Catwalk (26 page)

fifty-three

The first class was
for us beginners, and the first cat in was Sue O'Brien's Abyssinian, Dessie. I hoped for Sue's sake that they had a better run than they did at the demo the week before. Sue set the lithe little cat down and waved a pink feather teaser to get her attention, but Dessie's wide eyes were flicking up, left, down, left, right. Everywhere but at the teaser. Her tail lashed the start platform like a live electrical wire, and I held my breath, expecting her to run for it.

“She doesn't look very happy,” said Hutchinson.

“Which one?” I asked, looking at Sue's tight lips and narrowed eyes.

Sue waved the teaser wand at her cat. The feathers flew back and forth at the end of the cord, and on the second swing they caught Dessie in the back of the head. I knew it was no more than a tickle, but the tawny little body flipped around and Dessie let out a scream that could clot blood. Leo stood up and stared toward the arena, and I hugged him to my body and whispered, “It's ok, she's just a little upset.”

Dessie's screech turned into a low, rippling growl and she swiped
at the feathers, catching them in her fist and ripping them apart. Dave O'Brien, Sue's husband, stepped up to the outside of the arena and yelled, “Just get her out of there!” and Sue screeched back, “I told you this would happen!” Dessie leaped into the air and caught the arena netting six inches in front of Dave's face. She laid her ears back and hissed at him.

One of the stewards appeared behind Sue. She was holding Dessie's carrier, and in a calm voice she said, “Everyone be quiet and back away from her.” She pulled Sue backward a few steps and then signaled Dave to retreat. He did. The steward crept past Dessie, murmuring, “Good kitty, good girl, everything's fine, you don't have to do this if you don't want to.” The cat, still clinging to the netting, grew quiet and turned her head to watch the woman. Leo snuggled into my lap but he was watching, too. The steward set Dessie's carrier on the floor and took a tiny can of cat food from her pocket. She popped the top off and showed it to Dessie. “Look what I have. Mmmm. Yummy.” She set the can in the carrier, stepped back, and knelt, still talking softly. “Good kitty. Come on, kitty kitty kitty.”

Dessie dropped to the floor. The arena skirting blocked her from our view until she approached the carrier. She stopped and looked at the steward, then disappeared inside. The steward latched the door and removed Dessie and her distraught owner from the ring.

“Wow, who's that, the cat whisperer?” asked Hutchinson.

“Just another crazy cat lady who knows what she's doing,” I said, hoping that Sue and Dave would have the sense to realize that Dessie didn't want to be an agility cat, at least not at public events.

The rest of the class ran smoothly for the most part. Jared and Moose had another inspiring run, which finished Moose's title. Next up was a lovely little gray-and-white cat. Hutchinson said, “She's so cute!” and he was right. She had the face of an angel, albeit a playful angel. The announcer introduced her as Mackenzie. She was also full of p & v, and barely waited for Lisa Chin, her owner to get in position before she zoomed up and down the steps and over the first jump. Their run went off almost without a hitch, and would have been perfect if the little speed-demon hadn't caught the feathers being used to entice her onward. There was a short tug session, and she finished the course in style and well under time. Lisa's husband, Matt, was standing beside me and could hardly contain himself when she finished with a nearly perfect run.

Next up was a stunning marble Bengal named, appropriately, Shere Khan. “I think we're up soon,” I told Hutchinson, and I carried Leo to the ready area. “Okay, Catman, we're just going for the fun, right?” We were in sooner than expected, as Shere Khan lay down after the second jump and refused to move.

Leo was relaxed in my arms, but was looking at something across the room. Tom. I turned to block Leo's view, but it was too late. “Mmrroowwlllll!” He squirmed until his front paws rested on my shoulder, and let out a series of rolling chirps.
Oh, boy
, I thought,
so much for a nice run.

But Leo surprised me. As soon as I set him down at the start line, he gathered himself and watched me. As always, he “ran like a dog,” as someone had said at the demonstration the previous week, meaning that he didn't need a lure. He ran clean and true and was just barely under Mackenzie's time. He got a big spoonful of stinky fish paste when we left the arena.

Hutchinson and Tom met us as we came back toward the spectator area. “Atta boy, Leo, my man,” said Tom, leaning in to give Leo a kiss. Then he gave me one, and I said, “Your priorities are not lost on me, you know.”

