Chapter Three. Cat
CHAPTER THREE
CAT
The robot vacuum follows me, dutiful as a cocker spaniel, into the kitchen, sweeping up a stray muffin crumb, a dried leaf that must have tracked in on somebody’s shoe.
It hums along the baseboard, nosing every corner like it’s looking for trouble.
The white granite countertops gleam to a shine that reflects the pendant lights mounted to the high ceilings.
Just as I’m stirring vanilla soy creamer into my coffee, I hear the beep-beep-beep-whir of the front door pad.
Mark comes in first. He’s wearing a button-up that at first glance fits him just right, shows off the broadness of his shoulders, but the bottom few buttons cling to his belly.
I like the way he’s filled out over the years, as if the generous waistline better suits his generous nature.
He flashes me a half-tipped smile, carrying a cream-colored canvas bag.
Something about the tie matching his blue eyes makes me think, absurdly, of our wedding.
Mark’s a contractor. He usually wears a polo and jeans on the job.
He must have been meeting with investors today.
But maybe it isn’t the tie that’s transported me.
Maybe it’s that tilted grin, the look that lets me know I have an ally, that we are in this together.
Shuffling in behind him is our seventeen-year-old daughter, Olivia.
She’s still wearing her Smoothie Palace uniform, and her dark-blond sheet of hair covers her face, which is bent over her phone as she types furiously.
A pink duffel bag hangs from her shoulder—her old dance bag, with her name embroidered in glittering gold thread, the letters frayed from wear and tear.
Tonight is the first night Olivia is staying over with me. Mark and I agreed to take it slow this time. For six months we’ve only met up for lunch or dinner, working our way up to this.
“Hey, baby,” I say. “You ready for tonight?”
Olivia doesn’t respond.
Mark elbows her gently in the side and points to his ear. She pulls back her long hair to remove the AirPods.
“Hey, Mom,” she says quietly, averting her eyes. It makes me think of when she was little, when she used to hide behind my legs whenever I introduced her to someone new. Only, now I’m the stranger.
“I ordered Thai,” I say. “Green curry with tofu. That’s your favorite, right?”
Her eyes flick to her father and back to me. “Did Dad tell you that?”
“Olivia,” Mark says, warning.
There was a time when I was the one who knew all her preferences—dino nuggets and french fries, but only the crinkle-cut kind, the red plate, but the blue spoon. It’s fine, I mouth to Mark. She has every right to be difficult.
I push past it, keeping the brightness in my voice. “I thought after dinner, we could put on a movie, pop some popcorn. What do you think?”
From behind her hair, Olivia’s eyes scan slowly around the room. “What’s with the apples?”
We all look to the heavy marble bowl atop the oak dining table, filled with glistening Granny Smiths. “I thought they looked nice.”
“Are they fake?”
“Well, yes,” I say.
Olivia hikes the bag higher onto her shoulder. “Is there anywhere I’m allowed to put my things?”
“Upstairs. Second door on the right.” I start to walk her there, but she scurries ahead.
As she disappears upstairs, Mark reaches into the canvas bag he carried in. “I picked these up for y’all.”
“Fashion magazines?”
“She and Hannah are entering Miss Lone Star. I just found out myself. Tell her you picked them up. Y’all can look through them tonight.”
“Hannah is doing Miss Lone Star?” I ask, taking the stack from him. Hannah is my best friend’s daughter, which means the girls have been besties since birth. I’ve known Hannah her whole life, and she’s about the furthest thing I can imagine from a pageant girl.
Mark shrugs and checks his watch. “I better get going. I promised Em I’d grill up some steaks tonight.”
“Don’t want to keep the wife waiting,” I say.
He breathes a laugh through his nose.
I place the magazines in a drawer, shutting it before Olivia returns. At the foot of the stairs, Mark pulls her into a hug. “Have fun,” he says into her hair. Then low, probably so I won’t hear, he adds, “She’s trying.”
Olivia pulls away and starts up the steps again, but as she does, she turns her face to me and gives me a tight smile. She’s trying too, in her own teenage way.
The dining table is set for four—four china plates, four cloth napkins with silverware, four crystal glasses. When the Thai food arrives, I pick up the place settings and put them aside. I set out the curry in the Styrofoam containers, then call Olivia down, and we eat with plastic spoons.
“I was thinking we could watch The Princess Bride,” I say, because Olivia was obsessed with that movie when she was little.
I can’t remember how many times we watched it.
Mark worried the giant rats would give her nightmares.
For the love of God, he’d say, turn that off.
Even then, his instinct was to shield her.
But the rats were her favorite part. She’d sit up on her knees, eyes wide as poker chips.
“I haven’t seen that movie since I was, like, five. Isn’t it kind of cheesy?”
“It’s a classic,” I say.
“Whatever you want,” she says, and it’s just another reminder of how long it has been since I’ve truly known her.
I should be up to date on which actor she has a crush on or which Netflix series she quotes nonstop with her friends.
We both push rice around in our containers, and Olivia eats a single green bean.
