How to Wash a Cat (15 page)
Authors: Rebecca M. Hale
“Sorry, not this time,” I replied. “We’re on our way to visit someone up in the city.”
“All of you, it seems,” he said, pointing to the cats. Rupert and Isabella peered up at him through the grilled openings in the tops of their crates.
Monty set Rupert’s crate on the pavement and wandered into the maze of racks, perusing the brightly packed rows. “Maybe we should bring Dilla some flowers.”
“Tulips are a very good choice,” Mr. Wang offered.
I looked over at him sharply; I was now extraordinarily sensitized to tulip references.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Monty paused behind a rack of calla lilies, his forehead furrowing as he considered. “I’m kind of partial to roses.”
“Tulips,” Mr. Wang pressed, winking at me as Monty ambled into the covered portion of the stall. “Today, I can give you a discount on tulips.”
The temptation of a bargain was too much for Monty. He turned around, a broad smile on his face. “Tulips it is,” he pronounced.
I opened my mouth, but I was too flustered to comment. Monty fished in his wallet for the total, seemingly oblivious to the conspicuous tulip references. I tried to convince myself that I was reading too much into Mr. Wang’s comments as he wrapped up the flowers and handed them to Monty. “I hope you have a good visit.”
We reached the corner of California Street and waited with a crowd of tourists for the cable car to arrive. Another morning’s cool, damp fog was succumbing to a blazing barrage of sunlight. I shielded my eyes from the glare as the clang of the trolley’s bell approached us.
We climbed into the carriage, squeezing our cargo into the limited space at our feet. I pulled my knees up to my chest, propping my heels on the roof of Isabella’s crate. My mind raced as we rose up through the last wisps of fog, rocking back and forth each time the driver hooked the cable running beneath us. Beside me, Monty chatted merrily along with Rupert, showing no indication that he had registered any significance to Mr. Wang’s persistent pushing of the tulip sale.
“I’ve got tulips on the brain,” I thought to myself, letting it go.
We got off at the top of the hill, walked half a block down a side street, and stopped in front of what must have once been a magnificent Victorian house. Time and lack of maintenance had not been kind. The battered structure teetered at least four stories up from the street; rotting gables clutched at its crumbling edifice; sad, broken steps clung feebly to the steep side slope.
Dilla stood in the doorway waiting to greet us as we climbed up the weather-beaten stairs, her vibrant smile a sharp contrast to the tired, defeated expression of her house.
She wore a vivid ensemble of Hawaiian-inspired colors. Her mango-orange jacket and slacks were decorated with a scarf streaked with azure blues and guava pinks. She had further adorned herself with a pineapple-shaped broach and matching earrings. Underneath the brilliant colors of the scarf, her tulip necklace seemed somewhat out of place.
“Welcome, welcome. So good to see you!” she said, ushering us inside to the living room. A plate of triangle cut sandwiches had been placed on a long, rectangular coffee table. White, porcelain bowls waited for the cats on the floor. I set Isabella’s cage down on the faded rug and massaged my cramped hand as Monty handed Dilla the tulips.
“Oh, these are lovely!” she gushed to Monty. “Thank you so much!” She dove her nose into the flowers. “Tulips—how appropriate.”
Monty somehow missed Dilla’s exaggerated wink at my startled expression.
“Please, have a seat,” she said graciously, directing us to a threadbare couch in front of the coffee table.
Rupert spied the bowls and looked up at me with anticipation.
“You can go ahead and let them out of their crates, dear, if you like,” Dilla said brightly. She opened a container of Tupperware and dished out a brown, mushy mixture into the cat bowls. “I hope they like it,” she said proudly. “I made it myself.”
I reached over to open Rupert’s cage. “Mind your manners,” I hissed at him under my breath.
Quickly forgetting his intention to stay inside his crate, Rupert bounced out onto the rug and sat down in front of the bowls, waiting for the go-ahead sign to dig in. Isabella followed him, suspiciously eying the brown sludge in her dish.
