I’m pretty sure I’ve closed my eyes for just a moment.
“Pearl. Psssst.”
Huh? What? I jerk awake.
The cat is sitting on my chest.
Liza Bean Bitey, of the Minneapolis Biteys, symmetrically
striped stealer of dreams and small-pawed liberator of earrings, pens, and
unattended cash cards peers down at me.
Her eyes narrowed to gleaming slits, she looks as if she’s suppressing a
smile.
I move my own eyes to the left, to the right. The TV is on, murmuring something indistinct
about what we may expect in the way of side effects.
I stare up at the cat.
“What,” I say.
“You were snoring.”
I shift slightly, and the cat hangs on to her dignity –
and her position as chest-sitter – by extending her claws.
“Why,” she says, “don’t you go to bed?”
“Huh?” I pull my
glasses off, rub the bridge of my nose. “What
time is it?”
The cat raises her left paw, checks the inside of her
wrist. “2:30.”
I sit up, knocking the cat backwards. “What are you
talking about,” I say. I feel, somehow,
defensive. “It can’t be 2:30,” I
say. “I have to work tomorrow.”
The cat jumps to the coffee table. “What nonsense you talk,” she says
dismissively. “It certainly can be 2:30.” Liza Bean yawns
delicately.
I catch a whiff of something – and wake up just that much
more. “Let me smell your breath,” I say.
The cat covers her mouth with a tiny, larcenous paw, stifles a small smile. “You have some strange habits, Pearl. Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently.”
I frown at her, consciously reach up to smooth my brow.
The lousy cat is giving me wrinkles.
“I’m serious,” I say.
“Oh,” the cat says, laughing. “I’m sure you are.”
I lean forward, but she is too quick. Dancing backwards, she evades my grasp.
“Did you take my car again? You did, didn’t you?!”
Just a week ago, the cat had taken my car, returned it
with a full tank of gas – and a half-eaten bucket of bait in the back
seat. At the time, it hadn’t seemed all
that important. I mean, a kitty’s got to
eat, am I right?
And a tank of gas – well, you’ve seen the price at the
pump.
Still…
“Liza Bean,” I say.
“Did you take my car again?”
The cat smiles, leaps up to the top perch of “cat condo” in
the corner of the room.
“I didn’t,” she said, “but we did.”
I reach back into my sleep-webbed mind. “Juan Diego…”
Liza Bean Bitey, of the Minneapolis Biteys, nods. “Juan Diego de la Patas Oro,” she says.
And with that, the cat curls up and closes her eyes.
What? Why?
Stay tuned!