2. Candice
Chapter 2
S crubbed and half-dressed, I hurry back to the living room. Iggy is sitting on the bookshelf beside the couch when I walk out of the bedroom, giving me the stink-eye for not immediately going to give her chin scratches.
After all of 30 seconds of hopping on one leg, trying to get these pants on over my mostly dry legs, I give up and lean down to rub my nose up her scaly snout in greeting. Taking my attention as an invitation, she leaps off the shelf, flying through the air, her tail whipping out and knocking over knickknacks.
Her scaly toes and long claws latch into my sweater and she scurries up my chest and around my neck, wrapping her tail over my shoulder. She burrows under my still-damp hair, and I scramble to try to catch my grandpa’s picture before it can hit the floor and shatter the glass .
She knows I love her too much to actually protest. Iggy has been my constant companion and cuddle buddy for the last three years, ever since Grandpa died. Most people don’t think of iguanas as snuggly–it came as a surprise to me too–but when I went to the pet shop to get cat litter for Sunny one day, there she was, all alone. The runt of the litter apparently, the last baby iguana.
The pet shop owner said she’d been labeled “failure to thrive”, and they didn’t think she would survive. I looked into her tiny black and yellow eyes and had to bring her home–assholes still charged full price for her even though they were just going to let her die. So, then I had a pet iguana. Unlike me, she loves going on walks in her little harness, but today is all about Sunny and the vet, so I let her ride around on my shoulder while I finish doctoring my tea with copious amounts of sugar and try to lure my mean old grump into his cat carrier with treats. Which never works, but I continue to try, because what are my other options?
Keep going, keep trying… things will get better . They have to; I don’t even know what I’m working towards at this point. Just put one foot in front of the other, one day at a time, surviving…Shit, I’m zoning again.
Fucking Hell!
Thanks to that little brain detour; we are now running five minutes behind. I scoop Sunny under one arm, unceremoniously dump him into the carrier, and get it zipped up. He is totally going to throw up on me later for this, and I’ll be lucky if I don’t get retaliation poop as well, but my old man has been coughing a lot lately. I love the hairy old bastard, and we are going to the Veterinarian's office whether he likes it or not. I’ll deal with the retaliation when we are home safe and sound and he is feeling better.
S unny has been with me for over half my life. We got him from the shelter, after I left the hospital. I remember Grandpa leading me by the hand–he told me every little girl needs a kitten. And then there he was: a tiny ginger ball of fluff that was all needle claws and angry hissing. I loved him as soon as I saw him. He got along well with Grandpa and later helped me through when Grandpa got sick a few years ago. He’s always been a grumpy puffball and is just as likely to curl up on my lap and purr, as he is to take a random swipe at me if I sit too close to him on the couch. Still, he’s been the longest-running stable thing in my life, and I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do when he passes.
Furry Friends Veterinary Clinic is in the same old brick building it's always been, and the familiarity is comforting in its own way. As much as I hate being out in public, they’ve been seeing Sunny since he was a kitten, so they know him pretty well. They’ve dealt with his annual shots and check-ups, his neutering, and six months of recurrent UTIs after Grandpa passed.
There was, of course, his obsession with fake Christmas trees–which meant a yearly visit for constipation and vomiting–until I finally just gave up on having a tree three years ago. Maybe one day I can have one again, but his discomfort is not worth it, especially since it’s just the three of us. Sure, we sometimes get a new veterinarian or a partner buys in or sells and moves off, but they are like a big family–and bonus–they recently got a new exotic vet that has experience with iguanas, so we’ll get less strange questions when I have to bring Iggy in. I haven’t met them yet, but Iggy’s check-up is in another two months, so I will then.
I arrive only three minutes late, and unbuckle the cat carrier from the seatbelt; Sunny has, predictably, thrown up in the carrier and is yowling his deep old man meow to tell me how mad he is at me. So I trot inside to check in as fast as I can, before going back to my car and trying to get everything cleaned up, without letting him escape. All is going remarkably well when I realize I was in such a mad scramble to get out of the house that I forgot to spray on the de-scenter before I left. I mean, really it is my own fault. With work, a sick kitty, and just life in general, I have been feeling overwhelmed and tired a lot. I am almost out anyway, but I’m not going to be gone too long.
I mean, I used the shampoo and the soap, so I probably don’t really need it, right? I just like the extra precaution. I rarely use it anyway because it’s so expensive and a pain to get. It’s not illegal to make or sell, but I can’t buy it. My grandpa ordered as much as he was allowed to shortly after my designation came in. I have a few people I trust online to order it to ship to me, but honestly, it's a hassle, and one of the reasons I would rather just be home, cuddled in my nest reading, dancing, or even working. But nope. I wonder if I’m going to have to open for emergency art commissions to cover this vet trip.
I start to worry, because worrying is what I do, constantly, about everything.
Taking a few deep breaths I try to calm my mind. I can’t do anything about forgetting the spray. Right now, I just need to focus on my cat and hope like hell no one notices. Shit, this extra stress is not helping.
Can I smell myself already ?
Shit, no time.
For now–focus–take care of my old man kitty. Whatever is wrong, we will get through this. Deep breaths. If I have to take on more work, I will. Yeah, my heat is coming up next month, and that is going to be miserable. Plus it’ll put me out of commission for at least three to five days, but most of my regulars are awesome people. They know about Sunny, so hopefully they’ll understand.
I feel like such a failure for forgetting things.
Why can’t I do better?
What if something happens and I can’t afford to get Sunny help ?
They’ll take a payment plan, right?
Why don’t I have any friends other than my old cat and a lizard?
Am I that hard to like…
STOP…this is not fucking helping me. This isn’t helping anyone.
Again, let's take some deep breaths…in….out…count of four. Come on, you can do this.
A throat clears beside me, and I see the vet technician, Maggie–according to her nametag–who came out into the parking lot to check on me. Apparently, I’ve been having my little freak-out for a while now, and they wanted to make sure everything is ok. i.e. get me into my appointment so I don’t hold up the other appointments after mine or have to reschedule.
She comes over and extricates my poor cat–who apparently was getting squeezed hard enough in my panic that he had given up on escape and was just hanging in my hug, purring, and sounding like a motorboat engine–almost as loud as one, too.
I mumble an apology, quickly wiping out the carrier with some paper towels now that I'm not juggling an angry cat and his carrier. I get Sunny put back in, and he just starts yowling again to be let out. With my head down, I shuffle after the nice, non-judgmental, tech back through the office and into a room. There I promptly set the carrier on the exam table and unzip it to let him out–and he lays inside, looking smug, like he isn’t the reason for this whole debacle.