Cat Playing Cupid

7

FROM THE LIVING ROOM, through the big, open kitchen, and out onto the walled patio, Clyde Damen's house was filled with the beat of Dixieland and the happy voices of Clyde's and Ryan's friends, who had gathered with Ryan's family and with more than half the officers of Molena Point PD. The smell of hickory smoke and barbecued ribs filled the early evening; coolers stood about brimming with iced wine and beer. In the kitchen, where the big round table was loaded with appetizers and deli salads, Ryan stood replenishing a platter of cold cuts. She wore an apron over her jeans and T-shirt, a bridal present from her dad, printed with prim, old-fashioned sayings that made them both laugh…PRETTY IS AS PRETTY DOES…GENTLE JANE WAS GOOD AS GOLD, SHE ALWAYS DID AS SHE WAS TOLD…SUGAR AND SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE…None of the clichés fit her, she was not a woman who valued sugar and spice and coy blushes. She was refilling the bread tray as Clyde came in from the patio.

He put his arm around her. "Where are the cats? Have you seen Joe?"

She gave him a puzzled look. "Charlie went off with them, with all three. She…sort of sneaked out of the house." Her eyes searched his. "What was that about?"

"I don't know…Sneaked?"

"Sneaked. She and Joe, fast and stealthy. Dulcie and Kit were waiting outside. That was over an hour ago. What are they up to?" Ryan was so new to the cats' true nature that she had no idea what might be normal behavior for them or for their human friends.

Clyde stood frowning at her. "Why would she…? What's going on? They sneaked out? What the hell…?"

"There…," she said, looking away through the crowded living room where she could just see out the front windows. "She's back, her car is pulling up…"

As they waited for Charlie and the cats, she busied herself refilling the bowls of deli salads. Clyde said, "You nervous about tomorrow?"

"Don't talk about it, I'm a basket case."

He grinned, and kissed her. They looked up as the front door opened.

Charlie came in with Kit riding on her shoulder and Joe Grey strolling beside her, rubbing against her ankles. There was no sign of Dulcie. As they crossed the living room, Joe looked up at Charlie and gave her a whiskery smile, then swaggered ahead toward the kitchen, brushing through the crowd against bare legs and sheer stockings and pants legs, his stubby tail erect, his white nose lifted to the rich smells from the buffet and barbecue. The tomcat and Charlie and Kit all looked so patently innocent that Clyde was afraid to hear what this was about-he wasn't sure he wanted to know what they'd been up to.

"Hi," Charlie said, joining them, balancing Kit as she took a piece of bread and reached for a beer.

"Where have you been?" Clyde said. "Where's Dulcie?" He saw how pale she was, her freckles a dark spill across ashen cheeks. "What happened to Dulcie?" he said quickly.

"She's fine," Charlie said, clutching Kit to her. "I have to talk to you. Can we go somewhere? It's…Ryan, you come, too."

Clyde picked up Joe, looking deep into the tomcat's yellow eyes but seeing no answers, only that same innocent stare. They headed down the hall to the guest room-this had been Clyde 's bedroom before Ryan added the new upstairs master suite. It had now been redone for guests in a far more luxurious manner than Clyde had ever wanted. Ryan's sister, Hanni, forgoing her designer's markup, had chosen golden oak and wicker furniture and three of the bright Oriental rugs that she imported. The bedcover was a puffy patchwork of East Indian prints nearly as rich as the rugs. The white plantation shutters, in the daytime, would reveal the twisted branches of the oak trees outside the window. Mike Flannery's leather bag stood on the floor beside the open closet, where a few of his clothes hung at one end of the otherwise empty rod. His leather briefcase lay open on the wicker desk, revealing half a dozen file folders stamped MOLENA POINT PD.

"Looks like Dad can't wait to get rid of us," Ryan said, laughing, "and have the house to himself." Mike had moved in with Clyde a day early, to get acquainted with the animals and learn their habits.

He would not, of course, learn all their habits. Joe Grey had been lectured several times about his behavior around Mike Flannery, about his tendency to tease and create problems-about what would happen to him if he made trouble.

Shutting the door behind them, Clyde dropped Joe on the bed, and he and Charlie and Ryan sat down at the wicker card table before the window. Kit slipped from Charlie's shoulder to the table, and Joe leaped up to join her. Both cats looked nervous and wrung out.

"Dulcie's fine," Charlie repeated. "She and Wilma are…doing a favor for a friend."

"What friend?" Clyde said suspiciously. He hadn't seen Wilma leave the crowded house.

"A cat," Charlie said. "One of the wild band. He came to me tonight at the ranch; I was just ready to leave, and there was Willow hiding at the back of the barn, crouched and frightened. She…they…" She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

Clyde reached for the box of tissues from the desk, surprised to see Charlie cry. Charlie never cried. She seemed surprised herself.

