Four

Until the woman I had begged to help me that morning came clicking into the shop, smartly tailored suit punctuated with Italian pumps. She walked up to the counter and I asked her what I could get for her and she appraised me coolly.

“My name is Barbara Hansen. You pounded on my door this morning holding a very sick cat. Perhaps you remember me?” I hadn’t recognized her. The last time I had seen her she had been unshowered, bedheaded, and in her bathrobe. Normal. Human. This woman looked like a lawyer for celebrities.

“Oh. Right.” My elation from scoring drinks with the hot delivery guy deflated. My shoulders sank into a slouch.

“Well, my husband took some personal time off from work and took the cat to the emergency veterinarian down the street. They had to remove three of its toes from its back left paw. They put a temporary cast on it, but you will need to pick it up as soon as you leave here and take it to its regular vet.” She rattled off what was expected of me and I felt myself shrinking into a tighter and tighter ball. “They’ll give you a copy of the bill when you get there. I also called the people you were house sitting for. I talked with the woman for a long time and we agreed that it would be best if you took the other cat with you and left it at the vet’s office with the other one. Call her back tonight to let her know that you have done these things.”

Jesus, it was like getting a lecture from my mother. Any shred of dignity I had left melted away under her leaden stare. He well-painted lips spoke my fate. I thought numbly of calling the woman later and the inevitable trip to the vet’s office and felt very tired and very old. No one had to worry about me being penitent for my sins. I had started on the Hail Marys already.

“And one more thing: I’m really sorry that this happened.”

I couldn’t believe it. For the second time that day, I was wowed by the humanism I found in unexpected places. I had inconvenienced this woman to the limits of her patience and she still understood, I think, how terrified I felt that morning and now how awful and sick I was feeling. She put her manicured hand over mine on the formica countertop and patted it gently. Then Barbara Hansen smiled a sad little smile and walked out of the coffee shop.

I felt the gratitude rush through me like caffeine consumed quickly. Or maybe it was caffeine consumed quickly, as I had just downed a cup before she got there.

Ha ha!

“What is going on with you today? You’re acting very…not you.” Aphroula had come up behind me and now licked the inside of her mug with her tiny tongue. She was always doing things like that. It drove the men crazy. Everything about her was tiny. She came up to maybe my nipples, if she was wearing heels. She had a sexy Greek accent and flirted with everybody that came into her coffee shop. People not only came back again and again, but lavished her with huge tips, flowers, candy, and other assorted presents. She always let me keep the tips. Until this last week of me and everybody else showing up late, she pretty much loved us all, calling me and my coworkers ‘her girls’ and let us give our friends free drinks as long as they sat for a while and talked to her. She said it was to make the place look full and busy, but I think it was because she was like me: she just liked the attention.

“Oh, I don’t know. I just have had a weird day.” I opened the milk fridge and did a mental count of how much I should have delivered the next day.

“Yeah? Who was that poofy lady you were just talking to? Are you in some, how do you say, legal trouble?” She had a way of inserting ‘how do you say?’ into every other sentence, even though she had lived in the US for over twenty years. It was so adorable when she said it. Even I was not immune to her mediteranian charms.

“No, she was just…” I stopped myself. I couldn’t let it slip that I had been late again this morning, mangled cat or not. “Inquiring about some house sitting thing.” She seemed to accept that, and sashayed over to the espresso machine to start herself another drink.

I had dodged one bullet, and made a hasty retreat to the storeroom to avoid any others that might be shot in my general direction.

After work I climbed in my boxy gray Dodge and drove in apprehension to the emergency vet clinic to pick up the new amputee. The assistant pursed her lips at me but didn’t exactly accuse me of anything out loud. But I could tell what she was thinking.

“Are you the owner of this animal?” she asked.

“No.”

“Am I to understand that we’ll be releasing it into your care?” It was something she clearly wasn’t comfortable doing. I wanted to grab her by the lapels and yell a coffee-scented clearing of my name directly into her brain, but instead I handed her the other vet’s information.

“I’m just dropping him off here at this other clinic until his owners come back to town.”

