Chapter 17
I’m grateful when I wake up alone. Mostly because it’s after three in the afternoon when I actually get out of bed, and it’s obviously shameful to be getting up at this insane hour.
I might have roused around noon, but I didn’t hit up that Nespresso until way later.
Dave’s work hours work well to help me hide my pain.
It’s so embarrassing how dysfunctional I am right now, but I could seriously stay covered in blankets until after five.
I inhale a few Nespresso coffees before I am functional and before I check on Whiska because I know it’s going to be depressing.
And it is.
He hasn’t budged from his hiding spot. I coax, I plead, I read more cute kids’ books, trying to show him beautiful illustrated pages that he loves, but he’s hidden himself so that he can’t see any.
I offer every treat. But this cat is not moving, and I have no reason to think he’s going to come out anytime soon.
While I don’t know this little guy too well, I also do know him. Whiska won’t eat or pee for days unless I get him back to the bathroom. He’ll hide out here for days unless I get him to move. It’s basically going to be a medical issue unless I do something.
“Please, baby, come on …” I sit outside the room with a handful of treats, until I succumb to tears when Dave comes home.
I just break.
“What on earth is going on?” he asks after he drops his bag and comes my way.
“It’s stupid Whiska. He’s going to die. This little cat is going to die, and it’ll be all my fault.
” My words get all slurry and so messy. “He hasn’t eaten or pissed in too long, and he’s now refusing the nice food that I’ve given him.
He hates me. I just wanted him to have a better life than that of an alley cat with a shitty mother.
All I want is to get him back to the bathroom. He’ll feel more secure there.”
“He does not hate you,” Dave promises. “He’s not going to die, but I do agree that he needs to come out from hiding. And I’ve already got a plan.”
We make a path from behind the washing machine to the bathroom, using whatever we can find—laundry baskets, big pillows, an ironing board, stools we put on their sides and stuff with sheets.
After we’ve laid out the road home, Dave is brave enough to grab a broom and start prodding behind the washing machine. This cat is more muscular than I knew as Dave laughs about how Whiska is digging in his claws and somehow holding on to the floor, refusing to move an inch.
“He’s got a strong core!”
But I’m not smiling because all I can think about is how miserable this poor cat is. How I failed him.
Suddenly, Dave yells out, “Got him out!”
And before I can even blink, my runty little cat runs past me, through our tunnel setup, and back into his cozy bathroom cube.
“The good news is that not only is he back in his cubicle, but Whiska has peed,” Dave says as he grabs of a roll of paper towels from the linen closet. “All across the floor.”
It takes me a minute, but then I scoot across the floor to see my little asshole cat in his cube, devouring a plate of food. I look up at Dave.
Before I can say anything, he waves a hand. “It’s just a little pee,” he says as he cleans the floor.
“It’s a lot of pee. But that’s good. He’s okay. He’s okay,” I murmur mostly to myself.
“He’s going to be great.”
Despite my resolve to hold it together, I suddenly break down. Like, entirely. My vision gets iffy, and my heart begins to slam in my chest, and I’m soon gasping for air.
“He’s going to be okay. He’s going to be okay,” I keep saying, trying to talk myself down, but instead, I escalate until I’m nearly screaming.
“Why does this fucking cat hate me so much? Why is he not a grateful TikTok rescue cat? I do everything for you, you dumb Top Cat, don’t I?
And all you do is hiss at me and try to bite and scratch me while I am patient as all fuck.
But if you want to live in the bathroom and seethe all the time, fine. I don’t fucking care anymore.”
It’s odd to know I’m having a major panic attack, anxiety attack … whatever … and not be able to stop it.
I cannot hold anything together, and despite my embarrassment, I just come totally unglued, falling into full-blown tears.
I cannot breathe, I cannot speak—for how long, I don’t even know.
My crying begins to choke me, sending me into a coughing fit, and I have a truly unfortunate need for tissues to manage my eyes and my nose.
Somehow, I find myself in Dave’s arms as he cradles me in bed. Yet again. He holds me until I can see again, think again.
“I don’t think we’re crying about the cat now, are we?” he asks when my breathing subsides and he hands me a wad of tissues.
“Probably not,” I agree.
I blow my nose a hundred more times and then rush to the bathroom to rinse off my face with ice-cold water, even while I’m still sobbing.
God, I’m a mess.
Oh fuck, I’m going to be sick.
And I am. Within seconds, I’m face down in the toilet, absolutely hurling.
I haven’t puked in years, and now I can’t stop, vomiting up stress and snot and bile until I’m shuddering on the tiled floor in this beautiful bathroom.
Whiska stays at least, witnessing my tirade.
And so does Dave, who I realize has been holding back my hair for the entire gross episode.
This New Friend Dave doesn’t seem to mind, somehow. The idea that Patrick would so approve of the guy I’m crying to about his death is just damn bizarre, and awful, and sort of beautiful, and it only makes me cry harder.
When I have nothing left to give to this episode, Dave helps me amble back to the bedroom, and I manage not to give him a concussion with my cast when I swing myself under the covers and he crawls in behind me.
His scoop is again so good.
After I’m sort of calm, he asks, “Did you see the Super Bowl where Prince played the halftime show?”
“What?” I shake my head. Why is he asking me this? “I think so? But I’m not sure I remember it.”
“Okay, that’s a tragedy already, so you’ll have to look it up, especially after I tell you this.
” Dave is now all animated as he rolls me over to face him and wipes his fingers under my eyes.
“Picture it, okay? Prince is primed to perform at the most watched show ever, right? The fucking Super Bowl. Like, each year, it’s one of the most viewed performances.
But then weather steps in. It’s not just rain, okay?
It’s a Miami deluge. Everyone is freaking out, all with legit concerns.
His dancers are wearing high heels, the glass stage is going to be soaking wet, there are however many electrical plugs involved, his four electric guitars.
And as the rain gets even worse, Prince gets a call and is told that it’s really time to call it off, and do you know what he asked? The only thing he asked?”
I have no idea.
“One thing. He asked one thing.”
“Tell me.”
Dave holds me as I fade into him. “He asked, ‘Can you make it rain harder?’ ”
I laugh lightly because it’s so ironically lovely. So brilliant. So not what most of us would say in the face of a nightmare situation. “He wanted that challenge. He liked the rain?”
“And then Prince played the wildest show. There was ‘Purple Rain,’ ‘Baby I’m a Star,’ ‘Let’s Go Crazy.
’ His own stuff, plus ‘All Along the Watchtower,’ ‘Proud Mary,’ ‘Best of You.’ ” Dave snuggles me in.
“Prince took that a night—one with a thousand things going wrong, things that would have ruined and gutted any other performer—and he gave us the most epic, gorgeous performance. Stuff no one could have imagined. Like, the rain hit the lights and emitted a beautiful, glorious steam. It was all just wildly flawless and unexpected.”
This story is awesome, and I’ll have to go and watch the videos, but I don’t get why he’s telling me about someone so crazy talented and special, especially because he tightens his hold as though I’m somehow worthy of championing.
“I know you didn’t want a hard rain, but you got one. Make this mess of pain your Super Bowl.”
Oh. Dave thinks I’m stronger than I am. He seems to believe in me.
I roll back into him.
He’s probably wrong.
But maybe he’s not. Maybe I can survive all of this.
“Did you have your own hard rain? Your own Super Bowl?” I ask.
“We all have one.” Dave sighs and snuggles me against him and waves a hand. “But now I have my food truck.”