Catch As Cat Can

8

Although covering less than two miles from the high school to the town's main intersection, the route was hilly. The float builders, knowing this, had devised railings and props such as fake boulders with little handholds on them, so that the people on the floats could grab them when the floats rolled downhill.

Lottie Pearson forgot this. When the Daughters of the Confederacy float dipped into the decline just before the fire department, she lurched off the float, saved only by the metal in her hoopskirt, which hit the pavement first. Unhurt, she was helped back on the float by friends standing along the parade route. Roger couldn't leave the truck. Lottie's skirt was bent, which meant her pantaloons showed. Each time she pushed the skirt back into place it popped up on the back side. The result drew cheers and laughter but not of the sort she hoped to hear. As she was the leading lady on the float, the one right up front, she was loath to relinquish her position. If the choice was between obscurity and showing her ass, Lottie bravely decided to show her ass.

As the last band marched out of the parking lot, the black and red of Albemarle High, Harry hopped down from her perch.

“Mom's got a little tan. Looks good against her white T-shirt,” Pewter noted as Harry removed her sweater with the day's warming. Pewter giggled, remembering the sight of Harry ironing her jeans and T-shirt.

“Nobody looks better in jeans than Harry,” Tucker called out from behind her mother. “I mean, if this fellow likes a fit body then he has to like Mom.”

Mrs. Murphy loved her mother, but she realized that not all men like natural women. Many, attracted by artifice, want lots of hair, preferably blond, boobs pushed up to the max, long fingernails, expensive clothes, and perfect makeup. In a word, BoomBoom.

Harry actually was a beautiful woman but she had no sense of it. High cheekbones accentuated wonderful facial bone structure. Her long black eyelashes drew attention to her soft brown eyes. She rarely wore lipstick on her full lips. Her hair, short and black, curled just above the nape of her neck. But one had to study Harry to recognize her beauty. A woman like BoomBoom hit one over the head with it.

As Harry had no vanity she was able to concentrate on whomever she encountered. She didn't think she was pretty. She didn't worry about the impression she was making. Her focus was on the other person. This quality beguiled more men than her looks once they got around to really studying her. There was an innocence about her. It never occurred to her, not once, that she might be attractive to men. She had known her ex-husband since kindergarten. The art of flirting, of luring men, seemed irrelevant to her since she had always loved Fair. When he left her she assumed she'd never love again. She didn't launch into tirades about how awful men were, how they used women and dumped them, the usual cry of the abandoned female. Harry had seen women behave execrably toward men. As far as she was concerned one gender was as bad as the other.

Fair's attempts to reconcile touched her. She truly loved him but now in quite a different way. At first she felt she could never trust him again. Lately, she thought maybe she could. He'd learned and she'd learned but the difficult part was that she didn't know if she'd feel romantic about him again. Certainly she could go to bed with him. She knew his body the way a blind woman knows Braille. However, that didn't constitute romantic desire.

She didn't share these thoughts with Susan or Miranda. Harry kept her deepest thoughts to herself, sometimes asking the animals for their opinion.

As Mrs. Murphy watched Harry approach the truck she felt the lightness in her step, the surge of energy that illuminated her human's face.

“How could Diego not like Mom . . . but is he good enough?” Mrs. Murphy stretched. “After all, we are better judges of character than humans. We need to check out this situation.”

“You're right and I should have thought of that straight off.” Tucker felt guilty.

“You would have eventually.” Mrs. Murphy hopped into the bed of the truck just as Diego, of average height and muscular, hopped out.

“Oh, balls,” Pewter disagreed. “One human is pretty much like any other. They make a big deal out of these tiny, tiny differences but as a species they're all cut from the same cloth.”

“Mother's better.” Tucker defended Harry, whom she loved with all her heart.

“They do fuss over nits and nit-picking but I think they're very different from one another and that's their challenge. They are herd animals and they need one another to survive but they can't build communities to include everyone. It's a real mess. They don't understand their fundamental nature, which is to be part of the herd,” Murphy stated.

“I'm not part of any herd.” Pewter proudly jumped down next to Murphy.

“Of course not. You're a cat,” Murphy said.

“Murphy, this herd idea sounds good but you once said that dogs are pack animals and here I am—not with other dogs.” Tucker waited for Harry to put her in the cab of the truck.

“We're your pack.” Mrs. Murphy drove home her point. “The fact that we're cats plus one human is beside the point.”

“H-m-m.” Tucker pondered this as the humans chatted. “I never thought of that.”

“Mrs. Murphy, Cat Supreme.” Murphy pushed out her chest, then laughed.

“. . . merrier.” Diego finished his sentence, which had started out “The more.” He had agreed to ride in the cab of the truck with two cats, one dog, and Harry. He didn't seem to mind at all.

Harry drove them around the back way. They parked near the main intersection, walking the last block. The cats remained in the truck with the windows open. Neither one liked crowds, although they usually rode on Harry's shoulders if they had to enter a fray. Pewter complained about the marching music. She preferred Mozart. Furthermore, the trumpets hurt her ears. Mrs. Murphy thought it was time for her noon nap.

Tucker eagerly accompanied Harry and Diego. As they reached the main intersection the people lined the road four deep, a lot for Crozet. At five feet ten inches, Diego could see over most of the crowd, but Harry, at five feet six, had to stand on her tiptoes.

Diego gently worked his way to the front, reached back for Harry's hand, and pulled her up with him. When people saw it was their postmistress carrying Tucker they gladly gave way.

