A Cat Called Cupid: A Romantic Comedy Novella (8 page)

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“Can’t you think of something?” Flavia demanded.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. You’re the lawyer.”

“What does that have to do with anything
?”

“I don’t know. Tell him to cease and desist or whatever it is you say
when you like totally—”

“Cease and desist from what
? It’s not illegal to ask your girlfriend for a loan.”

“Ann’s not his girlfriend.”

“Alright. Ex-girlfriend. What difference does that make?”

“It won’t be a loan. He’ll never pay her back.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he was stealing from her the whole time they were together
!” Flavia said.

That got Craig’s attention.
“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do you have proof?”

“Not really
, but he’d take cash from her purse, a little at a time. I caught him doing it. Twice.”

He’d done it a lot more than twice. Towards the end of their relationship he’d been sneaking something almost daily.

“But Ann must have noticed,” Craig protested.

“She did.”

“So that’s why they broke up?”

“No. They broke up because of Vanessa,” Flavia corrected him.

“That’s right. I remember. I heard all about Vanessa.”

There was a long pause while Craig tried to brush the snack debris off the front of his t-shirt
, and Flavia pretended she didn’t notice what he was doing.

“
That’s really not fair of Ann—” Craig finally spoke again. “If what you say is true—”

Flavia assured him
that it was all one hundred percent true. She used a couple of Cat Hater’s own favorite phrases to emphasize her point.

“
If Jimmy’s really that bad, and Ann kept him around, knowing what she must have known, then why am I the one who gets kicked to the curb just because my ex-fiancée decides to show up for a friendly visit?”

Flavia sighed. “You don’t see it, do you?”

“See what?” Craig demanded. “What am I missing here?”

“She totally didn’t like
love
Jimmy, but she totally does love you!”

Flavia’s pro
nouncement of Ann’s undying love for Craig went over big. Craig didn’t say anything for quite some time while Flavia waxed eloquent on the theme. She went so far as to suggest a fall wedding and predict how many children Craig and Ann would be blessed with—three—and what their names would be—Patrick, Anastasia and Emily. She had moved on to whether Patrick should take saxophone or piano lessons—she was leaning toward the saxophone because it was a more masculine instrument—when Craig finally cut her off.

Th
is was a relief. I think Flavia could have gone right on planning their collective future well into old age, possibly culminating with the three of them—Craig, Ann and Flavia—buried in a row in some nice cemetery somewhere.

“What if you’re right?” Craig asked. “What if
she does still love me?”

“Of course, she totally loves you!” Flavia said. “That’s what I’ve been saying for the last t
en minutes.”

It had been more like t
wenty minutes, but since I wasn’t really part of the conversation, I refrained from butting in to point that out.

“I don’t know what to do,” Craig said.

“Just talk to her,” said Flavia. Sometimes Flavia surprises me. She can drivel on for ages about the theoretical extracurricular activities of the unborn children of a pair of people who aren’t even currently engaged in procreative activities, and then she comes out with a bit of sensible advice like “Just talk to her.”  

“What if she won’t talk to me?”

The reason, I suppose, that so much really good advice goes unheeded is that the right thing to do is usually also the hardest thing to do. Craig has his pride and being the one to make the first move would require him to swallow it whole.

“She will
talk to you. I promise,” Flavia insisted.

“But what if she won’t?”

“Then you’ll have to make her?”

“How am I supposed to do that? Send her a court
order?”

For a split second there, I think Flavia thought he was serious, then she bristled a little.

“There’s like no need to get sarcastic. I’m just trying to help.”

“I know,” Craig said. “I’m sorry.”

“What you really need—” said Flavia, “—is like some totally big romantic gesture.”

“What’s a romantic gesture?”

“You know. Like sky-writing or something.”

“You mean I should hire a stunt-pilot to write, ‘I’m sorry. Please take me back, Ann
.’ over the Topeka skyline.”

“Yeah. Something like that.”  

“I think that’s a little hokey.”

“
So, you want something bigger?”

“I think so.”

“You don’t like have a spare organ you could donate to one of her dying relatives, do you?”

It’s a good indication of Craig’s gloomy state of mind that he didn’t laugh
out loud at that suggestion. Flavia watches far too many soap operas.

“Does Ann have any relatives in need of an organ?” Craig asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Something midway between sky-writing and donating a kidney, I think,” Craig said. 

While I may have mentally mocked the specifics of Flavia’s suggestions, I believed the basic reasoning was sound. I, too, was convinced of the efficacy of a big romantic gesture. Craig needed to do something. The question was: what?

I applied myself to this problem for the next week, but nothing suggested itself.
 

My Lady ignored
Cat Hater’s note, and as the days slipped by and he didn’t show up, I think we all started breathing easier. Our relief was premature. One evening the doorbell rang, and Ann went to answer it. I knew immediately, of course, who it was. I could smell his noxious olfactory identifiers: stale sweat, menthol cigarettes, cologne and fruit-flavored chewing gum.

My Lady opened the door
, and Cat Hater stepped inside without waiting to be invited.

“Shut the door
!” he said.

“Why
should I?” Ann was bristling.

“
In case I was ####### followed, that’s why.”

“Who
’s following you?”

“
How ### #### am I supposed to know?”

Ann shut the door and locked it.

“What do you mean, how are you supposed to know? Why would anybody want to follow you?”

“I owe some
####### guys a #### lot of ####### money!”

“What do you mean, some guys?”

Then it all came tumbling out. Unpaid illegal gambling debts. Defaulted car loan. Lost deposit on his apartment. Backstreet financing from one shady character to pay off another shady character. It wasn’t pretty, and I wasn’t surprised.

