The Christmas Cat (10 page)

“Cinnamon rolls?” He smacked his lips as he removed the particle mask. “You hear that, Elliott?” He took a moment to introduce Beth to his young helper.

“I just wanted to express my thanks for giving us Spooky,” Beth gushed. “You wouldn’t believe the change that cat has brought to my Annabelle. It’s the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen. Annabelle had been so moody and distant lately. I was worried that she and I were never going to have a normal conversation again. But it’s like that cat brought some kind of miracle over her.” Beth paused to look around the room. “Hey, what’s going on here?”

“Just fixing the place up.”

“I like that color.” She nodded with approval. “Where’s your furniture? In storage?”

“No. I don’t really have furniture. Other than a few pieces I saved from my grandmother’s stuff.”

“No furniture?” She got a thoughtful look. “How would you like some?”

“Huh?”

She laughed. “Well, it’s a long story. You see, after my divorce—I got everything just like I deserved—but I ended up losing my big house over on Sheridan Heights just the same. That’s when Annabelle and I moved over here. Anyway, with the downsize and all, the furniture from my old basement wouldn’t fit. It’s good stuff though, so I put it in storage, thinking maybe I’d get a real salon someday and use it in there. I thought it’d look nice in the waiting area. But that’s just not happening.”

“Uh-huh?” He tried to appear more interested than he felt. Beth’s chatter reminded him a bit of Muzzy. Only Beth was a little more upbeat.

“So, anyway, I’ve been paying for this storage unit ever since we moved. Just throwing money away. I held on to the furnishings thinking I could use them in my salon—not like that’s going to happen anytime soon. Then I thought maybe I’d let my ex take them. After all, he picked them out. I thought I might use them to coerce him into paying child support, but the jerk is just a deadbeat loser. And I refuse to hand them over to him now. If it wasn’t the middle of winter I’d set them in my front yard and sell them.”

“There are online classifieds,” he suggested.

“I don’t have time for that. Besides, I don’t even know how.” She rubbed a long red fingernail beneath her chin. “But what if . . . what if I plunked them down here for a while?”

“Here?”

“It would look fabulous, Garrison. It really would.”

“But I can’t afford to buy anything right now.”

“Well, maybe you could in time. And if not, maybe I could just sell it when summer comes. In the meantime you’ll be saving me rent money and you’d have something to sit on.” She smiled hopefully.

He shrugged. “Well, when you put it like that.”

Suddenly she was writing down an address and some numbers and fishing out a key. “Pick it up as soon as you can, Garrison. The payment is due on the fifteenth and I’d really like to save that rent. I could get Annabelle something nice for Christmas.”

“Okay.” He pocketed the slip of paper. “I’ll do that. Thanks!”

“Thank
you
.” She was beaming now. “And thank you for Spooky. I know that cat’s the reason that Annabelle has started talking to me more. She seems so much happier. I can’t even explain it. Except that I’m so grateful—for everything.” She threw her arms around him, planting a big kiss on his cheek. “Thanks!” She stepped back. “And I thought the cinnamon rolls might help too.”

He sniffed the air. “I can smell them.”

“They’re yummy. Now I gotta run. I’ve got a two o’clock perm.”

“Thanks again,” he called as she went out the back door. But before she was even gone, there was someone knocking on the front door. “This place has turned into Grand Central Station,” he told Elliott as he went to answer it. “Cara?” He smiled big as he opened the door wide. “Come on in.”

“Was that Beth I just saw in here?” She looked at him with a furrowed brow.

“Yeah. She brought some cinnamon rolls. Want one?”

“No . . . thanks.” She turned to the wall Elliott was working on. “Nice color.”

“Yeah. Sabrina picked it out. You were right, she’s got a good eye for color.”

“Speaking of Sabrina, I heard the news.”

“News?”

“She took Oreo instead of Harry.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, well, she—”

“Did you talk her out of Harry?”

“No, not at all.”

“Seriously? Because I got to thinking that maybe you were saving Harry for yourself.” She tilted her head to one side with a slightly suspicious expression.