I switch tactics, getting up and making my way over to the kitchen drawer. “Your father told me you’re entering Miss Lone Star Princess this year.” I pull the magazines out. “He picked these up and wanted me to tell you that I did.”
Olivia cuts her eyes up from her plate, and I’m hoping my honesty will create even the smallest crack in her walls.
“I’ve already looked at dresses online,” she says flatly.
I turn back to the drawer before she can see my eyes, before she can see that all this trying is starting to break me.
I think of when she was little, when I’d hear her stirring from her naps, when I’d crack open the door and find her lying in her crib, babbling at her toes.
When she’d finally see me peering over the railing.
The look on her face, that smile, like I was the sun and she was so happy to see it rising again in her sky.
Then, while my back is still turned, Olivia says, “There’s this one dress.” I look over to see her pulling her phone from her lap onto the table. “It’s really expensive, but Dad said maybe.”
I hold my breath as she swipes through her phone.
“Want to check it out?” She doesn’t look up at me when she asks.
I return to the table, drop into the seat beside her, and she tilts the phone toward me.
I catch a glimpse of a sequined dress that looks like liquid silver.
My pulse quickens. I feel like I’m on a date with someone out of my league.
I’d do just about anything to make her like me.
“How about we pick a time this week to go try it on?”
Her face lights up. “Yeah?” There’s an eagerness in her eyes, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Then, there is a sudden knock on the front door.
I know before I answer that it will be Sheriff Ryan, and there he stands, white mustache combed neatly, shirt tucked into Wrangler jeans, cowboy hat in his hands.
Behind him, the Texas Hill Country stretches out, hills rising into the horizon, with cedars and live oaks.
The evening is quiet, just the sound of the flag snapping in the wind, the metal clasp hooks clanking against the pole.
And in the distance, the flowing water of the river where we all used to float as kids.
“Like clockwork,” I say.
“Picked this up for you, Cat. Comes in handy, what with all the construction.” Sheriff Ryan hands me a can of Fix-a-Flat. “Just shake it, screw that doohickey on there, and press the button on top. It’ll take care of the rest.”
He doesn’t come by every day, but he finds his reasons to pop in. The sheriff doesn’t like me staying here alone.
He catches sight of Olivia over my shoulder. “Well, hello, darling.”
“Hi, Sheriff.”
“I’ll get out of your hair. Don’t want to be interrupting your dinner.”
I move aside, let the door open wider. “We got plenty. Want to come in?”
I have known Sheriff Ryan all my life, and the man has never changed.
He’s one of those men, like Steve Martin, whose hair went white early and then he didn’t age another day over the next forty years.
Same horseshoe mustache, same dusty boots, same need to protect everyone.
When I first moved in here a few weeks ago, he showed up with an armful of wooden dowels, started measuring my windows, cutting the dowels to size, and sliding them into the frame, so the windows couldn’t be slid open from the outside.
The house has a security system, I told him.
He just nodded and went about his work.
“Can’t,” he says now. “I’m on duty.”
“When are you ever off duty?”
He laughs.
Model homes are dangerous places to be at night, the sheriff has told me. Construction sites are a common target for thieves—all the tools and equipment, the brand-new appliances in this house, and the fancy furniture. No one expects anyone to be here after hours.
The truth is, I don’t want to be here either, but I have no choice.
Mark was the one who got me this position, a job showing the model off to prospective buyers, giving them a tour of the luxury Amenity Center, selling the idea of an enviable life.
He talked the developer into letting me stay at the model, so long as I promised to keep things tidy, which I do.
Every morning, I pack my things, even my toiletries, into a suitcase and slide it under the bed.
All Mark has ever wanted was for me to get back on my feet, and this is the fastest way to get there.
The free rent means I can save up for a place of my own, a real place, one Olivia can visit without fake apples, where I can hang my own pictures on the wall, where she can throw her shoes and her bags on the ground, and maybe, just maybe Olivia will believe that I’ve laid anchor. Maybe she’ll believe I’m here to stay.
“You give me a call,” he says, “if you need anything at all. You know I won’t be far.” He puts his hat back on his head, tips it to Olivia, and heads back to his truck.
I lean against the doorframe to watch him leave.
The site is so loud during the day, the beep of the vehicles, the workers playing music and laughing, and all that banging. But at night, it’s dark and dead silent.
When I was a kid, this was all ranchland owned by the Shermans, acres and acres of scrubby grass, cows, and trees.
Now the woods are being cleared, the earth overturned, releasing scorpions and displacing the animals.
Coyotes and armadillos and deer make their way to the highway.
It’s the talk of the town—accidents have been on the rise—just one in a long list of complaints.
The sheriff has started his truck, but he hasn’t left yet, and I realize he’s waiting for me to close the door, to lock myself and Olivia safely inside.
I take one last look down the street before I do just that.
The place can be creepy at night. Despite acting like I don’t need his protection, it does give me peace of mind that the sheriff checks up on me.
There are no lights but the moon, which elongates every shadow, the bulldozers and the backhoes like sleeping beasts, the bones of half-finished houses.
From the milky darkness come the odd sounds of animals searching for a home that’s no longer there.