Monty and I sat down on the couch as Dilla left with the tulips to find a vase. Rupert looked up at me questioningly.
“Just wait a minute until she gets back,” I whispered to him.
Monty leaned back in the couch, casually throwing his arms across its back. “So,” he said, pumping his eyebrows at me, “that was kind of odd the other day—Oscar sending you a package through that flower shop guy.”
I shifted uncomfortably on the lumpy cushions of the couch. Dilla returned to the living room before I could come up with a response.
She opened a bottle of water, poured it into the three glasses on the table, and then leaned over to the floor to pour some for the cats.
Rupert stared intently at the food in front of him.
“Well, go on then, sweetie. It’s all right,” she urged him.
That was all the signal Rupert needed. He dove in, his lips smacking as he slurped up the sticky muck. Isabella hung back, tentatively sniffing her bowl.
“This is a wonderful house, Dilla,” I said, cautiously taking a sandwich from the tray. The crusts had been cut off, leaving neat, sharp edges. The filling looked suspiciously similar to the lumpy, brown mixture in the cat bowls. “How long have you lived here?”
“All my life, dear, all my life. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.” She stopped and looked around the room, a misty look of remembrance on her face.
The walls and shelves were cluttered with knickknacks and family pictures. I recognized a much younger Dilla in many of them. Even in the black-and-white photos, her flair for bold fashion came through.
To the right of the couch, the room boasted a large picture window that spanned across a wide swatch of the bay. It was one of those million-dollar views the city was famous for. Coit Tower was visible on the right side and, with the fog lifting, Alcatraz spread out on the left. It was mesmerizing.
Monty broke the silence. “Shall we break out the goods? I can’t wait to see the cats decked out in the fake jewels.”
A delicious smile spread across Dilla’s face as she brought a long, flat, wooden box over to the coffee table. She raised the lid to reveal a red, plush, velvet interior.
Isabella’s eyes peeked over the edge of the table, curiously studying the box, while Rupert, having licked his bowl clean, began wolfing down Isabella’s nearly untouched portion.
Dilla moved aside a sheet of cloth to reveal the first piece, a collar inlaid with a row of green, emerald-like stones.
My head reminded me that it was costume jewelry, but my eyes thought it was the real thing. The stones hued dark against the red background, but when Dilla held them up to Rupert’s white coat, the dozens of small, faceted edges caught the light, twinkling.
Rupert stopped eating and sat perfectly still while Dilla fastened the clasp—I think he was afraid she might try to pick him up if he squirmed.
She fastened the hook and stepped back, clapping her hands together in delight. “Oh, he looks so handsome!”
Dilla reached back into the box and pulled out a silver and gold chain, interlaced with several mock diamonds and a rainbow full of other stones. Red, blue, purple, and green sparkled in her hands. “This one’s for the lady. Come here dear, I’ll help you into it.”
Isabella stepped forward and daintily put her front paws through the hole in the chains that Dilla framed with her hands. Slowly, Dilla moved the links into place until Isabella was covered in what looked like a suit of cat chain mail. The netting of bejeweled chains wound around her legs, back, and stomach, then over her head so that one of the blue, sapphire-like stones rested on her forehead between her ears. I wondered if it might feel heavy, but Isabella, admiring herself in a mirror hanging on the wall opposite to the sofa, didn’t seem to mind.
Next, we fitted Rupert with a jewelry chain jacket similar to Isabella’s costume. It barely closed around his bulging midsection. Cat-sized, elastic cuffs fit around his ankles to complete the outfit.
“You look like Elvis,” I told him as he strutted in front of the mirror. Rupert grinned back at me.
“So, Dilla,” Monty said, eager to dive into his ideas for the auction. “I was thinking about the layout of the ballroom. Right down the middle, we could construct a raised walkway for the cats to walk up and down wearing the costumes. It’ll be like a fashion show—with a real
catwalk
.”
catwalk
.”
I had already heard more than enough about the catwalk proposal and was still pondering the significance of Dilla’s tulip-related wink. I interrupted Monty’s spiel. “Dilla, I was intrigued by your necklace the other day. Could I take another look at it?”