Tom winked at me.

“Wow, that was great,” said Hutchinson. “You think I could do that with Amy?”

“Amy?” I asked.

“My kitty. That's her name.”

“Good name, Hutch,” I said, and it may have been the lighting, but I think the man blushed.

They called us back to the arena to announce the qualifiers, the cats who earned legs toward their titles, and the class placements. You would have thought I'd never competed in anything before, the way my leg muscles quivered. Third place! Leo got third place! Granted, there were only five entries and two didn't finish the course.
Details, details
, I thought, burying my nose in orange fur and chanting “Leo
mio
.” Mackenzie came away with second place and her new title, and Moose took top honors, which included a big blue ribbon and a catnip mouse. Jared's face looked like mine felt, with its big goofy grin.

Tom walked me back to Alberta's display and then went off to find us some coffee, and I sat down and set Leo on the table, where I dished up another helping of fish paste. He stretched out to await his admirers, who didn't take long to arrive. He accepted petting from everyone, big and small, but was particularly lovely to the children who came to see him. Jay visits the library so that children can read to him once a week, and I wondered whether Leo might not like to be a library cat every once in a while.

“Here you go,” said Tom, setting a little cardboard carrier in front of me. It held coffee, pretzels, and a donut. “They don't have much over there,” he said.

I sipped the coffee, expecting it to be bitter or watery. “That's pretty good,” I said, then, “I'm not going to stay too long. Maybe we could go grab a bite somewhere?”
Maybe we can finally have that little talk of ours?

“I would, but I promised Tommy I'd help him with some shopping,” he said. “Actually, he'd probably rather do it alone, but I don't get to spend much time with him and he's leaving Monday.”

I nibbled the salt off a pretzel. I didn't want him to see my disappointment, which was a silly feeling that I attribute to cold medicine and stress. “No, you need to do that. We'll catch up later.” A family with three little boys appeared at the table, and Leo greeted them with a loud “Meoww!”

“I'll call you later,” said Tom, and poof! He was gone.

Leo finally seemed to have had enough about twenty minutes later when he climbed off the table and into my lap. I wondered whether he needed a litter box, but that didn't seem to be a pressing concern. It was past noon, though, and my head was beginning to go into a cold-and-meds-induced fog. “Time to go home, Catman,” I said, and I set him in front of his carrier. He went straight in and curled into a ball on his fleece cushion. I lifted the whole shebang onto the table and went for my coat. I was just pulling my hat from the pocket when a shrill voice slammed into my ear drum.

“Why don't you show pictures of all the birds they kill?”

I turned to look at the other end of the table. A white-haired couple stood shoulder to shoulder across from Alberta and Sally. They wore matching yellow jackets and sour pusses. The man, his silvery hair standing up like a cockscomb, waved a scolding finger in Alberta's general direction.

“Sir, studies show …”

“Cats are an invasive species,” screeched the woman. “They kill a lot of wildlife.”

“They do kill a lot of rodents, it's true. Sometimes they kill birds, although not as often as people think.” I marveled at Sally's calm voice, and thought
she's had this conversation before.
“We would prefer that cats live indoors, but many feral cats won't live indoors, and in any case, there just aren't homes for them all. Trap-neuter-release is a humane alternative.”

“Humane?
Humane?
” bellowed the man. He turned slightly toward me and I saw the writing on his t-shirt. ‘Callaway' over a stylized V. That was the brand of golf ball that broke Alberta's window.

“So you think killing the cats would be the more humane solution?” asked Alberta, and I half expected her to leap over the table and sock him one.

“Oh, no, no, of course not,” said the woman. “We love all ani …”

“Yes, if necessary! They don't belong in the wild, killing songbirds,” said the man.

“By that reasoning we should also eliminate hawks and owls and a whole slew of other birds, don't you think?”

“You're just trying to confuse the issue!” The hand and arm attached to the man's accusing finger were expanding their range, and getting dangerously close to the computer screen on which the offending cat videos were playing.

Sally gripped the top of the computer with one hand and held the other palm-out toward the couple. “Please be careful. This is an expensive …”

“Expensive be damned!” he yelled. His hand moved to his left and started to swing backhanded toward the screen.

fifty-four

The angry birder seemed
bent on smashing the back of his fist into the computer. I set my teeth and waited for the crash, too far away and too surprised to try to stop it. As I watched, long fingers landed like talons, closing over the man's wrist and spinning him away from the electronics. Sally wrapped her arms protectively around the back of the computer and glared at the man.

