Finding Alice (17 page)

“Time for you to eat something too,” she announces as if that’s the most normal thing in the world.

“But I—”

“I will hear no arguments,” she insists as she walks back into the kitchen. “It is suppertime, and I expect you to be a good girl and join me.”

So I return to the kitchen to find the plastic-topped table, where Cheshire has been recently lying, now set with two places. The Cat Lady carefully arranges Cheshire back into the box that is sitting on a chair in the corner. Then she turns and looks at me.

“Would you like to wash up?”

I look down at my grimy hands and nod.

She points down a hallway from the kitchen. “The first door on your right.”

I find an old-fashioned bathroom that is painted a robin’s-egg blue. It has a claw-foot tub and several cat boxes. Some that need to be emptied. I scrub and scrub my hands, then worry that I am taking too long, I quickly dry them and return to the kitchen, noticing that the yellowed wallpaper in there has lots of faded cats prancing about on it.

“Would you like me to take your coat?” she offers.

“No.” I pull it more tightly around me.

“That’s fine.” She smiles as she points to a shiny red vinyl-covered chair that looks as if it emerged right out of the fifties. “Have a seat.”

Obediently I sit and wait as she carries two white bowls of what
appears to be tomato soup to the table. I can tell by the creamy orange color that she made it with milk. For a moment I remember my aversion to animal products, but then I figure if it’s good enough for Cheshire, it’s good enough for me. My mouth actually begins to water as I remember how much I loved soup like this as a child, and then I think I’m about to cry. She begins to pray, and I listen.

“Dear Father, we thank you for our food and for how much you love us. I thank you for my young guest and her little cat. I pray that you will take precious care of both of them and keep them safe in your ever-loving arms. Amen.”

I repeat her “amen” and open my eyes. I want to tell her “thank you,” but the words seem lost inside me. Instead I pick up my spoon and hesitantly dip it into my soup. Then, worried that this is just a dream that will suddenly end, I quickly slurp a spoonful of the soup. But it tastes real. I feel the warm creamy fluid wrapping around my tongue, and I hurry for another spoonful.

I am afraid that Amelia is going to show up any minute now, and I know she will chastise me for being here. Or tell me that the soup’s been poisoned. However, I honestly believe that drinking delicious poison soup in a warm house might be preferable to diving off the bridge. I wonder what Amelia would say to that. Surprisingly, and to my relief, she doesn’t make an appearance.

I realize the Cat Lady is talking to me now, and I fear I have been rude not to answer.

“Pardon?” I am amazed that I still know how to use that word.

She smiles. “I asked your name, dear.”

I nod. “Alice. My name is Alice. And my cat’s name is Cheshire.”

She laughs. “Just like Alice in Wonderland.”

“Yes,” I manage to say. “That’s right.”

“My name is Faye, but lots of people call me the Cat Lady.”

“Yes. That’s what I heard.”

She laughs again, and I think her laughter sounds like tinkling bells. “I don’t mind the title,” she says. “There are worse things to be called, you know.”

I nod again. Yes, I know. There are things like “crazy girl” or “nut case” or “retard” or “loony” or “weirdo” or “whacked-out.” Suddenly I wonder if I’m saying this all out loud. But the Cat Lady, or rather Faye, is still smiling and eating her soup as if nothing whatsoever is wrong with me.

Suddenly she stands. “Goodness, I almost forgot our second course.”

She returns with two golden brown grilled cheese sandwiches, and I think I have actually died and gone to heaven. Her eyes seem to light up. “You like?”

I nod eagerly as she sets a sandwich on my side plate. “Thank you.”

She smiles. “It’s nice to see someone with a hearty appetite.”

“This is very good.” I am proud to have said this much.

“Thank you.”

We proceed to eat our meal quietly. This is a relief to me, for I am unsure that I can manage to carry on a conversation and eat at the same time. I am not very good at doing either of those things anymore, and to do them simultaneously in the company of another feels utterly impossible.

I can’t remember when I ever felt this stuffed, but I somehow manage to eat all my soup and most of the sandwich.

“I don’t have anything for dessert,” she says apologetically.

“I am so full,” I say, “I couldn’t eat anything else anyway.”

“Maybe we can have some tea later.”

