Lawyer for the Cat (24 page)

“Want to get a drink? I could sure use one.”

“I have the new dog with me. And maybe the cat.”

“Tell you what, why don't I grab a bottle of wine and something for dinner and come over to your place? Hank won't be home till late. He's meeting with some people about sharing office space.”

“I'll have my mother, and maybe Delores. Sometimes she stays for dinner.”

“I'll bring enough for everybody.”

*   *   *

Gina, Carmen, and I wait in the reception area. Gina and I watch the clock: 4:50, 4:51 … 4:57. Carmen lies on the floor, gnawing at a spot on her hip. “She's going to rub that place raw,” says Gina. “You should get the vet to look at it.… How's that going, anyway?”

Before I can say I don't really want to talk about it, we hear the hum of the elevator as it rises to our floor, the thump as it jerks to a stop, and the door opening with its usual deep wheeze. We wait for the sound of footsteps in the hall, but nothing. The door closes, and Gina shakes her head.

Then there's a “meow,” and another—louder, insistent, as if Beatrice is saying,
I'm right here. Are you going to leave me here all night?
We rush into the hall. I lift her out of her carrier, stroke her. She seems fine, as fat as ever, but she's not interested in me. She wants the new toy—a fake mouse that squeaks when she bats it around, a toy that Randall must have given her.

 

Who Am I Saving It For?

“She's been real upset this afternoon,” says Delores when I get home. She frowns at the beagle and the cat, this time with more resignation than resistance. “I just got her settled down. She's watching a Denzel movie.” My mother adores Denzel.
He's so intelligent,
she said not long ago,
such a credit to his people!
I used to confront her about statements like this, but Delores convinced me to let them go.
She is who she is. Don't you worry, we get along fine.

“What got her upset?” I ask.

“She kept saying Mr. Shand had a heart attack. Wanted to go visit him in the hospital.”

“It was my dad who had the heart attack.”

“He was here this morning—Mr. Shand—said he had to go to the doctor, so maybe that's what got her started.”

“I wish he'd leave her alone.”

“Nobody's going to keep those two apart,” Delores says with finality, “Not unless you want to move to another building—maybe another country! There's no harm in it. He behaves himself.” She turns toward the cat, who's exploring some plastic containers on the kitchen counter. “You scat now, get out of my kitchen!”

“Ellen's coming over, bringing some dinner. You're welcome to stay.”

“I have choir practice.”

“You joined the choir?” Delores has a gorgeous voice, but I've heard it only when she's singing to herself in the kitchen. “I thought you didn't like to perform in public.”

“People tell me I got this gift, and I started thinking,
Who am I saving it for?
I used to sing for Charlie. He was always after me to join the choir, so … I just figured it was time. You got to take the gifts God gives you, make the most of them.”

“Charlie was a wise man.”

“Speaking of gifts, what about you and that vet?”

“It's complicated.”

“Well, like I told you, anything to do with a man and a woman's gonna be complicated, but—”

“You're the one who wouldn't move in with Charlie until he was dying!” I'm not in the mood for a lecture from Delores.

She gets her purse, pulls her coat over her shoulders. She won't even look at me.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.”

“When you learn how to love a man like I loved Charlie, you let me know, okay?” She closes the door hard on her way out.

*   *   *

By the time Ellen comes with a bottle of wine and takeout from Tasty Thai, I've fed the animals, changed into jeans and a sweatshirt, given Mom a shower, and gotten her into a nightgown. “Not
that
!” she said when I handed her the flannel one Delores had left on the end of the bed. I was too tired for a battle, so I gave in. She chose the pink satiny one, which seems too nice to sleep in, more like an evening gown, and the matching bathrobe and slippers. And then she insisted on earrings and perfume.

“You want a glass of wine, Margaret?” asks Ellen. “It's a nice Pinot Grigio.”

“She shouldn't,” I say. “Not with her medication.”

