Lawyer for the Cat (18 page)

*   *   *

The man next to me—young, smelling like last night's whiskey—has fallen asleep, his mouth open. When his head flops onto my shoulder, I shift assertively in my seat, and he wakes up. “Oh, sorry,” he says groggily. And then, “You from Charleston?” I nod. “Going to the big city for some fun?”

“Business,” I say, reaching for my briefcase.

Gina has made a copy of what she calls “the cat diary” so that I can finish reading it. I'm accustomed to reviewing documents, scanning them for relevant information, making notes for later reference. But this is so unlike anything I usually come across in my files, these observations of a woman in the guise of her beloved pet, a woman who seems to inhabit the soul of her cat:

My favorite view is from the east window of the parlor. Up here, I can see the brick path down to the river, the two big oaks on either side, the moss hanging from their limbs, the lawn and the water beyond. The windowsill's just wide enough for me (yes, I've put on a little weight) to lie comfortably, and on a sunny day this spot is so warm it puts me to sleep. But the best time for spotting birds is at dusk, when my vision is keenest. Ah, this is heaven! She'll call me soon, coax me down to the basement apartment, where I'll sit in her lap while she reads me a story.

And this cat's a student of history:

Sometimes I can smell the sweat of the ones who toiled here, the human beings who lived in the one-room cabins (long gone) behind the “big house,” who bent over the rows of cotton from dawn to dusk; the women who cooked in the old kitchen—some drunk Yankee burned it down during the war, but you can see the remains of its foundation in the side yard—and hauled the food up to the dining room; the girl who made the beds and swept the floors and once got a whipping for sampling the French perfume on her lady's dressing table.

Such elegance. And such untold suffering, to maintain it.

And the cat observes her owner with cold objectivity:

Hard to imagine she was once a beauty, this bony old woman with the whispy white hair she doesn't bother to cut, bundled in a sort of bird's nest with bobby pins.

But in the last few entries of the diary, Lila Mackay abandons the voice of the cat. The notes are disjointed, the words spilling down the pages as if the author's falling, the ink smeared:

Make peace with myself. Mistakes. Worse than. Done is done.

Useless, looking back. But the ghost? Lila, he says. Lila. Abandoned trust.

In the end, what's left of love? Beatrice. Warm weight in my lap.

Before I close my eyes the plane soars into the clouds, an infinite blankness. Down there, I know, Delores reminds my mother to use her napkin, coaxes her to eat another bite of scrambled eggs. Gina sweats on the treadmill, running with all her might, imagining herself with thinner thighs, a tighter butt. My friend Ellen dresses for a day in court—dons a new suit, adds a scarf. Looks in the mirror expecting to see a prosecutor and sees, instead, a grandmother.

And there's Beatrice.
What's left of love
.

Those yellow eyes, so steady. Are they accusing me?

Abandoned trust.

*   *   *

The lobby of the hotel is white marble and mirrors, minimalist. A couple of chairs on one side, more like sculptures than furniture—nothing you would want to sit in—and the reception desk along the opposite wall, an expanse of gleaming marble.
Too clean,
I think,
for commerce.
A young woman stands behind it. She's as exquisite as the white orchid in the vases behind her. I give her my credit card. She smiles a marble kind of smile. “Your room overlooks the park,” she says.

I can hear Gina:
It's just for one night, so you might as well live it up. And there's great shopping right next door.
I unpack, hang my things in the closet. I've brought too much, and in the elegant simplicity of this room all my clothes seem dowdy. Maybe I
should
go shopping. Gina again:
Why don't you treat yourself, just this once?

I set out with good intentions, but once inside the Time Warner Center I panic, rush past the ground-floor shops—Hugo Boss, Cole Haan; not in my league—and take the escalator to the second floor, where the offerings are less expensive but the stores more crowded. I try on a few things, reject all but one, buy it—more because I don't want to admit defeat than because I like it. On the way back down, my new dress practically screams from the bag:
What were you thinking?
It's cherry red, a slinky knit, too short for court, too loud for an interview with a poet.

