A Cat Called Cupid: A Romantic Comedy Novella (6 page)

Craig went into the bathroom and shut the door. I heard water running. I think this was his attempt to cover up the fact that he didn’t actually have any business to take care of in there.

Bella and I watched as Ann tiptoed to the bedroom and gingerly pushed the door open. It opened less than a foot before it hit a pile of dirty laundry—or maybe it was clean
. I’d made a thorough inventory of the room on previous occasions, and even I—with the aid of my superior feline olfactory senses—couldn’t tell whether or not it had been washed.

   “
#### ####!” Ann exclaimed and immediately clamped her hands over her mouth. That’s not a phrase she uses often. I think Cat Hater may have rubbed off on her a little. Ann carefully shut the door and was lounging on the couch with an innocent expression on her face when Craig came out of the bathroom. 

“Sorry about that,” Craig said.

“The ice cream’s melting.” Ann acted like she’d just now noticed even though she’d been staring right at it for the last three minutes. 

“You want to take it upstairs
?”

Ann
agreed. They left, ice cream and all. I did not attempt to follow them. Giving them their privacy seemed the thing to do.
 

It turned out
that Craig had been away at a family wedding. Bella had been boarded at a kennel. Why he hadn’t told Ann he was going, I don’t know. Maybe he’s smarter than I’d pegged him for, and he’d realized that if there was ever a time to play hard to get, this was it. Or maybe he’s just bad about picking up the phone. Whatever the reason, My Lady soon forgot her rancor.

Craig started spending a lot of time upstairs in Ann’s apartment, and sometimes Bella would wander up with him. It was the perfect arrangement. I was happy. Bella was happy. My Lady was in a better mood than I’d seen her in years.

One thing that set Craig apart from My Lady’s previous paramours was that he not only talked, he also listened. He was such a good listener that Flavia started to get jealous.

I know this because a few weeks
into the successful merger between Craig and My Lady, I overheard Ann on the phone, trying to calm Flavia down. This was unprecedented. Usually it’s the other way around.

“Of course I still value our friendship,” Ann insisted. “You know I do.”

I watched a robin flutter down and land on a tree limb outside the window.

“I understand how you feel, but for the first time in a very long time I’m with someone who makes me happy
,” Ann continued.

There was a lot more emotional outpouring from Flavia on the other end which I won’t relate. Sometimes I’d give anything to be one of those elderly male humans with hearing aids
which they can turn off when they want to tune out the wife. Unfortunately, due to my acute feline hearing I can generally distinguish both sides of any telephone conversation, and I was subjected to Flavia’s long and sentimental monologue on the subject of friendship. The upshot of their chat was that Ann and Flavia made a standing weekly date for a girls’ night in.

On t
he Thursday evening which kicked off this tradition, Craig made himself scarce.

W
hen he’d been introduced to Flavia for the first time, she’d pinched his cheek and declared that he was “—like the cutest. Thing. Ever.” Not exactly what a grown man wants to hear. I didn’t blame him for barricading himself inside his apartment. I tried to join him, but Ann intercepted me as I tried to slip out when she opened the door for Flavia. I was stuck.

Manicures and a mushy movie
were on the evening’s menu of events, but they never got around to watching the movie. The conversation soon devolved into a meditation on boyfriends past.

Flavia was the one who started it
, and after going on in great detail for forty-five minutes about how each and every one of her sixteen previous boyfriends had put her off men, she turned to Ann. “So tell me all about Craig.”

Now, I’m Craig’s greatest fan. You won’t find a cat anywhere—with the possible exception of Bella—who thinks more highly of him. Unfortunately, this admiration of Craig’s disposition and character did not prepare me for the gushing description Ann gave of Craig’s manifold merits.
Some of it was based in truth. I will admit he is “a sweet guy,” and I find no evidence to suppose he isn’t “the best thing that ever happened” to Ann. However, there was no mention of his questionable housekeeping habits or his tendency to wear the same shirt three days in a row. It was about the time that Ann began going into unnecessary and somewhat exaggerated detail about Craig’s prowess in the bedroom that I retreated to the aforementioned location and stuck my head under a pillow.

