said, jumping out of bed. She couldn’t believe she had gone back to bed and managed to oversleep. She opened the door.

Carol Lombard stood outside, holding a tray with a coffeepot and a sweet roll. “You wanted me to wake you at eight?”

“Yes, thanks. Please come in,” Katherine said.

The woman placed the tray on the dresser and then left.

Katherine’s cell phone rang and she hurried to answer it. She glanced at the incoming number, then said, “Colleen, I was just going to call you.”

“I’m so tired,” she complained. “I don’t think I slept a wink last night. I’ll be so relieved when you get back. Actually, I’m just kidding. The cats have been great. I had to lock them out of the bedroom last night because the big one—”

“Scout?”

“Yeah, her. She tried to strangle me.”

“That’s how she sleeps at night.”

“Oh. Anyway, they didn’t appreciate it at all. They howled like banshees and carried on for hours. ‘Twas a nightmare to behold.  I finally got up and moved their cat bed out into the living room next to the radiator.  They immediately curled up and went to sleep.”

“Perfect.”

Hey listen, Katz, is there something wrong with your cell phone? Your boss called and left a voice mail on your home phone. I saw the machine blinking and thought I’d just leave it alone, and you could check it when you got home. But Scout jumped up and stepped on the button.”

“Ah, my good girl,” Katherine cooed.

“Anyway, Monica complained that you hadn’t been checking your voice mail.”

“It’s the weekend, for pity sake,” Katherine said.

“She canceled the meeting for tomorrow morning.”

“She did what?” Katherine exclaimed in disbelief.

“She rescheduled it for Tuesday.”

“Oh, that witch. Why didn’t she tell me on Friday before I booked my flight?”

“That’s why I called you. Now you can take the extra day.”

“But I already paid for the round-trip ticket,” Katherine lamented. “It cost me a fortune the way it was. If I change the ticket it will cost more, so forget it. I’m coming back this evening. I’ll text you as soon as I land. We could order Chinese and have it delivered. You can tell me all about the office thing you attended, and I can tell you all about my Indiana thing.”

“Sounds good,” Colleen laughed, “But I may not be at your apartment when you get back. I’ve got tons of stuff to do at home.”

“Okay, we’ll play it by ear. Thanks so much for taking care of my kids. Bye.”

Katherine ended the call and took a sip of coffee.
Awful
, she thought.
That woman must have warmed it up from yesterday
. She jumped into bed, leaned back on the pillow, and thought about the decision she had to make.

Katherine weighed the pros and cons. She thought about the beautiful little bundle of fur named Abigail. She thought about the huge pink house and the guaranteed income for the rest of her life. She commanded an excellent salary in Manhattan, but she had paid the price: hardly any free time for herself. She was very close to being promoted to a manager position, which would require more work and absolutely no play.

Katherine wondered how her boss would react to her resignation. Would Monica be surprised? Angry? Would she dart to the phone and call her brother Gary? She wondered how much lead time a moving company needed to schedule a long-distance move.

She weighed the cons. She would be making a radical change—urban to rural. From the rush of the city, to the slow pace of the town. She didn’t know anyone in the town. She would have to make new friends. She would miss Colleen terribly. There would be no more hailing a cab and rushing off to the cinema for an eleven o’clock show, or two o’clock in the morning pizza deliveries. The town of Erie seemed to shut down at nine in the evening, with the exception of a few restaurants and bars.

She had just signed a two-year lease on her apartment. She was comfortable there. Yes, the space was small, and the cats would probably love running up and down the stairs at her great aunt’s home.
But, wait
, she thought.
That’s a favorable-move-to-Indiana point
.

She wondered if there could ever be a personal relationship with Mark. She was very attracted to him. He was easy to be around, but he’d said that his cat was jealous of his women friends, so she automatically assumed he had a girlfriend. She wondered about his relationship with Carol Lombard.

Katherine got up and began to get dressed. She imagined shipping seltzer from the Big Apple to the Little Tomato.
Why would I want to do that
, she thought, daydreaming, when I can have it shipped to the pink house on Lincoln Street?