“Fine.” She turned on her heel and led me into a tiny room with a bank of cages and pens. “Here he is. If you’re going directly to the clinic,” and here she paused, to make sure I knew that was exactly what I was to do, no deviation, “then I’ll just put him in a disposable carrying case. We’ll fax his charts to the other doctor. You remember where the door is?” I watched her take a very small looking, scared gray kitten out of a cage and put him and his new enormous green cast into a chinese take-out box. I took it gingerly from her and headed out the door. When I dropped him at the other vet, I cried again, not for me this time, but just for him.

La la la

Stay tuned, I swear I'll remember to bring the disk with the next entry on it to work soon. I am still pounding out my holiday story on my other blog at http://www.schmangela.blogspot.com
so you should check that out while you're waiting for me to get off my ass and edit more of this story...

The Third Entry

People were sacrificing a meal to help me deal with a hideous situation that I had created for myself. I couldn’t believe it, but felt really great about the human race. My boss never even found out I was late. My customers all agreed to take an oath of silence about the whole incident, and maybe their reasoning was that because I had inadvertently been responsible for injuring an expensive animal, and felt badly about it, that it was punishment enough. I wholeheartedly agreed.

And so I made it through the morning. I made lattes, gave people the key for the bathroom, wiped down counters, and listened to Sting’s greatest hits about 10 times. I was feeling less sorry for myself, and more importantly, less hung over, when our whole bean coffee got delivered. The guy walked in the front door, bag of beans slung over his shoulder, looking a bit haggard. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his gaunt face had a sunken in look, like he had no sleep for several days, or was maybe just coming off a bender. He was just my type. I liked a man who showed his weaknesses, wasn’t ashamed to say, “I’m an alcoholic,” and then drink a beer and laugh about it.

He stood in line behind two old women who couldn’t decide what kind of tea they wanted. We had about 15 huge jars lining the counter all filled with exotic colorful tea leaves and herbs, and it really was kind of hard to choose when the presentation was so good. I had been shown an extraordinary amount of kindness so far that day, and let some of that goodwill spill over into my patience reservoir as the women debated the pros and cons of all the different choices.

The man with the bag of coffee shifted his weight from foot to foot, his load necessitating a lot of adjusting. The tea ladies were no closer to figuring out what they wanted and so I took action.

“You can just set those over here behind the counter,” I said to the delivery man.

“Huh? Oh. That would be great. They’re not heavy, just sort of awkward,” he replied, and started moving in behind the register. The long green countertop that separated me from him was suddenly gone, and I could see that he was thin, well dressed, and had a spray of barely perceptible freckles spattered across his nose.

He caught me studying him and I looked away, embarrassed to be making a physical assessment so soon after I had broken a lesbian’s heart and nearly killed a cat. But he didn’t know any of that, so I looked back over at him. He smiled warmly and brought his hand down on the coffee bag.

“I’ve got one more of these in the van,” he said. “I’ll go grab it. Here’s the bill. You guys pay cash on delivery, right?” His eyes flashed playfully.

“If that’s the way you like it,” I giggled and struck a flirtatious pose.

“We’ll both share a pot of the rose hip and hibiscus tea with a slice of lemon each, if you won’t charge us extra.” The old ladies sure could speak up at the exact wrong moment.

I got them their tea, and didn’t charge them for the lemons, brought their cups to their table, and got back to review the delivery man’s bill just as he walked in the door with the rest of the shipment.

“Same place?” he asked.

“Um…yeah. Actually, could you just open that other one and help me put it in this bin? I’m nearly out of house blend.” I tried to engineer something to keep him here a bit longer and the attention on me. I looked alright, even though I hadn’t showered that morning. The earlier crying jags had given my face a sort of pink, healthy hue.

I watched him load up the coffee bin and then stand, arms folded. He looked at me. I looked back. He smiled. I smiled. I felt like a dope. I had no idea how he was feeling.

“We just have one more thing to take care of here,” he said, and I blushed, thinking I was going to be asked out for a drink. Maybe I’d accept. I certainly didn’t want to go back to my apartment tonight, and maybe he’d buy, and then I’d tell him the story of the Cat Who Almost Lost His Leg.

“And what might that be?” I raised one eyebrow and looked over my wire-rimmed glasses at him.

“The bill. You haven’t paid me yet.”

Shit. He just wanted the money. I felt like a loser, and quickly opened the cash register and counted out a bunch of twenties. All business now, and humiliated, I signed the invoice and pretended to adjust the steaming wands on the espresso machine, like it was the most important job in the world.