“I’ll admit I’ve gotten fond of him.” He smiled. “He’s a good cat.”

She pointed to the face mask still in his hand. “How are your allergies?”

“As long as I stay on the meds—and after cleaning out most of the cat hair stuff—they’ve gotten a little better.”

“That’s great. So are you keeping Harry then?”

“I—uh—I don’t really know.”

“Oh . . . ?” She narrowed her eyes slightly, as if adding him up.

“I guess I’m still trying to figure things out.” He shrugged, trying to think of a way to prolong this encounter. But it was pointless—Cara abruptly announced she had to get back to work. After she left, Garrison and Elliott sampled the cinnamon rolls and then returned to painting. But as he painted, he wondered—was Cara more interested in Harry or in him? And what about her attentive neighbor? Garrison was fully aware that David had his eye on Cara. And why
shouldn’t he? But how did Cara feel about David? Garrison wished he knew. What he did know was that—based on personal experience—his skills at reading women were shaky at best. And making assumptions could get a guy into trouble.

B
y Tuesday afternoon, Garrison and Elliott had finished the painting in the downstairs. They’d also removed the nasty wall-to-wall carpeting to reveal some fairly decent oak floors. “Are you going to refinish them?” Vincent asked as he kneeled down to examine the grain. He’d come by to help with some plumbing questions and was just getting ready to go.

“I don’t think so,” Garrison told him. “They seem okay to me.”

“Yeah.” Vincent stood. “If it ain’t broke, why fix it.”

“Especially with so much else to do,” Garrison told him. “Thanks for getting that bathroom running.”

“No problem. And I showed Elliott a couple of tricks so when it’s time to work on the upstairs one, he might know what to do. That kid’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

Garrison looked outside to where Elliott was still heaping the carpet into the Dumpster. “And strong too,” he said.

“But he seems troubled.”

Garrison nodded, confiding in the older gentleman about how he had dreamed of creating a halfway house. “For guys just like Elliott. To help them find their way in the world.” He pointed at Vincent. “They need guys like you . . . to sort of mentor them.”

Vincent pointed back at Garrison. “And guys like you too. Hey, why not use this place for something like that?”

“I’ve considered it,” Garrison admitted. “But it’d take some start-up money, which I don’t have. That’s why I need to take that job in Seattle.”

Vincent frowned. “It’ll be a shame to see you go, son.”

“Yeah . . . well, I keep going back and forth on it. Who knows?” He thought about Cara. If only he could figure her out. “Maybe I’ll stick around.”

On Wednesday morning, Garrison rented a small moving van for half a day. “Come on,” he called to Elliott as he was masking the wall along the stairway. “We’ve got some furniture hauling to do.”

It took three trips to get the pieces moved to his house, but eventually they were put into place. A long black leather couch against the wall and two charcoal-gray leather chairs across from it. “That is sick,” Elliott said as they stepped back to look at it.

“Sick?” Garrison frowned. “I think it looks cool.”

Elliott laughed. “Sick
is
cool, man. Where you been?”

“In Africa?”

Elliott laughed even louder. But Garrison was encouraged to see him looking happy. The kid had a great smile. “Well,
since you lived in Africa, maybe you’d like to see the rug we left outside.”

“Huh?”

“I took a peek.” Elliott chuckled. “It’s
zebra
.”

“Zebra?”

Before long they had the large rug laid out in front of the couch. “What do you think?” Garrison asked Elliott.

“Sick.” Elliott’s chin bobbed up and down.
“For sure.”

Garrison was not so sure. “Well, it does warm the place up a little.”

Elliott pointed at Harry, who was just making himself comfortable in a sunny spot. “He likes it. But then he kinda looks like a wild animal too.”

Soon they had the metal-and-glass coffee table in place, as well as a tall, dark bookshelf and some end tables. “Not bad,” Garrison said as they both flopped down onto the chairs.

“Comfy too.” Elliott patted the armrest. “A man could get used to this.”