“Certainly dear,” she said, reaching up to her neck. I thought I saw her eyes gleam as she handed the necklace to me and turned back towards Monty. “Oooh, I like that idea. And weren’t you talking to me about cupcakes on the phone earlier?”
Monty and Dilla became deeply engrossed in the auction discussion and didn’t appear to be paying any attention to me. I turned the necklace over in my hands, gently twisting the alternating silver and gold links. I held the necklace up to the light and found what I was looking for. A miniscule hinge ran along the side of one of the tulip-shaped links. I slid my fingernail into the seam and sprung it open.
A faded photo of a dark-haired man with a swarthy complexion looked out at me. His facial hair had been neatly trimmed—into a thick mustache and lamb chop sideburns. I recognized the image immediately.
It was William Leidesdorff.
Chapter 17
SQUEEZED MY hand, closing the leaves of the locket, the metal of the necklace cold against my pulsing palm.
“Dilla,” I said shakily, breaking into Monty’s rambling dissertation on the feasibilities of feline resemblance in cupcakes versus cookies. “May I use your restroom?”
“Down the hall on the right, dear,” she said, pointing vaguely, her head turned towards Monty, thoroughly engrossed in the discussion. “I think there’s something about the texture of the cupcake that evokes the fluffy airiness of cat fur, don’t you?”
I laid the necklace on the table and walked down the hallway, trying to collect my thoughts as my eyes adjusted to the dim light in the windowless corridor. The restroom was small and box shaped, barely large enough to turn around in. A cracked, pedestal sink leaned against the wainscoted wall, its exposed, rusting pipes hanging down from the ceiling like the gutted innards of a carcass.
I stepped inside, pondering as I leaned against the closed door. How did Dilla fit into the Leidesdorff story, and why was she wearing a tulip necklace with his picture in it?
I dug my hand into my pocket and pulled out one of Dilla’s sandwiches. I’d discreetly wrapped mine up in a paper napkin. Desperately hoping that her mysterious filling wouldn’t plug up the ancient plumbing, I chunked it into the toilet and pushed down on the lever. There was a satisfying swish as water rushed through the rusting pipes, rattling them against the peeling surface of the wall.
Mission accomplished, I left the lavatory and retraced my steps back towards the living room. As I walked along the hallway, I scanned the lineup of family photos, my eyes now adjusted to the dim lighting, rejecting one after another as having any resemblance to the picture of Leidesdorff in the locket. I was so focused on my search for Leidesdorff facial features, I nearly missed the familiar face staring out of one of the larger frames.
Longer locks of auburn hair bounced youthfully around her shoulders, but the curls did nothing to soften the hard edges of her mascara. My stomach quaked as I recognized the portrait of a younger Miranda Richards.
“That Mayor of ours has been playing a little hard to get.” Dilla’s voice carried down the hall from the living room. “I haven’t been able to swing an appointment with him yet.” Her voice dropped slyly. “Not to worry. I’ve decided to try a more creative approach. . . .”
I missed Dilla’s latest scheme to induce the Mayor to attend her cat costume jewelry event. Her voice broke off as the house began to shake—gently at first, like the vibration of a distant train still several miles down the tracks. The rumbling steadily increased, growing into a more persistent, violent shaking.
It was an eerily familiar sensation in the city. Most of the earthquakes were a low magnitude and lasted only five to ten seconds. Depending on where you were when one hit, you might not even feel it at all.
This one was stronger than most. For the eternity that spanned those ten wobbly seconds, all of San Francisco mentally united in a single, collective hope that this wouldn’t be the next ‘Big One.’
I reached out my hand to steady myself against the nearby wall. The building creaked; its wood frame groaned. Nails twisted and torqued in their holes. I became uncomfortably aware that I was standing on the first floor of an extremely old building. Throughout the house, glass fronting rattled in picture frames. A china cabinet chattered nervously as a thousand tiny pieces of ceramic knocked against each other.
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