Kitten

Chapter 1

When James first introduced me to Silver, he planted her in my arms like she was something I already loved.

I immediately dropped her. “That’s okay,” said James, who forgave me for everything.

“That’s fine.” Silver landed on her feet the way cats are supposed to, even when they fall off tall buildings. I thought that was amazing.

“My parents are on vacation,” James said. “I’m looking after her until the first of October.”

October was in two weeks. The year would soon be over.

Each time I thought about this, a wave of anxiety passed through me, and I had to dig my nails into my palms for something else to focus on.

Later, we were going to dinner to celebrate my birthday, which made me feel similarly psychologically ambushed.

It had been a year since I last spoke with my mother.

I was twenty-two and aware of the rest of my life.

James picked a Georgian restaurant famous for its khachapuri, something I’d never heard of.

Because he had to work late, he missed my actual birthday two days ago.

I wasn’t bothered, but my roommate, Lou, said it signaled something slightly obsessive about him.

“I’m the obsessive one in our relationship,” I said.

“People always think there’s only one obsessive,” she replied.

She bought me a dozen cupcakes, the first time we celebrated a birthday sober.

She was hungover from a gallery opening the night before and could only stomach two, so I brought the rest to James’s to have after dinner.

When James saw the cupcakes, he was pleased.

“You always say your roommate hates you,” he said. “But look! She loves you.”

James didn’t understand why I assumed that people disliked me.

It was true, only it didn’t bother me like it bothered him.

Strangers intimidated me and I tended to avoid eye contact with people, even the ones I knew.

Meanwhile, James was liked by everybody and had a face that made people say yes to him.

It wasn’t clear whether he was aware of this power.

James was like a child if a child were an adult.

“Watch this.” James stuck out his index finger.

Silver, who had been sulking behind the leather armchair since her fall, darted to his feet.

Then she rose, standing on her hind legs to meet the tip of his finger with her nose.

She held the position for two seconds before returning to the ground. This was incredible to witness.

“You should put her in a commercial or something,” I said.

James laughed. “She doesn’t perform for just anyone.”

I waved my finger to get Silver’s attention. Next to James’s tall figure she looked even smaller, just a smudge. She arched her neck to look at me, puckish, but did not move. It was hard not to take the rejection personally.

“We should get going, or we’ll be late.”

James was always anxious about being late. Whenever I spent a lot of time with him, I felt myself reaching for his worries like I was trying on his clothes. But even when such worries threatened to materialize, I could never summon enough feeling to care.

The corridor was narrow, and we bumped shoulders.

Silver followed us with her tail held straight except for the tip, which twitched and nodded drowsily.

I looked into her round green eyes and felt something shift from deep inside me, a desire to pick her up and put her in my mouth, not to eat but to keep safe.

It was impressive how oversized pupils wielded this power over people.

If pets or babies weren’t cute, we wouldn’t have them.

“I’m not sure about that,” James said. “I think people have a natural instinct to look out for helpless things.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But only because they’re cute.”

—

The sky was a shade of black rare for Manhattan, thick and impermeable like the nights from home.

James called my name, I hurried, and we slipped into a subway car just before the doors closed.

WHAT COULD YOU DO IF YOU WEREN’T HUNGOVER?

goaded an advertisement for nonalcoholic cocktails, which seemed a little mean-spirited.

“Sometimes you just need to be drunk,” I said.

“They’re actually one of our clients,” James said. “But don’t worry, I didn’t write the copy.”

My dress was satin, tight, a bit hot. I tugged the neckline lower, then felt strange about doing so, like people would think I was making a show of myself.

Men didn’t often look at me, but when they did, they did so solemnly, like they felt bad but were unable to stop.

There was something slightly off-putting about me—maybe the way I stared at things, how long I could go without speaking in conversation—that made people find me either interesting or irrelevant.

I wondered who I’d be if my face were completely blank.

Sometimes I imagined people walking around without features, just canvases of skin stretched taut from scalp to chin, with a few clean holes for breathing and eating.

James paid attention to appearances. When we first slept together, he pointed out the three freckles on the curve of my right ear.