Chapter Four

The flight to LaGuardia was a roller-coaster ride of bumps, swoops and jolts. The pilot warned they would experience patches of choppy air, and advised passengers and flight attendants to keep on their seatbelts. The scheduled snack was canceled, and no beverages were served.

Katherine clutched the hand rests and felt her wrist muscles cramp. She vowed that if they landed safely in New York, she would not subject her cats to this experience of nerve-fraying fear, but would drive them to Indiana instead.

The plane landed with a heavy thud and raced down the short runway. Katherine looked out the window at the thick fog. Rain pelted the plane, which seemed to take forever to taxi to the main terminal. Once there, Katherine was annoyed at the turtle-like pace of fellow passengers in front of her, who were slowly removing their belongings from the overhead bins. Once off the plane and inside the terminal, Katherine decided she would spend the extra money and take a cab, instead of catching the regular express bus to Grand Central. She walked outside the building and stood in the cab queue. Fortunately only two people were ahead of her.

Inside the cab, she couldn’t find her seat belt and gave up trying. The cab driver wore a red Sikh turban and spoke little English. He floored the accelerator and swerved out onto Grand Central Parkway. On the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, he veered in and out of lanes.

“Could you slow down,” she shouted over traffic.

“What?” he said, turning around.

“Watch out,” she warned.

“Oh! Ha, ha!” he said, nearly crashing into a service van.

Miraculously, they arrived in Manhattan. The reckless cabby pulled up to Katherine’s apartment building and temporarily double-parked to let her out.
Thank God
, she thought, relieved to be alive outside her building.

She grabbed her carry-on and stepped out of the car, into a puddle deep enough to cover her shoes. “Just great,” she said irritably, handing the driver the fare. “I’m not tipping you because I think you’re a menace on the highway.” She slammed the door. The driver said, “Oh! Ha, ha!” and peeled out into traffic, splashing the front of Katherine’s coat.

When Mario, the doorman, observed the scene, he ran outside and said, dramatically,  “Hey, Katz, do you want me to chase after him and get his medallion number?”

“Not thinkin’ so,” she said, watching the cab speed around the corner, screeching tires.

“Sorry about your coat.” He hurried to the door and opened it for her.

“Oh, Mario,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome, Marie,” he kidded, deliberately calling her by the wrong name.

“Mar-i-o,” Katherine said, in her feigned Italian accent.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking but . . .” He stopped.

“But, what?” Katherine asked.

“I saw a lot of your red-haired friend this weekend, going in and out, and I wanted to know if she’s hooked up with anyone?”

“Colleen?” she asked nonchalantly.

“Do you think she’d go out with me?”

“What am I running here, a dating service?” she teased. “Why don’t you ask her and see.”

He hesitated, then said, “ I was wondering if you would—”

“Test the waters,” she finished. “Sure—for you, Mario—the world. Listen, buzz me in quick. I haven’t seen my cats since Friday night. I miss them terribly.”

He pressed the buzzer. “See you later, Marie,” he said happily.

The elevator was resting on the first floor with its doors open. Katherine couldn’t believe her good luck. Usually she had to wait several minutes for the next available car. She rushed into the elevator—not stopping to even check her mail—and pressed the twenty-second floor. The elevator shot up and opened the doors to her floor.

She couldn’t believe her second stroke of good luck. Normally, the elevator went local and stopped on every floor. As the doors glided open, she heard the distinct feline cries of welcome—the loud waugh of Scout, and the yowl of Iris, but she didn’t hear the me-yowl of Lilac.
That’s odd
, she thought. She raced down the hall, imagining all sorts of catly horrors—Lilac trapped in the closet, or Lilac kidnapped and held for ransom. As Katherine ran, she called their names: Lilac . . . Scout . . . Iris.

Oh, my god
,” she panicked. She turned the key in the upper lock, then struggled with the bottom lock. “Colleen,” she called through the door. “Are you there?” There was no answer. She opened the door and fumbled for the light switch. “Waugh.” “Yowl.” The two seal-points crashed into her legs. “Owl,” a hoarse voice said, nearby.