I nod, wondering what “later” means. I wonder if I should offer to help clean up, but I don’t quite know how to say this. She stands and begins to pick up the dishes. I follow her and do the same. Then I join her at the sink, and without speaking I try to make myself useful. She seems to appreciate my help, and amazingly I don’t break anything. This is a relief, for I suspect her pretty, although mismatched, dishes might be valuable, at least to her.

“I think you should try to feed Cheshire again in about an hour,” she tells me after consulting the clock. “We can retire into the living room now.”

I walk into the living room and look around. Cats, cats everywhere. And where there are not real living cats, there are statues and pictures of cats. “You must really love cats,” I say.

She laughs as she eases herself into the big overstuffed chair, scooping the golden cat into her lap as she does this. “Have a seat, Alice. Feel free to move the cats as needed. They think they own the place, and I suppose in a way they do, but humans get first pick at the furnishings.”

I gently lift up the colorful calico that is nestled into the padded seat of a rocking chair. I set her in my lap and slowly begin to stroke her fur. “She’s pretty,” I say. “What’s her name?”

Faye smiles. “I see you know enough about cats to know that calicos are always females. Her name is Constance, but I call her Connie.”

“Hi, Connie,” I say quietly, shyly, as if the cat might be an uppity sort, the kind that snubs certain types of humans. But she seems to appreciate my fingers as I scratch the top of her head.

“So, tell me, Alice, do you have a home in Portland?”

I sigh and look back down at Connie, thinking it odd that a cat has a home, but I do not.

“I didn’t think so.” Faye puts her feet on a needlepoint footstool and leans back in her chair. “So many young people out on the streets these days. Such a shame.”

“Yes.”

“Have you been on your own for long?”

“Sort of.” I try to remember time, but the concept of months and days is confusing to me. “I’m not sure exactly. I was still going to school at Portland State during September or maybe October, I think. How long ago was that?”

She appears to be thinking. “Well, this is early December. So it’s been a couple of months.”

I nod as if this makes perfect sense.

“So you are a student?”

I frown. “I guess so. I mean I was back in BC anyway.”

“BC?”

“Before, I mean.” I glance away. That old nervousness is coming on me again, like floodwater rising steadily. I’m afraid she’s going to figure me out and send me away or else have me locked up.

She just nods, as if she understands. “Oh, I see. We all have a before, don’t we?”

“Yes. We do.”

We talk some more, but I’m finding it harder to stay on track. And I’m not sure whether I’m speaking or not. When I look at her face, she doesn’t seem to mind. She just goes on talking as if I’m really listening and responding in a normal fashion. Finally she looks at her
watch and announces it’s time to feed Cheshire again. I help her prepare the bottle this time, and she explains that it’s soy milk and vitamins, and very good for him. This time he seems to understand what he’s supposed to do and quickly downs the bottle. Already he’s looking a little bit better. I hold him like a baby and stroke his striped fur.

“Next time we’ll see if he can lap it from a saucer,” she tells me as she rinses out the bottle. “Then by tomorrow he might be ready for some soft food.”

“Oh.” Now I am unsure what I should do. Does this mean it’s time for me to go? Do I leave Cheshire here? Or take him with me?

As if reading my mind, and this does not surprise me at all, she says, “You and Cheshire can sleep in the spare bedroom. It’s a bit cluttered and messy in there, but the sheets on the bed are clean.”

“Really?”

I’m sure she sees my astonishment, because she pats my arm and looks me in the eyes and says,
“Really.”

“I need to go tend to some things, and then we can have our tea. Unless you’d prefer cocoa.” Her smile reminds me of a little girl’s. “I adore cocoa, but I almost never have it by myself. Cocoa seems like something you should share with someone else, don’t you think? Do you like cocoa, Alice?”

I nod. “Yes, I love cocoa.”

“Oh, good.” She shuffles down the hallway, and I carry Cheshire into the living room. I wonder what it is she needs to tend to. I hope she’s not on the phone telling the authorities to come pick me up. Somehow I don’t think she is. Still I’m not sure. I distract myself by introducing Cheshire to the other cats, but I only know three by name. Oliver, Juliet, and Connie. Then I show Cheshire the elaborate
scratching post that dominates one corner of the small living room. It has little carpet-covered boxes of varying colors—green, blue, and yellow—and carpet-covered poles that go clear to the ceiling. Right now the black-and-whites are playing tag on it. “You can play with them when you’re feeling better,” I promise him.