Besides my mother, James was the only person who knew they existed.

I relished the rush of being looked at by someone who saw you differently, more specifically, than the rest of the world.

Kissing him felt like dying and being reincarnated as a stuffed animal: inanimate, made to be loved.

We arrived fifteen minutes after our reservation. I thought James would be antsy, but he only made a joke. “The first time I’m fashionable,” he said.

“A little more fashionable and you’re out of a table,” said the host.

I was horrified. James merely replied, “I’ll take it up with the MTA.”

If the commute required more than one transfer, James took a car. I couldn’t tell whether James took cars because he liked to be early or because he was rich.

The host led us to a table near a family with a crying baby. It was very ugly with a wrinkled purple face. “Bless her,” said James. I nodded to let James know that I agreed, bless the baby. But I didn’t really care about the baby.

The waiter and James spent a long time discussing the menu and wine list. Eventually, James settled on four items to share and a bottle of Saperavi, a Georgian red wine.

Throughout their conversation, James established a light but significant camaraderie with the waiter, who left with a loose smile on his face.

I was relieved the waiter didn’t look at me.

I didn’t care much about what went inside my body, and if other people could decide for me, I let them.

Our glasses filled with a deep, inky red.

“The Saperavi grape’s pretty unique.” James noticed me studying the bottle.

“It doesn’t just have red skin, but also red flesh.

” Saperavi, he added, was the Georgian word for die.

I liked that. So direct. I wondered if anyone had ever died from drinking too much wine in one sitting.

“That’s why,” James said, “some winemakers use Saperavi grapes to give color to red blends.”

I realized then that Saperavi likely meant dye, not die. That was disappointing.

James raised his glass, beaming like he was already drunk. In the glow of the fake candles, his smiling face reminded me of the oil lanterns that bears carried in cartoons where everyone lived in nice pebble-dashed cottages. “So, twenty-two. That’s a good age.”

“Thank you,” I said, drinking.

“How do you feel about it?”

“Fine. It doesn’t feel as sexy as twenty-one. Or twenty-six.”

“Twenty-six isn’t sexy. Nobody talks about being twenty-six.

” James was twenty-six. I looked at him, trying to decipher if it showed in his features.

He’d seemed my age when we first met. It was a relief to learn he was older, partly because it explained how much better he was at life, and also because it showed I could be attractive to someone who belonged so clearly in the real world.

Later, he told me he thought I was his age.

I had to work hard to hide how much that bothered me.

“I have a lot to look forward to, then,” I said.

“No, I’m joking. Twenty-six is nice. But twenty-two is even better.”

Twenty-two was the age my mother was when she had me.

The number always seemed full of terrible, life-changing promise.

You were the only one at my party, she liked to tease.

You kicked when I cut the cake. I peeked at my phone.

My belly grew hot, I imagined it swelling.

If she did not call today, she would not call again.

The khachapuri came, a boat of cheesy bread with an egg in the center, the yolk trembling, raw. It stared at me, a dot marking the eye. I pictured a chick springing from the dot, drenched in oil and struggling to breathe.

“Oh, that’s perfect.” James was really into this. He used his knife to break the yolk, which oozed around the cut.

I forced a bite. The bread was soft, the cheese tangy. Vaguely I could feel James watching me. He was excited that I was eating something he loved, I could tell. His eyes were so big.

“Yeah, it’s great.” I took another bite. It was actually delicious.

“So, I have something to tell you,” James said. “A birthday surprise.”

“It’s not Silver?”

“No, I know you’re not a cat person.”

How did he know I wasn’t a cat person? Possibly I’d told him this earlier in our relationship, but I wanted to take it back. I thought of Silver’s poking nose, pink as doll shoes. I didn’t know anything back then.

“You know how we spoke about my family’s house? The one by the sea? Now that summer’s over, it’s finally free. Just for two weeks. I asked for some time off work, and I thought, if you wanted, I could take you there. We’ll go on Sunday.”