When Katherine spotted the lilac-point, she had to look twice. Lilac was moving her jaws but no sounds were coming from it. “Have you lost your voice?” she asked the meowless cat. Scout and Iris continued their caterwauling. “Quiet,” she said, closing the door. Scout and Iris hiked up their tails and marched to the kitchen. Lilac began prancing and pacing in front of Katherine. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked, setting down her carry-on.

Lilac bolted and raced down the hall, stopping outside Katherine’s clothes closest. She reached up with her long, gray paws and tried to turn the doorknob, but the door wouldn’t open.

Katherine said amused, “I bet your toy is in there, right? Your bear? You batted it in the closet and then Colleen shut the door. I forgot to tell her to never close the closet.”

“Owl,” Lilac said.

Katherine joined the cat outside the door. “This explains why you drove Colleen crazy with your serenade.” She opened the closet door. Inside, on the floor, the bear was stuck inside one of her shoes.

Lilac flew inside and pounced on her prize—a three-inch teddy bear that was missing both an arm and a leg. With jaws of steel, she gripped the bear by the head and carried the toy into the living room. “Owl,” she said in muffled thanks.

Katherine walked into the kitchen and found a note taped to the refrigerator. “Katz,” it began. “It’s 4:00. Gotta go. Fed cats. Heading for the Laundromat. Call me as soon as you get home.”

She dialed Colleen’s home number and Colleen’s mother answered with her heavy Irish brogue. “Murphy residence,” she said.

“Hello, Mrs. Murphy,” Katherine said.

“Katz, is it you?”

“I just got home. Where’s Colleen?”

“She’s off to the Laundromat. You sound tired. Do you want me to take a message?”

“Yes, tell her: I’m home. I’m in love. And call me later.”

“I’m glad you made it home safely. Should I be planning to bake your wedding cake soon?” she offered in obvious amusement.

“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that. I wouldn’t want to jinx anything.”

“I’ll give Colleen the message. Bye to you for now.”

Katherine hung up the phone. Colleen’s mom was like a mother to her. She always teased that she had four boys but needed a second girl. Katherine, with no living relatives, gladly volunteered.

“Waugh,” Scout said, breaking Katherine’s reverie.

Scout and Iris sat next to their dinner bowls and looked up pitifully.

“Are the royal Siamese hungry?”

“Yowl,” Iris demanded.

Katherine opened a fresh can of tuna and first poured the juice in Scout’s bowl. “Nectar of the gods, my darling,” she said. Scout turned up her nose and ran into the living room. She put the rest of the juice in Iris’s bowl. “Appetizer, dearest.” Iris—with dramatic sweeps of her paw—tried to bury the bowl. “Fakers,” Katherine said. “Lilac, catch of the day,” she called enticingly to the living room.

Lilac streaked down the hall, disappearing into the bedroom, still clutching her bear.

Katherine transferred the tuna into a plastic bowl and put it in the refrigerator. The phone rang. Katherine picked it up on the second ring.

“I’ve been trying to call you all weekend,” the male voice complained.

“Gary?” Katherine said, surprised.

“Yes,
Gary.
Have you forgotten my voice? Did you think I’d died?”

“Possibly, but I wasn’t sure,” she said sarcastically. “Why are you calling?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to meet for drinks tomorrow night after work. I’m going to be in Midtown, and I thought it would be nice to sit back and have a nice chat about old times.”

“Old times,” she repeated. “Did Tamara dump you?”

There was a long pause, then he said, “How did you know?”

“Gut feeling. Gary, when I said it was over, I meant it. So please don’t call me again—
ever
!” she stressed, hanging up the phone.

The phone rang immediately.

“Hello,” she said angrily, thinking it was her ex-boyfriend calling again.

“It’s me, Colleen. What’s the matter?”

“Gary just called me. Can you believe the nerve?”

“What did he want?”

“To meet for drinks.”

“Did you give him the name of that bar we used to go to that burned down last week? Since he lives out-of-town, he’d never know. When he got to the place, he’d realize you’d stood him up. Wouldn’t it be a hoot?”

