The Cat Sitter's Whiskers

18

Tom Hale lives in an old Art Deco building called the Sea Breeze, which is fitting since it sits right on the edge of the Gulf about a half mile before the center of town. It’s painted a light shade of Florida-pink, and all the outward-facing apartments have balconies with curved stucco roofs over them. From a distance, the whole thing looks like a giant pink honeycomb, or maybe one of those old Pueblo villages built into the side of a desert cliff.

In exchange for his handling my taxes and anything else having to do with finances, I give Tom’s retired racing greyhound, Billy Elliot, a couple of good outings every day. It works out well for both of us, since I’m terrible with money, and Tom uses a wheelchair so walking Billy isn’t easy.

The building was recently given a face-lift. Not only did they put in new revolving glass doors and a security camera, they completely remodeled the lobby. It used to feel a little scruffy around the edges, but now the floor is all polished pebble, and there’s a big chandelier in the center dripping with crystals that sparkle like pink rosé. Giant copper urns with baby palms and arcing ficus trees are grouped here and there in lush arrangements, and the walls are all mirrored from floor to ceiling.

The elevator is mirrored, too, with a thick Chinese-red carpet and strips of tiny amber lights in the corners. It sort of feels like a movie star’s dressing room. As the doors closed with a quiet whoosh, I came face-to-face with myself in the mirror and whispered, “Oh, dear.”

I’m used to being a little surprised. Most days I’m up and out of the house so fast that Tom’s elevator is the first chance I get to see myself. If I’ve taken the time to put on makeup, which I do a little more often now that Ethan’s around, nine times out of ten I do it blindly over my closet desk as I check my notes for the day. Usually I’ll find a little smeared mascara or a smudge of lip gloss riding up my lip like the remains of a burst chewing-gum bubble, but this was different. I couldn’t see the bump on my head at all, but that was because the wind had blown my hair into a complete frenzy. I looked like I’d been given a makeover by a team of juvenile delinquent squirrels with attention deficit disorder.

Just then, the doors slid open to reveal a woman in her late twenties, with beautiful olive skin, brown eyes, and long hair so thick and shiny it looked like a dark river of chocolate spilling over her shoulders. She had an odd look on her face, almost like she was surprised to find anybody else in the elevator, but then I realized she was waiting for me to come out. I was about to tell her this wasn’t my floor when I saw the big pink chandelier hanging in the lobby behind her.

I said, “Oh, no! I was so busy admiring myself in the mirror I forgot what I was doing. I’m going up.”

The woman nodded curtly and stepped in, pressing the button for the ninth floor as the doors closed. We were standing side by side now, and in the reflection of the mirror I noticed her necklace. It was a small Catholic cross, beautifully carved from luminous sea-green stone, perhaps jade, except it had a soft bluish hue I’d never seen before. It was about an inch tall, set in an exquisitely thin silver bezel and hanging just below her throat on a braided silver chain.

Right about the time I realized I was basically staring at her, she glanced down at her feet and then at me, which I realized was her subtle way of signaling I still hadn’t selected a floor.

“Wow. I’m such a dummy.”

I leaned forward and pressed the twelfth-floor button. The woman stretched her lips into a thin forgiving smile, narrowing her eyes slightly, as if she could barely stand another moment alone in this tiny space next to me.

She was wearing a silk floor-length skirt, dark navy blue, with a high waist, wide belt, and an open-lapeled silk jacket the color of newly fallen snow. I knew right away it was something nice. It had that kind of polished edge that only fancy clothes have, the kind of expensive ensembles they hang in the windows of the tonier shops downtown, the kind I usually walk by with my gaze fixed straight ahead, like a horse with blinders.

I suppressed the urge to ask where she’d bought it. I had the distinct feeling she wasn’t in the mood for small talk. She was standing perfectly erect with her shoulders back and her long neck straight, her cold brown eyes directed forward and focused on nothing, like she was the only person in the universe. I stood up straight and stared at the mirror, copying her icy gaze, and thought, All right. Two can play this game.

I think it’s fair to say, standing there next to her in my work clothes with a wind-teased squirrel’s nest on my head and the occasional cat hair clinging here and there, that I looked not unlike a homeless runaway, or maybe the love child of Donald Trump and a long-haired alpaca.

I reached down into one of the side pockets of my backpack and felt around for a hair band, luckily finding one right away, and forced my hair back in a ponytail. As I snapped it in place, I realized it looked exactly like one of Levi’s green rubber bands, the ones he used to tie around the morning paper.

I had decided that when I got to Tom’s apartment I wouldn’t mention what had happened the day before, especially since McKenzie had asked me not to talk to anyone about it yet. But also, I knew if I did I’d probably break down in a sobbing mess, and even just thinking about Levi made my throat feel hollow.

I glanced over at Ice Princess, but she was still staring straight ahead in her own world. When we got to the ninth floor, I thought, I’m going to say something nice to her.

The doors slid open and I blurted, “Hey, I like your necklace.”

At first she looked slightly horrified that I’d even had the gall to speak to her again, but as she stepped out she reached up with one hand and touched the green cross with the tips of her fingers. “Oh, thank you.”

“Yeah, it’s really pretty. Is it jade?”

She held the door open. “No. Peruvian opal. From my homeland.”

I said, “Ah,” and smiled pleasantly.

She let go of the door and then disappeared down the hallway without so much as a nod good-bye, but for some reason I felt better. And now that she was out of the picture, I looked better, too. Tom and Billy Elliot had been on vacation for almost a week, visiting Tom’s oldest son, so I didn’t want to look like an emotional wreck when I greeted them.

