4
After lunch, we stopped to buy gas at the nearest Exxon station. “I’ll do this,”
Max announced as we pulled in, but I said, “No, no, I will,”
because I worried he would insist on paying for it. (We’d already argued about my paying for our meal, even though I was the one who’d invited him.) I hopped out of the car before he could and unhooked the pump nozzle, which meant I accidentally skipped the step where I should have pressed my gas tank’s release tab. So Max got to act all patient and forbearing as he leaned across from his seat and pressed it himself. “I was going to do that!” I told him. “I’ve done it a million times.”
Long story short, therefore: I ended up with hands that smelled like gasoline. So when we got back to my house, the cat took one whiff of me at the front door and then promptly vanished, straight up the stairs. “Celine?”
I called after her.
Max said, “Who?”
I said, “Oh, the…cat.”
I turned away. I went to hang my purse in the closet. “Honestly!”
I said. “Such a delicate flower, she is.”
“Wait, her name is Celine?” he asked.
“No, silly. I just had to call her something in a pinch,”
I said. I closed the closet door.
“So, does this mean you might want to keep her?”
he asked, trailing after me into the living room.
“No, no. It just means I don’t believe in letting an animal walk around nameless,”
I told him.
“Oh.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Okay,”
he said. “Well, I guess I ought to go finish packing.”
“You’re leaving right now?”
I asked him.
“I thought I would.”
“I figured you’d want your nap first.”
“No, I should get out of your hair,” he said.
I said, “All right.”
And then, “Although it’s not as if I have anything else to do today. You’re welcome to take your nap if you like.”
“No, that’s okay,”
he said, and he turned and started up the stairs.
I would have called the cat again, but I felt self-conscious about repeating her name in Max’s hearing. Instead I went out to the kitchen and checked my answering machine. One message: my mother. “Hello, dear,”
the recording said. “Sorry I missed you! I hope you’re not feeling too bereft after the wedding.”
Bereft was exactly how I was feeling. But I wasn’t sure I could blame the wedding. I stood looking at the phone, knowing I should call her back and yet putting it off. And then the cat wandered in of her own accord. “Hey there,”
I told her. She brushed against my ankles invitingly, but before I picked her up I went over to the sink and thoroughly washed my hands and forearms, all the way to my elbows. Then I dried off and gave one wrist a sniff. Not too bad, in my opinion. And when I stooped to gather her up, she didn’t try to escape. She herself smelled like clean woolens. I buried my nose in her neck and drew in a deep breath of her, and then I carried her out of the kitchen and up the stairs. At the guest room doorway, I paused to watch Max folding a shirt. He kept his eyes on what he was doing, though, as if he were still alone.
“So, I’m wondering,”
I told him. “Suppose I did decide to keep the cat; didn’t you say your shelter would object if you didn’t bring her back with you?”
Now he looked up. He stopped folding his shirt. “You mean, keep her for good?” he asked.
“Because she does seem comfortable here,” I said.
“Oh, she loves it here! She loves it! You won’t regret this, Gail, I promise. As for the shelter: you’d just need to fill out some paperwork, but I can email you that. It might be a bit more complicated because you live in a different state, is all.”
“That’s okay,” I said.
I hoped I wasn’t going to regret this.
“Now, about her supplies,”
he said. “Her litter box and such. Her bag of kibble. Why don’t I just leave you with what I brought. We’re allowed to, when the new owner’s not equipped yet.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“This is great!”
he told me.
“Right,” I said.
I stood there a moment longer. He laid the shirt in the duffel bag on his bed and went over to the closet.
“So…that’s all settled, I guess,”
I said finally, and I turned to carry the cat back downstairs.
When I reached the living room, she jumped out of my arms like someone who’d just accomplished something. She proceeded straight to the kitchen, and I followed to watch her start picking at her bowl of kibble.
I would need to buy a dedicated feeding dish, I decided. In fact, maybe a continuous feeder, for when I was out of the house. And cat treats. The whole time she had been here, I’d been wishing I had some cat treats to entice her with.
Would she like a scratching post? What cat wouldn’t like a scratching post? Maybe one of those tree-shaped affairs with several levels to it. I could set it by a window so she could watch birds to her heart’s content.
I heard Max’s footsteps upstairs, but they weren’t drawing any closer. Finally I settled on the couch, and the cat wandered in a moment later and sat on the rug to wash her face. Now Max finally did cross the hall and start down the stairs. I stayed seated, though.
“All set,”
he said as he arrived in the living room. He had his duffel bag slung over one shoulder and he was clutching the Lerner Brothers bag. “So, the cat has been chipped,”
he told me, “and all her shots are up to date.”
“Chipped?” I asked.
“Electronically, by the vet. In case you ever need to verify her records. Also, I don’t foresee any complications with the out-of-state issue, but I’ll check into all that before I send you the paperwork.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“No, thank you!”
he said. Then he said, “It’s another Groundhog moment, right? You didn’t want my dog at first, either, but then you got into a knock-down-drag-out fight with your roommates to keep them from evicting her.”
He was exaggerating, of course. I’d just had a civilized discussion with them. But I said, “Well, sure, because that was Barbara! Good old Barb.”
“Good old Barb,”
he agreed. Then he turned to the cat and said, “So long, Miss Celine. You’ve found yourself a pretty cushy berth, let me assure you.”
Celine went on washing her face industriously.
“She’s pretending not to hear,”
he told me, “in case I still have any plans to take her with me.”
