Chapter 11
James
“Sign here!” the delivery guy says, holding out a clipboard.
Darius called me from the lobby five minutes ago to say a package had arrived and that I needed to come down. Whether I’d actually call it a package is open to question.
It’s a cat carrier. A loud, caterwauling, cat carrier.
I fold my arms over my chest. “I didn’t ask for a cat to be delivered,” I say over the racket emanating from the floor. “Is it for someone else in the building?”
“James Royce? Apartment 6D?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s for you. And that thing has been howling like a banshee in the back of my truck for the best part of forty minutes, man, so sign the damn form and take it before I wring its neck.”
I raise my eyes to the ceiling. Who the hell would send me a cat? If this is someone’s idea of a practical joke … This is the last thing I need first thing on a Monday morning. “Do you know who ordered it?”
The guy peers at me over his glasses. “You forgot you ordered a cat?” he says incredulously.
“Clearly, since I am surprised by this delivery, I did not order a cat. So now I’m wondering if this is some kind of prank.”
He hands me a piece of paper from his clipboard with a sigh, and an invoice is attached to the back. It has Des’s name on it.
“Des bought me this ... this ...” I start. “Hang on.” I hold up my hand, and he rolls his eyes and glances at his watch. Seoul is thirteen hours ahead: It’ll be 9:30 p.m. there. No way will Des be asleep.
“I’ve got over forty other deliveries to make, man,” the delivery driver grumbles, but I just glower at him.
The phone takes ages to connect, but then it rings in that international dial tone and Des picks up.
“James!”
“You got me a cat?”
“Good morning to you, too. And technically, it’s on loan.”
“What the fuck, Des? What do you mean on loan?”
“The shelter loans out cats because they have too many that don’t have homes. They get depressed sitting in cages for months on end and start eating their own fur. Being in someone’s home gives them a break and some company.”
I bend down to examine the cat in the carrier. It’s black with big green eyes. But it’s clearly not expecting my face to suddenly loom at it through the wire-mesh door, so it jumps backward in surprise, hissing and flattening its ears. “Wonderful to meet you, too, sunshine,” I say.
“I’m going to kill you for this,” I say into the phone.
“I thought a pet might help you and Sadie settle in. And how cruel and heartless are you, Jimmy-boy? Did you not hear the bit about them eating their own fur?”
I’ve often wondered about Des’s propensity to do crazy things in the guise of helping. “You can expect revenge” is all I say and hang up on him.
Whatever. I can’t deal with a cat right now.
I’ve got back-to-back meetings today and two large group sessions with the team—neither of which I’m looking forward to.
I’ll ask Cath to organize sending it back to the shelter once I get in to work.
I sign the form, grab the carrier, and shoot up in the elevator, dumping it all just inside the apartment door.
But as I’m pulling the door shut, I hesitate.
I can’t leave it locked in there all day, can I?
It’ll need food and water and … I groan.
I’ve got nothing like that and a meeting starting in thirty minutes.
I step back inside and unlatch the front.
It’s the best I can do for now, and at least it will have some more space to roam around.
The cat cowers in the corner of the carrier, looking affronted.
Like only a maniac would abandon the sanctity of a small plastic enclosure.
Perhaps he or she is used to being in a cage and is comfortable in there.
“Suit yourself, buddy, but I’m out all day, so make yourself at home and don’t wreck anything.”
I leave it sitting on the floor and slam the door behind me.
When I open the apartment door later that evening, Sadie is standing in the entrance area in a gray cardigan that reaches her knees and some slippers that look like furry claws.
She’s looking down at … Oh shit, the carrier.
In the flurry of meetings and Samsung panics today, I forgot all about the goddamn cat, and I also didn’t mention it to Cath.
“Do we have a cat?” she says.
I take in her bent head. “How did you know it was a cat?”
She gestures at the carrier. “The padded liner has cat fur on it.”
A small smile curls over my mouth. “Impressive. This has become a Conan Doyle mystery. Are you Sherlock Holmes?” Her mouth twitches.
“It’s a long story, if I’m honest,” I add as I put my laptop bag on the table in the entryway.
“Have you been home a while?” Her toffee-colored hair is curling over her shoulders in shiny waves, and as her luminous gray eyes meet mine, my heart skitters, light and uneven.
Maybe looking at me is getting easier? I hope so.
“About thirty minutes.” She eyes me up, and I sigh. I gesture toward the kitchen, and once we’re in there, I take two glasses out of the cupboard and pull a bottle of wine out of the fridge.