Finally Faye returns, and she has a plastic shopping bag with her. “Here,” she says as she hands me the bag. “Some overnight things for you.”

“Thank you.” I want to peek in the bag but fear that might be rude. Still, I am amazed at this woman’s kindness to me. Part of me believes I am imagining this whole thing or that I’m sleeping beneath an overpass and simply dreaming. But my reality is so blurry that I think perhaps it doesn’t matter where I really am.

“There are some bath things, if you’d like to bathe. And some pajamas and, well, whatnot. I see that you don’t have anything with you.”

I wonder if she thinks I am dirty. I
know
that I am. I know I must be disgusting. I haven’t bathed in … so long. And sometimes I feel people looking at me, and it embarrasses me when they scowl at me on the street, turning up their noses as if I smell bad. I probably do, although I can’t smell myself very well. I’m far better at detecting bad smells on others than with myself. A “bath.” I say the word as if it’s something magical.

She smiles. “I have a nice big tub, you know. You can put bubbles in it if you like.”

“A bubble bath?” I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a bubble bath in my entire life.

“I can take care of Cheshire while you bathe,” she offers, holding out her hands.

As if in a daze, I nod, then make my way to the blue bathroom. I’m sure this is a dream now. But I hope it will continue long enough for me to see the bubbles filling the tub. I must hurry before everything goes up in a poof and disappears and I am back on the street again.

The weird part is how it feels as though I am at home. Not home like where my mother lives, but home where I belong, like somebody really wants me.

I hope it’s not just my mind playing tricks on me.

chapter
TWENTY

Bubbles and Bones

I
t is very strange to remove my clothes. It has been so long that it feels as if I’m peeling off layers of my own skin, but I keep telling myself, no, these are just clothes and dirty clothes at that. I drop them into a sodden heap, then out of respect, I bend down and neatly fold them, stacking one thing on top of another. They are not much, I know, just filthy blue jeans and several various-size T-shirts that I have collected, along with my original sweatshirt and the coat from the Tweedles and my threadbare red slippers that Betty gave me. Still, they are all I have.

The claw-foot tub is full of hot water and bubbles now. Faye had included a box of bubbling bath salts in my plastic bag. The label on the box reads “April Violets,” and it’s sort of an old lady fragrance, but I think I like it anyway. Besides, it helps to cover up the ammonia smell of dirty cat boxes. I have counted them. There are six. I hope no kitties need to use the facilities while I’m in here because I locked the door.

The steamy bathroom has lots of framed pictures of cats hung haphazardly on the walls. They are the kind of pictures that come
from calendars. I begin to imagine that I am going to be swimming with all those cats. Maybe they are catfish and I am a mermaid. The mirror is so foggy that I can see only a blurred image of myself. I am thankful for this.

I try not to look at my bony rib cage as I lower myself into the steaming water. It is so hot that it stings my flesh, and I get goose bumps from the heat. Funny how the body reacts the same way to both hot and cold. I wonder what this means. Although I don’t like it, I have become somewhat accustomed to the cold lately. But being hot, now that is something altogether new to me. I’m not even sure I like it at first.

Slowly something comes over me, and I begin to relax a little—another new sensation. I lean my head into the back of the tub and slowly exhale. My tangled hair is trailing down into the water, floating around my shoulders like a fur collar. I try not to think about anything. I try to tune out the voices that are nattering away in the back of my brain. Even though they are quieter than usual right now, it’s a real challenge not to listen. But I focus my whole attention on the rhythm of my breathing, watching the luminescent bubbles as they rise and fall like the tide above my chest. My only goal is to absorb the warmth and the smell of violets as I allow myself to melt and meld into the silky water. Is this what it felt like to be in my mother’s womb? And what if I could stay like this forever? I think that I would.

I’m not sure how long I have stayed in the water, but my hands and feet are shriveled and pale, and the water has cooled into a dirty lukewarm pool that is about the same shade of gray as the Willamette River on a cloudy December day. For a moment I wonder if I am
really in the chilly river, but then I decide that I’m not. I think I should climb out before it’s completely cold. I dry myself off with a scratchy yellow towel that feels as if it’s been dried on a clothesline. I rub and rub, hoping to remove the last layers of crusty dirt that have become embedded in my body during the past few—what?—days, weeks, months, years? I cannot even remember.