Then he headed toward the front door, and I rose to follow him. The day was downright hot now, I could tell the instant I stepped outside. I said, “It’s lucky we took our walk early.”
“Yup.”
We descended the front steps. I said, “I didn’t think to ask whether you’re working this summer.”
“Only part-time,”
he said. “Some of our kids do stay on if they don’t have anyplace else to go, but in summer it’s more like a day camp.”
“That sounds nice,” I said.
“Yup.”
We stopped beside his car. It was a decent distance from my own car, for once, since I’d been the last to park. He unlocked his trunk to put his duffel bag inside, and then he chucked the Lerner Brothers bag in after it.
I said, “What’s the name of your school, again? I forget.”
“Cornboro Special,” he said.
“Ah, yes.”
An unfortunate choice, I’d aways thought. “Special”
sounded faintly suspect. But of course I didn’t say so. I just stood smiling and looking into his face. He didn’t pursue the subject, though. He said, “Okay, then, I guess. Thanks for letting me stay with you.”
“Anytime,”
I told him.
He lifted one palm in a sort of salute, and then he went around to the driver’s side and got in and started the engine. I watched until his car turned left at the end of the block before I went back to the house.
Celine hadn’t stirred from the rug, but she’d progressed from face-washing to shin-washing. “Hi, sweetheart,”
I told her. She didn’t look up. I went to the kitchen and loaded a couple of glasses into the dishwasher. Wiped off a counter. Hung up a towel. Pulled a chair out from the table and sat down to phone my mother, finally.
“Hi, Mom,”
I said when she answered. “Sorry it took me a while to get back to you. I still had Max here till a minute ago.”
“Well, I just called to make sure you’re not missing your girl,” she said.
“No, I’m okay. I mean, of course I miss her, but I’m happy the wedding went well. She did phone earlier today to say she’d enjoyed it.”
“Yes, she phoned me too,” Mom said.
“Oh, good. And I know she called Sophie and Rupert.”
In fact, should I be concerned that she’d spent so much time with us all on the phone instead of focusing on her new husband?
No, I thought. Let that go.
“It must have been quite a strain having Max around for this long,”
Mom was saying.
“Not at all,”
I said. “We even went out to lunch today before he left. At the Cultured Crab.”
“Ooh! Do tell,”
Mom said, “what’d you order?”
“Just, I don’t know. A fish thing. And I’m keeping that cat he brought.”
“You’re not,” Mom said.
“She’s turned out to be really nice.”
“But what will you do when Kenneth comes over?”
“Kenneth,”
I said. “Well, I don’t think it’s that big a problem. He can just use his…whatchamacallit if he gets wheezy.”
“Have it your way,”
she said. “You know I’m not a huge cat fan. I’ve always felt they were coldhearted.”
“Cats are not coldhearted!”
I said. “They’re only protecting their dignity, in case they get rejected. ‘I’ll just reject you first,’ they’re saying.”
“Yes, so you’ve always told me.”
“Anyhow,”
I said. “I’ll be in touch later this week, okay? Maybe we can go to a movie together, if there’s anything worth seeing.”
“That would be lovely,”
she said. “Good-bye, dear.”
“Bye, Mom.”
I hung up.
I went back to the living room. I sank down on the couch. It was more like collapsing, really.
What was I supposed to do with the rest of my life?
I’m too young for this, I thought. Not too old, as you might expect, but too young, too inept, too uninformed. How come there weren’t any grownups around? Why did everyone just assume I knew what I was doing?
It was a good thing I had Celine. She had hopped up beside me by now, and I could busy myself with running the tip of an index finger along the length of her elegant nose, which made her close her eyes and purr.
What I should have told Max was…
What I should have asked…
What I should have made clear to him…
Oh, why was I so bottled up?
How was it that, standing in a field of gold, I had not had the faintest idea whether it was wheat or rye or barley? Why had I registered Max’s awe as he cupped my face, his look of utter adoration, but given not one passing thought to whether I had adored him?
The doorbell rang, but I ignored it. The cat, however, fled instantaneously, without even seeming to collect herself for her leap.
Until now, I had imagined that I’d been drawn to Andrew Mason because he was so unknowable.
In fact, though, I had known him all too well.
I was him. I had recognized his separateness, and his held-back smile, and his absolute certainty that since he took his own coffee black, there was no need whatsoever to set out cream and sugar for anybody else.
From the front porch, I heard a man call, “Gail?”
I told myself that this was…I don’t know. A neighbor? Someone from school? The only reason it sounded like Max was that I’d just been thinking of Max.
I rose and went to open the door. “I had this sudden idea,”
Max told me. He was standing back a bit with his hands down at his sides, as if to prove that he meant no harm. “This idea about the adoption papers. You know what might be easiest? If we put my name on the papers. I’m a Delaware resident.”
I said, “Oh.”
I said, “I hadn’t considered that.”
“With your name too, though, I’m saying. Yours and mine both, jointly. It wouldn’t be a lie, exactly. Especially not if you came to live in Cornboro, by and by.”
Then he tilted his head. “Gail?”
he asked. “Do you think?”
The year was 2023, and nearly every man, woman, and child in America owned a cell phone, including Max Baines.
He could have called me while he was driving. Or pulled over to the side of the road and called. Or even waited till he got home and called me then. And yet here he was in person, standing on my front porch.
Which gave me the courage, finally, to step out onto the porch myself and cup his face in my hands. I studied his sweet, bristly cheeks, and the satiny skin below his brown eyes, and his forehead creased with concern, and I committed them all to memory before I kissed him.
End