A Cat Called Cupid: A Romantic Comedy Novella (2 page)

My plan
regarding Cat Hater’s phone was subtle. I prepared by closely observing him when he input his code to unlock the phone. I don’t have much of a head for numbers—my gifts are more of the literary variety—and I worried that once having discovered the code, I would immediately forget it. I needn’t have subjected myself to such anxiety. 1234 is hardly a secure password.

Having
cracked Cat Hater’s nonexistent cyber-security, I waited for an opportunity to put this information to use. I had to wait three days before Cat Hater overcame his media addiction and felt sufficient need for human contact that he made amorous overtures to My Lady Ann. His efforts—such as they were—were met, if not with enthusiasm, then acquiescence, and the two of them retreated to the bedroom and shut the door.

Now, as a general rule, I’m not much of a one for modern technology. It’s my opinion that if the Supreme
Deity had intended for us to go around with electronic devices constantly at our paw-tips, he would have skipped a step and embedded them in our bodies at birth. However, I am by nature curious—most cats are—and, as one ill-put but apt expression puts it, this propensity for curiosity frequently kills us. This innate inquisitiveness of mine had resulted in a moderate level of proficiency with electronic devices.

Due to the size of my paws
, navigating the miniscule touchscreen on a phone is a challenge, but I managed to log in to Cat Hater’s phone without a hitch. Utilizing one’s nose helps, although it tends to leave unsightly and incriminating smudges.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Texts to other women?
Lascivious photographs? Evidence of felonious acts? It didn’t matter. When it comes to taking down an enemy, no information can be immediately dismissed as inconsequential.

I decided to start with
Cat Hater’s photographs. This proved disappointing. They were all of him. Cat Hater posing shirtless after a workout. Cat Hater posing shirtless at the beach. Cat Hater in shirtless selfies shot with the aid of his bathroom mirror.

Whatever unflattering light these images shed on
Cat Hater’s narcissistic tendencies, they hardly told me anything I, or Ann, didn’t already know.

I moved on
to perusing his text messages. The sheer volume of data was overwhelming: 8,765 messages. It would take me weeks, possibly months—unless either Ann or Cat Hater’s libido kicked in at a heretofore unforeseen level—to sift through them all.

Nevertheless,
I had to start somewhere, so I began to read. The first few held nothing of interest. Things like: “Your pizza is now ready to be picked up,” and “Your car is due for an oil change on—”

I’d
finally come across something interesting—“Dude!!! Whrs my muny???”—when my spying activities were curtailed by the emergence of My Lady and Cat Hater from the bedroom. They certainly hadn’t been in there long, but they both looked happier than they had in weeks, so who was I to unfairly critique the fleeting nature of the procreant proclivities of another species?

By the time they
reached the living room, I was posed innocently on a window sill pretending to be in the midst of my midmorning nap. I miss those midmorning naps—generally followed by a mid-day siesta and an afternoon snooze. Alas, they are no more. Those napping days are behind me. I’m a working cat now.

After exiting My Lady’s boudoir
, Cat Hater immediately threw himself down on the couch, flipped on the TV and picked up his phone. One screen at a time is never enough for Cat Hater. It takes two or three to satisfy his need for stimulus.

Before I relay what happened next, I should probably mention that up until that morning
, My Lady and Cat Hater had never engaged in a full-fledged fight.

With cats, of course, the preamble to a fight is always marked by a lot of
aggressive posturing and low-register growling. It’s much the same with humans. It began with My Lady circling the couch and Cat Hater determinedly ignoring her circumnavigations.

“Why don’t you want to go
, Jimmy?” My Lady demanded.

I think she was referring to her proposed trip to the Botanical Garden
s. She’d floated the idea last night, in between delivering Cat Hater a plate of spaghetti and loading the dirty laundry he’d brought over into the washing machine.

“Why would I
wanna go spend hours walking around and smelling a bunch of dumb### flowers and ####?”

It
’s my understanding that Cat Hater works in Customer Relations—whatever that is—but with such a gift for erudite expression, he really should be on the public speaking circuit. He could go on tour with his collection of shirtless selfies. His keynote speech? “Uhh-these are like some ####### awesome pics I took of myself. I’m so ####### hot and stuff. That’s it. Any ####### questions?”

It’s cruel to mock the foolish, I know, so I try not to indulge in it to
o often, even when the object of my derision clearly deserves it. To that end, I turned my attention back to the present and found that the argument was still going strong.

“But we never do anything together anymore
!” Ann was saying.

“
The #### we don’t! I’m over here every ####### evening.”

That was absolutely true.
Cat Hater was there every evening. And most weekends.

“By doing things together, I don’t mean you hanging out here watching TV.”

“We do lots of other #### together.”

“Like what?”

“Like what we just did.”

It was
the wrong thing to say, but Cat Hater has very little intelligence. This reasoning, as I anticipated, did not go over well.

“That’s about all we do.”

“Oh, come on! Ya gotta be ####### kidding me! It’s been three ####### weeks!”

It had been
three weeks and two days. I’d been keeping track. However, I could have told him that pointing out the facts never does any good in cases like these. It only encourages the other side to come back with facts of their own.

“You think cooking supper for you every night, doing your laundry and propping up your sad little ego puts me in the mood? I’ll tell you one thing—
”

We never got to find out what that one thing was, because
My Lady picked up a porcelain figurine of a puppy in repose off the coffee table—tawdry and tasteless, I know, but don’t be too hard on her, we all have lapses in good judgment when it comes to matters of style and taste.

