Christmas Cats: A Literary Companion

Clea Simon

Mistletoe? No, Musetta! Put it down!" Even as I jerked awake, startled from sleep by the thud of my stout pet landing on the pillow beside me, my cat-loving instincts kicked in. "Put that down, Musetta!"

The round green eyes staring at me were all innocence as I reached for her, but she dropped the sprig. The muted green leaves and white berries had started alarms in my head—mistletoe may not be fatal to cats, but who wanted to deal with even a moderately sick feline during the crazy season? Only when I picked it up did the last of the cobwebs clear: It was plastic, a false alarm.

"Musetta? Where did you get this?" She was grooming, stretched around to a hard-to-reach place at the small of her glossy black back, and didn't respond. "Kitty?" She straightened up and stared back at me, but only licked her pink nose.

"Strange." I twirled the plastic plant in my hand. I sure hadn't brought it into the apartment we two shared, not being a fan of fake plants or of Christmas, particularly this year. Musetta reached a white mitten out to bat at the faux sprig, and I made her stand up for it, exposing her fluffy white belly.

"Tickles!" I yelled, giving in to the urge to ruffle her soft tummy fur. My vulnerable pet nipped me for my troubles and then jumped off the bed, leaving me with the plastic mistletoe. Fake cheer. How appropriate, I thought, my mind racing back to the night before.

That was supposed to be fun, too. A holiday party, hosted by one of my friends, but Bill—my sometime boyfriend—and I had arrived already snarling. The evening hadn't started that way. Sitting up in bed, I could still see the five outfits I'd discarded in my quest for a perfect party look, and the stretch velvet dress I'd chosen—olive green to set off my red hair—now lay draped over my bedside chair.

The problem was the holidays, the whole "be jolly" spirit. That was what had urged me to push Bill. To ask him again for a key to his place, to make us more of a real couple. I'd reached for an excuse: "It will match the one I gave you when you had to sit Musetta last month." But we both knew what I was doing. So when he hesitated—beginning one of those "Theda, aren't we having fun?" speeches every woman knows—I'd pulled back and snapped at him. A hurt look had flashed over his face, but his response was curt, and everything had just gone downhill from there. By the time we reached our destination, we might as well have been at different parties. I talked to my friends; he moped, his tall, lean frame wedged into a corner. I danced, he glowered, particularly when a string of slow songs found me in the arms of a particularly hunky guitarist. Maybe I was being a jerk. Some of that dancing was awfully close. But didn't Bill deserve it? Yeah, he gave me a ride home, but that was it; his long face had been closed and stern. The guitarist—what was his name? Dan? Dave?—hadn't even asked for my number. And so I'd tossed and turned in my favorite ugly flannels, and now, to add to it all, my cat was acting weird.

"Musetta? Don't you love me?" She knew better than to respond to emotional blackmail and I had to get out of bed to find her, sitting by the window. I turned my back on her and shuffled into my tiny kitchenette. Coffee helped lift the funk somewhat, as did a heaping bowl of Raisin Bran: comfort food for the terminally single. But when I turned on the radio all I could find was holiday music—Christmas songs, actually—and there was nothing festive about my mood.

Still, there were gifts to purchase—for myself anyway—and cat food to be bought, so I cut short my perusal of the Sunday paper and gave in to the luxury of a long shower. Indoor plumbing—now that was something to celebrate. On a whim, I let the tub fill, too, squeezing in my favorite bubbles. Without Bill in the picture, who cared how pickled my skin got?

Just as my eyes closed and I felt myself sliding into the warm, fragrant foam, something touched my face. Something leathery and cool, and just a little grainy.

"Musetta?" Opening my mouth had been a mistake. The paw had batted at my moving lips, and I sputtered out what I truly hoped was not kitty litter. Those big green eyes were staring at me again, and in her mouth I saw a ribbon.

