Connections (7 page)

Princess stopped in mid-gait. Her body stiffened, her spine arched. Proud and alert, her ears reached for a sound, her front leg bent, poised like a ballerina’s above the sidewalk. Then her paws tapped a melody on the pavement, springing back in time to an exciting rhythm only she could hear.

Rosa shielded her eye against the sun. “Eh, bambina, someone a-coming?” She walked toward the river, squinting to see what had aroused the dog. Princess strutted, her stump of a tail straight and high, undulating like a bustle.

Rosa’s arthritic knees became rejuvenated as she pranced next to her girl, anticipating some excitement. “Oh-ho, I see who it is.” She held tight as Princess tugged at the leash. “There come your boyfriend, eh, bambina? No wonder you look so pretty. There he is—Mr. McGee.” As the dogs approached each other, Princess stopped, her head high, waiting for Fibber to get closer.

Rosa liked the little black-and-white dog and had known his mistress for years—at least two dogs ago for each of them. She silently snapped her fingers, resisting the urge to call Princess “Molly.” Ah, how she used to love to listen to
Fibber McGee and Molly
on the radio.
You could live in the same neighborhood for years and years and not know anyone, unless you have a dog
. That’s what Rosa always said.
You go out walking; you meet the same people at the same time every day
. Then, when you see them in the supermarket or in the cleaners or a local restaurant without their animals, you feel kind of funny and shy. Like you have nothing to talk about, no reason to say hello to half a couple. “Hello, handsome.” Rosa petted Fibber’s head and then brushed her fingers behind her back. She was glad Princess’s fur wasn’t like Fibber’s—the long, straight hair always felt dirty to her. “Hello.” She smiled at Eileen Hargan. “How you been?”

“Fine.” Eileen had to clench her teeth to keep from crying. Her cheeks rippled.

“Haven’t seen you for a while.”

“Oh, well, you know how it is in the cold. Run out to the curb, to the tree, run back. Now that it’s getting warmer…”

“You okay?”

“Yes.” Eileen clutched her bag tighter to her wrist, protecting her secret. She swung around and almost lost her balance as Fibber McGee made a circle around Princess, touching noses, smelling her tail. Maybe she should tell this Rosa lady. She knew everything, everybody. She’d know what to do. She’d know how awful a thing it was. No, the letter said not to tell anyone. But it wasn’t like the police. She heard that Rosa was a busybody, always talking. Not that Eileen Hargan personally ever heard her say anything bad about anyone, but…No, she couldn’t take a chance.

“Did you see that little puppy down the street? The black one?” Rosa asked.

“What? No.”

“You know, the little Lhasa that died? Or Shih Tzu. I cannot tell; they all looks the same to me. The black one that was always a-sweeping the sidewalk with her long hair?”

“Yes, yes, I remember it.”

“With the nice lady with the blonde hair.
That
one?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Well, she say she never have another dog. Don’t we all say that?” Rosa smiled at Princess to prove her point. “Well, she just did it like that. Went to the ASPCA one day last week and got a puppy. Cutest thing, it is. She say she miss her dog so much; she’s so lonesome, she had to do it.” Rosa raised her hand to make an arc of the leash and walked around the two dogs, holding it over the other woman’s head—a dog walkers’ sidewalk minuet, without the music. Eileen started walking at the same time, and the leashes became more entwined. Rosa dropped hers for a second to untangle the mess, and when she slipped her fingers back inside the handle, Eileen Hargan was already two doors away, pulling Fibber McGee. “Sorry! I’m late,” Eileen called over her shoulder. “I have to run. Now, Fibber, I said ‘come’!” She pulled harshly.

Princess strained to follow, and Rosa scooped her up in her arms. “No, baby, he’s going home now. What could be bothering her? Come, we go for a nice walk. You meet someone else. Honest.”

All the way to the next corner, Princess kept turning her head around to catch a glimpse of the retreating Terrier. Rosa turned with her. And she noticed that Eileen Hargan wouldn’t even let him lift his leg without yanking him hard. “Something bad is bothering that lady,” she told Princess confidentially.

The gray rooftops of Jackson Heights always depressed Laurie. The Flushing train rumbled above Queens; the squat apartment buildings were grotesque shadows in the twilight. The train jerked as it grabbed the tracks and then grated along the steel where it bent into a crescent. Laurie pressed against the back-door window, the spot she took every night, to catch the momentary profile of Manhattan against the royal blue sky. Then the last car swung around the curve after the others, obliterating the view.