“Let's all calm down here, shall we?” Hutchinson still had a grip on the man's wrist, but his voice was calm. “Sir, I'd like to release your arm but I want to know that you have control of yourself.”

The older man sputtered and shook himself, but nodded. “Yeah, yeah, okay. I was just …”

“Harry, let's just go now.” Harry's wife had backed away from the table and her husband and stood slightly hunched, working her purse strap through her fingers and back again.

Harry rubbed his wrist where Hutchinson had grabbed it and glanced at his wife, then turned and looked at Sally. “I just don't like those cats,” he said.

“Yes, I get that,” said Sally. She had stopped hugging the computer, but still had her hand on the top edge.

Harry puffed out his chest, patted down his white cockscomb, said, “Let's go, Rita,” and marched off. Rita hugged her purse to her chest and fell into step behind him.

“You know them?” I asked Sally.

“They live in The Rapids,” she said. “Hard to take their concern for the birds seriously. Last year they wanted to poison the pigeons that were pooping on the copper cupola on the clubhouse.”

“Where's Alberta?” asked Hutchinson.

“I don't
…
,” I turned away from Sally and looked at Hutchinson. “Why? What's happened?”

“Little problem at her place,” he said.

“What?” It came out like a croak. “Her dogs! Gypsy and the kittens!”

Hutchinson shook his head and said, “No, no, sorry, not her house. The cat place. Officers are on the scene.” I grabbed the back of the chair for balance, and Hutchinson said, “Really. Fong is there. It's just
…
more vandalism …” He stopped as Alberta walked up.

“What's going on?” she asked.

“Someone went after the cat stuff again.”

“What stuff ?” I asked. “They already trashed it. What's left to damage?”

“Oh, no,” said Sally. “We had new wood delivered this morning.”

“And straw,” said Alberta. “I ordered straw, too.” She smiled uncertainly at a couple of women who had stopped to look at her display, and spoke to Hutchinson. “Do I need to go now? Is there anything
…
We're planning to shut down in another hour or
…
By the time I'd get there …”

There wasn't anything I could do to help there, so I interrupted and told Alberta to call me when she knew more. I tucked Leo's ribbons into my tote, picked up his carrier, and headed home. Ninety minutes later some hot soup and grilled cheese had worked their magic, and I was bundled up in sweats and my blue afghan with Jay tucked in between me and the back of the couch. Sleep crooked her finger at me, but the telephones said no.

First, my cell phone. It was brother Bill, calling from Shadetree Retirement. He didn't even complain about having to assume Mom duty. In fact, he had been the one to insist that I not take my cold to share with the residents. “She's doing pretty well,” he said. “They're trying to keep a handle on her water intake so we don't have a repeat.”

“That's good,” I said. The land line rang and I got up to look at the caller ID. Alberta. I went back to Bill. “And how is she, you know …”

“Lucid, but, wait a second while I find a more private
…
okay, so, Janet, have you talked to her or her friend Anthony lately?”

“I saw them at the hospital. Why?”

“Well, they're engaged.”

“In what?”

“To be married!” Bill laughed, and said, “They just told me. Norm already knew, but they asked him to keep quiet.”

“Wow.” That was about as far as I could wrap my brain around the news.

“I think it's great. What the hell. Who am I to stand in the way of anyone's marriage?” He had a point, especially considering that he and Norm couldn't marry in their state of residence. Yet.

When we had wrapped that up, I called Alberta. She said the police had finished and she and a couple of people were starting to salvage what they could and clean up the rest. “At least the wind has died down,” she said. I ignored her protests and said I'd be there shortly to help. I put my two small pet carriers in the car in case they needed them for kitty shelters, added a layer under my sweatshirt, and cranked up my rental car.

Alberta was alone when I got there, dragging broken two-by-fours into piles arranged by length. “I think we'll be able to use most of the wood,” she said.

“Where are your volunteers?” I asked. “And I thought you said you got more straw?” I had envisioned another scene of broken bales and straw blown hither and yon.

She gestured toward maybe twenty straw bales stacked against the back of the club house and said, “You know, people have things to do.” She smiled. “A couple of people were here for a little while.”
Must have been a minuscule while
, I thought, knowing that Alberta
couldn't have been home very long. “And here comes someone now,”
she added, pointing past me with her chin.