They'd no sooner reached their place than the United Daughters of the Confederacy float rolled by, with Lottie and her pantaloons evoking comment.

Harry heard Roger O'Bannon yell to a bystander, “Give me twenty bucks and I'll dump them all on the road.”

Laughter greeted this offer. Lottie ignored it, of course.

Spurred on by the laughter Roger stuck his head farther out of the truck, artfully concealed by the float. “Hey, Lottie, why don't you ditch the hoop?”

“Shut up, Roger.”

“You'd better be good to me. I'm driving this boat.” He laughed loudly. She ignored him again so he catcalled, “Lottie, oh, Lottie Pearson.”

“Roger, for God's sake, watch where you're going.”

They were cruising close to the side of the road.

“Just trying to get you girls a nice cold drink.”

Danny Tucker, Susan's son, rushed up, two drinks in each hand. The ladies eagerly reached down.

“How did women wear these things?” one young lady grumbled, for the finery was heavier than anything she had ever worn before.

“They didn't wear them every day,” Lottie snapped, then remembered her attention should focus on the crowd. She smiled big and waved, then she saw, really saw, Diego Aybar. Her smile froze. She recovered and continued to ignore Roger, whose suggestions grew ever more risqué.

By the end of the parade the mood of the participants and the crowd was even more elevated than at the beginning. The reason for this was that the Veterans of Foreign Wars had a small brass band with two snares and they peeled out of the parade as it ended, marching and playing all the while. They marched straight into a small bar where they continued to hold forth.

BoomBoom was taking a Polaroid of Don Clatterbuck and Roger at the float. The “belles” had all fled. The minute she clicked the picture both men made a beeline for the bar.

“Is it always like this?” Diego asked.

“More or less, which means either they're more drunk or less.” Harry smiled.

“Ah yes.” He smiled back at her and it was obvious he liked her. There weren't a lot of women like Harry hovering about the embassy. She intrigued him. “You know for us the seasons are opposite. Spring fever comes in late October and early November.”

“I imagine it's beautiful in South America.”

“Yes—not every centimeter but—yes.”

“Did BoomBoom give you today's schedule?”

“We are to go to a tea party. BoomBoom wanted me to meet you in the garden. She suggested I see the parade and meet you afterward but I wanted to meet you as soon as possible and I'm glad I did.”

“Me, too. I guess BoomBoom wanted us to meet in the garden because I'd have a dress on. I rarely do.” Harry blushed for a moment. “The truth is I'm 'most always in jeans.”

“Señorita, you are beautiful no matter what you wear.” He bowed his head slightly.

“Oh, this is good.” Tucker happily drooled.

Harry burst out laughing. “Mr. Aybar—”

“Diego.”

“Diego, you are very kind.” She took a deep breath. “We have a few hours before dressing for the party. If you'd like I could drive you around, show you a bit of the county. I don't think there's any way we could get to Monticello and back on time, though.”

He held up his hand. “I have seen it. Mr. Jefferson has my full admiration.”

“Cruise?”

“Cruise.” He echoed her word. Diego was a quick study.

And cruise they did, chatting all the while. She drove by estates, apple orchards, cattle farms. To her delight she learned that the Aybars maintained a residence in Montevideo but the family had an estancia where they bred cattle.

Diego, educated at Duke, studied law at Yale and then studied back home in Uruguay. His father propelled him toward diplomacy but his heart was in farming.

“I'm at a crossroads.”

“And your father will be upset?”

“Ballistic.” Diego smiled wanly. “Family is, oh, I can't say more important in my country but tighter, a deeper sense of obligation, perhaps. Here the job comes first—or so it seems to me. Home, it's family. And like everything, that's both good and bad. You see, we have ruling families and they ask not what is best for Uruguay but what is best for the family.”

“I think I understand. And you come from such a family.”

“My father and grandfather would like to think so.”

“Perhaps the weekend can take your mind off your crossroads.”

“Or help me make a decision. One hates to disappoint one's family, no?—but one hates to violate one's self.”

“Entire novels have been written about that.” Harry turned back toward the mountains. “Where is Thomas Steinmetz?”

Diego replied, “He had some business to attend to but will be at the tea. You must know that your county is overflowing with retired ambassadors, diplomats, senior officials, and senior officers of the military.”

By the time Harry dropped Diego back at the guest house at BoomBoom's place, they had learned a lot about one another. Perhaps the most important thing was that they both had a sense of humor.

The phone rang as Harry struggled with her panty hose.

“How do you like Diego?” BoomBoom asked.

“He's handsome and charming.”

“I thought you'd like him. His passion is farming.”

“Yes, we discovered that. Are you calling me just to find out if I like him?” Harry remained suspicious of Boom.

“Well, no. I need your help. Roger O'Bannon insulted Lottie Pearson and she's mad at me anyway—all the more so since she laid eyes on Diego. I asked Aunt Tally if she might disinvite Roger and she wouldn't hear of it, but you know how Aunt Tally likes a scene. I thought you might speak to her. She likes you better than she likes me.”

“BoomBoom, since when are you solicitous of Lottie Pearson? There's more than you're telling me.”

“No, really there isn't. I was hoping to spare Aunt Tally a scene.”

“For God's sake, BoomBoom, as you said, Aunt Tally lives for a scene.” Harry started to laugh.

“You're right. I contradicted myself.” BoomBoom sighed deeply. “I was hoping to spare myself.”

Aunt Tally was about to get her scene all right but it wasn't the one BoomBoom anticipated.