Garrison thought about Beth’s ex. Had he gotten used to it? And, if so, would he show up and want it all back? Not that it mattered really. “Okay, let’s get back to work,” he told Elliott. “You see if you can finish that stairway wall and I’ll return the truck.”

Toward the end of the workday Garrison started working on the second-floor rooms, sorting through stuff and getting them ready for paint. As he was emptying a spare-room closet, he discovered some boxes containing artifacts from his grandparents’ time spent in Africa. There were shiny black carved wooden statuettes. Spears and knives, ceremonial masks and baskets and woven mats. All sorts of interesting things that he thought might look good on that big shelf in his living
room. He was just carrying them down when his cell phone rang. It was about the seventh time it had rung today. Once again, it was about the classified ad for the cats. He’d done too good a job on it and suddenly everyone was in desperate need of a cat. He gave the man the same message he’d been giving all morning. “I’m sorry, all the cats have found homes, well, except for one. And I’m considering keeping that one myself.” Then, despite the man’s pleas, he told him he was busy and had to go.

“I think you could’ve given away Harry about ten times today alone,” Elliott said as Garrison walked past him with a box of artifacts. “I thought you were allergic to cats and wanted them all gone. Why you holding on to him?”

“Because I
like
him.” Garrison turned off his phone. “And I’m getting sick and tired of these calls. And I mean
sick
-sick. Not sick-cool. From now on, don’t call me, I’ll call you,” he said to his phone as he tossed it to the couch.

Elliott watched with interest, asking questions, as Garrison started to arrange the artifacts on the big shelf. Garrison, to the best of his ability, began to describe what the pieces were for, telling Elliott a bit about his time in Uganda.

“That’s pretty cool what you did over there,” Elliott said as he set a ceremonial knife onto the shelf. “My grandmother told me about how you put in wells so the poor people could have clean drinking water.”

“Yeah. It took a whole team. I didn’t do it single-handedly.”

“I figured that much. But the thing is,
you did it
. You weren’t that much older than me when you went over there. That was pretty unselfish, you know?”

He shrugged. “I suppose it could look that way. Truth was I wanted to go. Wanted to see the world. And I wanted to
please my grandmother. All that could be considered selfish . . . depending on your perspective.”

“From my perspective it looks unselfish.”

Garrison looked into Elliott’s eyes. “You are always surprising me.”

“Huh?”

Garrison tapped Elliott’s forehead. “How smart you are. How come you haven’t gone to college?”

Elliott laughed. “You mean besides HKU.”

“What?”

“Hard Knocks University.”

“Oh yeah.”

By the time Elliott went home, Garrison was exhausted. He knew it was partly because he was trying to keep up with Elliott and partly because he was gnawing on something in his mind. As foolish as it seemed, he was really considering letting the Seattle job go. What if he stuck around here and tried to turn Gram’s place into a halfway house? Would it work? Or would he regret it—finding out he’d bitten off more than he could chew? Harry jumped into his lap as he sat in the living room pondering these things. “What do you think, old boy? What would you do if you were in my shoes?”

Harry gave him that adoring look—the look that clearly said he wanted Garrison to stick around and be his owner. Garrison laughed. “Yes, of course, that’s because I’m currently feeding you and petting you. If someone else came along to take my place, you’d fall in love with them too.”

On Thursday afternoon, Cara stopped by again. “I made too much zucchini bread,” she told him as she handed over a foil-wrapped loaf that still felt warm. “I thought maybe you could use some.”

“Thank you. Can you come in?”

“Well, I was just taking my afternoon walk.”

“Want any company?” He brushed the dust from his hands onto his jeans.

She glanced over his shoulder. “I hate to drag you away from your work.”

“No problem. Elliott’s in charge anyway.” He called out to Elliott. “I’ll be back in a little.”

“Looks like you’re making progress,” she said as he closed the door.

“Oh, yeah, I should’ve given you the full tour. It’s really coming along.”

“Well, it’ll be dusky soon. We better walk while we’ve still got some light.”

“Yeah . . . I still forget how night comes so much earlier in the winter. Uganda wasn’t like that.”

