Knitting Under the Influence (27 page)

IX

W
hen Lucy walked into her apartment several hours later, something felt wrong. It took her a moment to figure out what it was: David hadn't come warily prowling in to greet her, like he always did when she came home these days. She called for him and he still didn't come. She dropped everything she was carrying and went from room to room, calling him.

No David.

Lucy searched through the apartment again. This time, she got down on her hands and knees to look under sofas and tables. She even threw in a few high-pitched “Here kitty-kitty-kitties” just for the hell of it. No David.

She felt suddenly really worried. The kitten had recently become curious about the bigger world outside and, several times over the past few days, he had gone darting out the door when she opened it, scooting between her legs and around her feet. She always chased him down and brought him back, but it was possible he'd snuck out that morning when she'd left, without her even noticing. Which would mean he'd been out of the apartment—maybe even out of the building—wandering alone for over three hours.

“Shit,” she said out loud and ran into the apartment corridor and then down the stairs and out into the street, calling and running, searching desperately for a tiny kitten who had gone missing in a very big, very dangerous world.

“I can't find David,” she said into the phone half an hour later.

“The cat or the lab partner?” Sari asked.

“This isn't funny. I got back from knitting and he was gone. Sari, I’m worried he got out of the building and is lost somewhere.”

“Did you look outside?”

“I went around the whole block. I can't find him anywhere.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Sari said. “But cats usually find their way home, don't they?”

“Big cats do,” Lucy said. “Big grown-up cats who've lived for a long time in one place and who have sharp claws and can defend themselves against any danger—they find their way home. But little tiny kittens who haven't even been in the world very long—”

“Don't start imagining the worst.”

“Too late.”

“Well, then,
stop
imagining the worst. I’m sure he'll come back.”

“Are you really sure or are you just trying to get me off the phone?”

“A little of both, actually,” Sari said. “I’m sorry, Lucy, but I’m overwhelmed with everything I have to do if I want to be able to leave tomorrow. I can't just disappear—I need to find replacements for all the kids I see. So I’m sort of losing my mind right now. But I honestly think David the kitten—being the most amazingly wonderful and brilliant kitten in the world—will find his way back to your side safe and sound before the end of the day.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Lucy said. “Go do your stuff. I’ll see you in the morning.” She hung up the phone and stared at it miserably for a minute. Then she got up off the bed and went through the apartment and opened the front door and called for David again. Then she went back into the apartment and called for him some more. Then she went out of the apartment and down the stairs to the street and called for him some more. Then she went back into the apartment and checked inside the stove and all the cabinets in the kitchen. Then she got out a suitcase and opened her underwear drawer and stared at its contents without seeing them for a minute or two. Then she got up and opened the front door and called for David.

“This is insane,” she said out loud. She picked up the phone again.

There was no answer at David's apartment, but she waited, knowing it would ring through to his cell. “Hey,” he said once it had, “what's up?”

“The kittens missing,” she said. “I can't find him anywhere. I think maybe he got out this morning, which means he's been gone for hours.”

“Oh, shit,” he said. Then, “Well, at least it's not dark. The coyotes shouldn't be out yet.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Thanks for bringing up coyotes. Where are you?”

“Having coffee.”

“With someone?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” she said. “I was hoping—I mean, I was thinking—that maybe you could come help me look—but you're busy, so—”

“I’ll be there in ten,” he said and hung up.

It was closer to twenty, but Lucy didn't complain.

“I looked around the block,” David said as she let him in. “No surprise reappearance here, I assume?”

Lucy shook her head. She suddenly didn't trust herself to speak. At the sight of David's familiar, slightly homely face, she was overwhelmed with the desire to burst into tears. She fought it desperately. But it must have shown, because he said, “Don't worry, Lucy. He'll turn up. Cats have a way of being okay. This is where that whole nine lives thing really comes into play.”

Lucy nodded but couldn't manage a smile. “He's so little,” she said. “He's so little and I was responsible for him.”

“Come on.” He put his arms around her and she rested her head against his shoulder. “You're being silly. He's a cat. Cats always escape. And they always come back.”

“Unless a coyote gets them. Or a car hits them. Or—”

“Someone sells them to evil scientists to experiment on?”

She pushed him away. “That's not funny.”

“It's a little bit funny.”

“I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “No more jokes. Let's focus. Is your phone number on his ID tag?”

“He doesn't have one. I kept forgetting. I was at Petco a million times, but I just kept forgetting, but if I’d only just gotten him one … I’m such a fucking
idiot!”
And with that, she finally burst into the tears that had been threatening to break through for the last half hour.

“Come here.” David steered her to the sofa and pushed her down on it. Then he sat next to her and took her hand. “Take a deep breath, Lucy, and calm down. The guy's only been missing a few hours. Cats often vanish for days and then reappear. He's going to come back. But we might as well do what we can to help. Do you have any photos of him? We could put them up somewhere.”

“I didn't have any batteries in my camera,” Lucy said, extricating her hand so she could use her knuckle to wipe away the tears under her eyes. “I tried to take his picture—I wanted to—but I didn't have any batteries and I kept forgetting to get new ones.”

“You need some help running your life,” David said.

“I know,” she said with a sob.

“Whoa there,” David said. “I was joking. And this isn't even close to calming down.”

“I can't help it.”

“Come here,” he said, and pulled her so her face was against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and she shoved her forehead hard into his shoulder and let herself go.

