Cat Coming Home

4

THE NOTION THAT Maudie’s fate and the fate of her small grandson might be guided by a cat would have greatly amused the older woman, the idea that she and Benny would become the subjects of a tomcat’s sharp and life-changing attention would have made her laugh. Yet even that first afternoon as Maudie supervised the moving in of her furniture and packing boxes, she was closely observed from the branches of an oak tree just above her, where Joe Grey crouched, his yellow eyes narrowed with interest. There was something about the soft little woman that made the gray tomcat tweak his whiskers and lick a paw reflectively.

She was just a bit pudgy, a pale, round woman with powdery skin, her smile warm, her voice, as she supervised the unloading, gentle even when she was annoyed at a worker’s carelessness. She was impeccably groomed, her blond-dyed hair—which was probably gray—styled in an expensive bob, her loose, smocklike jacket well cut, in subtle patterns, over silky, gathered trousers. Expensive, flat-heeled shoes. Tiny gold earrings and a gold choker. A timid-looking woman, well turned out as if to give herself confidence, and with a smile that should draw one to trust her. Yet there was an air about her, too, that didn’t seem to fit, a watchful expression that showed itself for only an instant and then was gone again, a look that puzzled the tomcat.

Over the next three days, Joe Grey watched Maudie. He watched her grown son David carry in a fresh Christmas tree, and imagined the three of them busily decorating it among their still unpacked moving boxes. He arrived early each morning with his housemate, Ryan Flannery, as she came to work on the cottage that she and Clyde had bought from Maudie. Ryan and Clyde Damen had been married only since last Valentine’s Day, the providential joining of a pair of avid collectors: Clyde of classic cars, which he restored and sold; Ryan, of antique mantels and moldings and stained-glass windows, which she used in the homes she built. Now, perhaps driven by an excess of matrimonial bliss, the couple had combined their creative fervor into restoring old houses.

On this morning, the fourth after Maudie’s arrival, Joe sat on the roof of the Damens’ remodel venture dividing his attention between Maudie and the construction project under way below him. Peering over, he watched Ryan and her two Latino helpers pulling nails and ripping off strips of weathered siding, in preparation for a new sunroom addition that would look out on the greenbelt behind the backyards: a wild expanse that ran all along this side of the hills, a favorite retreat for deer, raccoons, bobcats, and dog walkers brave enough to face the occasional curious mountain lion. The banging of boards and the screeching of rusty nails was so loud, at this early hour, he expected the neighbors to pour out into the street shaking their fists and shouting, but for the moment, the street remained empty.

Around him, the fog-blanketed rooftops angled so close together that a cat could hop from one roof to the next and not miss a beat; or he could travel above the rooftops, along the aerial highways of twisting oak branches. Later, when the fog lifted, the leafy roof would come alive with sparrows and house finches, a veritable café on the wing if a cat was agile and quick—and the rich supply of small game didn’t stop there. Below him among the tangled yards and wandering garden walls and toolsheds lived generations of mice and moles and fat gophers to satisfy a hungry feline.

Between the bouts of noise beneath him, and the rattle of boards being tossed into the weeds of the side yard, Joe listened to the quick Spanish voices of Manuel and Fernando, and to Ryan’s softer replies. Her Spanish was so limited that Joe was sure the two men were secretly laughing at her—but in a kind way, the tomcat thought. Both of them liked Ryan, and she seemed to get her message across, enough for the work at hand, enough for her crew to have built some pretty impressive houses. But his new housemate’s talents weren’t one-sided, Joe was still getting used to the changes in his and Clyde’s bachelor life, still happily growing accustomed to Ryan’s expertise in the kitchen, which was every bit as impressive as her skills as a carpenter, designer, and building contractor.

What her talents were in bed, he couldn’t say. That was none of his business. Ever since the couple arrived home from their honeymoon, Joe spent only short periods of time sharing the king-sized bed before he retreated to his rooftop tower, which Ryan had designed and built for him. The hexagonal little house above the second-floor roof was walled with windows that a clever paw could open for easy access to the village rooftops, and was lined with a bright array of soft cushions. The design had been a collaboration between Ryan and Clyde, before even Ryan learned that Joe could speak. Joe had told Clyde what he had in mind, and Clyde had told Ryan, taking all the design credit for himself. This was long before Ryan and Clyde were married. They had begun seriously dating when she contracted to remodel Clyde’s small, dull, one-story summer cottage into a handsome two stories with bold beams, high windows, and a touch of Spanish charm.

It was later that Ryan discovered Joe Grey’s secret; she was one of the few humans who shared the knowledge of Joe’s talents, and he had to say, the woman had a quick understanding of the feline world—she knew very well how to flatter a tomcat and how to make him smile.