Across the street, the park's a refuge. It's cold, but the sun has snapped the day alive with runners, babies in strollers, people walking their dogs, all the adults zipped up in practical black and gray, the babies and the fancy little dogs in fashionable outfits.

“Some people have too much money for their own good,” grumbles the old man at the other end of the bench.

I smile a noncommittal
I don't really feel like talking
smile, but he's determined: “There are children in this city who don't have enough to eat, and look at that!” He points to a fluffy little dog sporting a plaid vest, prancing ahead of its owner. “What a country!” He takes equal offense at the cell phone ringing in my purse. “And
those
things! It's an insult to the peace-loving populace!”

I get up, walk away, fish for the phone. “Gina?”

“What's that noise?” she asks.

“I'm in Central Park.”

“I hate to bother you, but they want to do an interview.”

“Who wants to do an interview?”

“You remember that reporter from the
Post and Courier
who did the story about pet custody cases? She wrote a follow-up—about the cat case—in this morning's paper. I guess you didn't see it.”

“How does she know about the cat case?”

“They're doing a profile of Judge Clarkson, I guess because he's retiring, and he was talking about the unusual cases that come through the Probate Court, and he mentioned the cat case. So the reporter called here, and you were busy with a client, so I gave her a little background. She left a message for you, but I forgot to give it to you before you left and—”

“Slow down.”

“And now there's this guy calling from CNN.”

“I'm not getting this.

“She—the reporter from the paper here—asked me if you were developing a specialty in animal law. And I must have said yes.”

This stops me in my tracks. “Oh, sorry, miss,” says the woman who runs into me with a stroller.

“I knew you'd be mad,” says Gina, “but I don't see how this could hurt anything.”

“Send me the article. And what were you saying about CNN?”

“The guy who called is in Atlanta, but when I told him you were in New York, he said, great, he'd arrange the interview—”

“Absolutely not.”

“I gave him your number.”

“We're going to have a talk about this when I get back.”

“What are you doing in the park, anyway? Dr. Freeman's expecting you at five. Who goes to the Big Apple and hangs out in a park?”

“It's nice here. Lots of trees.”

“You like the hotel?”

“It's fine.”

“Pretty cool to have a TV in the bathroom, huh? You can take a bath and watch a movie.”

“I don't take baths.”

*   *   *

But when I get back to the hotel that's exactly what I do. On the bathroom counter there's a collection of fancy soap, shampoo, and lotion. Lavender body wash, bath oil in little lavender-colored pods, a loofah, a miniature pumice stone. A coupon for 15 percent off on a $300 full-body massage.

I sink into the water, close my eyes, breathe the steam. The warmth takes me back to the apartment with Joe, such a long time ago, the second-floor apartment in the old house on Rutledge Avenue, the claw-footed tub in the dingy bathroom. We both preferred showers, but there was only a handheld sprayer, and the shower curtain wouldn't close all the way, so we took turns sitting in the tub, one of us bathing while the other aimed the spray. And when I'd had an especially stressful day in court he'd run a hot bath with bubbles, settle me in it, bring me a glass of wine. That bathroom was so small the toilet was practically under the sink, but he made it seem like a palace.

Once, just before our divorce, when we were arguing all the time, he said, “Maybe you should take a hot bath.”

“If you could go back, do it over, would you?” Ellen asked me once a couple of months ago.

“I'd still be me, and he'd still be Joe.”

“Which wasn't so terrible, was it?”

“Things would have gotten a lot worse if we'd stayed together,” I said.

“Maybe you'd have matured. You're both decent people with lots of love to give.”

“He still wants what he always wanted. The house on Meeting Street, the Yacht Club, etc. I would have made him miserable.”

“And Susan makes him happy?” Ellen said.

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“I'm just saying—”

“What
are
you saying?”

