Cattitude (28 page)

Max rolled from his side to his back. His
soft snores stopped. For an instant, there was silence. Was he
awake? Would he want to— Then she heard his loud, even breaths. His
arm touched hers, the slide of his skin making her skin warm,
making her whimper with desire.

Telling herself she shouldn’t do this wasn’t
working. She still wanted to do it again.

The whimper turned into fear. She’d loved
being a cat. Being a human was so complicated. They had so many
things to do. Twittering, and not like birds. Watching everything
on TV, not just
The Love Chronicles
. Cleaning after
themselves.

She scampered out of the bed.

She needed to get away from Max before she
leaned over and woke him with her kiss. She needed to find the
cat—
oh no, not the cat. Sorcha, the human in her body.
What
was she thinking?

Ten minutes later, she walked in the woods.
“Sorcha!” she called, her voice urgent. “Sorcha.”

As she walked, her panic died and she chided
herself for being so worried. She really was becoming like a human.
They worried all the time, as if that would change anything. Cats
never worried. If something wasn’t right, they hissed, they
demanded, and when all else failed, they napped.

How could one night of sex change anything?
So what if sex with Max was like fireworks of happiness going off
inside her? Humans couldn’t do it all the time. She knew that,
because if they could, they would, and they didn’t.

Before Bonnie scared her away with the vacuum
the last cleaning day, she talked about a cake she made called
Better Than Sex. The next time the urge to have sex with Max hit
Belle, she would ask Bonnie to bake her a cake.

“Sorcha! Sorcha!”

Something from her left rustled. Her head
tilted. Could it be— A squirrel darted up a tree.

Sighing, she tramped on. Last night had
changed nothing. Max was still leaving and she was still staying.
No matter what body she was in, this was her home. She knew every
room, every piece of furniture, every bush and every tree. Why
would she want to go anywhere else?

A bird nearby sang, but its song sounded like
a dirge instead of an ode to the new day. The sky above was cloudy.
The gloomy day matched her mood, too dark for the trees to have
shadows. Even the air felt oppressive and heavy, thick with
moisture.

“Sorcha! Sorcha!”

This time the rustling noises came from her
right. She glanced over, expecting to see another squirrel, but
instead a small gray cat padded toward her, its green eyes
wary.

Belle halted. Half afraid to breathe, she
slowly knelt. “Sorcha? Is that you?”

The cat paused and glanced around.

Belle bit her lower lip. How could she tell
if it was Sorcha? When she was a cat, had she been smaller than
this one? Bigger, fatter, thinner? She’d spotted herself in
mirrors, but hadn’t paid attention. Only humans looked at
themselves for hours on end, trying to find their faults and fix
them. Not cats. Cats knew they were unique and beautiful.

“If you’re Sorcha, let me know.”

The cat’s head cocked and it meowed, the
sound rising at the end, just like humans when they asked a
question.

Belle’s heartbeat thumped. It was Sorcha. It
had to be.

“I know! Why don’t you paw the ground three
times? No wait, I’ve got a bett—”

The cat pawed the ground. Once, twice—it
peered up at Belle—three times.

“You are Sorcha.” Excitement flared inside
Belle. Then it was washed away by a strange reluctance.

She firmed her lips and stepped forward
determinedly. Sorcha was here. Wasn’t this what she’d waited for?
They could change bodies right now.

Stretching out her hand, she knelt down. She
swallowed a bitter lump in her throat. “Let’s do it.”

***

Gwen slept in snatches, her cell phone next
to her pillow. When she woke up, early rays of sun crept into the
room and she pressed redial for the sixth time. No one answered
again. She wasn’t sure what time it was in Greece, but at some
point during the last dozen hours it must’ve been daytime. Didn’t
the villa her mother and father stayed at have voice mail? What
kind of a country was it?

She didn’t know what to do any more.

She’d even tried calling her lawyer, but got
a machine instead of a person. She hung up, because she knew it
wasn’t any use. No matter how nice the lawyer’s e-mails were, she
really didn’t care about Gwen. If the lawyer cared, wouldn’t she
come to see her sometime?