Take this morning. Ryan had made pancakes for his and Clyde’s breakfast, confections as light as a fluff of bird down. There she stood in the kitchen flipping pancakes, her short, tousled dark hair dusted with pancake flour, a ruffled apron tied over her work jeans and sweatshirt. And though she hated the smell of fish in the morning, she had generously presented Joe’s serving with a half-dozen kippers tastefully arranged on the side—a perfect combination of textures and flavors, the salty fish blending smoothly with the pancakes and maple syrup.

Now, down the block, Maudie’s son, David, emerged from the front door heading away for his morning run. He was a tall man, slim and well made, his brown hair trimmed short; he was dressed in navy sweats and dark running shoes. Like his brother, David was an airline pilot—as if, Joe thought, both boys had grown up loving planes, maybe wanting to fly from the time they were toddlers. David had taken time off to get Maudie moved and settled, but soon would be going back to Atlanta, and Joe wondered how Maudie would fare alone, wondered if she was concerned about the unsettling invasions of homes occupied by lone women. But how could she not be, when the Gazette kept pushing its hopeless take on the situation to further upset the village.

But, Joe thought, Ryan and her crew would keep an eye on Maudie; Ryan wasn’t only remodeling the old cottage, she was at work as well building Maudie’s new studio, enclosing the patio that was already walled on two sides where the garage and kitchen met at right angles.

Below Joe’s rooftop perch, a jogger raced by, flashing beneath the oak branches. On the next street he glimpsed an old woman walking three elderly beagles, the dogs sniffing high above them in his direction, picking up the smell of tomcat. As the sun rose, a scurrying wind teased the fog and lifted it, ruffling his short fur. Below him, Manuel barked an order to Fernando in rolling Spanish, a song of words that made the tomcat wish he could speak the language—except that all that study would make him crazy, he wasn’t the studious type. Joe’s ability to speak English had required no books and studying; the talent had overtaken him without any effort on his part.

One day he was your simple, everyday housecat enjoying a quick tussle in the bushes. The next day, when he found himself not only thinking human thoughts but speaking them aloud, he was shaken right down to his claws. The shock that he was speaking a human language, and was thinking not with sensible feline instincts, but with human logic—with the very turn of mind that so often drove a cat crazy—that revelation nearly undid him. His first awakening to this new experience had scared the hell out of him.

But when at last his terror gave way to this new kind of reason, when he realized what he might do with his new talent, the excitement had lifted Joe to heights he’d never imagined. Somehow, he’d fallen into a new, vast, amazing world. Into a life so different from his old life, so much more detailed and fascinating, that he’d soon had trouble remembering the simple housecat he’d once been—when his greatest challenges were mice, food, and females, when his greatest creative endeavor was thinking up new ways to torment Clyde. And that had been a blast, when Clyde first learned that Joe could speak, when Joe made that first phone call to Clyde and was finally able to convince him it was really his gray tomcat calling. It had taken Clyde a lot of shouting, several violent bursts of temper, before he believed it was Joe at the other end of the line, before he accepted the facts.

Strange, Joe thought. Since Clyde and Ryan married, he never wanted to harass his female housemate the way he liked to torment Clyde. Maybe that was because Ryan didn’t get mad the way Clyde did. She didn’t swear at him; she refused to indulge in shouting matches. She’d smile at his goading, just as she laughed at his altercations with Clyde that were, after all, only bachelor camaraderie. Instead of arguing, she’d pet him and hug him with an almost embarrassing tenderness.

Now, crouched between the roof’s shingled slopes waiting for the fog to lift, for the rising sun to warm his chilly fur, Joe contemplated Ryan and Clyde’s new endeavor. The project was meant to be purely for fun, to mentor an occasional forlorn and neglected structure, to see what they could make of houses that would otherwise be torn down. The newlyweds, the tomcat thought, were into creative renovation the way a little kid tackled a new toy.

For this cottage, in its narrow yard, there would be new stone walks and low-maintenance landscaping. In the back, the beams would continue upward to allow for the new, story-and-a-half ceiling of the sunroom. In Joe’s opinion, despite his sarcasm regarding Clyde’s carpentry skills or lack thereof, the couple was going to make a bright new home of this tired little cabin—and they should make a nice profit, too. Houses along any greenbelt were at a premium; many folk treasured a home where wild land touched the tamed world, where they could watch from their windows an Eden yet untouched by human meddling. For some humans, this strip of wild land would be as close as they ever got to the basics of raw nature, to the tooth-and-claw life familiar to any outdoor feline.

A cat, perhaps more than any other beast, could live most equitably with a paw in each of the two worlds. Cushions and soft comforters by night, a warm fire and a dish of liver or fillet. And in the daytime, when his adversaries were more likely to be asleep—but not always—a spine-tingling foray among the larger predators, a hunt to stalk and kill his own victims, an adrenaline rush that, if a cat was quick and clever, would send him home unscathed, with a belly full of something wild and filling. Joe was watching the greenbelt with an eye for the occasional silent shadow, for, most likely, a silent and marauding coyote, when a harsh scrabble of claws directly above him made him leap aside.