"Kitty!" This was getting exasperating. How can one cat find so many dangerous toys? Water slopped over the side sent her scurrying, but not before I'd grabbed the offending length of green ribbon. As I held it up, I saw a pair of small silver bells tied to its end. No wonder she'd been tempted—anything bright caught my cat's attention—but that didn't answer the basic question: Where had she found this? I'd not started wrapping anything yet, and knowing what ribbon or string of any kind can do to a cat's insides, I kept all my decorative bits of yarn and the like in closed drawers.

"Musetta? Where did this come from?" She returned to the bathroom doorway, a safe distance from the offensive wetness on the floor, but eyed the tiny bells longingly. I raised them and shook. They jingled. She advanced and soon, puddle or no, we were engaged in a game of kill the bells, which lasted until my bathwater cooled.

"Mistletoe, Musetta? Jingle bells?" Even as I dried and dressed, I couldn't make sense of this and sought out my pet, who was lounging again on the windowsill, where the midday sun would warm her dark back. "What's with the Christmas stuff, anyway?"

She yawned and looked out the window. Clearly I was boring her. I shook the little bells. She glanced back at me and blinked. Maybe it was the green of her eyes, maybe it was the slightly bored, aloof expression, but for a moment she reminded me of Bill. Almost ten years older than me, he did tend to act above it all. Just like a cat at times. Musetta turned away. I snapped.

"You know, young lady, we don't celebrate Christmas in this house. We don't sing carols. We don't have a tree. And we don't keep mistletoe and jingle bells around." I knew I was getting worked up about nothing, but all the feelings from last night had come flooding back. I shoved the beribboned bells into my pocket and turned on the bored cat. "Christmas is just one more winter solstice holiday and a Christian one at that. Well, okay, maybe the mistletoe is pagan. But unless we're going to start observing all the holidays, and that means Kwanzaa too, then there'll be no more Christmas in this house! Our last name is Krakow—we're Theda and Musetta Krakow, kitty. We're Jewish. Or, well, I'm Jewish and I'm your mother, so that makes you a Jew, too. And we celebrate Chanukah. It's all well and good to mesh customs when we're getting along with our Christian friends…" An image of Bill's warm green eyes, his lazy smile, passed through my head. "But when it's just us two, then I'm not going to let you bury our identity in the mass-marketing and the tinsel and everything."

I was being too loud: With one annoyed look, Musetta jumped down from her sunny perch and retreated under the sofa. How could I blame her? My outburst hadn't made me feel any better either. I needed to get out of the house.

For someone with an attitude toward the holidays, Harvard Square was the wrong place to be. Brightly colored tinsel twined up the lampposts, and the free-form stars outlined by tiny white lights on the banners that crossed Massachusetts Avenue could be made out even in broad daylight. Some student group had gotten itself up in a rough approximation of Dickensian costume to sing carols, nearly blocking the entrance to my favorite bookstore. And down the road, in front of the pharmacy where they carried my one essential winter moisturizer, even the regular street musician, an avuncular accordionist, was picking out what could have been "Good King Wenceslas."

"Hey, babe!" He smiled and nodded, unwilling to leave off his wheezy carol for a wave.

"Grrr…"I responded and then, feeling guilty, dug out a dollar to put in his instrument case.

"Merry Christmas, beautiful!" I ducked into a storefront before I said something I'd regret, and only when my temper settled down did I realize that I'd opened the wrong door. This wasn't the pharmacy, it was the stationer's shop next door. But it was warm, and there's something calming about paper and writing supplies. I had no appointments, I could browse.

And there I saw it: The pen. With its blue-marbled barrel and fine gold nib, this was the fountain pen Bill had been lusting for only a week before. That day had been a happy one. We'd come into the Square for brunch and then window-shopped, enjoying the cacophony of the holiday crowds and the street entertainers who'd braved the frigid weather. I'd needed a cartridge for my printer, then, and we'd ended up in this same store. I'd worried that Bill would be bored, but as I finished up my purchase in the back, I'd seen him talking to one of the clerks, who then removed the same smooth leather case from the window.

