Fat Cat At Large

THIRTY-FOUR

By the time Anna returned from shopping, the crowd had thinned and there were only three customers browsing the shelves and display case. Chase was worn out from the influx that had arrived when she was alone, though. She stuck her head through the double doors and beckoned Anna to the front.

“Could you take over for just a bit?” Chase whispered. “I have to sit down a minute.” Her wrenched back, which had been feeling much better, was giving her twinges of pain once again.

“Was I gone that long?”

Now that Anna mentioned it, she had been gone longer than normal for a trip to the grocery store. It had been a couple of hours.

Anna looked sheepish. “I stopped in to see Bill. Sorry.”

“Tell me all about it later.” Chase fled to the office, where she could put her feet up on the desk. Her headache from yesterday was returning, and she hadn’t had that much wine at dinner with Mike. Maybe she’d give it up entirely for a while. She rubbed her temples, which made it worse.

After telling Anna she would be upstairs, she went to her apartment for some aspirin. Quincy, whom she’d left upstairs today, greeted her with a loud meow. She stooped to stroke his soft back. By the time she reached the medicine cabinet, the headache was blinding. Her back felt worse, too. She downed a few pills, then started downstairs.

The treat maker was in the apartment at an odd time of day. The cat went on high alert with the departure from normal daily routine. When no treats materialized, he started to head for his bed, then stopped and listened. She was going out again. The middle of the day stretched so long between the two feedings. The human wasn’t being as careful as usual lately. The butterscotch tabby was able to slip out of the apartment and down the steps. Thwarted by a closed back door, he scurried through the kitchen and was able to push through the swinging doors, then dart out the front with a trio of departing customers.

“Not again!” Chase ran down the stairs, tripping at the bottom in her haste. She caught herself against the wall, feeling the awkward position in her aching back, and went after Quincy.

She spied the tip of his tail. He had run into the salesroom! That was surely some sort of health code violation. She hurried to get him out of there as soon as she could. But when she reached the front of the shop, she didn’t see him.

“Did you see Quincy come in here?” she asked Anna, who was bent over in the far corner, restocking a low shelf.

“Is he loose again?” She straightened, an alarmed look in her bright blue eyes.

“I saw him push through the swinging door. He has to be in here.”

“Lady, are you looking for a striped cat?” An elderly man wearing an argyle vest and thick glasses pointed to the front door. “He left out that way.”

“How could he?” Chase said. She had been surprised he got through the swinging double doors, but surely he couldn’t work a doorknob. She went to the front window, followed by the man.

“Went out with those people.” He gestured through the glass to a group of three women strolling toward the corner.

“Just what I need.”

“Go,” Anna said. “I’ll stay here. You go get him.”

Chase did, but couldn’t locate Quincy outside. He wasn’t visible on the sidewalk, on either side of the street, or even in the street. She went around to the back and checked near the trash bin, but he wasn’t there either, unless he was crouched under it where she couldn’t see him. Sighing and groaning, she knelt on the pavement and managed to peer underneath the bin. No cat.

She went all the way to Hilda Bjorn’s house, but he had vanished.

As she crossed the street to check around Gabe’s empty condo, Anna came running up the street.

“I warmed some of your special treats for him.” She waved a plastic bag as she approached. “Maybe we can lure him out if he’s hiding.”

“Why would he hide from me?”

“Maybe he’s upset by his latest vet visit and the ingrown dewclaw. Or something might have scared him out here after he got outside.”

“That could be, I guess. He’s not used to being out.”

“He ought to be, by now.”

“No kidding.” Chase took the bag from Anna and opened it. The aroma of fresh meat rose from the warm Kitty Patties. “Oh, Quincy,” she called. “Num nums!”

Anna opened the other baggie and they split up, covering both sides of the street on the way back to the shop, stopping and peering into bushes and under cars.

No Quincy.

Chase saw the “Closed” sign in the front door.

“I flipped it before I left,” said Anna. “It was nearly closing time and no one was there.”

Chase glanced at her watch. “It’s past time now. It’s after seven.”