“Half a glass won't hurt anything, will it, Margaret?” says Ellen.

Mom smiles, and I give in. She's already helping herself to the Pad Thai. “Let me get your bib, Mom,” I say. “You don't want to ruin that robe. Wasn't Ellen nice to bring all this?”

“Happy to do it,” says Ellen.

“It's been crazy, these last couple of days.” I fill her in on the trip to Edisto with Joe, the meeting with Randall Mackay.

“At least you got the cat back,” she says. Beatrice is under the table, rubbing the back of my legs. “What are you going to do about him?… Joe, I mean.”

Mom perks up at the sound of his name, wipes a noodle off her chin with the sleeve of her robe. “Joe says I'm the most beautiful mother-in-law he ever had.”

“It's true, Margaret,” says Ellen, “you
are
beautiful.”

“I have my hair done every Wednesday,” says Mom. Before my mother sank into her dementia, she gave me strict instructions for her funeral: Episcopal, of course, no open coffin, but a fresh hairdo by her regular hairdresser.

What does it matter what your hair looks like,
I said,
if you're not going to have an open coffin?

She looked at me, did one of her quick inspections for defects, and said,
If you took any pride in your appearance, you'd understand why it matters.

“Your hair always looks perfect,” Ellen says to Mom. And to me: “So, are you going to help him with the campaign?”

“I don't know.” The beagle, who's been hanging around the table, not exactly begging but vigilant in case something falls to the floor, settles herself on the mat below the sink. “I'd like to help him out, but Cynthia's certainly qualified, and we worked together on the women's shelter board.”

“Has she asked you to back her?”

“No, I didn't know a thing about it until Joe mentioned her.”

“The easiest thing would be to just stay out of it,” she says.

“But what do I tell him?”

“Tell him the truth, that it's just too uncomfortable for you.” She bites into a spring roll.

“I'm trying to be objective. He's got loads of judicial experience, and except for the dog case, I don't know of anything—”

“I'm going to be brutally frank,” says Ellen. “Whenever you talk about him, I feel like there's still something—”

“I just don't want to hurt him … with his campaign, I mean.”

“Think about it. You've never gotten involved in judicial politics, so why start now?”

“Because he's asked for my support.”

“Did Susan know he was chauffeuring you to Edisto?”

“I think it was her idea. She's more ambitious than he is!”

Ellen frowns. “I'm telling you, you're asking for trouble if you get involved. Margaret, would you like some more?” My mother nods. Her appetite is still good.

“But enough about me,” I say. “How's Mandy?”

And of course it's her daughter she really wants to talk about: the girl who until a month ago was headed for Duke on full scholarship. “She says it's all going to work out,” Ellen says with a sigh, “because she's moving in with Gina, and Gina was a single parent herself, and Gina loves children. All I've heard out of her mouth for the past couple of days is Gina, Gina, Gina. If I didn't
like
Gina, I'd want to kill her. This wasn't your idea, was it?”

“Of course not. I've been pushing—gently—for adoption.”

My mother perks up: “You never know what you're going to get with an adopted child. It's potluck!”

“Hank wants her to stay with us at least until the baby's born,” says Ellen, “but she's determined to be on her own.”

“Well, you brought her up to be independent.”

“But she's ruining her life.… Dammit, I didn't come over here to cry.”

“Sometimes you just need to cry your heart out,” says my mother. “It helps to run a hot bath, darling, and then you can cry all you want to. You'll feel better once you get it all out.” She's never said anything this comforting to me. It was always:
Stand up straight, put a smile on your face, quit feeling sorry for yourself.

“Maybe I'll do that when I get home,” says Ellen.

We clean up, I put Mom to bed, make a pot of coffee, sit up with Ellen for a while longer. Beatrice is curled in my lap. “That cat looks right at home,” she says.

“She's not staying, if that's what you're thinking.”

“So who are you going to give her to?”