Conklin, was it? Or Conway? I didn't remember, only that at the time I'd stayed back as Bill had taken the pen, reverentially, in two hands. The clerk had offered to fill it, to let him try it out, but Bill had handed it back.

"No thanks," I could hear his voice in my head, a little sad with longing. "It would be wasted on me. I don't need it."

The real shop swam in front of me as my eyes filled with tears.

"May I help you?" A voice at my shoulder brought me back.

"Yes, may I see that pen, please? The blue one?"

"The Conway. Great choice. It's restored, but near mint condition, and a really great price."

Before I could think about it, I'd pulled out my Visa. "Do you gift wrap?"

"Of course."

What was I thinking? I didn't even know if I'd see Bill again. But what the hell. It was a beautiful object, a piece of art. Maybe I'd learn to love fountain pens, too.

For no discernible reason, my mood was lifting. I lucked into a sale on my moisturizer and some other goodies as well, which helped, and turned my face up to the sun's scant warmth as I made my way back home. Maybe Bill and I could make up. Maybe these December days were the darkest we'd see all year.

The shadows were lengthening as I turned up my block and climbed the steps to my old brick building. "Hey, Theda!" The super was wrestling the big trash bins out front for the morning pickup. "Happy holidays!"

"Hi, Roman! Good solstice to you, too!" He was probably just angling for a tip, but who cared? Two flights of stairs and I'd be home. Would Musetta have any more mystery presents for me? An image of a gift-wrapped mouse appeared in my head and I chuckled as I reached for my keys.

The laugh died in my throat. There was a movement ahead, up the stairs, right by my door. A dark shadow—a man's coat?—had slipped inside.

"Roman?" As in a nightmare, my voice came out in a whisper. "Roman?" But he was outside, I knew, no help, and certainly not the reason my door stood slightly ajar.

I should have left then. Should have run back out to the street and yelled for the burly super, for my neighbors, for the cops. But too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, and I was sick of it. Sick of feeling rejected and put upon, of having one good mood after another dashed by the unexpected. I picked up the pharmacy bag. With its jumbo tube of Aveda and the economy-sized shampoo—also on sale—it would make a decent weapon. With my other hand, I slammed my apartment door open and prepared to swing.

"Theda!" A man in black knelt by my door.

"Bill?" Those green eyes, his black wool coat. What was he doing on my floor?

"Rrow!" I dropped the heavy bag to the floor. My cat dived under the sofa.

"What are you doing here?" He was smiling now, a little sheepish.

"I was hoping to sneak one more surprise in for you." He held out his hand. There, on a length of thick red yarn, were two keys. I recognized the larger one; it fit the old front lock of his building. "They're a set. Your own set."

He stood. I looked up in his face, his kind, sweet face.

"You were right, Theda. I'm sorry I reacted as I did. Too many years alone, I guess." He took my hand and placed the keys in my palm, then covered my hand with his. The yarn was soft and fuzzy.

"Yarn?"

"That was meant for Musetta, actually. She's been so good about the other gifts." He took a can of catnip spray out of his coat pocket. "This helped."

"The mistletoe? The jingle bells?"

"I still have your keys, remember? Unless you really want me to, I'm not giving them back." Suddenly we were both laughing, the mystery of the mistletoe solved, and I was able to explain the basics of cat care—and cat safety—to Bill, who took my little lecture in good grace. By the time the "no ribbon, no string" rule had been explained, we were able to coax Musetta out from her hiding place so she could join us for a snack while we made plans for dinner.

"I wanted to show you that my holiday could be intimate, too. That it didn't all have to be commercialized and overblown," said my Bill, once the three of us were nestled on the couch. "I wanted it to be fun."

"It will be," I said to his collar, as I cuddled into his shoulder and Musetta kneaded the pillow beside me. "Christmas and Chanukah both." Out in the foyer, under the bag of toiletries, I had the perfect present, and it was already wrapped. If only I could get Musetta to deliver it…