As they walked she asked him about his time in Uganda. He started by giving his usual answers, explaining about the well projects, describing the people. But then as she pressed him harder, he talked more about himself. “I get tired of people acting like I was some kind of superhero to go over there,” he confessed. “There were a lot of times when I hated being there. A lot of times I felt really sorry for myself.”

“That’s understandable. I mean, you were there nine years.”

He nodded. “And most of the time I really loved it. It was the adventure of a lifetime. I still miss it.”

“Why did you come back?”

He told her about contracting malaria. “It was really my own fault. I got slack about the anti-malarial medicine. It happens a lot. When people stay there for more than a year
or two, they start thinking they’re invincible.” He laughed sadly. “Unfortunately, it only takes a tiny mosquito to remind them otherwise.”

“So that’s why you came back? The malaria?”

“Yeah. It got pretty bad. They sent me home for medical help. Probably a good thing.”

“And you can’t go back?”

“Not anytime soon.” He told her about his more recent dreams, about creating a halfway house, and even a bit about Elliott. “It’s really giving me hope.”

“Do you think you might stay here? Make a halfway house in your grandmother’s house?”

“I’m seriously considering it.” He confessed to how lost he had felt these past few months. “It was like I couldn’t find my way. Couldn’t get my feet beneath me,” he told her as the sky grew duskier. Something about this purple-gray light made him feel more comfortable talking about his feelings. It was kind of like being in a confessional—where you couldn’t see a priest. Not that he was Catholic or had ever done that, but he could imagine. “I felt like I was an old man, all washed up at the ripe old age of thirty-four.”

“I’m thirty-two,” she said quietly. “I can’t imagine feeling washed up in a couple of years.”

“Well, that’s how I felt. Like my best life was behind me. Like I gave all I had and had lost a lot of myself in the process.” Or maybe he’d just never known himself to start with.

“How could you lose yourself?”

He shrugged. “Maybe it was my heart that I lost while I was over there.”

“Your heart?” she said quietly.

“There was a girl that I thought I was in love with.” He
sighed, wishing he hadn’t mentioned this. But there it was—out there. His admission to failure in the romance arena.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Her name was Leah and I was pretty sure that the sun and the moon rose because of her.” He made a forced laugh. “For a while she even pretended to care for me.”

“Pretended?”

“Yeah . . . I’m pretty sure it was an act. Turned out she had another guy on the line the whole while she was spending time with me. I think she actually used me to make him jealous. Anyway, they are happily married now. With a baby too. Really, I wish them no ill. But it did hurt. It took its toll.”

“Yeah . . . I can imagine.”

“But here’s the deal,” he said suddenly. “I’m starting to feel found again. Like I really am coming back to life. I know it’s partly due to feeling healthier now. The malaria is under control. But there’s something about being here. Something about working on Gram’s house. Spending time with Elliott. Even hanging with Harry . . . it all feels
right
.” He paused under the streetlight, turning to smile at her. She smiled back and suddenly he longed to take her hand in his. He wanted to tell her that she was a big part of the “rightness” that was happening in his life. But at the same time, he didn’t want to scare her off. Already, he’d said much more than he’d intended.

Instead of making what could turn into an awkward declaration, and since it was now dark, he insisted on walking her home. As they walked down her street, he lightened the conversation by telling her more about Elliott and how he recognized some great potential in the young man. “Here we are,” he said as they walked up to her door.

“But now I’ll miss seeing the improvements in your house,” she declared as they stood on the front porch together.

“Come by tomorrow,” he told her. “I’ll give you the full tour. I promise.”

As he walked home, he wondered if he’d been presumptuous to escort her all the way up to her door. As if he’d thought they were on a date. The last thing he wanted was to overwhelm her. Especially considering how they’d gotten off on the wrong foot over Harry last week. And he knew that his dating skills, at best, were rusty. He needed to go carefully with this woman . . . pace himself. Just the same, his step lightened as he considered the progress they’d made this evening. And he would get to see her again tomorrow!