“Yur gunna
####### throw that ####### puppy at me? I can’t believe yur actually gunna ####### throw that ####### puppy at me!”

I don’t think My Lady had ever actually intended to hurl the
porcelain puppy at Cat Hater. She’d certainly never thrown anything at anyone before, but there’s a first time for everything, so I took cover under the couch. My position under the couch severely hampered my powers of visual observation, so I had to rely on my ears. There was a brief period of heavy breathing—I think that was issuing from My Lady—followed by a snort and then the sounds of a hasty retreat. The door slammed, and I heard Ann go and turn the deadbolt.

I emerged with caution. My Lady is a gentle soul, really, but
one never can be too sure of how the most predictable of creatures will behave under extreme provocation. Abruptly, Ann threw herself onto the couch and started to sob.

My Lady
generally limits her crying jags to sedate sniffling and the dignified dabbing of the eyes with a neatly folded facial tissue. Sobbing was unprecedented, so I kept my distance and waited for her boiling emotions to return to a simmer before I attempted to render comfort and aid.

I was worried
.
On one hand, a breakup appeared imminent. That was terrific. On the other, I was nowhere nearly prepared to substitute a suitable replacement. Craig and Ann had yet to meet in passing, as far as I could tell, and even if they had, that was not enough. Once they’d casually crossed paths even a few times, all hope would be lost. They’d be stuck in that stage where neighbors politely smile and wave, but never actually speak.

Drastic action was called for, but I didn’t know what.

The next several days were quiet. There was no sign of
Cat Hater. Then, one early morning as I made my usual rounds to terrorize the local bird and rodent population—no good can come of letting lesser species get above themselves—it came to me.

After I patrol the perimeter of the complex, I
usually do a quick inspection of the parking lot. I have to exercise caution, because a large number of residents leave for work early in the morning. Craig is one of them.

I loitered in a flowerbed, nibbling on a blade
of grass, and watched as Craig came out of his apartment carrying a briefcase. Judging by the documents he leaves lying around, Craig is a lawyer. Surprising, I know. I’d always assumed that lawyers are the human equivalent of veterinarians—necessary evils, but not to be trusted.  

It was the sight of Craig leaving for work, combined with my ruminations on
lawyers and vets, which presented me with my Big Idea. It was brilliant, simple in its execution, and could not fail to produce the intended results. Unless, of course, I died in the process. But as they say, War is Hell.

In preparation
for the execution of my Big Idea, I abandoned my preemptive rodent control measures and nosed around the complex dumpster. Nasty places, dumpsters. Although from time to time one finds a tasty morsel worth a second look. I was not, however, looking to supplement my diet. What I needed was an expendable decoy. At first nothing presented itself. At least nothing that I had the capability of extracting from the dank recesses of the dumpster. Then, tucked behind the hulking receptacle, I found the perfect object, long abandoned and ripened to the perfect state of crusty staleness. 

I tentatively tugged at the plastic bag cov
ering the moldy loaf of bread. It was the perfect size and nicely hardened. After confirming that I would be capable of dragging its weight for the necessary distance, I nudged it back to its original hiding place and went about my business.
 

The morning of D-Day,
I was up with the robins, scratching to get out. I dared not risk the possibility of missing Craig; I must be in place before he came out of his apartment. I retrieved the loaf of bread from behind the dumpster and dragged it, under the cover of the bushes skirting the foundation of the building, until I had Craig’s car in my sights.

So far I’d been relatively immune to detection, but now I had to make my way through two rows of parked cars without exciting curiosity.  I waited until the coast was clear and set out across the expanse of concrete.
I was exhausted already. Pulling half of one’s body weight with one’s teeth is no picnic.

I had to pause several times in the shadow of cars to let human residents make their way to their cars unimpeded. I don’t think any of them noticed me. Such was not the case with Fred the Mastiff from 12B.

Now, I know Fred, and he’s more bark than bite, but he—like most dogs—will eat anything, no matter how disgusting. He made some aggressive sniffs in my direction and was bounding over to investigate—no doubt with the intention of absconding with my rightful loaf—when his owner called him back.

That’s
the main reason I’ve never had any real respect for caninekind. They have no minds of their own. Humans refer to dogs such as Fred as being “well-trained”.  I think brainwashed is a more accurate assessment.

Wi
th Fred properly restrained and no longer a threat to life and property, I resumed my journey and finally reached the sanctuary of the underside of Craig’s car.

Now for the trickiest part. The placement of the loaf of bread required finesse. Place it too far behind the wheel, and Craig was sure to spot it. Place it too close
, and it would not create the proper verisimilitude when the moment of truth arrived.

After a great deal of fussing—placing the loaf and standing back to look
, moving it a little to the left and standing back, and moving it a little to the right again—I was finally satisfied with the placement. I retreated to the hood of Craig’s car for a little light grooming and a much-deserved rest.

I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew Craig was standing over me, speaking in th
at treacly voice humans use with animals. I’ve never liked that voice, but it seems to be a universal trait amongst animal-lovers, so I’ve learned to be indulgent.

  The gist of Craig’s honeyed words
was that I had to get off the car because he was late for work. I pretended not to understand. That’s the best way, I always think. No use in letting on that one fully comprehends every word they say.

In the end
, Craig lifted me down himself, tickled me under the chin and sent me on my way. I made a show of sauntering off in the direction of home.

Craig got in his car and started up the engine.
Unbeknownst to Craig, I had gone no farther than the car parked in the space to the right. I was lurking underneath, which gave me an unobstructed view during the moment of impact.