Cat Leaves Girl.

No, my cats have not left me. But in honor of the fact that I got a very funny message on my machine yesterday about my cat, Will (the black one- below. Skunk is the one on the right), I am posting this story today, "Cat Leaves Girl." It wasn't in the original plan-- it was one of my first stories ever-- but it seemed fitting. This woman called to tell me how much joy Will gave her and some other people in the neighborhood. That he was fun and sweet and entertaining and gentle. And he played with the dogs and even the guys on my street. Yes, apparently even some cat-hating men (according to her) love Will. God bless him. She has pictures to prove it. And she's bringing them by. It should be noted, I get calls about him every couple of weeks. Good calls. I've always had those kinds of animals. The lovers. God bless them. For loving me. You've got to get it somewhere, right?



CAT LEAVES GIRL



Rita is used to being greeted by her cat the minute she gets home. She’s used to her cat meowing at her plaintively as she closes the garage, then getting under foot the entire walk to her apartment, wanting to be fed. She’s used to tripping on her cat as she walks up the steps, her arms full of whatever it is she’s carrying. Groceries, things from work. Inevitably her arms are always full because she hates having to make a bunch of trips back and forth. She only has two arms, after all. And the more trips she makes, the more she’s reminded of this. And she hates being reminded of this. That it’s just her.
Tonight, her arms are more full than usual because it’s Christmas time. And her cat is nowhere to be found. It throws Rita off. She doesn’t know how to negotiate the steps without dodging Harold. And she stumbles. Drops all the packages she’s carrying. And rips her skirt on a loose nail. She really liked that skirt.
But she can’t worry about that now. She spent a fortune on those Christmas presents - presents for her sister, presents for her sister’s husband, presents for her sister’s kids, for her friends, her friend’s husbands, her friend’s kids… Now they’re all scattered up and down the steps. Rita sighs and starts to gather them into her arms, wondering where Harold is when she needs him. At the bottom is a ‘See and Say’ propped on its side. It keeps repeating “The cow went moo" over and over again. It’s annoying, but Rita decides to leave it there till the very last, thinking it just might taunt Harold into coming out from wherever it is that he’s hiding. But it doesn’t and finally she picks it up with the other packages and climbs the stairs to her apartment.

Rita jiggles her keys pointedly before she puts them in the lock. But still, no Harold. This isn’t like him, she thinks to herself. Where could he be? She opens her door and turns on the light. The quiet hits her all at once. She leaves the door ajar and dumps her packages onto the bed because she doesn’t have a Christmas tree or a Christmas anything, for that matter. She didn’t really see the point of a tree for one.

As she makes for the kitchen, she checks her watch. She’s a few hours late getting home, but still. Harold should know better. She grabs a can of cat food out of the drawer and loudly closes it, to let Harold know she’s home. She puts the food in his dish and waits, pouring herself a glass of wine. She finishes the glass, and is onto another, but still no Harold. Now she’s really starting to get worried. The answering machine has two messages on it. Suddenly Rita thinks maybe Harold was hit or something else may have happened to him. So she plays the messages. But it’s only her mom and a telemarketer offering her a vacation for two if she signs up for DHL.

That reminds Rita to turn on her TV. But there’s nothing good on. She calls a few friends – machine, machine, feeding Lana, the baby’s crying, can I call you back? Eric needs help with his presentation. No problem Rita says and finishes off her wine.
She turns the TV off then back on because she likes the noise. Until she hears a sitcom actress bemoaning her solitude to laughs from the studio audience. Rita grabs a flashlight and heads out into the front yard.

“Harold, here kitty, kitty," calling out, “Harold, where are you? Here kitty, kitty.”
Nothing. She shines the flashlight around the yard even though she knows that if Harold was there he would have answered with a meow or at least showed himself. She heads over to his favorite hiding place, a grate that was pushed open. He likes to play under the house. The sprinklers just went off, so everything is wet. Rita gets down on her hands and knees. She flashes the light into the area. All she sees is concrete and pipes.

“Harold I’m sorry, I was late,” she calls into the space. As if that would make a difference.