“Really?” It would be my first time seeing the ocean. And James always said that Holme was his real home. After his mom got sick, they moved to the city to be closer to the good hospitals. His parents still lived uptown.

“I have all these vacation days saved up, and I thought now would be perfect. It’s your birthday. And our half year.”

Two weeks with James, all alone, away from the city and Lou’s passive-aggressive comments about taking out the trash. Already I could feel the fact of our future time together growing precious and significant in my mind. “This means we’re getting serious.”

He smiled. “I’ve never taken anyone there before.”

Suddenly, turning twenty-two seemed like a small miracle.

I committed then to memorizing the rest of the night so I could run over the details in my mind whenever I was lonely or bored.

The greasy shine of James’s lips, the melodramatic music filling up the room.

My only sad thought was that eventually the night would be over, James would be asleep, and there would be nobody to talk to while I lay beside him with my eyes fixed on his remarkably smooth ceiling.

Later, James ordered another bottle, even though we were both pretty tipsy.

His cheeks blotched and he laughed in short, loud bursts.

The waiter took a deeper liking to us, or to James, and slipped us things we didn’t order: walnut-studded candies, stuffed grape leaves.

When the restaurant began to clear, the waiter pulled up a chair and began drinking with us.

James had probably invited him, but I’d missed it.

James and the waiter spoke animatedly about Tbilisi and what was going on there at the moment.

I dipped my finger in my wine when nobody was looking and made little plum-colored smiley faces on the white tablecloth.

I thought: We are all very special people.

We finished the second bottle easily. After the bill was settled and we were showered with more treats we didn’t ask for, I felt extraordinarily drunk.

My smiley faces had expanded in the tablecloth, cannibalizing each other.

I gave myself five minutes before once again making James promise he wouldn’t die before I did.

Sometimes I couldn’t tell the difference between a normal thought and a strange one.

But James always said yes, I promise. And the way he said it—no hesitation, full eye contact—was so like him. I always believed him.

—

When we returned home, the floor of James’s apartment was splattered with little piles of vomit, pastel pink and remarkably dainty.

James dropped his coat on the floor, the first time he didn’t hang it on the iron rack by the door.

“Silver?” he called, then started to run.

Not wanting to be rude, I dropped my coat, too, but I was careful not to drop it onto the vomit.

James disappeared into his bedroom. I went inside the bathroom. “Silver?” I tried to mimic James’s urgency, but it didn’t sound genuine coming from my mouth. Next to the toilet, I found another blob of vomit.

“Found her.” James walked in with Silver cupped in his arms. There was a limp, sullen quality to her neck suggestive of guilt, but otherwise she looked fine.

Her wispy gray fur was fluffed and spotless, her long whiskers pristine.

Under the light, her eyes shone like green glass beads.

It was a wonder such a lovely creature could still be gross.

“She was under the bed, hiding. She does that when she’s ill.” James kissed Silver’s head. “But she probably ate something she shouldn’t have. Didn’t you?” His voice became thick, sweet. “You ate something you shouldn’t have, didn’t you?”

James had never spoken to me in this manner, not even when I threw up all over him when we first met. I left to wash my hands in the kitchen.

“Oh no.” James’s voice came from behind me. On the glass dining table, my box of cupcakes from Lou had been ravaged. Only a few swirls of pink and purple frosting remained. Seeing the box, Silver leapt out of James’s arms and slipped into the bedroom.

“Oh,” I said. “That’s okay.”

“I’m so sorry,” said James. “I haven’t looked after her in a long time. I forget she eats everything.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t really want them anyway.”

“You lie down,” said James. “I’ll clean.”

Later that night, while James was asleep, I went to the kitchen and opened the trash bin.

All of James’s garbage was compressed so that my box of cupcakes sat squarely on the surface, the paper lid dark with grease.

I fingered the remaining frosting into my mouth and allowed myself to think back to my last visit home, the last time my mother and I spoke.

She asked me to stay. I left. When there was no frosting left, I folded the box into itself until it was compact and hard, then pushed it down with the rest of the trash.

I accepted then that my birthday was over and resolved to put away thoughts of my mother.