“Thanks. See you next time.” He smiled, but only professionally, I could see now. Of course. He’s in and out of coffee shops all day. There are hundreds of cute girls just dying for a man that looks like he’d be perfect if only he’d let the right woman try to fix him. And I played into it like an amateur. I hadn’t seen him before, the regular delivery guy was old and quite large, but hopefully he was just a temp or something and I wouldn’t be reminded week after week of my seriously flawed girlish behavior. Things like this were reason enough to drink in the afternoon.

I turned around and started to move the bags of coffee under the counter, when the front door opened. I stood up and smiled, ready to ask what kind of milk they preferred in their mocha, when I realized it was him. He was back. I felt the stupid boy-crazy rush all over again. And he really did have a great smile. And those freckles…

“Hey,” I said, nonchalantly flipping my hair back over my shoulder. “What’s up?”

“Yeah. It’s a long drive to my next delivery, and I was wondering if I could get the key to your restroom.” It was a statement, not a question. I wouldn’t deny this man anything anyway. I handed him the key, a large metal doohickey hanging off the key ring so people wouldn’t put it in their pocket and walk out the door with it.

“Sure, here you go,” I said, and decided that I could still take control of this situation if I wanted to. “That’s what you came back for? I thought you came back for my phone number.”

He stopped dead, smile frozen, both our hands still on the key appendage. He regained his composure, but I could see that I had surprised him. This was a man who was used to having the upper hand, and I had just seen his bet and raised the stakes. He straightened up and called my bluff.

“Sure. Why not?”

I wrote it down on a receipt from an order pad and handed it to him with a flourish.

“Thanks,” he said. “When did you want to get together?”

“How about after I’m done with work tonight.” A statement, not a question. It was my way of calling his cards.

“Great. I’ll call you? My name’s Ray, by the way.” He stuck out his hand for a shake, which I took and gave him my best man-type business grip.

“Angela,” I returned, and was all flirty and smiles again. “Nice to meet you Ray. You’re definitely the cutest delivery boy I see around here.’

He blushed and broke my gaze.

Yes! I had won the battle of nerves. We had made a date. He had looked away first. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

Apologies and Schedule

A short explanation of why I haven't been posting regularly here:

I had originally thought that I would just blog my novel for National Novel Writing Month directly onto this site. Things went great for two days. I was feeling good about what I had to say. On the third day, I realized that people who star in my little dramatic life might possibly get upset at me recreating their most horrible moments and posting them for the world to see. Also, I had started to write the banal stuff that usually makes up most first drafts. So, I have decided to wait to post here until I have finished the entire first draft, when I will go through and change names, fictionalize certain details, and just generally attempt to excise the worst of the bad dialogue, and then, I promise, I will post again. Please keep checking back here, it shouldn't be too long.

Rest assured, however, that what I have so far is over a hundred pages of dramatic, gossipy relationship crap that, brutal at the time, has morphed into what I hope will be a funny version of the life of my marriage. Please note that my ex was not available for comment, as I have not attempted to run any of this by him.

The Second Entry

I woke up to the sound of Mary slamming the front door. I looked at the Light-Brite red of my digital clock and shut my eyes. The flashing 6:34am stayed behind my eyelids and tried to tell me something. I wondered vaguely what day it was. Then I realized that I should have opened the coffee shop almost an hour ago. Sitting up, I remembered the cats. Fuck. I should have checked on them last night. I should have stayed with them last night. Oh God. The edges of my vision got gray and fuzzy in that special way that is only caused my gut-rot red wine.

Peeling off my clothes and scrambling into new ones, I checked for pillowcase creases on my face. Nothing that wouldn't’t fade in the time it took me to get to work. I crammed a stick of gum in my mouth, grabbed my keys, and bolted for the car.

My mind was a sickening blend of hang-over and the realization that I was a horse’s ass. I mean, what kind of person acts like I did? Don’t answer that. I vowed to never drink again, a promise I made every day that would last until about 6 that evening, when I was released from job #2 waiting tables at the elegant Papa Hayden. All the other cool server-types would sit around in the bar, counting their tips and chain smoking, flirting with the bartender for free drinks. I was no different. It was part of the lifestyle of working in the food industry. You could try to fight it, but you wouldn't last long. I certainly didn’t.

I screeched to a halt and double-parked in front of the apartment the cats lived in. I ran up the stairs and flung open the door.

