Kitten

Chapter 22

A few days after I moved out of his apartment, James and I went on a break. I had his last messages memorized by heart:

I think we need some time apart, and not just as it relates to housing

I still can’t think of you without thinking of Silver

Blame isn’t the right word. But I do feel something, it’s hard

This doesn’t mean I don’t still love you. Can you understand?

I did understand. Silver was James’s childhood wish, and I took her away.

Or maybe Silver’s death had tugged on the ribbon wrapping his whole life together, unraveling the idea that everything was right where it should be.

Now he was left with panic attacks and a big stuffed shark.

I wondered what he did with BL?HAJ, whether he stowed him in the closet or cuddled him under the sheets. Both ideas made me itchy with sadness.

October drew to a close. I almost got the job at the arts and culture center.

Instead of discouraging me, the rejection was surprisingly invigorating.

“Apparently I was a ‘really strong candidate,’ ” I said, reading from my phone while Lou ate corn from a can.

“They wished me the best of luck finding another role.”

Lou’s apartment had become my not-so-temporary home.

I only meant to crash for a week while I hunted for more job and apartment leads, but one week turned into two, then three, without luck on either front.

Becca broke up with Nicolo and moved out, so I even got my own drawer in the bathroom.

Between the drawer, Lou’s bookshelf, and the corner under her desk, I had enough space to comfortably store all my things, which I moved in from my old place in just three hours.

But I still wasn’t paying rent, and though Lou never said anything, I could tell Nicolo was getting irritated.

Nicolo couldn’t seem to make up his mind about me.

At first he pretended like we’d never met, which I could understand—though sometimes, when Lou wasn’t around, we managed to hold surprisingly long and natural conversations.

Once, while he was at work, I noticed he’d accidentally left his door open.

I couldn’t resist peeking and was amused to glimpse the furry foot of a teddy bear atop his duvet.

Now it was Halloween. Sitting on Lou’s bed, I nursed a lukewarm vodka Coke while Lou dripped fake blood down her chin.

She was leaning so close to her body-length mirror that I was sure she’d stain it.

Without knocking, Nicolo barged into the room, dressed like Freddie Mercury.

“I am going soon, but I just wanted to say tomorrow is November.”

I froze. Lou looked unfazed. “And?”

“And rent is due.” Nicolo pointed at me. “You’re still here.”

I began to apologize, but Lou cut me off. “Can’t you just move out already?”

“Yes, you dream of that, don’t you?”

“I’m interviewing with another place tomorrow,” I said.

“What, like, for a job?” Lou asked.

“A room. With these four women, I think most of them work in government—”

“Stop talking, that’s so depressing. Nicolo, have pity.”

“I pity only myself in this situation.”

Lou marched to the door and closed it on him, singing out, “Goodbye, goodbye.” The last thing I heard before the door shut: “If you’re still here tomorrow, you owe me money!”

We took the subway eight stops to Lou’s colleague’s Halloween party.

On the way, I tried to muster up the courage to apologize about the living situation, but she’d seemed unbothered back at the apartment.

Also, she looked even more intimidating than usual with all that blood.

I kept promising myself I would bring it up at the next station, but then we arrived.

It was inordinately warm in the apartment, and my arms itched under the white mesh top we thrifted for my costume.

Lou was a vampire. I was garlic. Lou introduced me as the first friend she made at college, and everybody made a big deal over our outfits.

There was a cat, there was a nun, and there was Cher, but otherwise not very many people were dressed up.

I enjoyed explaining the details of our costumes to people, but twenty minutes in, Lou began to laugh with a girlishness that indicated she was embarrassed and yanked me to the kitchen.

“They suck, right?” She ladled a cup of black liquid from a sweating bowl on the counter.

“I think they’re okay.”

“You can’t tell when people are making fun of you. It’s like your superpower.”

“I can,” I said. “And some people are. But not everybody.”

Lou squinted at the shiny veneer of the kitchen cabinets. I waved. “There’s a mirror in the bathroom, you know,” I said.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s like, you think you don’t care what other people think, but then you go to some random party you won’t remember in a month, and you realize it’s not true.”

I didn’t know what to say. It surprised me that Lou cared about what people thought. “Is it too early to leave?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s just stay here for a bit.” I took her drink. It tasted sour but wasn’t bad, considering its terrifying color. We passed the cup back and forth, even though there was a stack of empty ones to my left. The cracks in our teeth grew black.

Lou’s phone pinged. “No way,” she said. “Nicolo texted me. His party’s flopping, thank God.”

“Compassionate as ever.”

But her head was already bowed as she focused on formulating a response.

I glanced at my phone, willing a notification to come through.

Nearly an entire month had passed since I last saw James.

Each day started with the hope that he might text me and ended with the knowledge that he wouldn’t.

Still, the hope persisted. It was only when I told Lou about my new obsession with my phone that she clued me in to the fact that I missed him.

In the weeks following our break, I’d drafted dozens of texts to James that I always ended up deleting and safekeeping in my Notes.

The steadily growing block of text supported my hypothesis that I was finally living a real life, and I wanted him to know about it.

I considered journaling, but the idea of a private notebook was so unappealing that I had to accept that my pleasure in writing the texts was rooted in the possibility that I’d slip up, hit send, and force James to read them.

A pigeon keeps tapping at our window. I feel sorry for him because he lives in such a stinky neighborhood. Do you think pigeons care about that kind of thing?

Lou told me I’m misusing the word “modern.” She says most of the time what I really mean is “contemporary.”

I’ve discovered how to cook pasta al dente. I used to think that was raw. I admit that for our entire relationship I thought you were undercooking the pasta.

Our pigeon has stopped coming by. Lou said he probably got run over by a car. But maybe he got in with a bad crowd. Or grew sick of the college students who always get drunk beneath our window. Or fell in love.