“I've almost made up my mind. I have a couple of people I still want to talk to. You remember Mr. Witowski, who owned the bookstore on King Street?”

“I thought he was dead. How'd you come up with
him
?”

“Long story.”

“But he wasn't on the list.”

“No, it's more out of curiosity than anything else.”

“God, I miss that bookstore. Remember the cats?”

 

Old Books and Candle Wax

Simon Witowski's apartment is on the second floor, reachable only by a set of outside stairs that run from the lower piazza to the one above. The railings are rickety, a couple of the balusters missing. The house—antebellum, once a single-family dwelling—badly needs painting. It stands out among the others on Gadsden Street, all of which have been redone in pastel colors approved by the Board of Architectural Review.

“I'm in the process of moving, so things are a little chaotic,” he'd said when I called to confirm the appointment. When I step inside I see what he means: There are piles of books on the floor, on the dining room table, on every available surface. He points to the cardboard boxes under the table. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

He's thin, his gray wool jacket too big for him, the excess fabric of the trousers bunched into his belt, but despite an obvious limp there's a surprising vitality about him. “I had a little accident a few years back, tripped—ankle's never been quite the same.… Yes, I remember you from the bookstore. You were quite keen on short stories, weren't you? Flannery O'Connor, Mary Gordon.”

“You introduced me to Lorrie Moore.”

“Ah, yes.
Birds of America
! Milk, sugar?”

“No, this is fine, thank you.”

“The new owners couldn't keep up with the rent increases,” he says. “King Street's gone very posh, you know. And even Gadsden Street now … This neighborhood used to be a melting pot, a little bit of this, a little bit of that—medical students, faculty from the college, young couples just starting out, the older ones like me—but everything's changed. Some people from New Jersey just bought this one. Oh, watch your step there,” he says, pointing to a litter box. “I've been meaning to get rid of that.”

“You have a cat?”

“It's left over from McCavity. You might remember him from the bookstore.”

“The big yellow one?”

“Old devil finally passed away. About a month ago.”

“I'm sorry.”

“He was the last of my bookstore cats. But when you're as old as I am, you accustom yourself to losses.”

“When are you moving?”

“I must be out by January first. I'll have a small room at the Franke Home, so most of these books are going to the county library for their fund-raising sale. You're welcome to look through them before you go.”

He catches my expression as I survey the room. “Yes, I know, I haven't made much progress.”

“Do you have some help with all this?”

“My niece wants me to hire a crew, but I can't tolerate strangers handling my books. And there's the expense.”

The whole place smells like old books and candle wax. There's a menorah on a little table in the corner, and beside it a potted plant hung with Christmas ornaments. “That's for my great-nephews,” he explains. “My niece married, as my mother would have said, out of the tribe. She brings her boys around on Christmas afternoon, so I do my best to be ecumenical. It's just a small party, my family and a few others. But you came to talk about the cat, isn't that right?”

“As I told you, my job is to choose a caregiver for her.”

“I haven't met Beatrice,” he says. “But I understand she's highly intelligent and rather temperamental, like her owner. I remember when Lila named her. I assumed some reference to Dante's beloved, so I joked to Lila that if she ever felt lost in purgatory, the cat might lead her out. She took offense.” He smiles. “She could be quite thin-skinned.… Who's keeping the cat now?”

“She's staying with me until I've finished my investigation. Mrs. Mackay named three people as possible caregivers.”

“Yes, you told me.”

“Your name wasn't on the list, yet she kept some of your letters, and I … I can't help but think she did so for a reason, that maybe she intended you to shed some light on—”

“Or perhaps she was merely sentimental,” he says.

“I was told by her nephew Philip that you and Mrs. Mackay were very close at one time.”

“Philip—how is he these days?”

“He seems well.”

“What a talent! I do hope he's still writing. I haven't had a letter from him in a while, but then of course no one writes letters anymore, and I don't do e-mail.”