Gwen’s eyes burned but no tears came. Last
night she’d cried and screamed. Katie called her spoiled and
ungrateful. When Gwen asked what she was supposed to be grateful
for, Katie ordered her to her bedroom. Katie didn’t take her phone
away, and now Gwen wondered if her parents had left Greece, telling
Katie but not her. Or maybe Katie knew if she told them about the
cat, they would be angry at Gwen for bothering them.

The only being that showed Gwen affection was
gone.

What was she going to do?

The answer came as if it had been lurking in
her mind all this time, just waiting to be asked.
Run
away.

Her breath gasped. It felt like hummingbirds
flapped their wings in her stomach. Yes, that was it. She’d hide in
the woods and the farmer’s field. And when Katie called the police,
the police would call Gwen’s parents. Maybe then they would worry
about Gwen and come home to take care of her.

She started to sit, but a gust of dread made
her whimper, as if the blood in her veins had turned to a chilled
pudding. Maybe her parents would be mad at her for making the
police bother them. What if they didn’t bother to come?

For long moments, she sat, taking in deep
breaths until her blood warmed again. Her mouth set, she hopped out
of bed. Her mother and father would be more upset if it got in the
papers.

This thought made her stop with one foot
raised. She imagined her picture on TV screens and in newspapers.
Everyone looking at the girl with the big eyes and Dumbo ears.

Then she put her foot down. It didn’t matter
what she looked like. It just mattered that she got Princess
back.

So what if her parents were mad at her. What
were they going to do? Leave?

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her
hand. Her head down, she zipped along the hall and around the
corner, then opened a closet filled with carry-on bags and
suitcases. She grabbed her mother’s Gucci bag, shut the closet door
and ran back to her bedroom. Hurrying, she stuffed in her cell
phone, laptop, blanket and a change of clothes into the bag. She
grabbed her backpack too. That should be enough.

After stepping out of her pajamas, she
changed into her clothes with the speed of Spider-Girl. In another
half hour, Katie’s alarm would go off, so loud the ring reached all
the way to Gwen’s room. Before Katie was up and about, Gwen needed
to go downstairs and get food. Just in case, she’d take some money
too.

In the kitchen she wrote a note:
You’re
always mean to me and I won’t stay anymore. If you won’t go away I
will. I hate you. Gwen Whitney

She read it and winced. It sounded like
something a six-year-old would write, not the smartest girl in
fifth grade. She tried to think of a better way to put it, but kept
glancing at her watch and couldn’t concentrate. Sighing, she
thought sometimes the things that mattered most took less words to
say.

The buzz of Katie’s alarm shrieked through
the ceiling and into the kitchen like angry bees. Gwen left the
note on the table, grabbed a banana off the counter and ran out the
door.

Fifteen minutes later, she sat behind the
trees and listened to Katie shout her name. Gwen heard the panic in
Katie’s voice. With the ghost of a smile, she read the e-mail she
had typed to her lawyer.

To: Jewel Bernstein

From: Gwen Whitney

Subject: Running away

Hi,

I’m just writing to let you know I’m running
away. Katie’s going to tell you I ran away because she kicked out
Princess, the cat I found. She’s partly telling the truth. The
other part is that Katie isn’t nice to me. I don’t think she likes
me one bit.

The cat loved me and liked being with me.
And I loved her.

I know my mother and father think I’m ugly,
and that’s why they don’t love me. Katie only stays with me for the
money. Why can’t I have something that loves me?

I won’t come back until Katie’s gone and I
can have the cat.

I mean it!!!!

Gwen Whitney

By the time Gwen clicked on
Send
, her
almost smile had turned upside down. Above her the sky darkened, as
if it were going to cry for her. Good thing she’d taken her
raincoat. She put away her laptop and started walking, Katie’s
increasingly frantic shouts further and further away, reminding
Gwen of the caws of a crow.

The cat crept over a leaf, her green gaze
locked with Belle’s. Belle remained still, afraid to move, afraid
she’d scare away the cat—no, not a cat. Sorcha
.

“Sorcha,” she murmured. “It’s time.”

