Bono

Chapter Sixteen

BRINKMANSHIP AT BERGDORF’S

Cats and luxury understand each other.

Once or twice I sat down to write the blog, but there didn’t seem much point. The minute I’d waved Lydia off in three days’ time, I’d be returning our houseguest to Bideawee. Much as I’d hoped he’d warm to me, Bono narrowed his eyes and scurried away whenever he saw me. He still hadn’t forgiven me for the pill episode.

I was going to miss Lydia terribly. Maybe my friends back home were right and I’d lost my senses thinking I could undergo reinvention in New York. Alluring as the city was, life here wasn’t quite real.

When I was given the cancer diagnosis, the fear wasn’t so much that I might be dying but that I hadn’t fully lived. Could it be the aspects I liked least about my life back home were the things I needed most? Without Philip, Jonah, and our humdrum existence, the days had lost their steady beat. There was no one to share a history with, no foundation for the present. If I dropped dead on Fifth Avenue, an ambulance would show up. But nobody would care.

Still, I wasn’t about to book a flight home and beg forgiveness. Staying on wasn’t going to be straightforward, either. I’d have to find another apartment after the month’s lease had run out.

“Isn’t he adorable?!” Lydia said as Bono padded out from under the bed and rubbed against her leg.

“Yes,” I said, “but he hasn’t done number two in days.”

Obsessing over Bono’s bowels was my compensation for unrequited affection.

“He chomps through that chicken,” Lydia said, as the cat sprang on her lap and allowed her to run her hand over his back. I felt a stab of jealousy.

“I know,” I said. “I can’t fathom how so much food can go in one end and not come out the other.”

Bono gazed up at Lydia as if she were his personal goddess. I could tell he had a tender heart. She buried her nose in his fluffy mane.

“Oh, Bono!” she said in her special Bono voice. “I’m going to miss you so much!”

He mewed back at her, dropped to the floor, and padded after her toward the fridge. Since we’d started feeding him chicken, he’d developed a healthy devotion to the appliance. At some stage in his mysterious life, someone must have loved him, and he’d returned that affection.

Meantime, I was desperate to find a way of getting a pill into him. Down at the pet supply shop, Bluebell’s coat glistened as she preened herself in the window. Doris waved from inside and beckoned us in.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” she said. “How’s it going with your foster cat?”

“Bono’s lovely!” Lydia said. “He has the cutest haircut and such a sweet nature. You’d adore him, Doris.”

“He has kidney failure,” I added.

Concern flashed across Doris’s face.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“They’ve told us it’s quite advanced.”

“Don’t worry,” Doris said. “Every cat I owned had kidney failure. With good care they can go on for years. Magnolia lived with it for ten years till she was seventeen.”

Bluebell sprang onto the counter.

“That’s just it,” I said. “Bono won’t take his medication. He has a pill phobia.”

“You’re using the pill pouches?” Doris asked, running her hand over Bluebell’s back.

“What’s that?”

“They don’t have pill pouches where you come from?” Doris asked, scandalized.

If they did I’d never heard of them.

“See here,” she said, pointing at a poster on the wall behind her. “The pouches are made of special treat food. All you have to do is hide a pill inside them and the cat eats the whole thing.”

I knew about that special treat stuff. Back home, lumps of it were sold in brightly colored plastic bags. I’d had to stop buying it because it was cocaine to Jonah. Still, I was willing to try anything.

We thanked Doris and hurried back to the apartment to set up a special treat pill pouch snare. Confident Bono’s problem was solved, we waved him good-bye and succumbed to the irresistible call of the city.

Lydia’s fascination with consumerism was far from over. I found Saks Fifth Avenue overwhelming so we headed toward Central Park and what looked like a more traditional, low-key department store. A little ignorance can be a good thing. If I’d known about Bergdorf Goodman, I’d have probably steered clear.

The place oozed more luxury than a panther’s paw. Upstairs, I ogled the children’s clothing.

“Look at this gorgeous little dress!” I said. “It’s perfect for Annie. And it’s only $10. Don’t you love stores that combine quality with good pricing?”

Lydia bent over the price tag and pointed out that I’d misread the arrangement of zeros.