Call me a prude, but I think some things are better kept to oneself.
 

Things were
perfect, or at least as near to perfect as any of us can hope for in this life. True, Craig did watch almost as much TV as Cat Hater had, but at least he let me loll on his chest while he did it. It was also true that—along with lacking in the neatness department—Craig was a bit clumsy and did step on my tail once or twice, but I never suspected of him doing it deliberately, which made all the difference.

As the novelty
of their new relationship wore off, Craig and Ann—possibly realizing that they had been neglecting valued friendships—suddenly transformed into social butterflies.

There is something about being newly in love
which makes human beings think it’s their moral responsibility to assist all their nearest and dearest in replicating their own experience of heart-pounding infatuation. This leads to what I call the Fix-up Phenomenon. You won’t find it in any of your fancy pseudo-psychological relationship guides, but it’s a real thing nonetheless.

The first
friends to fall prey to Craig and Ann’s matchmaking zeal were Flavia and Craig’s associate, Bradley.

Instead of simply informing Flavia that Bradley was single and was she interested
, and informing Bradley that Flavia was single and interested and here was her phone number and he could call her if he felt like it, they instead planned an elaborate “accidental” meeting: otherwise known as a dinner party.

 
I’ve been witness to enough dinner parties involving unhappily single humans and excessive quantities of alcoholic beverages to know these binges generally rival the film industry’s best efforts in cinematic tales of horror and suspense.

But
before they could subject themselves to the trauma of awkward pauses and forced jollity, there was a long period of preparation. First, as I’ve already alluded to, My Lady and Craig selected their sacrificial victims. This happened one Sunday morning over breakfast in Ann’s apartment.

“Do you know any nice guys for Flavia?” Ann asked
Craig.

Craig swallowed down a mouthful of blueberry pancake before he answered.

“How about Bradley?”

“Have I met Bradley?”

“Remember? At Bill and Linda’s party. Last week.”

“Oh, him.”

Apparently, the criteria for fobbing off your boyfriend’s acquaintances on your best friend are pretty lax, because Ann didn’t ask any more questions. It was straight on to planning the menu.

After that,
there was the pointless charade of inviting both Flavia and Bradley without admitting it was a setup. I suppose this was a ploy to maintain maximum deniability if either half of the equation turned out to be either certifiably insane or insufferably dull. Both Flavia and Bradley said they could come.

Finally
, it was on to compiling the rest of the guest list. The key to a good setup is to include enough guests to create the illusion that one just happened to invite two people who just happen to be single at the same time, and who one just happens to know might be looking to shed their single status, and who might just happen to hit it off. Not that I’ve ever been directly involved in such underhanded shenanigans, of course. I just stand off to the side and glean what I can from observation. The remaining slots on the guest list were filled by Craig’s sister and her husband and some couple who used to be friends with Cat Hater until he borrowed their car and ran it into a tree.

The Saturday afternoon before the party, Ann kicked me out of the
apartment. She was baking salmon, and it proved irresistible. For a species which has to depend on a plethora of chemical products just to maintain a minimum standard of personal hygiene, humans certainly are sensitive about the presence of animals on surfaces used for food preparation. 

I wandered downstairs, hoping to run into Bella, but I didn’t. I did, however, discover that my territory had been breached by an invader.

I was the only Tom living in the complex, and I considered the perimeter and the parking lots my personal turf. But when I went out to the parking lot to check on the effectiveness of my ongoing anti-rat campaign, I was shocked to see a huge orange Tom sitting on the hood of a parked car, bold as brass.