The air around them darkened. Shivering,
Belle took her gaze off Sorcha, peering at the sky. Clouds blocked
the sun, and the darkness couldn’t be because of anything she and
Sorcha were doing. Still...

“Let’s hurry,” she said, looking at Sorcha
again.

The cat stared. They were an inch apart. All
Belle needed to do was move forward that inch and they’d be
touching.
Move
, she told her feet.
Move.

As if she were a statue, she continued to
kneel with her hand out. She’d done all she could. The rest was up
to the cat.

Sorcha surged forward, the top of her head
touching Belle’s hand. A jolt of sizzling energy started at the
palm of Belle’s hand, coming up through her arm, her elbow and into
her shoulder. The cat stiffened, and Belle knew she felt it too.
And then—

The heavens opened. Rain poured down on
them.

Belle shrieked and the cat squealed, both
jumping apart.

Her arm tingling, Belle threw back her head
and laughed. “C’mon,” she said, “we’ll go into my house and change
there.”

She bent to scoop Sorcha into her arms, but
the cat skittered away.

What if Sorcha wouldn’t go with her?

A danger alarm clanged inside Belle’s brain.
Keep calm,
she told herself. She breathed deeply in and out
once, then made her voice low and soothing, like Jason the
therapist on
The Love Chronicles
who got all the rich old
women to leave him money.

“You don’t want to get wet, do you? Come into
the nice warm house with me.” She took a step forward.

The cat nodded, then scooted next to
Belle.

Laughing, Belle started to run. The cat ran
alongside her.

In a short time, Belle thought, she’d be a
cat again.

Her laughter stopped abruptly, the gray in
the sky seeping into her chest, but she kept running, her steps
never faltering.

***

Caroline parked in the driveway. Dodging
raindrops, she ran toward Max’s back door. Under her breath, she
sang, “Don’t rain on my parade,” a song Brenda never let her sing
in her pageant days. “You can’t compete with Streisand,” she’d say,
then smile and gesture at Caroline’s face and slender body. “But
Streisand could never compete with you.”

As she reached the door, something moved in
her peripheral. She glanced over her shoulder. Sorcha was running
toward her. Caroline’s singing stopped. What was that racing
alongside Sorcha? Was it...? Could it be...?

They came closer. Caroline’s throat
tightened. The cat. It was alive.

Her anticipation curdled. A raindrop hit the
top of her head and dribbled down her forehead. She shoved the door
open and went inside. So the cat hadn’t been mortally injured and
hadn’t crawled off into the underbrush to die. So what? She wasn’t
going to let it ruin her hairstyle or her day.

She grabbed a napkin off the holder on the
table and dabbed her forehead before the drip made it to her eyes
and smeared her mascara. The door opened as she shrugged out of her
coat.

Woman and cat rushed inside.

They spotted Caroline and skidded to a
stop.

“So, you found the cat,” Caroline said over
the lump in her throat that tasted like ashes. Her intention to
stay positive withered under the cat’s wary gaze. The cat would get
in her way again, hissing when she came near Max. And Max would
feel grateful to Sorcha. He’d want her hanging around, making it
difficult for Caroline to give him the drug, especially since Andy
had misheard Brenda’s request and had given her only enough for one
person, not three. In a frenzy of inspiration, Brenda had gone home
and ground her sleeping pills for Caroline to put in Sorcha and
Tory’s food.

Picturing Brenda smashing the pills with a
meat mallet between waxed paper, Caroline’s spine stiffened, the
lump in her throat shrinking. Brenda could have asked Andy to
return with the knockout drugs, but Caroline guessed she decided to
be resourceful and save the exorbitant amount of money Andy had
demanded.

Could Caroline do any less than her mother?
As Brenda had often said during Caroline’s pageant days, “The only
way we can lose is if we quit.”

The cat squeaked, and Caroline glanced down.
The cat stared at her, trembling. Caroline frowned. Obviously it
remembered what had happened.

A hissing sound came, but not from the cat.
Caroline raised her gaze. Sorcha watched her through slitted eyes,
as if she knew what Caroline had done. A chill skittered down
Caroline’s spine. Impossible.

Then Sorcha’s nose lifted in the air and she
started to walk past Caroline.