"I will never drink again. I will be nicer to my friends. I will apologize to Mary and let her have that vintage dress of mine that she’s always liked. I will never-" and I stopped short, the dialogue in my head cut off like a head injury. One of the kittens was in the dining room. The only rule of the house was that the animals were to remain in the sun room at all times. They had everything they needed in there, and weren't supposed to be out in the house at large. Too much stuff to get into. Too much trouble to be caused. The day before I had refilled their water dish and securely fastened to door to the sunroom, started to walk away, and then returned to double check. When I left, it had been shut tight and the kittens had been batting at each other’s tails in the fading sunlight. Now, here was the smaller one, sitting perfectly still, tail wrapped regally around its feet, looking at me as if to say, "Asshole."

I broke out of my trance and scooped her up. "Where is your brother?" I asked her, not expecting an answer, but with a feeling of unease starting to spin tight in my stomach. She meowed.

I deposited her in the sunroom and looked around for her sibling. No sign of him. I looked under the couch and spotted it: a hole that had been masking taped over, the tape now in shreds and moving with the breeze from the air conditioner. She meowed again.

A faint meow echoed back at us, and my panic blossomed fully. I followed the sound of the tiny cry into the bathroom and nearly passed out.

Now I know that people say that a lot. It’s a cliché, in fact. No matter what little curveball gets thrown, people are always ‘almost passing out.’ But I shit you not.

Look: here we have a tiny seven month old Russian Blue kitten hanging by the mangled shreds of what used to be his left hind leg from the toilet seat he had crawled up on and batted at, which had then fallen on him, pinning him in his current predicament. There was surprisingly little blood. He looked at me and let out a feeble meow, front paws waving. My heart fell and shattered against the cold stone floor of my absolute horror. I had never ever felt anything like this and would have done anything to have never been there in the first place. I dove for the toilet and lifted the lid, cradling the unfortunate kitty as he came unstuck from the porcelain. Then he did start to bleed, and I noticed he was shaking, and really not looking very good at all. He was probably thinking the same thing about me.

I ran out into the kitchen and stood over the sink, hoping to find an answer in the drain. None came.

I was seriously fucked. I was late for work for the second day in a row, bordering on being fired, Mary hated my guts, and now I had what amounted to a mutilated cat in my arms in a stranger’s house that I was supposed to be in charge of. I should have never taken the job. I needed the money, but I couldn’t take care of someone else’s pets. I couldn’t take care of myself. And now look what happened.

I started to cry. For myself, yes, I was that self-pitying, but also for the kitten, who was still shaking and whose leg was not spontaneously regenerating as I had hoped. I rushed out the front door; cat bundled close, and thought about what I was going to do. I had no friends in Portland; all I did was work and drink. My boss at the coffee shop had been royally pissed when I was late the day before, costing her hundreds of dollars in missed sales. I wanted to get in my car and drive to the emergency animal clinic, but realistically, I needed job #1.

I got to the car and turned around, eyes wild, and ran for the nearest door and banged on it with my free hand.

“Someone please help me! I’ve got this cat here and this leg and oh! Help! Please!” My sobbing and pounding brought a bleary woman to the door in her robe. “I never wanted this to happen! I’m not a bad person!” I screamed at her. She was clearly seasoned in dealing with nut jobs, because she opened the door and let me show her the cat.

“Where did you find him?” she asked.

“He was hanging from the toilet upstairs and I have to get to work or I’ll get fired and please help me..." I was seriously losing it.

She got her husband to join her. She took the kitten, who kept crying, but weaker now, and we all agreed that I should just go to work and they would take time off from their adult jobs to deal with this and that they would be by the coffee shop to tell me what was going on. They would also be expecting to have “a talk” with me later. The woman made me give her the number of the cat’s owners, which I surrendered humbly, and knew that I was entering a realm of irresponsibility previously unknown to me. The kind of thing I read about in the tragic novels I hunched over at the coffee shop when it was slow.

If it was possible to be something worse than a horse’s ass, then I had just become it.


I slunk into work feeling like the blood had been drained out of my body and replaced with maple syrup.

It was almost 8am, and there were people milling around outside the front door, checking their watches and putting their hands up to the fingerprint smeared glass, trying to peak inside. I started a pot of coffee, turned on the espresso machine, and opened the front door.