As soon as I took my keys out, I heard a low-pitched woof and then the quick tap-tapping of Billy Elliot’s wagging tail on the parquet floor. I like to keep myself on a pretty strict schedule, so over time Billy has learned to anticipate my arrival down to the minute. He was already waiting for me just behind the door.

Greyhound racing is a big deal around here. There’s a decades-old track on the outskirts of Sarasota that puts on races weekly, and there are at least fifteen other tracks within a four- or five-hour drive. I guess it’s fun for people, and I’m sure it pours tons of money into the local economy, but in my book none of that makes it right.

Whenever I hear the word retirement, I think of silver-haired couples driving around in golf carts or touring through town on a bicycle built for two, on their way to a two-dollar matinee at the movie theater or an early-bird dinner at the local diner. But in the world of greyhound racing, retirement is all too often a nice word for something … well, not very nice.

Tens of thousands of greyhounds are bred every year, but only an elite few ever make it to the racetrack, which means the majority get “retired.” Even for the champions, a good racing career doesn’t last long. Their bodies can only take so much, and if they’re not winning they meet the same end as their less-speedy littermates—unless of course they’re lucky enough to become breeders for new stock, or get rescued like Billy Elliot.

You would’ve thought he hadn’t seen me in years. First he ran around in circles, leaping up and down like a rabbit, and then he lavished me with kisses. I found Tom in his wheelchair at the kitchen table, where there were stacks of files and spreadsheets laid out in front of him in a wide semicircle.

Billy Elliot ran over and sat by his side, looking back at me with a wide grin as if to say, Hey, look what I found!

I said, “How was your vacation?”

Tom has a boyish round face with a head of curly black hair and a little round belly. He wears steel-rimmed glasses that always make me think he looks a bit like Harry Potter, that is if Harry Potter were forty-two and slightly pudgy. He’s one of the most well-read people I’ve ever met. He knows a little bit about practically everything—art, music, architecture, literature, finance. When I grow up I want to be just like him.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Well, considering my son is a complete maniac, not to mention an immature, binge-drinking wreck, it was fine.”

“Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good at all.”

He chuckled. “Well, I might be exaggerating a bit. To his credit I think he invited me down just so I’d give him a lecture about how he needs to grow up. The kid is twenty-six years old and has never held a job for longer than a year. But don’t get me started. How are you?”

“Well, funny you should ask, I’ve had an interesting week so far.”

He pushed himself back from the table. “Oh, good, tell me all about it. I need something to divert my attention from these spreadsheets.”

I said, “Well, I’m fine now, but look…”

I lowered my head and parted my hair to the side.

“Ouch! How’d that happen?”

I considered telling him, but the thought of one more person thinking of me as a delicate fainting flower made me sick, so instead I just very slightly altered the truth.

I said, “Um … I slipped on an orange peel. Can you believe that? I was at a client’s house. I went straight down and hit my head. But Tom, the weirdest thing happened. While I was lying there catching my breath, I saw an image in my mind, it was a statue, kind of like a Buddha, except it was a woman. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

Tom frowned. “Wait, you’re saying you got knocked out?”

Billy Elliot sighed and stretched out on the floor at Tom’s feet. I think he knew from the sound of our voices he wasn’t getting a walk anytime soon.

I said, “No, no. Nothing like that. But it hurt like hell and I was definitely a little dizzy for a minute, so I was just lying there waiting for it to go away when that image popped up in my head, and it’s just been bugging me ever since. I must have seen something like it somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t think where.”

“Was it Kuan Yin?”

I said, “Connie who?”

He grinned. “Kuan Yin. She’s what they call a bodhisattva, an enlightened being that’s reached a state of grace. Some people think when they die, Kuan Yin places their soul in the heart of a lotus flower. She’s the most well-known female Buddha figure I know of.”

I said, “Huh. She sounds awesome. Does she have big huge bowling-ball-sized breasts?”

He tilted his head to one side. “Um, no.”

“Oh. Well, this one did. And her toes were painted red and she was totally naked and big and curvy.”

He put his glasses back on. “Ha—that doesn’t much sound like the Buddha I know. I think the word you’re looking for is zaftig. Except for the red toes, it sounds more like an ancient earth goddess, like Gaia or Shala.”

“Who?”

“Almost every ancient culture has one. Usually they represent the bounty of nature or fertility, like Venus, the Roman goddess of love.”

“You mean Venus on a half shell?”

He chuckled. “You’re thinking of how Botticelli envisioned her, but the idea was around long before he came along. Some of them date all the way back to the Paleolithic age … Here, I’ll show you.”

He turned his wheelchair back to the computer and tapped a few keys. The screen filled with pictures of all kinds of small sculptures and figurines. They were mostly made from stone or clay, some crude and jagged, but others carved with exquisite care.

“Are they expensive?”

He smiled. “Some are modern knockoffs, but some, especially an older one, could be worth hundreds of thousands, if not millions.”

I said, “Huh.”

Something had clicked in my head. It might very well have been my poor skull shifting back in place, but I think it was something more. Unless I was remembering something from my past life as a cavewoman, there was absolutely no way I’d fainted that morning, because those figurines on Tom’s computer … I’d never seen anything like them before … so how could the whole thing have been a dream?

I looked closer at one that had caught my attention. She was made of white stone. Her oval eyes were blank, but her lips were set at a slightly mischievous angle, and her head was as smooth and bald as an egg.

I pointed. “Hey, Tom? Do you think you could print that out for me?”