“I’m just a
### #### ####### idiot,” Cat Hater concluded. I couldn’t think of any reason to disagree with him.

“Why are you here, Jimmy?” Ann asked. “Do you want money?”

“I could never take money from you,” Cat Hater said earnestly. “I just wouldn’t feel right about it.”

Unbelievable as it may seem, it
appeared that Cat Hater had deluded himself into thinking My Lady had never caught on to his larcenous ways.  

“Good!” said Ann. “I’m glad you feel that way, because I wasn’t planning on giving you any.”

“It’s not money I want from you,” he said. “I just need a friend.”

Ann just looked at him.

“Really. I just kinda need a place to crash for a few days, until the heat’s off and I can get my ####### #### together.”

“Don’t you have
someplace else to go?”

“Rory kicked me out this morning.”

I mentally congratulated Rory on his good judgment.

“Well, you can’t stay here.”

“They’ll track me down at a hotel. These ######## have people everywhere. Besides, all my ######## credit cards got canceled.”

I could see it in Ann’s face. She was weakening.
This was turning out far worse than I’d ever anticipated. I sprang into action. I frantically scratched at the door, and Ann opened it.

I took a swipe in passing at
Cat Hater’s leg as I bounded out.

“
Yur never gunna get rid of that ######## cat, are ya?” 

I
didn’t take the time to respond to this insult. I tore down the stairs and clawed at Craig’s door. He opened up, but I wouldn’t go in. I made a rush for the stairs. Craig just stood there and looked at me. I made another rush for the stairs, but he didn’t follow. I tried no fewer than eight times to get him to follow me.

I’m given to understand that many years ago there was a TV show featuring a dog who was constantly alerting his human companions to people who’d gotten trapped in caves and fallen down
empty wells and that sort of thing. Highly unrealistic, if you ask me. If those fictional characters who’d fallen down empty wells had been relying on Craig to rescue them in response to an animal’s clearly communicated appeals for assistance, they’d still be sitting there in the dark with water dripping on their heads.

Eventually, I gave up and returned to headquarters.
Cat Hater was still there. He’d installed himself in his customary position on the couch.

I was appalled.

“One night,” Ann said as she threw him a pillow and dumped a blanket down on the coffee table. “That’s it!”
 

One night turned into three nights. The fourth evening, Flavia showed up. I think Ann
—embarrassed at her weakness—had attempted to conceal Cat Hater’s presence on the premises. My Lady had been in almost daily communication with Flavia all week, but I hadn’t heard Cat Hater come up once in conversation.  

As soon as Flavia walked in
, she looked at the crumpled bedding on the couch, the duffle bag in the corner, and the pile of dirty plates on the coffee table. “You took him back, didn’t you?”

Cat Hater
had gone out for a while, ostensibly to do something about raising some money so he could buy a bus ticket to St. Louis—he claimed to have a brother there—but I suspected he was just going to the corner store to buy beer and cigarettes with the money I’d seen him sneak from My Lady’s jar of quarters. She’d wisely taken to hiding her purse under the kitchen sink behind the cleaning supplies. Cat Hater would never think to look there.

After Flavia asked Ann if she’d taken
him back, My Lady played dumb.

“Taken who back?”

“That ####### ### ##### ####### ##### ##### ####, that’s who!”

Flavia
knows a few colorful phrases which even Cat Hater is not adept at using.

“We’re not back together,” Ann protested.

“Then what’s he doing on your couch?”

“He’s just here until tomorrow. He promised he’s leaving.”

“Right! How many days has he been telling you that?”

“He really
is in trouble. I can’t just kick him out. We have a history.”

It was then that there was the sound of a key in the lock.
Cat Hater was back.

“You gave him a key?!” Flavia was livid. “Have you lost your mind?
!”

Ann just shrugged and shushed her.

“I totally don’t care if he hears me!” Flavia said as Cat Hater entered with a case of beer. A pack of cigarettes peeked out of his pocket.

Flavia exited
. As she passed by Cat Hater, she made an aggressive gesture of derision more generally associated with incidents of road rage than greeting the houseguests of one’s friends.

“What’s her
####### problem?” I heard Cat Hater demand, as I slipped out on Flavia’s heels.

I caught up
with Flavia as she was banging on Craig’s door.

“What do you want now?” Craig
asked when he finally opened up. I think he’d been sleeping. He looked very little better than he had the last time he and Flavia had an unscheduled tête-à-tête. At least he was wearing two socks this time.

“He’s back!” announced Flavia. She pushed her way in
, and I followed. Flavia didn’t have to specify who “he” was.

“Did he ask her for money?”

“It’s way worse than that. He’s moved in.”

This, as I had anticipated, went over big.

“You mean they’re back together?”

“That depends on what you mean by together.”

Craig had put on one shoe and was searching for the other.

“You know what I mean,” he said.

“There was bedding on the couch.”

Craig found his other shoe
. He stuffed his foot into it, but he didn’t bother with tying it.

“Jimmy isn’t a black-belt or anything, is he?” Craig asked as we moved en masse
toward the door.

“I don’t
think you ought to like fight him, or anything,” Flavia said. “He’d like totally kick your butt.”

I agreed with Flavia. Jimmy was bigger than Craig. Much bigger. In a
ny contest between brawn—that was Jimmy—and brains—that was Craig—brains never win when things got physical. That’s something I’d have done well to consider before attacking that Big Orange Tom.

However, I knew exactly how Craig felt
, and although he might be about to get beaten to a pulp, it was a refreshing change from him limiting his efforts to win back Ann to sitting on his couch and singing depressing ballads about lost love.