Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Cradle

I said, “I am muy bueno ! How is the baby?”

“The baby is very good. I am happy we go to the doctor.”

I sat down next to her, and the bird hopped around behind her neck to the opposite shoulder.

I cooed at the baby, “Your mama’s English is very good!”

Corina nodded at Joyce. “Joyce is my teacher.”

Joyce beamed at her. I could tell these two were going to become good friends. Their lives could not have been more different, but it’s amazing how people can be drawn together in the strangest of circumstances.

Joyce said, “We were wondering if you might be able to take René to see your vet friend.”

I said, “René?”

“Oh, the bird! It was Corina’s idea. Dixie, did you know that Kermit the Frog is called René in Spain?”

I shook my head.

“Well, he is. Corina told me. So that’s what we named the bird, because of his green feathers like Kermit.”

I turned to Corina. “You’re from Spain?”

She nodded and smiled nervously. “Yes, Spain.”

I had just assumed Corina was one of the tens of thousands of people that flee Cuba every year, literally risking their lives to get to American soil. If they have the money, they’ll take a plane to Mexico and then try to come into the country from there, but more often they’ll hire a smuggler to ferry them across the stretch of ocean between Cuba and Florida’s southernmost beaches. It’s expensive, though, and in a country like Cuba most people don’t walk around with a lot of cash in their pockets. The only other way is by boat, raft, dinghy, or anything else that floats. It’s a hundred miles from the coast of Cuba to Florida, but people have been known to set out on an inner tube if that’s all they can get their hands on.

Of course, it was entirely possible that Corina was lying. If she had crossed the ocean on a smuggler’s boat, she might have tried to escape without paying the smuggler’s fee, which would explain the cash in her purse, and there’d be some very nasty people looking for her. Plus, Cuban immigrants are blamed for nearly every ill in the state of Florida, from the shortage of jobs to limited housing to the shortage of fresh water, so either way she’d be smart to make up a story about where she was from.

I usually know when someone is lying. Sometimes I can tell by the way a person looks to one side while they’re talking, or maybe they blink a couple times more than normal. It’s a skill I picked up at an early age. Whether my mother was drinking or not, what came out of her mouth was sometimes the truth, or a jumbled version of it, and sometimes it was just outright lies, so I got pretty good at recognizing the difference. It was hard to tell with Corina. I didn’t think she was lying exactly, and it might just have been the language barrier, but something didn’t seem quite right, like she was hiding some part of herself from me.

I helped them out to Joyce’s station wagon, and Corina lowered the still-sleeping baby down into the car seat. It took nearly all of my brain cells operating at full capacity to remember how to decipher all of its belts and straps and buckles. While we were trying different combinations, the baby opened its eyes and squinted at me.

Joyce said, “This is going to be Dixie Joyce’s first ride in a car!”

I rolled my eyes. “Joyce, don’t call her that.”

She and Corina exchanged smiles. “Until Corina tells me different, that baby’s name is Dixie Joyce.”

When we finally had the seat figured out, Joyce started the car while Corina slid into the back next to the baby. I walked around and tapped on Joyce’s window, and she rolled it down.

Speaking low so Corina wouldn’t hear, I said, “I’ll split the cost with you.”

“No,” Joyce said. “You already paid for all the baby stuff, I’ll get it.”

“That was nothing compared to what this will be. I’ll pay half.”

“I pay,” Corina said.

She was looking down at the baby, which had fallen back to sleep. There was a distant look in her eye, but her voice was steady. Joyce and I both looked back at her.

“I have money,” she said. “I pay.”

For a brief moment we both nodded dumbly, as though it were perfectly reasonable that a person who’d been living in a cardboard box in the woods yesterday could easily afford to pay an expensive pediatrician bill today.

Joyce said, “Well, that’s settled.”

I watched them back out of the driveway. Joyce and Corina both waved as the car pulled around and headed up the street.

I didn’t know what to think. Neither of us had wanted Corina to know that we’d seen the money in her purse, because that would only have destroyed the trust she was beginning to have in us. But I was worried. I was worried about who that money was for. If there was somebody out there looking for it, what would they do to Corina when they found it? Or me? Or Joyce?

Sooner or later, we’d have to get the real story out of Corina. If we were going to help her, we’d need to know exactly where she was from and why she had so much money. I cringed to think what could have been so horrible in her home country, wherever it was, that would drive her to run away, and with a baby due any minute. I decided I’d ask Paco. He speaks Spanish fluently, and I knew he’d want to help.

I carried René out to my Bronco and put him in the back, wedging some rolled towels around the cage so it wouldn’t rattle around too much on the drive over to the veterinarian’s. Normally I would never show up without an appointment, but I wanted to see the look on Dr. Layton’s face when I showed up with a creature as exotic as this.

When I walked in with René, there was a collective “oooo” from the people in the waiting room, like it was the Fourth of July. I set the cage down, and Gia, Dr. Layton’s assistant, slid open the little window in front of her station.

“Hi, Dixie, what can I do for you?”

“Well, I have a bird rescue and I was hoping Dr. Layton could take a look at him, but it looks like you’re super busy today.”

She winked. “Well, I’ll let Dr. Layton know you’re here and we’ll see.”

René hopped from one perch to the other and said, “Cool!”

I couldn’t agree more. One of the perks of being a professional pet sitter is you get to feel like a celebrity sometimes. I buy so many treats at the local pet supply shop they all know me by name, and if there’s a line I just lay my money on the counter and leave. No one even raises an eyebrow. I admit that may not sound as exciting as riding around in a limousine all day and eating bonbons, or whatever it is celebrities do, but it’s good enough for me. I’ve referred so many clients to Dr. Layton, she could easily have an examining room named after me.

I took a seat next to an elderly woman with a tiny ball of fluff in her lap that turned out to be a miniature poodle. He sat up and eyed René curiously, along with everyone else in the room.

The woman leaned over and said, “That is quite the bird you’ve got there.”

I smiled proudly, as if I’d created him myself. “Oh, thanks. He’s a resplendent quetzal.”

She smiled back. “He certainly is. What kind of bird is he?”

“No,” I said, raising my voice a bit. “That’s what they’re called: resplendent quetzals.”

“Well, what a pretty bird. He looks like a pigeon in drag.”

I laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

She scratched the top of her poodle’s fluffy white head, and he looked up at her lovingly.

“Monty here got his toenails painted green on St. Patty’s day last year, and I knitted him a little green sweater, but he wouldn’t wear it, would you boy?”

I said, “Sometimes they have to try it on a few times before they’ll accept it.”