He just looked at me, without even blinking. It would have been less intimidating if he’d immediately hissed and
adopted a fighting stance, but as far as he was concerned I might as well have been a day-old kitten, lame in one leg and missing an eye. It was disconcerting. I didn’t know what to do. If I became aggressive first, I would only be acknowledging his superior strength.

I decided to take a wait-and-see-attitude. Perhaps he was just passing through. I gave him a wide berth and moved on to make my daily inspection of the dumpster.
 

When I returned to the apartment,
the party was in full swing. Flavia appeared to have taken a liking to Bradley. Sadly, it did not appear that Bradley felt the same.

They were all still seated at the table, surrounded by the ruins of their dinner and empty wine bottles. Flavia was telling what she probably imagined was an en
dearing and engaging anecdote, and the other women at the table were politely giggling in female solidarity.

“And then I was like
, ‘I’m so like friggn’ tired, I could like—’” Flavia was saying.

“Anyone want more pie?” Craig asked. Bradley said he’d love some. 

“So then he goes, ‘Well, if you’re so friggn’ tired, why don’t you—’“ Flavia continued, after declining Craig’s offer.

“Anyone need more water?” Craig asked.

No one answered, so Flavia continued. “Then I go, ‘No, way!’ and then he goes, ‘Yes, way!’ and I’m like, ‘No. Really!’ and he’s like, ‘I don’t believe you!’”  

Craig
was still standing up, water pitcher at the ready. My Lady glared at him and motioned for him to sit down. Flavia didn’t notice. She was the only one who didn’t.

“And so then I’m like, ‘If that’s the way you feel about it—
’” The woman was unstoppable. Keep in mind—while deciding whether or not to pass unfavorable judgment on her rhetorical style—that Flavia is well past her 30
th
birthday. Go ahead. Think derisive thoughts. Everyone else was.

“Shall we move to the living room?” Craig looked around the table. No one would meet his eye except Bradley
, who looked distinctly relieved.

Before they made it to the living room, Craig managed to split the group up
by inviting the male contingent downstairs to look at some new electronic gadget he’d just acquired.

After the guests had departed, there was an ugly scene in Ann’s apartment.

“What
were
you doing?” Ann demanded.

“What do you mean, what was I doing?”

“You were deliberately trying to steal Flavia’s thunder.”

“Flavia doesn’t have any thunder.”

“You were very rude!” My Lady was starting to get steamed. I jumped up on the coffee table and lay down, obscuring the porcelain puppy in repose from view before Ann got any ideas. Uncomfortable things to lie on, porcelain figurines.

“I might have been a little rude,” Craig admitted. “It was just that I felt so bad for Bradley.”

“Why in the world would you feel bad for Bradley?”

“Because it was
painfully obvious that Flavia was totally into him.”

“And what’s so terrible about that? Bradley should be flattered.”

“Well, maybe he should have been, but he wasn’t. It’s just that—”

“Just that what?”

“I mean, you have to admit Flavia is a little—” If I’d been a masked superhero with the power to fly—or a parrot—I’d have made a flying leap at Craig and knocked him upside the head before he could dig himself an even deeper hole. Alas, I am not a masked superhero, neither am I a parrot, so all I could do was offer a meow of warning from across the room. My warning went unheeded.

“Tell me! What’s wrong with my best friend? I really want to know.”
Ann didn’t really want to know, but Craig—like too many men engaged in a war of words with their significant others—answered her truthfully.

“She’s a baby-talker. She’s constantly giggling. She never has anything intelligent to say, and if she’s not talking about shoes
, she’s talking about herself!” He paused for a minute, as if searching for more flaws to charge Flavia with. “And why is it that she’s congenitally incapable of using the word ‘said’?” 

I hunkered down on the porcelain puppy, prepared to cling to it, if necessary. But Ann didn’t start looking around for something to throw. Instead
, she started to laugh.

 
“You’re right!” she said. “She does do all those things, and they can be irritating, but she’s really very sweet, and there are plenty of men out there who could overlook her eccentricities.”

