Вики Майрон - Dewey's Nine Lives

Dewey loved heat. He would get so hot lounging in front of the library heater that you couldn’t touch his fur. Page Turner hated heat. Even in winter, I found him curled up in the coldest place in the house: the basement stairs. He hated sunlight. He was skittish around strangers. And he never curled up in my lap, which was Dewey’s favorite spot. Page Turner preferred to lie on top of my feet.

He didn’t care about my rules. No matter how many times I put him down, he always jumped on the dinner table. He ran back and forth through the drapes, driving himself into a frenzy. Without fail, he chose my best furniture to sharpen his claws on. He chased his tail like a dog. He stared at the TV like a slack-jawed teenager. When I put ice in his water dish to keep it fresh, he fished it out and chased it around the house. Dewey hated water so much, he wouldn’t even drink it. Page never cared about getting soaked. He never cared about being laughed at. Dewey was dignified. He couldn’t stand being the butt of the joke. Page Turner never seemed to mind that I was doubled over laughing at his antics.

Thank goodness , I said to myself, they didn’t try to put this cat in the library. It’s a common misconception that just any old cat can live in a library. Page Turner, although appropriately named, was far too high-strung for the job. He was too distrustful and shy. He didn’t have a quiet dignity about him. He wasn’t Dewey, of course, but he wasn’t Rusty, either. He wasn’t cool. He didn’t have empathy. He wouldn’t rub against you when you were down. His advice, if he could have given any, would have been abysmal I’m sure. But we can’t all be the prime rib on the plate of life, right? Some of us, like Page Turner, have to be the broccoli.

Find your place . That’s one of the lessons Dewey taught me. We all have a place where we will thrive. By the summer of 2009—when the book tours finally slowed and I started to think about writing this book—it was clear that Page Turner had mellowed out and found his place. He had been so unsure and frantic those first few months, I could now see, because life on the street had been hard. He ran from every creak because, I had no doubt, he had been hurt out there. He gulped food because he had been starving. On the day we took him home, I’m not sure he was ready to believe in anyone. But he had trusted Glenn. Just like Rusty, Page Turner could see the gentleness and love in the man’s soul.

Sure, he’s spoiled now. He interrupts our dinner until we give him a few bites to eat. He licks the bottom of the cheese container that comes with my soft pretzel (my nightly vice!). He attacks my feet when I’m trying to sleep, lounges on my keyboard when I’m trying to write, and does nothing on Saturdays but watch NASCAR with Glenn. You may think this is somehow bad for him—unhealthy, unproductive, unnatural, and all the other insults that have been hurled at my treatment of Dewey since that book was published—but I know Page Turner is happy. At six weeks old, he was shivering in the middle of a Spencer street, filthy dirty, with ice clumps and sticks matted in his fur. Now he lives in a house with two people who adore him. He has cat food whenever he wants. He sleeps in a warm bed. He has toys to play with—even the kind with annoying bells!— and a microwave to watch. He hates strangers—I didn’t see him for four days the first time my grandchildren came for a visit—but he has a little hidey-hole behind the suitcases in my closet where he can go whenever he feels afraid. He doesn’t go outside, but in the summer we open a window so he can watch and listen and fantasize about the birds in the garden.

My friends think Page Turner looks like Dewey. I don’t see it. They are both fluffy orange cats, but Page is a different shape (that would be 100 percent round). He’s bigger than Dewey. And although his eyes are changing from green to Dewey’s golden amber, they don’t look anything like Dewey’s eyes. Page is not an old soul. He is not wise. He is an energetic, sometimes naughty, often exasperating klutz. He makes me laugh and shake my head and wonder, What the heck will that cat do next ? He’s warm and loving and, let’s face it, he gives Glenn and me something to focus on. Something that’s ours. Together.

I’m not saying Page Turner is the child Glenn always wanted to have around. He’s not even a new version of Rusty, if the truth be known. Rusty was Glenn’s companion when he didn’t want any company. For a while, he was the glue that held Glenn’s life together. But they’ve both moved on. Whenever Glenn visits him now, Rusty looks him over, like he’s checking his old friend’s condition. They meow at each other—yes, Glenn meows—and Rusty hops into Glenn’s arms and mashes his cheek into Glenn’s beard. Then Rusty wanders off to his new life. He’s an easygoing cat, the kind that can be happy almost anywhere, and he’s found his place in Jenny’s home.

And Glenn? Well, he’s a sucker for Page Turner. Whenever we’re away overnight, he’s the one asking, “Have you called to check on Page? Is he all right?” He’s the one always buying him little gifts and giving him extra bites of food. And please, do not ask to see pictures. Glenn has more than five hundred photographs of Page Turner stored on his camera, and he’ll show you each one. He’s got Page Turner’s pictures on his cell phone, and I swear he changes the screen saver every day.

Rusty was Glenn’s friend and confidante. Page Turner . . . he’s more like Glenn’s grandchild. And no, I’m not saying he’s literally a grandchild or that he’s a replacement for something Glenn was missing. Life, love, and desire are never that simple. Happiness is never something you can calculate. At its best, it’s something that catches you unaware and that you never fully understand.

All I’m saying, I suppose, is that Dewey was the wise and caring cat, the one who helped me and the town of Spencer through some very tough times. Rusty was the cool dude that wandered in at the right time. Page Turner is a perpetual child. He’s fun. He’s foolish. He’s dependent. And I wouldn’t want him any other way.

So, no, Page Turner didn’t help me get over the loss of Dewey. Time did that. Page Turner just eased me into the next part of my life. The part with Glenn. And grandkids. And travel. And good health that I do have to constantly monitor and for that reason will always cherish. We’ve built a new life together, Glenn and I. We’ve bought a house. Page Turner made that house a home and our little trio a family.

What more should we ever ask of our cats?

Acknowledgments

My utmost thanks to the people who opened their lives so that their stories could be told in this book, and to all the people who helped fill out those stories with additional information, such as Adrienna (Sweetie) Case, Dr. Niki Kimling, and Harris Riggs. And, of course, a special thank you to all the wonderful cats who are the heart and soul of these stories; without them, none of this would have been written. This book is, truly, for all the cats around the world that brighten and enhance our lives.

To Peter McGuigan, my agent and friend, how can I thank you enough? Thank you to all the wonderful people at Foundry Literary + Media, especially Hannah Brown-Gordon, Stephanie Abou, and Dan McGillivray.

To Carrie Thornton, my editor, for always believing in this idea, and to Brian Tart, who seems to run the whole show from behind a mysterious curtain, for his support of her enthusiastic support. Lily Kosner—you are cool. Thank you Christine Ball (Publicity), Carrie Swetonic (Marketing), Monica Benalcazar (Art), and Susan Schwartz and Rachael Hicks (Managing Editorial): there would be no Magic without you.