Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Cradle

She said, “After my parents left, I had a huge fight with my boyfriend. Well, he’s not really my boyfriend but he kind of is, and now he’s not talking to me and … and…”

She dropped down to her knees and started whimpering softly. I remembered what it was like to be her age, when hormones are raging through your body like flames through a fireworks stand and your brain can’t keep up with the tsunami of emotions that wash over you every minute. Every little thing feels like it’s the absolute end of the world.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “I think you just need some food and a little rest.”

“No,” she wailed. “You don’t understand. I’m pregnant!”

She collapsed in a heap on the floor, sobbing hysterically. I don’t know why, but people are always telling me their deepest, darkest secrets. I can be minding my own business in a grocery store, picking out an avocado or reading the ingredients on a cracker box, and suddenly a perfect stranger will strike up a conversation. The next thing I know they’re blurting out things they wouldn’t tell a priest in a confession booth.

I knelt down beside her and patted her shoulder while she cried. In this situation, there’s nothing to do but wait for the tears to work themselves out. Then all you can do is listen. When a man pours his problems out to you, he wants you to give him solutions. He wants you to fix it and make it all better. A woman already knows how to fix it. She just needs you to listen.

“We’ve been dating for a few months, and my parents don’t even know about it, and if they find out they’ll kill me. And he came over last night and I told him I was pregnant. And then he started saying that I don’t really know him and there are things in his past that nobody can change and he isn’t any good for me … and now everything is just ruined !”

I patted her back some more while she sobbed and snuffled and blew her nose into a tissue.

“I just want to get out of here! And he won’t even answer his phone and I don’t know what I did to him. What did I do to him? Why would he treat me like this? Why won’t he just tell me what’s wrong?”

She looked up at me with big brown eyes welling with tears. The angels in the overhead mural were all flying around with their harps and flutes, gazing down at me too, waiting expectantly for me to say something brilliant and comforting. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say except “love sucks,” and I didn’t think that would go over too well.

“I think it might be a good idea to talk to your mom about this.”

“I can’t talk to my mother about anything! And she already told me I was spending too much time with him and not to talk to him again. But of course it’s okay for her to talk his ear off every time he’s here.”

“Your mother knows him?”

She threw her arms out with her palms up, as if to say That’s all, folks! but instead she rolled her eyes at me. “Duh? It’s Kenny!”

I tried not to let my jaw hit the floor.

“Kenny Newman? The pool boy?”

“He’s not a pool boy. He just cleans pools for money. He’s an artist and he’s the most amazing guy I’ve ever known! Nobody knows him like I do.”

Now it was me that felt like falling to the floor in a heap. Not because I felt sorry for Becca (although I did; this was certainly a pickle she was in) and not because I was mad at Kenny for putting her in this situation (it takes two to tango, after all), but because it was just so stupid and irresponsible on Kenny’s part. How in the world could he allow himself to get involved with the daughter of one of his clients? A teenager, for God’s sake! It made me wonder, too, if Paco and Michael hadn’t been right about Kenny—that there was something suspicious about him, something he was hiding. And right this very minute, he was in the house of one of my clients, caring for the beloved pets of people who trusted me implicitly. Perhaps I had made a huge mistake in hiring Kenny. Perhaps he wasn’t at all who I thought he was.

Becca must have noticed I was a little distracted.

She stood up and said, “Ugh! You think I’m a total idiot, don’t you?”

“No, I just think you’re in over your head and maybe your mom could help.”

She put her hands on her hips. “You know, I’m not a little girl. I’m in college. I don’t need help from anybody.”

“Becca, that’s not what I meant at all. This wouldn’t be easy for anyone. You’re in a very difficult situation, and of course you’re upset. You just have to think about what’s best for you.”

“Oh, really? No shit, Sherlock!”

She threw her sodden tissue at the trash can and stormed out of the room. Before she even got to the door she was crying again and was only about halfway to the bedroom when she turned around. With her head hanging down, she clomped back into the bathroom, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, honey.”

She stepped into my arms and hugged me. I suddenly felt like I was hugging a younger version of myself, remembering what it was like to feel alone and helpless. When our mother left, as young as I was, I knew she was never coming back and I knew my life would never be the same. But my brother was there for me. He filled in the holes that my mother made. I couldn’t have survived without him. Everybody needs someone there to help pick up the pieces when the world comes shattering down.

She said, “I’m sorry, I’m a total mess. I just love him so much. He’s the sweetest thing I’ll ever know.”

“It’s okay. We all have our moments.”

She stepped back and looked at me. “Please don’t tell anybody about this.”

“Becca, if you can’t talk to your mother, maybe your stepfather could help.”

Her pale cheeks flushed with rage. “Yeah, right. Guess what? We’re rich! Do you have any idea why my brother had to get a job at that stupid golf club?”

I shook my head.

“Well, I’ll tell you why, because my stepfather talked my mother into completely cutting him off when they found drugs in his room! What do you think they’ll do to me when they find out about this? You have any idea what will happen if the press finds out? My stepfather would probably kill me! ‘Sonnebrook Heiress in Pool Boy Scandal.’ I can just see it now!”

“Honey, they’re going to find out sooner or later.”

The anger fell from her face, and her eyes welled with tears. “I know.”

While she cried some more, I held her in my arms and looked around the bathroom in all its glory: the tank with its quiet world of fish floating about in peaceful bliss, completely unaware of the human drama just on the other side of the glass. The mermaid looking coyly over her shoulder, staring into the distance, her expression frozen forever. The golden toilet, the crystal chandelier, and all the angels flying about. It suddenly seemed so odd to spend so much money on a room where basically waste gets flushed away. Like throwing money down the toilet, my grandmother always said.

Hugging always makes me think of my grandmother. She was quick to give me a smack on the butt when I deserved it, but whenever I needed a little tender loving care, she was just as quick to snatch me up in her arms and hug me back to myself.

There’s no better medicine than that.

8

Tanisha is the Martha Stewart of biscuits. I don’t know what kind of magic she works back there in her kitchen, but her biscuits have a special power over me. They’re the second-most-delicious thing in the world, the first being her bacon. As Tanisha puts it, “So good you wanna smack yo momma!” I eat one of her biscuits just about every day of my life, but I only allow myself bacon on very special occasions. I was sitting in my regular booth at the diner, thinking about ordering another biscuit, when Judy put a side of bacon down on the table and said, “Well?”