Craig just stood there and waited until My Lady was finished laughing like a maniac.
Then he conceded that Bradley had a few faults of his own, and perhaps he was himself being a little too critical of Flavia. The upshot of the fight was that they ended up getting frisky on the remnants of dinner.

It had been Craig and Ann’s first fight, and they’d successfully survived it.
 

About a week
after the ill-advised dinner party, Craig’s mother arrived for a visit, all the way from Omaha. Craig knew she was coming. My Lady Ann had not been similarly informed.

“How could you not tell me your mother was coming?” Ann hissed
at Craig, as we paused for a hurried mid-flight conference on the stairs. Ann was in the throes of spring cleaning, and she had suspended her scrubbing to make her habitual evening trip down to the mailboxes. It was then that she’d caught a glimpse of suitcases outside Craig’s apartment door. We’d met Craig bringing in the last of the luggage, and, after interrogation, Craig had admitted having planned the maternal visit a month ago.  

“I didn’t want you to be nervous about meeting her.” I’m sure his motives were pure, but his lack of communication did not go down well with My Lady.

“And you thought it would be better for me to meet her for the first time looking like this?”

“How was I supposed to know you’d choose this evening to clean your oven?”
Craig asked. Ann was looking a bit streaked and spotted. Craig kissed a black smudge on her nose and that calmed her down a bit. “She’s going to love you!” he stage whispered at her back as she fled upstairs to make herself presentable.

Unfortunately, although all men seem to be completely confident that their lady
-loves are going to make a big hit with their mothers, the lady-loves in question very rarely do. Such was the case with Ann and Mother Jones, although Craig, like so many males of his species, remained in denial.

“I don’t think your mother likes me very much,” Ann fretted
, in between stolen kisses on the stairs the following evening. The night before, the three of them—Ann, Craig and his mother—had gone out to dinner.

“Of course she like
s you,” Craig insisted.

“Then why did she go on about how she can’t understand why so many women these days insist on keeping their hair long well into their thirties
?” Ann unconsciously tugged at her pony-tail.

“I’m sure she didn’t mean you,” Craig insisted.  

“Alright, then explain that crack she made about dental hygienists.”

“All my mother asked was why you didn’t
just decide to go on to dental school.”

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

I think things would have deteriorated from there, but they were still at that stage where a good kiss goes a long way to healing all hurts.
 

I left
My Lady
and her lover on the staircase engaged in some pretty heavy PDA and went in search of the Big Orange Tom. I hadn’t seen him since the evening of the dinner party, but I wasn’t allowing myself to relax my vigilance. That’s the thing about feral—with no domestic headquarters to fall back on—they can disappear for weeks and then resurface without warning.      

I didn’t see him that evening, or the next
. The third evening, just after Craig’s mother had departed back to Omaha, I spotted him sprawled out next to the dumpster. He was not alone.

A
few feet away sat Bella, watching him with admiring eyes. To be honest, at that distance I couldn’t be sure she was sending him melting glances, she might have been glaring at him for all I knew, but in the heat of the moment I didn’t take time to confirm my suspicions. In retrospect, it might have been wiser to wait before going on the offensive, but blind jealousy makes all men—and cats—fools.

I had
only one advantage, that of surprise. The Big Orange Tom was taller than me, heavier than me and tougher than me. He was a practiced street fighter, as evidenced by his crooked tail, missing ear and long diagonal scar across his ugly face. This did not deter me, although it should have.

I yowled my most fearsome yowl. I postured and hissed and growled. I fluffed up my tail. He was unfazed. He got up, stretched
, and looked at me. Livid at his lack of fear, I swiped at him. He sidestepped my claws.

If I’d been less enraged with jealousy, I would have satisfied myself with this show of aggression and made a dignified dash for the safety of My Lady’s
lair, but I didn’t. Instead, I persisted and pounced.