The sun was fast approaching the horizon over the trees and buildings across the street.

“What if we don’t find him?” Chase struggled to keep the tremor out of her voice.

“We’ll find him, dear. Cats sometimes take off for a while, but they always come home.”

“Always? Unless they get run over. Or trapped somewhere and die of thirst. Or attacked by dogs. Or—” Her voice was rising, getting screechy. She was waving her arms like a wild woman, but she couldn’t stop.

“You can’t talk like that. You can’t think like that.” Anna grabbed Chase’s shoulder and spun her around to face the woman who was, after all, her surrogate grandmother.

Chase grew still on the outside, but was still quaking on the inside. “He’s never been out all night before. He doesn’t know how to take care of himself on the streets.” Her voice betrayed her, cracking and squeaky.

Anna frowned. “Do I have to slap you silly? Stop this right now.” She gave Chase’s shoulder a shake, not a gentle one, and let go of her. “Let’s go over every place again.”

The treats were cooling by then and Chase wasn’t sure Quincy would be able to smell them. Especially if he was trapped somewhere, dying of thirst. “Will it do any good? I’ve been everywhere twice, up the street and back.”

Anna tapped her foot. “He must have gone somewhere else. Where could it be?”

Chase took her cell phone from her pocket. “I’m calling Mike. He might have some ideas.”

He didn’t.

Chase stuck her cell into her pocket. “He just says that this happens sometimes.”

“Exactly what I said.”

“And Mike said that wherever Quincy is, he’s probably all right and will come home when he’s ready.”

“Exactly what I said.”

“All right, but neither of you are making me feel any better.”

Chase texted Julie as she trudged back to the shop. Julie returned the message saying that she’d call later.

Just before Chase crawled into bed, Julie rang.

“Did you find Quincy yet?” she said. She sounded tired.

“Is the trial going on today? Sunday?” Chase asked.

“No, but we met in the office most of the day. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m cut out for this kind of litigation. Grandma said Quincy ran away again.”

“He’s still gone. We looked in the places he usually goes. I don’t know where else to look.”

“I sure wish I could be there with you, at least. And wish I could help look for him, too.”

“I don’t think it would do any good.”

“He’ll come back. You know cats do that.”

“Mike and Anna both told me that. But this is Quincy. My babykins.”

“He’s still a cat. I don’t think he’s even used up one of his lives yet, has he?”

Chase had to chuckle at that. “No, he’s led a sheltered life. I worry that he doesn’t have any experience being out on the streets.”

“The mean streets of Dinkytown?”

Her spirits lifted after the phone call until she started fretting again five minutes later.

Chase lay awake most of the night, dozing for short periods, getting up often to run downstairs to see if Quincy was clawing at the door, trying to get in. In the morning, she was a wreck. Anna came over to keep her company Monday, the day the shop was closed. She kept Chase supplied with hot chamomile tea. The warm spell was gone. Near-freezing temperatures were expected overnight.

Chase lurched through the day, running to the rear door every fifteen minutes until Anna commanded her to stop.

“We’ll hear him if he’s there. His meow is loud enough to hear in the next county, you know.”

Chase pictured him barely able to stand, let alone meow, lying outside the door, but she started checking only every half hour to appease Anna.

Another sleepless night and another awful day passed the same way. At least the shop was closed Mondays and Tuesdays.

Mike came over Tuesday night with a thermos of hot chocolate. The weather was taking a turn for the worse, getting colder and blustery.

She cried in his arms most of the time he was there. After he left, she didn’t feel any better. For two hours, she sat in front of her television, not seeing anything but the weather report. Colder and windier. She shivered. Her poor kitty! Where was he?!

Dragging every step of the way to her bedroom, she took off her clothes and pulled on a flannel nightgown. She stopped with one arm in the sleeve. She’d heard something! A meow! A loud meow!

She thrust her other arm through the flannel and grabbed her robe, stepped into her fuzzy slippers, and tore down the stairs. She threw open the door and took her breath in sharply.

Quincy lay on the cement, almost exactly as she had pictured him. Limp and lifeless.