Lou peered over my shoulder. “Who’s that essay for?”

I clutched my phone to my chest. “They’re drafts. Things I never sent to James.”

“Poor Katie.” She stuck out her bottom lip. “Your first breakup.”

“We’re not broken up.”

“Totally, yeah, on a break. There’s a difference.”

“You’re so mean.”

“Sorry, sorry.” She threw her arms around me. I could tell her bad mood had passed. “I’m evil. Don’t be sad. Forget about James, we’re going to have a fun night.”

For a moment we stood there, huddled in the corner of the kitchen, passing our cup. A few people filtered in and out to refill their drinks, always lingering for a few minutes before leaving. This went on for ten minutes before Lou burst into laughter. “We’re actually giving the worst vibes.”

I agreed, even though the vibes didn’t matter much to me. She’d called me her first college friend. That would be the night’s souvenir, I didn’t need anything else. I wiped off the smudge below Lou’s eye, she poured herself a separate cup of punch, and just like that we were ready to party.

—

When I returned home, it was two in the morning, and the light was on in the kitchen. Still buzzed, I walked inside. Nicolo stood with his back toward the entrance, stirring something in a metal saucepan. He startled when I reached to grab a glass from the drying rack. “Where’s Lou?”

“She went home with this guy.”

There was a pause. It was awkward, but I didn’t want to leave yet, only to crawl into bed alone. I decided to be bold. “Why are you cooking at two in the morning?”

“I have insomnia,” Nicolo said.

I admitted to having trouble sleeping recently, too.

Nicolo clicked his tongue. “Yes, well, I have slept badly since I was a baby.”

“I thought all babies had trouble sleeping.”

“My troubles were advanced.”

“So, what helps?”

“Nothing. Melatonin, weed, ashwagandha, Ambien, I have tried everything.”

He turned off the heat, poured the contents of the saucepan into a ceramic bowl. A creamy smell filled the room. “Sometimes only a bowl of warm milk helps.” Warm milk! I immediately liked him more.

The bowl looked toylike in Nicolo’s big hands.

He’d overfilled it, causing milk to wobble over the rim.

I half expected him to set the bowl down and stick his tongue into it, but he brought it to his lips and finished the milk in three big gulps.

I thought of Silver’s delicate lapping. Nicolo’s savage chugging gave me the desire to yank the bowl from his mouth.

“You are looking at me weirdly,” he said.

“Am I?”

“Yes. You look like you want to kill me.”

I apologized. Staying up late gave me violent thoughts.

“Maybe drink milk.”

When I didn’t move, he poured a bowl for me. “Honey?” he asked. I nodded.

“You can just drink it normally,” he said when I dipped my tongue in the bowl.

“I’ll drink it how I like,” I said. But I didn’t have a delicate tongue and lapping soon proved inefficient.

I drank it normally. When I was done, Nicolo took my bowl and the saucepan and set them down in the sink, then turned on the faucet.

The sound of rushing water and the warmth in my belly nearly put me to sleep right there.

Nicolo drizzled soap over the dishes. Clearing his throat, he said, “You know you could just move in, right?”

“What?”

“The living room is big. We can get a divider. And you do not seem to have many possessions.”

“Oh.” It hadn’t occurred to me that we could all live together. “How much would I pay?”

“I don’t know. We can agree on that later. But probably not too much.”

“Lou would never agree to that. The living room’s like her second room.”

“She would complain that I’m still here,” he said. “But she is always complaining.”

“Okay,” I said. I felt a tug of anticipation. “Well, I’ll think about it.”

Nicolo put the dishes on the drying rack, then dabbed his hands on his shirt. As he moved past me and out of the kitchen, I blurted: “Wait.”

“What?”

I hesitated. Why was it so hard to say? “Thank you. It’s a very nice offer.”

He gave me a funny look. “You don’t need to thank me,” he said. “It is the most obvious solution.”

—

I wasn’t lying when I told Nicolo that I was having trouble sleeping.

In my first two weeks here, I wondered if I was simply unused to the weight of Lou’s body next to mine, cold and prone to random spasms like a sea creature caught on land.

My insomnia wasn’t so bad back then. I woke every few hours, always after dreaming of Silver.

The dreams were so exciting that I wondered if dream Silver was jerking me awake to remind me that she was really dead.

Then it became impossible to fall asleep at all.

I usually sank into a watery and terrifying half sleep, the blare of the neighborhood’s sirens mixing with other headless voices: my mother declaring that her clothes had outgrown her, Isabelle singing softly to the gardeners.

Sometimes I felt Silver’s downy fur beneath my palm and woke up stroking Lou’s arm.

But Nicolo’s remedy was already proving to be effective. With my legs curled to my chest and my belly swirling with milk and alcohol, I felt very tired and vulnerable, like an abandoned animal. I texted James.

Thinking of you.

To my surprise, he replied within three seconds.

Thinking of you, too.

Did you end up getting that job?

My heart pounded. For some reason, I lied and said yes.

James wrote:

I’m so proud of you, I knew this would happen.

Then I understood that I’d lied because I wanted him to be proud of me. Promptly I confessed. A few minutes passed before his next message.

Not sure why you did that.

I hope you don’t feel like I’d judge you or anything for not getting the job

Like I’m not that kind of person

No not at all

My lying has got nothing to do with you

Ok that’s good to know

Though that makes me kind of sad

Because I have no integrity?

Because I like to think you still have something to do with me

There was a warmth in my chest. It was limp as a new flame, easy to snuff out. Still, it was there. I put my phone away. Shortly afterward, I fell asleep. Then Lou slid into the bed, waking me up. It was morning, it was another day.