Interestingly, once she gave in to her tears, they didn't last all that long. She trembled and hiccupped and sniffed for a few minutes, while David rubbed her back and made soothing sounds. Even when the tears had stopped, she didn't move for a while, just stayed where she was, her cheek pressed against his shirt.

After a little while like that, she said, “I can hear your heart beat.”

“Interesting,” he said. “Would you say it's got a hip reggae kind of a beat?”

“It just sounds normal to me. Tha-boomp, tha-boomp.” A pause. Then: “I need a tissue.”

“You've been doing pretty well with my shirt up till now.”

“Sorry.” She righted herself, embarrassed. “Hold on. Let me go wash my face.”

In the bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face and toweled off. There was a bottle of suntan lotion on the vanity, and it occurred to her she shouldn't even go to Hawaii if David stayed missing—she'd need to stay and keep looking for him. And even if she
did
find him, she'd have to get someone to take care of him while she was gone. She hadn't even thought about that before. She was a bad, bad pet owner.

When she came back out, David was sitting at her computer. “I found a Web site about missing pets. They say the first thing you should do is check with all your neighbors.”

“I don't know my neighbors,” Lucy said. “I’ve never even
met
them. Oh, except for the time I yelled at the people downstairs for making too much noise.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Four years.”

David shook his head with a laugh. “You might want to work on your people skills, Lucy.”

“Do you think we should go talk to them?”

“It can't hurt.”

She liked that he didn't question her use of “we,” just stood up and joined her at the door.

“I know this may sound selfish at a time like this, but I’m really hungry,” David said when they returned to the apartment a while later, having checked in with all the neighbors who were home—no one had seen the cat—and searched around the block one more time. “How about we order in a pizza while we make some flyers? I can post them when I leave.”

“Yeah, okay,” Lucy said. She felt disoriented and dazed. The sun was setting and she still hadn't found the cat and the thought of eventually trying to go to sleep for the night knowing he was out there alone somewhere—or dead somewhere—was so awful she couldn't even think about it.

“What kind do you like?” David asked.

“Kind?”

“Of pizza.”

“Oh. I don't care.”

“Is there something else you'd rather eat?”

She shook her head. “I’m not really hungry. I kind of feel like I’m going to throw up.” She did, too. She felt shaky and queasy, even though she hadn't eaten since she'd left Sari's apartment hours and hours ago.

“Maybe you'll change your mind once it's here,” David said and picked up the phone to place the order.

They designed the flyer while they waited for the pizza to be delivered. Since they didn't have a photo of the cat, Lucy wrote a brief description, biting her lip to keep the tears back as she typed “very small, with two black dots on his nose.”

“I think you should offer a reward,” David said from behind her.

She paused, her fingers poised on the keyboard. “How much?”

“Enough so that people will bother to return him, but not enough to attract a con artist.”

“And in dollars, that would be—?”

“A hundred maybe?”

“Ouch,” she said, typing it in. “But okay. Anything for David.”

“I’ll split it with you,” he said. “Fifty-fifty. Which would be fifty-fifty.”

“No,” Lucy said. “You paid for David in the first place and it's my fault he got lost, so I should pay the whole amount.”

“We're in this together,” David said. “And he's my cat, too— remember the visiting rights?”

“You can't visit what isn't here,” Lucy said. Her voice broke on the last word.

He put his hand on her shoulder. “He'll be back.”

Lucy did think the pizza smelled kind of good when it arrived, but as soon as she looked at it, her stomach tightened and she felt sick again, all shivery with a sudden chill, so she put it back down and excused herself for a moment. She went into the bedroom. She had left her window open and it was freezing in there. She closed the window, then went to her closet to get a sweater. When she opened the closet door, she let out a scream.

David came running. “What's wrong?”

She was squatting down, her back to him, but now she stood up and turned to him, gray fur clutched to her chest. “Nothing. Nothing. Everything's right.”

“The litde guy!” He stroked the cat's head. “How the fuck—? Is he okay?”

“I opened the closet and he was just there.”

David wrinkled his nose and peered into the closet. “Smells like he left you a present in there.”

“It's not his fault—he must have been in there for hours.” Lucy cuddled the kitten tightly against her chest. “Oh, David, you scared the shit out of me. Don't ever go missing like that again.”

“He didn't go missing,” David said. “You must have shut him in there.”

“I have no idea when or how I did that. And I swear I checked in there when I was looking all over for him. I know I did.”

“Maybe he was sleeping then.”

“We should feed him,” Lucy said. “And give him some water.”

“And take him to the litter box,” David said. “There may still be something left in him, although, to judge by the bottom of your closet, I doubt it.”

He took care of the kitten while Lucy cleaned up the mess then David the human went back to eating his pizza while David the kitten crouched on the floor and lapped eagerly at some water. Lucy sank into a chair and took a deep breath. Everything was okay. She had her kitten back.

“Sure you don't want any?” David said, as he took another piece of pizza from the box.

She realized with a sudden ache in her stomach that she was starving. Relief had brought back her appetite with a vengeance. “Yeah, actually, I do,” she said. She reached over and snagged the biggest slice that was left and devoured it.

She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten a slice of pizza like that—the whole thing from the top of the triangle to the bottom, without bothering to blot the grease with a napkin or pick the cheese off or leave the crust or play any of her usual calorie-cutting games.