“It’s actually $1,000,” she said, taking it out of my hands and placing it back on the hanger.

A blond thirtysomething woman in a cashmere coat elbowed me aside.

“I really can’t decide,” she said to her impeccably groomed friend. “Gucci or Burberry for Samantha’s baby shower?”

The woman held up two tiny vests, identical in size and color.

“Burberry’s classic,” the friend said. “But Gucci has that European style.”

A dark line appeared between the blond woman’s eyebrows. It must have been overlooked in her last botox appointment. Not since the invasion of Iraq had a decision carried so much weight.

“I know!” she said after a lengthy pause. “I’ll take them both.”

With her new outfit and hairdo, Lydia almost blended into the surroundings. But my wild hair and paint-spattered coat made me feel like a mongrel at a dog show. I was nowhere near skinny, tailored, and blow dried enough. However, like all the best-bred people, the sales staff went out of their way to put outsiders at ease.

We followed our noses down an escalator to a cosmetics department in the basement to find the entrance to what seemed a delightful little café. It was lunchtime and the prices on the menu board weren’t outrageous.

“Excuse me, madam.”

The voice belonged to a young man with luminous eyes. I was momentarily mesmerized by his dark suit and stylish hair. Until, to my horror, I saw he was wielding a large makeup brush.

“Would madam like a little touch-up before dining?” he asked.

Back home offering to touch someone up could land you in court.

“Not just now, thanks,” I said, assuming the phrase had a different meaning in the States.

“Do you think we should leave?” I whispered to Lydia.

I tried to drag her away, but she stood her ground. A helpful waiter slid me out of my coat and pointed us to a corner banquette.

I lowered my backside onto the upholstery and pretended to study the menu. The place was unpretentious in an upmarket way. Well-dressed women picked birdishly at their salads.

“Is that mink?” Lydia asked, watching the waiter ferry another customer’s coat to the cloakroom.

While I was uncomfortable amid all the understated privilege, she didn’t seem at all intimidated.

“This is the sort of place a mother and daughter would plan a wedding in the Hamptons, don’t you think?” she said.

I could hardly believe she of the Buddhist robes could adapt seamlessly to such opulent surroundings.

The waiter was reassuringly unsnooty as I tried to upscale my accent.

“Let’s have a glass of wine,” Lydia said.

“With alcohol?”

“You probably don’t know, but in my early student days I got drunk most lunchtimes,” she said.

The waiter smiled and suggested a light chardonnay with a hint of citrus.

“Wasn’t that a chess club you used to go to?”

“That’s what we called it,” she said, flicking her hair. The new blond streaks made her look like a movie star. And was that a shimmer of lip gloss?

Two glasses appeared in front of us.

“Guess I learn something every day,” I said. “Here’s to a safe trip home.”

“And to Bono,” Lydia said, clinking my glass. “Oh, and there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“A wedding in the Hamptons?” I asked.

“No,” she laughed. “I know you’re planning on taking him back to the shelter the minute I’ve gone.”

“What makes you think that?”

“If you were serious about keeping him you’d have started the blog by now.”

The waiter lowered our perfect salads onto the table.

“This is like visiting Buckingham Palace and having the queen make you pancakes,” I whispered.

Lydia fixed me with her psychologist’s gaze.

“Stop changing the subject,” she said.

“Look, I like Bono, but he loathes me. It’ll be like a bad marriage.”

“He’s the most beautiful little cat in the world,” she said.

“I know, but I’ve spent a lifetime looking after helpless creatures. I’ve got caregiver’s fatigue.”

My daughter wasn’t impressed.

“Things don’t always work out, you know,” I said. “What if I can’t find him a home? If he dies because I can’t get a pill inside him? It’ll be heartbreaking.”

Lydia raised a fork and sank it into her salad.

“If you can’t do it for him, do it for me,” she said. “Please, Mum. Promise?”

Music wafted from a speaker somewhere while I stared into my glass and tried to examine my options. There weren’t any.

“Okay,” I said. “I promise.”

We hurried back to the apartment to see how the special treat pouches had gone down. Bono hadn’t touched them. He’d ignored the chicken, too.