Her nipples flattened against the cold glass. Feeling desolate, she shuddered. Leaving the city was like leaving home. For all its dirt and noise and crime and indifference, it still held a glamour and awe for Laurie, and she wished she could afford to live in its heart.

The grinding of the wheels on the track jangled her nerves and lulled them at the same time. When the noise changed at a certain point, when the sound of metal on metal became shrill, like a dentist’s drill hitting a high tone, it signaled the approach of her station. She was tired by the time she got to Elmhurst, but she decided to walk two extra blocks to Woodhaven Boulevard to the liquor store. The liter of Merlot was just the treat she deserved after the busy day she’d had. She held the bottle by its neck through the bag while she unlocked her door, slipped inside, double-locked the door, and hooked the chain. Then she set the bottle on the catch-all table in the foyer/dining area/guest room/den/hallway and bent to stroke the two heads nuzzling against her legs.

“Okay, okay, you want your dinner, huh?” Laurie never thought she’d get used to a cat, much less two cats. She was a dog person. But there was no way she could take care of a dog by herself or have that kind of commitment to come right home every night, walk it, clean up after it, and never be able to go away. Other people who lived alone had dogs and did take vacations. But Laurie knew herself well enough to know she would never be able to do it.

She used to laugh at people who told her that she actually had to own a cat to appreciate what wonderful pets they make. When she’d say that cats were too independent and not affectionate enough, the answer invariably was, “But that’s what’s beautiful about them.” Luckily, her two were affectionate—and needy. And a lot easier to care for than dogs. All she did know at first was that she didn’t think these two cats should die, and that’s what would have happened to them if she hadn’t adopted them.

She’d read that three to four million dogs and cats were euthanized in shelters every year.
Maybe there are actually more cats out there
, she thought, as she’d also read that there were an estimated seventy million strays,
but since cats are able to survive better than dogs on their own, they just don’t get caught.

That wasn’t the case with Felix. Laurie had found him one day when she was opening up the office. Or rather, he had found her. A perfect tuxedo specimen—formal, black, a white shirt where the lapels would split, and four white spats. She put some food out for him, and after the first few times, he just followed her inside and refused to move out. He would roam around the waiting room, harassing the crated and leashed animals, until Dr. Pomalee insisted that he be caged—or sent to a shelter. They had put him in a corner of the room, so he could watch the comings and goings.

Laurie had to take care of him because the night attendants grumbled about doing it. They only had from four in the afternoon until midnight to care for the sick boarders—checking IVs, taking temperatures, giving drugs, feeding, walking ambulatory dogs, cleaning cages—and they complained about having to come upstairs to feed a lone cat. It was a natural progression, from moving him up to her office, where he had some freedom to walk around on the third floor, to feeling sorry for his being cooped up and alone all night, to taking him home. And now she was a full-fledged cat person, loving their antics, their companionship, and their adoration of her.

She slipped off her shoes in the kitchen, opened the bottle of wine, felt behind the tall glasses in the dish closet for one with a stem—wine didn’t taste as good in a water glass—and poured some wine. Then she ground some vitamins into the canned cat food, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Felix and Oscar, sitting near her feet, watching her intently. Oscar had been acquired the same way, only taken home immediately. Not just because Dr. Pomalee said they couldn’t house strays but because all the cat people she knew told her she had to have two, so they could keep each other company. To Laurie, her breed was pedigreed alley cat, even though Dr. Pomalee said the cat was a Domestic Shorthair. She had named the cat Oscar—it didn’t matter that she was a female—after about a month, when it became obvious that she was a slob, scattering food pellets and litter on the floor and allowing Felix to set the house rules. Laurie thought calling a girl Oscar added spunk to the cat’s already spunky nature.

Laurie started fixing the other bowl. “You’ll never be human…like a dog,” she said as she put their meals on the floor. Smiling at her silliness, she added, “But I guess I love you anyhow.”

For someone who had never had an affinity for cats, they had grown on her quickly, and now she couldn’t imagine her life without them. But two was the absolute limit, she reminded herself every time another stray wandered into her life—like the current apricot-splattered calico that was currently in residence in her office. If she didn’t find a home for it within a week, she would be sentenced to the ASPCA.