“Just that, you know, relationships evolve,” she said. “And you know what I think? I think all your nonsense about not making him happy is … well, it's just not
honest.
It's a cop-out. What you really mean is, he wouldn't have made
you
happy. You married him, and then you changed your mind.… Am I onto something?”

“Let's drop it, okay?”

*   *   *

The hot bath has made me pleasantly woozy, so I stretch out on the bed, close my eyes. But the noise of the city won't let me rest, the sirens, the horns, all of them setting off my mental alarm:
Is Beatrice okay? And what about Mom?
When my cell phone rings, the familiar sound is a relief.

It's CNN, someone named Jillian who sounds very young, very nervous. It's such a lucky coincidence, she says, that I happen to be in the city at the same time she's working on “this in-depth, really fascinating piece about lawyers who advocate for animals,” and when I stop her, explain that my experience in this area is really quite limited, she doesn't seem at all disappointed, she prattles on and on—“We just want a human face behind the story”—until before I know it I've agreed to “a very quick video session that won't take more than ten minutes,” tomorrow morning. Do I mind coming to the studio? It's not far from the hotel. I want to say,
No, I'm sorry, I don't have time,
but her voice is so plaintive—she wants this so much, she needs it, this young woman at the beginning of her career—that I agree.

Just before I hang up she says, “Oh, and when you come to the reception desk, ask for Brian Hancock. He'll be doing the interview. I'm just an intern.”

 

The Human Parade

The doorman nods. “Fifth floor, then it's down the hall on your left, last apartment on that end. If he's listening to his music he won't hear the doorbell. Just keep ringing. He's there.” And indeed, as I stand outside Apt 5L, I can hear a
Brandenburg Concerto
. I press the button, press it again.

“Coming! Coming!” Dr. Freeman yells, flinging the door open. He's in his bathrobe, his long gray hair matted on one side, standing out like a fan on the other. “I was just … Won't be a minute. Don't try to make friends with the Sphinx,” he points to the gray cat on the sofa. “He doesn't tolerate intrusions.”

I'm glad to have this time to look around. The furniture's drab, stuff that might have been fashionable in the fifties but now looks bleak and worn. There's a half-dead ficus in one corner. The kitchen's tiny, dingy but uncluttered: not much cooking goes on there. Except for an old upright piano—the bench piled high with what must be several months' worth of
The
New York Times—
all the available wall space is taken up with bookshelves. This is his obsession: poetry, hundreds of volumes in alphabetical order. When I reach up for one of the books, the cat lets out an unfriendly “Yee-ow,” as if to say
Keep your hands to yourself!

“You're welcome to borrow that if you like,” Dr. Freeman says behind me. “But please sign for it and return it.” He points to a notebook at one end of the dining room table. He's dressed now, in corduroy slacks and a tweed jacket, his hair combed back away from his face but still unruly, like smoke after an explosion.

“No, thank you, I won't have time to do any reading while I'm here.”

“Oh, my dear,” he says, “one should always take time for poetry. Would you like something to drink? I'm afraid my offerings are rather limited: tea or scotch. Or water, if you'd prefer.” I opt for water. He pours himself a generous dose of single malt. “But you've come on a mission, so let's get our business done and then we'll go across the street for some nice Italian. She would like that.”

“Excuse me?”

“My aunt, the one who brings us together! Lila was always worried I might turn into a hermit. I had to remind her that being alone is different from being lonely. Who could be lonely, with all these friends?” He gestures toward the books. “Sure you wouldn't like some scotch? Our reservation isn't until six.”

I take the scotch, and though Dr. Freeman insists that I should interrupt him if I have any questions, he tells me more in his rambling monologue than I would ever learn from the list of questions I've prepared. He talks and talks, refilling his glass as he goes, sometimes rising and walking around the room, glass in hand, once accidentally splashing a little toward the cat, who's lying on one end of the sofa. Now and then he laughs at his own story, throwing his head back with a high-pitched howl, and even then the cat remains unperturbed, as if he's heard this before.