“This isn’t funny anymore," she says then, getting up. Mud covers her skirt and her hands, but she doesn’t care. She wants to know where Harold is. The wine is kicking in and she’s starting to feel a bit frantic. She heads back inside.
“Harold, Harold, where are you? Here kitty, kitty," she calls out, wandering the hallway.
At the end of the hall, a man opens his door, putting out his trash

“Excuse me... ,” Rita approaches him, “Have you seen my cat?”
“No. Sorry," he says, noting first her torn skirt and then her overall muddy, disheveled appearance.
“Okay, thanks.”
As he starts to close his door, Rita hears a meow from inside the apartment. She stops and looks at the man a long moment.
“That sounded like Harold," she says.
“Harold?” he asks.
“My cat.” Like they both knew what she was talking about.
“I’m sorry, you must be mistaken.”
There’s another meow. She looks at him again. Not just suspicious anymore. Accusing.
Another meow.
Rita shoves her way in. And that’s when she sees him- Harold, playing with the man’s young Martha Stewart-like wife next to the Christmas tree. He’s rolling around in ribbon, having the time of his life. Upon seeing Rita, the wife snatches Harold up and holds him to her breast.
“Oh, my God,” Rita says, “You kidnapped my cat!”
The wife looks at her a moment. Then, delicately, as if to a child, a very slow child “Well, we didn’t really kidnap him, he kind of chose to move in with us.”
That’s when Rita notices the cat bed, the cat scratching post, and the squeaky toys.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demands.
“Just that. He’s happy with us,” the man says, then turns to his wife, “Right, honey?”
“That’s right, sweetheart.”
She gets up and puts an arm around her husband. The Christmas tree lights blink behind them.
How long has this been going on? Rita wonders. Last night he slept at home… Then, she notices. Harold has his own stocking. The man and the woman, the couple, clutch him close. The three of them creating a picture like the front of Christmas card. Rita looks at Harold, imploring, but he doesn’t respond. It’s like she’s not even there. But she’s not willing to give up just yet.
“Why don’t you put him down and let him decide for himself who he wants to be with," she says to the man and his wife.
The woman looks to her husband. He nods his approval. The Martha look-a-like gingerly places Harold on the floor.
“Harold, come on, let’s go home,” Rita says. “Let’s go home, kitty, kitty.”
But Harold doesn’t make a move. He stays there. At the couple’s feet. Almost as if he’d been brainwashed or something.
“Harold, come on,” Rita says again. This time, more forcefully
Instead, he curls up into a ball and starts to roll around.
The couple looks at her. Like they told her so.
“Well, good for you,” Rita says, hating them and their smugness, “You’re happy, he’s happy. Just one big, happy family. But you know, it’s not my fault I’m single. I mean it’s not like I can just go out and find a man. It’s not that easy, you know. For some of us it’s harder. And that makes it harder to be happy. You know? Well, do you?”
The man and his wife don’t speak. They look at each nervously.
“Would you mind leaving?” the man says, “I think you’re scaring Harold.”

Rita goes home then, but she can’t sleep. She wonders what it is she did wrong. What would make Harold want to leave her. Sure, she’d been working a lot lately. And she hadn’t been as affectionate as she usually was, but she was tired. It was hard doing it all herself. Being all by herself. It was easier for the couple. There were two of them. They had more love to give.

Rita wakes in the middle of the night with a start. She thinks she hears Harold meowing outside her front door, so she gets out of bed as quickly as she can and opens the door. But he’s not there. She looks down the hallway. It’s completely empty. Rita wonders for a moment if Harold really was out there, trying to get back to her and the married couple heard him meowing and took him back inside. Or if she just wanted that to have happened. Rita gets up three times throughout the course of the night, each time more positive than the last that Harold was out there. She doesn’t sleep at all.

When Rita wakes up, she plays Christmas music as loud as it will go feigning holiday cheer. But Harold still doesn’t come back. Instead, two neighbors ring her buzzer and complain. It’s only seven am. She goes to get a Christmas tree then and spends the afternoon decorating it with tinsel and lights and an angel on the top. When she’s done, she starts making cookies. She wears an apron that says “Mrs. Claus," thinking that a Mrs. of any sort is better than no Mrs. at all. And certainly Harold has to see this. He has to understand that she’s trying. That she’s doing the best she can.

When he still doesn’t come, she gets him turkey and giblets, heats it in the microwave for smell and fans it outside the couple’s apartment, hoping Harold will notice. But she never hears a sound. Then she tries a ball with a bell inside. She bats it around for a good ten minutes. Nothing she does seem to work. She doesn’t think Harold will ever come back. And as she returns to her apartment and places her Christmas packages under the newly decorated tree with an angel spinning around on top, she realizes that the only thing lonelier than being a single woman with a cat is being a single woman without one.