Hutchinson was pulling on work gloves as he came around the corner of the building and surveyed the latest damage. He glowered
at the smashed boards, growled something I couldn't make out, and
began grabbing, swinging, and pitching boards with a bit more emotion than the job really warranted. Alberta and I exchanged raised-eyebrow looks and stayed out of his way. Finally, he stopped, slapped his gloved palms together and said, “Okay, who do you think is doing this?”

Alberta took a step back from him and said, “For heaven's sake, I don't know!”

Hutchinson softened. “No, I know, I didn't mean you did. I'm just
…
if I catch the a
…
, er, jerk who's doing this …”

We all went back to gathering the final lengths of wood, and Alberta suggested we go warm up for a few minutes and come back with a couple of rakes to finish up. She got no argument from me. I wasn't really cold, but I could stand to visit the bathroom after all that liquid lunch and time out here. As we walked toward the slope to Alberta's driveway, we saw someone dragging a little red wagon loaded with bags of something. Cat food?

“I haven't seen a sign of a cat since we got here,” I said.

Hutchinson said, “They hid in the bushes by the building, and in the plants along the fence, last time. And I guess under people's decks and sheds.”

“They'll come out for dinner,” said Alberta.

The approaching wagon squeaked and clanked over the ground, uneven now from heaving after a few nights of freezing temperatures, and the figure pulling it looked up. “Giselle,” I said.

Alberta suggested she leave the wagon and join us for a few minutes, so she fell into step with the group. “I didn't do it, you know.” Her lower lip stuck out and her arms folded across her chest. She glanced at Hutchinson. He nodded at her but didn't say anything, so Giselle said, “A lot of people touched that pooper-scooper.”

A police cruiser drove slowly by, and Hutchinson waved. “They're
still looking for that kid, that Rudy Sweetwater.”

Hutchinson's words registered as if in the background. I was
remembering again Giselle's story about hitting something with the pooper-scooper, hitting over and over and over. What was it she had said? “It was like a red veil fell over me.” I had to ask.

“Giselle, do you remember telling me about hitting something, not being able to stop?” She stared at me. “What were you hitting?”

Her eyes went wide and she seemed to have trouble finding her voice. Finally she said, “The ground. I was picking up after Precious, and I was so angry, and I called him a piece of shit, I mean, Rasmussen, not Precious, and then instead of picking up the poop I hit it, and then I just kept hitting it, and first I heard the handle crack and my arms were tingling and I just …” She took a long breath, and her voice was closer to a normal tone when she spoke again. “I felt a lot better then.”

“So you threw it away?”

“Huh? No, it was just cracked. I figured Jorge would fix it when he found it. I just leaned it against the garbage can.”

I believed her. I had no idea whether Hutchinson did, but he was kind enough to say, “Keep the faith. We'll figure it out.”

We spent about ten minutes warming up with coffee and chocolate chip cookies. My sinuses felt a lot better after I blew my nose. We all had a quick peek at the kittens, and promised to come back for a little playtime before we left. I stepped out onto Alberta's deck to wait for the others. I pulled my phone out and stared at it, burning to hear Tom's voice, but he needed this time with his son and he had said he would call later. I put it back in my pocket.

A light breeze was breaking through the earlier stillness, and with it came the faint scent of something burning. Probably leaves, although it was late in the season and I wasn't sure a neighborhood like The Rapids of Aspen Grove would allow burning. Maybe a fireplace, or drift from beyond the subdivision. I thought I saw something moving near the clubhouse. A large black dog, maybe? I got just a glimpse before it disappeared behind the building.

Another thread of air brought a stronger trace of smoke and a hint of charcoal starter. For a split second I didn't think much of it, but smells are memory triggers and my memory jumped to the image of flames leaping over the top of my van, and I suddenly felt very cold in spite of my many layers.

I went back inside to see if they were about ready. We were, as my film professor used to say, burning daylight. Hutchinson was on the phone and mouthed, “Just a minute.” Alberta said Giselle was in the bathroom and she'd wait for her. I went out the back door and stepped off the deck. A flock of perhaps thirty starlings flushed from a pair of pin oaks off to my right, and I heard an oddly familiar sound that I couldn't place. A sort of
whoosh.