Laurie hurried through her own leftover barbecue chicken dinner, put on her velour robe, even though it was a warm night, and poured another glass of wine. She brought her pillow from the bedroom, picked some cat hair off a spot on the couch, and set the wine glass on the cocktail table. Then, with a tingle of excitement, she opened her laptop.

Louise leaned against the wall so she could slip her right shoe off. She rotated her ankle a few times and flexed her toes. She noticed that the blister on her little toe had broken, leaving blood matted to her stocking. She squeezed her foot back into the pump, grimacing as the leather rubbed against her raw skin.

If the commissioner of Human Resources had not passed the word along that he expected good representation from each department, and if her superior didn’t have a daughter who was graduating from NYU tonight, Louise would not be here, wearing heels too high to walk in and a silk dress too hot to breathe in.

It didn’t matter that the press was there. That a lot of local politicians felt it important enough to be there. That the Honorable Wallace Cooker was going to announce the new program and his plan to seek federal funding for it. It didn’t matter what the excuse was for attending. Everyone was on the make. From her invisible blind in the corner, she observed the prey. And the hunters. All of the women seemed elegantly put together. Casual perfection.
If I cared
, Louise told herself,
I’d feel like a wallflower
.
No, a wall-weed
. But who cared? The men looked like a bunch of straightlaced, pompous assholes anyway.

The smoke drifting toward the vent over her head—from people who had snuck outside to grab a cigarette—made her eyes tear. She thought she’d faint from the heat and the press of people. Waiters mingled, holding their trays high over heads, and slowed down to lower their goodies. Louise smirked at the way some people never seemed to interrupt their conversations or break their gazes but had developed an extra sense that allowed them to feel or smell a passing tray. While still talking or still looking at someone, they could stick a hand out and get something. Like a lizard with one of those long tongues that darts out to grab an unsuspecting bug. Then there were those who did stop talking, making loud exclamations of surprise as if Santa Claus had just dropped from the chimney, and who studied each hors d’oeuvre, biting daintily into at least three of them while ignoring the waiter patiently standing by.

Watching, Louise realized she was starving. She headed for a small group circling a waiter. Louise’s normal pose was shoulders pushed slightly forward, elbows bent at waist level. Even standing almost still, she seemed to be revved up and in motion. She looked like a jockey racing for the finish line…without the horse under him. In tailored suits and her frequently worn jeans, it didn’t matter too much. But the two-piece pastel dress she was wearing did nothing to soften her harsh appearance. In fact, the contrast only exaggerated the brusqueness of her bearing.

“Okay, okay, let’s stop hoarding the horse”—she laughed at their expressions before adding—“der-ves.” She pushed her arm in between the bodies, picked a caviar on toasted cocktail bread, and stuffed it into her mouth in one bite. The people politely made an opening for her to join them.

Introductions weren’t necessary, since they were all strangers anyway. The others slowly drifted off, leaving Louise with cheese spread filling her mouth and a cocktail frank and a tuna cracker in the flat of her hand. She had put her glass down on the rim of a planter somewhere and knew it would be easier to get a new drink than to find the old one. She waited at the bar for a Scotch on the rocks with a splash of water and a twist. Then she sipped some of it off the top as she turned around. “Whoops,” she apologized to the chest she bumped into.

“It’s okay. You come here often?”

Louise grunted a smile at the lame joke. “Not if I can help it. I hate these things.”

“Doesn’t everybody?” He clinked his glass against hers. “Let’s drink to that.”

“To what?” Her glass acknowledged his.

“To discontinuing all cocktail parties.” He stuck his hand out. “Ken Hollis.”

“Hi, Ken Hollis. Louise Sidway.” She let him pump her hand. “What are you doing here? I mean, how did you get invited?”

“I’m a consultant to the mayor. On social services and welfare and things.”

“Oh.”

Ken Hollis translated the one syllable into “big deal.”

“What do you do when you’re not ‘consulting’ with the mayor?” she asked flippantly.

“I teach. Sociology. At Hunter. And what about you? How come you were invited?”

“Me? Oh, I’m the commissioner’s daughter.” She bent her head into her glass and walked away, sipping, leaving Ken Hollis’s eyes searching the large room for the commissioner.

Locating him and confirming to himself what he originally thought, he looked for Louise. When he sighted her across the room, he realized she had been watching him. His brows bunched into a question mark. He looked toward the commissioner and then back at Louise. She laughed and waved, nodding her head and turning in the direction of the commissioner, who was charcoal black.