“Not really,” Katherine said, feeling suddenly depressed.

“Don’t let it get you down. Mum said you sounded so happy on the phone—tired, but happy. When’s the wedding?”

“Wedding,” Katherine said sharply, still fuming about Gary. “How about the wake?”

“No, not Gary. Mr. Lawyer. You said you were in love.”

“In love with the cat,” Katherine stressed.

“The cat,” Colleen laughed. “What about the lawyer? Was he cute?”

“He was ninety-five and used a walker.”

“For real?”

“No, just kidding.”

“I’ve got to dart back to the Laundromat. I just came home to get the fabric softener. My clothes are still cooking. Speaking of cooking, Chinese sounds great, but I must tend to the clothes. Want to meet for lunch tomorrow?”

“Sure. Cottage cheese and apple, ” Katherine teased. Colleen was always concerned about her weight.

“Very funny. How about meet me at Grand Central at 1:00 and we’ll go from there to the Mexican place.”

“Beef burrito sounds good. Meet you there,” Katherine said, hanging up.

Katherine went into her bedroom and was surprised to see her computer turned on. Normally after so many minutes, a screensaver would pop up on the flat-screen monitor. If Colleen had used the PC, Katherine surmised, and she had left the apartment hours before, the computer should have been in sleep mode. Or, she thought, one of the cats walked across keyboard. That would wake up the PC. But they would have had to done it in the last half-hour. But now, not only was the computer active, but someone had done a Google search. The topic on-screen was toxic poisoning. Katherine stepped back, surprised. For a moment, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She thought of the argument she overheard at her great aunt’s house about the dangerous weed. Lilac came out from under the bed and tried to jump on the monitor, but instead fell back on the keyboard, which caused a series of beeping sounds.

“You little monkey,” Katherine said. “Did you wake up the computer?” She picked up the Siamese and put her on the office chair.

Lilac tucked her paws underneath her, adjusted her body to maximum comfort, then squeezed her eyes.

Katherine pulled up a second chair.

“I’ll fix you, my smart meezer.” She leaned over and exited the search. She then logged onto her office email account and pulled up her messages. An array of junk mail appeared on the screen. She deleted those, and ignored the three messages from her boss, Monica DeSutter. The one from Colleen was the same as the note taped on the refrigerator, but she was particularly interested in the note from Mark Dunn.

She opened it. “I enjoyed this weekend so much. I hope you’ve returned safely to NYC. You promised to give me an answer within forty-eight hours. Yes, I’m pressuring you. What may it be?”

“Indiana wants me,” she said to Lilac, who was still resting on the office chair. “Scout . . . Iris,” she called. She waited a few seconds, and then called them again. “Where are you guys?” she asked. When she didn’t hear the pitter-patter of little feet, she had a good idea where they would be—basking in front of the radiator.

She pulled Lilac off the chair. The cat squawked, still hoarse from the ordeal of her incarcerated bear. She carried the cat into the living room where—sure enough—the other two cats were stretched out in front of the radiator. Scout was on her side with eyes closed; one fang showed under her curled upper lip. Iris was on her back with her eyes crossed slightly. Both were in total cat bliss.

“Don’t sit so close to the radiator,” she admonished. “You’ll get toasted.”

Iris got up, stretched, and then slinked over, collapsing on Katherine’s foot. “Yowl,” she said, and then yawned. “Waugh,” Scout protested, not moving.

“Cats of mine, we’re moving to Indiana,” Katherine announced. “Tomorrow I’m giving my two-week notice. I’ve got to schedule a time with the moving people. I’ll do this and that, and oh yes, I must have the car serviced.”

At the mention of car service, the cats ears flew back in defensive mode. They didn’t like these particular words. Car service generally meant a trip to the veterinarian, where they would be poked and prodded by a human with cold hands, and sometimes receive the dreaded shot. Scout uttered an emphatic waugh, which sounded almost like no. Iris squeezed her eyes, sauntered back to the radiator and began grooming her paw. Lilac struggled to get down—kicking Katherine with her hind legs as she catapulted onto the floor. “Owl,” she cried, as she galloped out of the room.