"They've left the ruins," Kit interrupted, "Willow's clowder…They're going back with the wild band, there was a terrible battle and Cotton and Coyote killed Stone Eye, and the whole band is free again, Cotton and Coyote will rule now but Sage was hurt bad…" Kit was so worked up she was shifting from paw to paw. "…wounded and bleeding and in pain and Willow took him to Charlie and Charlie doctored him and then took him and Willow to Dr. Firetti and he-"

"He had to operate," Charlie cut in. Kit could run on. "Firetti needed blood." She looked intently at Clyde. "He said it had to be special blood. From a special kind of cat."

That got Clyde 's attention. Beside him, Ryan was silent, her green eyes turning from Charlie, to Clyde, to the cats. Sometimes lately she felt as if she'd been dropped into Neverland.

Charlie put her hand over Ryan's hand. "Dr. Firetti said, 'I think you know what I mean. I will need special blood.'"

"He knows," Clyde said, swallowing. "All this time? Taking Joe in for shots…? Oh, my God."

"He's known since he was a boy," Kit interrupted, "and his father who was the vet before him knew, someone brought speaking cats here from Wales and started to sell them and the cats hadn't agreed to that and they escaped and that was the beginning of our clowder and…"

Listening to Kit's high-speed monologue, Ryan felt seriously unbalanced. She was barely used to Joe's acerbic comments, was still startled every time the tomcat spoke to her-was barely used to the fact that the cats could talk, and now here was Kit rattling on at a speed that left her giddy.

"And shaved our front legs," Kit was saying, thrusting out her own naked forearm for all to see, "and stuck needles right in under our skin into our veins and drew out so much blood I felt weak and fainty and then Dr. Firetti gave us broth and custard and roast beef that Mrs. Firetti sent over and then Wilma brought us chicken soup and party food and we felt stronger," she said, sucking in a breath, "but our poor fur, Joe's beautiful silver coat and my dear black-and-brown fur that I groom every day all spoiled and our skin all naked and cold and will it ever grow back again?"

"It's only a small shaved spot," Charlie said softly, taking Kit in her arms.

Ryan, with a sense of walking on quicksand, reached to gently examine Kit's shaved forearm, the dark veins showing boldly beneath the paper-thin skin. "I've had dogs shaved like this," she told Kit. "It doesn't take long to grow back. A few days, it will already be bristly. But how is Sage? How is the patient?"

Clyde put his arm around Ryan, hugging her. She was so cool, was fitting right in with this madness.

"He's doing fine," Charlie said. "Wilma's up there with Dulcie, in case they need more blood. She'll call when he's fully awake, when they know how the surgery went. Dulcie will stay there overnight. Dr. Firetti plans to sleep in the surgery, on a cot, but he wants another speaking cat near when Sage wakes, a cat he knows, to reassure and calm him. Being inside a building, in a cage, will terrify him until he's fully conscious-a wild little animal like Sage, with no other cat to talk to…"

"We have to tell Lucinda and Pedric," Clyde said. "They-"

"I…," Kit began, crouching on Charlie's shoulder, ready to drop to the floor, ready to race through the house searching for her humans, to be the first to tell them. Hastily Charlie grabbed her and held her securely.

"I'll find them, Kit," Charlie said. "You stay here. You can't talk to them out there." Setting Kit firmly on the table and giving her a threatening look, Charlie went in search of the Greenlaws. Behind her, Kit fidgeted. Clyde and Ryan rose to follow, Clyde promising to bring the cats a plate of party food.

"Heavy on the shrimp," Joe said, "and the ribs."

"And some of those little quiches," Kit said, reluctantly settling down. "Nice and fresh from the oven."

Clyde gave the two a long look, then moved down the hall with Ryan, shutting the door behind them, Ryan pressing her fist to her mouth to keep from collapsing into uncontrolled laughter.

"Am I dreaming?" she asked him softly. "Am I making this up? Have you lured me into some alternate world?"

He paused in the hall, drawing her close and kissing her. "Does that feel made up? If you think you're dreaming, come on upstairs…"

She laughed and kissed him back, then slipped out of his arms and headed back to the party, holding his hand. But all the rest of that evening she wasn't really certain they hadn't slipped, together, through Alice 's looking glass or through some other innocent-seeming portal into a startling new universe. The kaleidoscopic events, since the morning that Joe Grey had spoken to her for the first time-Christmas morning, the morning Clyde proposed to her-had left her waking suddenly in the night laughing out loud and then seriously questioning her sanity.

But then she thought, trying to steady herself, Tomorrow we'll be married, and that's real. How many women marry, for life, into the family of a talking cat?