Ширли Мерфи - Cat Chase The Moon

As he settled among his pillows licking his fur dry and watching Mindy across the way, she sat up sleepily, pushed back her quilt, and peered out through the curtain. The rain had eased. Could she see him watching her? She was staring straight at him. Rain-smeared moonlight shifted across his face, maybe causing his eyes to flash yellow, maybe that had drawn her attention. He turned away and curled down deeper. Was she wishing, all alone, that she could be in his cozy tower with him cuddled close and warm, soothed by his welcoming purrs? Wishing she wasn’t shut up by herself in that dark and empty apartment?

So many souls closed up alone tonight. Mindy. Courtney locked upstairs after her disgraceful performance. Maurita huddled inside Juana’s condo, although at least her guards were friends.

Someday, the way the world seemed to be traveling—more crime, more fear, less joy—would everyone isolate themselves alone? No more friends or groups of friends, no more loving families? Was that what life would be like in the future, a multiplicity of electronic horrors to run what was left; living creatures cast aside, abandoned as afterthoughts? Was that how the world would end?

Well, hell, didn’t that make him feel great! Angry at his own stupid ideas, he pushed deeper into the pillows and turned his mind to how to free his own young captive, how to help Courtney escape, how to spring her without human help.

He and Clyde had argued more than once about that. Clyde wanted to barge in when the store was open, charge up the stairs, bust through the door and grab her—or wait until midnight, break out a showroom window with a sledgehammer and order her straight out of there.

“Sure,” Joe had said, “you can do that, and have the Seavers after you, maybe with a gun. And what if she runs from you, if she doesn’t want to come? They call the cops, you’d be hauled into the station, you’d have Harper, your best friend, in a hell of a mess. The judges . . .”

This had gone on with increasing heat, over several uncomfortable meals and in between, until Ryan put a stop to it, read them both off with amazingly colorful language. She told Clyde that Joe was right, that human interference would put Clyde and the department in trouble, and could get Courtney hurt. She had left the table, Clyde glaring after her as snarly as a mad possum, only Joe Grey hiding a smile.

Now, from under her quilt, Mindy peered out at Joe again. A little earlier, she had watched the gray tomcat come across the rooftops nearly invisible in the rain and moving fast, his white paws, the white strip of nose and chest like pale moths winging above the shingles. The Damens’ cat heading home for his tower.

Slipping back beneath her covers, still she looked out admiring the tomcat, wishing that she, like that free soul, were out in the small hours, free and on her own.

But more than admiring Joe Grey’s freedom, she coveted the tomcat’s tower. She wished that was her elegant little house, she knew she would feel safer there, with Ryan and Clyde present in the room below. Two people and the gray cat whom she was sure cared for her and would love her. She’d like to crawl across to Joe’s roof and in through his window and snuggle up against his soft gray fur. The tower would be plenty big enough for her and Joe if she curled up just right among the pillows. It had glass windows all around, at least one unlocked, she’d seen him go through. Her mother always closed Mindy’s bedroom windows at night even when it was too hot, she said it was dangerous to leave them open, that someone might break in. So why was it all right to leave her alone and leave the downstairs windows and doors unlocked?

She watched Joe Grey turn over yawning. She got out of bed and looked up and down the street below. Empty, no cars. She pulled on a dark sweater over her pajamas and put on her slippers. She unlocked and opened her window, unlatched the screen and stepped out onto the wet roof.

The big pine tree that she remembered being there when she was younger was gone now, it had blown down in the last storm. She could easily have gotten across on its heavy branches. Instead, she headed for a smaller and spindly pine down at the end of her house near the Damens’ driveway.

Its branches swayed unsteadily when she put her weight on them. She worked slowly across toward their living room, swinging like a monkey from branch to branch, getting soaked and soon full of scratches. She clung finally to their living room roof, scrambling precariously until she was safely on top of it. There she crawled along the wet shingles to Joe Grey’s tower and looked in at him asleep, his paws limp over his belly, his eyes closed. She eased a window open and slipped in, closed it, and curled down around the tomcat among the pillows. Joe Grey didn’t move. She smiled, getting him damp again after he’d dried himself, but also getting herself warm against his thick fur. She was almost asleep when suddenly his yellow eyes were open looking directly into hers. A knowing look that told her he’d been aware of her all along.

She stared back uncertainly. Was he angry at her coming in here, was he about to scratch her? But Joe Grey wouldn’t do that. Was that piercing look only a sly smile? Did cats smile? When he didn’t seem disturbed at her presence she pressed closer against him. He eased closer, too, and began to purr, and Mindy felt safe and peaceful. Even if she was hogging his space, he was kind and caring and there was goodness in the world. Here was someone, here was a whole family, cat and humans, that she could trust and love, with whom she was safe. She drifted off, secure and warm.

She didn’t know how long she slept; seemed like hours but it was still dark when lights woke her and woke Joe Grey. He sat up and slipped out of the tower to the edge of the roof as car lights came along the street, two sets of lights, one from either direction. Thelma’s car, and Varney’s.

They pulled up next to each other in the middle of the street, their engines idling, the drivers sitting face-to-face where they could speak softly through their open windows:

Varney handed his sister-in-law a package, which Thelma shoved deep in her jacket pocket. They talked for a minute, mumbling so softly that neither Joe nor Mindy could understand much; Joe thought they were talking about money. It sounded like hundreds of thousands, like something you’d hear in a movie or on the news.

Thelma said, “Of course I know the combination. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, he’s there, I called him.” They closed their windows and Thelma headed away into the center of the village. Varney parked in his usual place in front of the apartment, Mindy watched him get out and go in the front door. She waited, looking across, but no lights came on in the living room or kitchen. In a moment the light in Varney’s room shone. He hadn’t bothered to stop and check on her, hadn’t had time to see if she was all right after being left alone, to maybe pull up her covers and tuck her in, the tender things that Grandpa or Grandma had done. What if he had gone in her room and found her gone? Would he even care? She was glad to be out of there, to not be alone in the house with Varney.

When she turned to look at Joe Grey he was wide awake, alert and poised for flight, watching where Thelma’s taillights vanished around the corner turning left—and suddenly he fled away over the slick rooftops, following her.

Why would a cat care where Thelma was going? Mindy herself didn’t care. All she cared about was getting Grandpa home from the hospital. Until then she wouldn’t think about her mother’s nighttime prowling, she’d think only about Grandpa.

Earlier in the evening, after Dulcie and Joe and Kit had left the Seavers’ roof, and golden Pan curled up outside the Seavers’ upstairs window intending to watch Courtney for the rest of the night, a fitful rain blew then eased. He pushed closer under the window’s ledge. Tired and hungry and cold, trying to keep dry against the plaster wall, the orange tomcat did indeed fall asleep, didn’t hear the phone ring, didn’t see Courtney wake and rise—the phone had startled her from her warm spot on the couch. She felt grouchy anyway from being shut upstairs all night—retribution for her stubborn response to Fay’s lessons. She listened to the second ring and to Ulrich’s low, gruff answer; she heard him get out of bed.