As I’m opening it, I say, “Des decided to adopt a cat from the shelter in some weird charitable act before he left, like a twisted gift. You provide a temporary home for a cat that has been in a cage for too long. Apparently, they get depressed and start eating their own fur.”
“Oh God, that’s terrible.”
Well, she’s a lot more sympathetic than me, that’s for sure.
“I don’t really know why Des did it—he’s never been that altruistic himself—and he’s not a cat person.
He has a dog, Mitzi, who you didn’t meet because she was shipped to Korea just before Des left: Quarantine is really short in South Korea.
He said he thought a pet might help me settle in, but it’s equally likely he did it to mess with me as a parting shot.
Anyway, I’m sorry a cat has appeared out of the blue in the apartment.
But don’t worry, I’ll take it back tomorrow and explain it was a joke from a friend and tell them we can’t take care of a cat because we’re never here. ”
Sadie hunches her shoulders and stares at the small corridor that leads to the bedrooms. “I don’t mind cats, to be honest, but the problem is that I haven’t been able to find it so far,” she says.
“I didn’t go into your bedroom, of course.
I wouldn’t intrude on your space like that. So it could be in there.”
I laugh, holding up my hands. “I’m not worried about you going in there. I have no secrets.”
“Lucky you. I have more secrets than you can shake a big stick at,” she mutters under her breath, and my curiosity about her ignites. What secrets?
“Where have you looked?” I ask instead.
I pour the wine into two glasses and hold one out to her.
“I don’t drink.”
Oh. “Really? Sorry. I should have asked.”
“No problem. Just not my thing.” She shuffles her feet then says, “I’ve searched underneath the couch and my bed. I pulled all the storage stuff out because sometimes cats hide right at the back in the middle, so you can’t reach them …”
I nod. Sounds like Sadie understands cats way better than I do. “Okay. Let me go and check my room.”
“I’ve not found any accidents either, James. No little puddles anywhere. Which is a bit odd if it’s been shut in here all day.”
Yeah. I should have thought of that. She follows me down the hall and stands in the doorway as I’m pulling all the vacuum-packed storage bags out from under Des’s bed. God, he’s tidy. There’s not even a stray condom or a random sock.
Des’s voice drifts through my head like he’s standing right behind me. “Imagine sleeping on top of old condoms and socks, Jimmy-boy. Eww.” My stomach clenches at how much I’m already missing his chatter in the office.
“You don’t think it vanquished the guards with the sword of Aragorn and ran for it, do you?” Sadie says.
I turn toward her as my eyebrows rise. What? Her face flushes as I examine her freckled skin and downcast eyes. Then a smile curls over my face. “Found the spaceport escape hatch and jettisoned itself, you mean?”
The pink on her face deepens. “That, too. Though it’d struggle to open a hatch with its paws.”
“Oh, but it can hold a sword, no problem?”
Her mouth turns up, and then she giggles. Have I ever heard Sadie laugh? I don’t think I have. It makes her whole face light up.
I hum to myself. “How would a cat vanish from an apartment like this?” I glance around. “Did you search the closets?”
Her eyes roam over the closets in my bedroom. “All the doors were shut when I came back; it was the first thing I checked,” she says. “I was sure it would be hiding somewhere.”
“I read something once about a woman who trained her cat to open doors, or perhaps it was a TikTok video, but anyway, maybe it got in somewhere and got trapped,” I say.
Sadie catches her lower lip in her teeth. “You don’t want to know how many videos I’ve watched of cats opening doors. But …” Her lips transform into another shy grin. “There were none of cats closing doors behind them.”
As I take in the closed closet doors, something hot and sharp ignites in my chest. It’s something I haven’t felt in a long time—a kind of warmth and solidness.
Sadie’s dry offbeat humor is uncannily like mine.
She’s been so quiet since she started at Williams Security, and I’m so fucking pleased we’ve got a cat to talk about.
No, James. No. You are not pleased you’ve got a cat. You’ve taken over leading the tech team, and you’ll be taking over the running of a company with fifty staff in a couple of months; you do not need a traumatized animal that eats its own fur along with everything else.
I’m pulling the last of the stuff out from under the bed when the apartment buzzer goes, and Sadie raises her eyebrows at me and then disappears.
“Sadie,” Darius’s voice booms from the intercom, “is James there? There’s a cat in the lobby that looks a lot like the one that was delivered to him this morning.”