“Well, it’s about time you got here. Where have you been? I’m going to be late for work because you weren’t here on time.” I had seen this lady around. I could have had her drink and favorite pastry ready to go before she asked for it, and not charged her a penny and she still would have given me the third degree. This made her diatribe a little easier to swallow. Other people behind her were in general agreement, but softened up when I told them about the cat.

“Is he going to be alright?” the nurses from the hospital across the street asked, and took up a collection to help pay for the vet bill, which was going to be big. This gesture touched me, in a place I thought I had been denied eternal access to, and I broke down crying all over again when they handed me the envelope stuffed with ones and fives. Some of that money was probably meant for people’s lunches.

Due to technical difficulties, I will not be able to post for about a week. But fear not! As soon as internet access is captured for my personal den of iniquity, I will be able to post many many words...

Word count up to day 2: 5126

The First Entry

The morning we met I was abuzz with adrenaline and guilt from accidentally crushing the hind leg of one of the show cats I was supposed to be watching. Well, they weren’t show cats yet. They were technically still kittens, cute, dust-bin gray, with blue-tipped boots and tails. They were Russian, and very expensive. I was turning out to be a bad cat sitter.

I had spent the night at my apartment instead of the house with the cats, as my roommate had just confessed her undying love for me that afternoon, and I felt that this needed my complete attention. We talked through most of the night, drinking cheap Chilean wine straight out of the bottle. Her argument was that she was not just a Catholic school girl testing out the bubbly waters of lesbianism, but that she was truly, deeply, and profoundly in love with me. So much so that she was willing to put up with my rising alcoholism, my blatant disregard for her feelings, and my tendency to bring home strange men.

“But see, I love you,” she said, wiping the tears from her rosy cheeks and clasping the bottle of wine to her chest. Her recently shorn locks were still thick, rich and buttery. The blond highlights caught the flickering candlelight and gleamed.

“Mary. Listen to me. It will not work. I am so emotionally unavailable that the number for my heart is unlisted. I won’t even give it to myself.” This was the wine talking. I had a flair for bathos when drinking heavily, like any other college dropout just old enough to buy booze at the store, proudly flipping out my newly minted driver’s license and smirking at the clerk as he did the math.

“But…I…” and she dissolved into tears again, body wracked with real pain, not believing, like most people the first time they get their heart broken, that it could ever happen to them.

It didn’t matter to Mary that my brief forays into same-sex relationships had never included her. We had always been just friends. She was 18, just out of high school, and settling into her sexuality with her eyes wide and dewy, like the innocent forest creature she was. I was 21, and convinced that my three years of seniority made me infinitely more mature and wise. That was also mostly the wine talking.

“Listen,” I said putting my hand on her shoulder in a way that I hoped was supportive but not suggestive. “There’s a woman out there for you who will love you and treat you like you deserve to be treated. But I am not that woman. You’re so young, just a girl really,” and here I struck a pose, furrowing my brow in an attempt to convey that I knew what I was talking about. “And you aren’t ready for me, or anyone like me. I’ve got problems. Emotional baggage. I’m toxic, actually, now that I’m giving it real thought.” I took a slug of wine and coughed unattractively, hoping to drive home my point. Something I said had the desired effect on her, because she narrowed her eyes at me and lowered her head, face wet and flushed with anger.

“You sound just like a man,” she growled, her voice dangerously soft. I started to think that maybe drinking during this exchange had been a bad idea.

Mary stood up, wobbled on her new high heels, an affectation meant to impress me, I think, to make her seem sexy and more grown-up, and pitched forward. They were cute, really, the shoes. Shiny black with just a small two inch heel. Sort of clunky but expensive. She reached out with her arms to break her fall, but refused to let go of the wine bottle, which struck a potted plant to the right of me, baseball bat style, and dead leaves jumped ship and scattered all over the floor.

“Here, let me help you.” I tried to take her arm and prop her upright, but she recoiled and yelped.

“NO! Don’t touch me.” She smoothed her skirt with one hand and regained her composure. “In fact, I’d like to be alone.” She teetered again on her shoes, but stayed upright. She took a few steps out of what she considered to be my grasp and continued. “I’m sure there’s some guy you could stay with tonight.” It was supposed to be a dig, but I felt glamorous and adult when she spat it at me. Yes, there were actually a few men I could call.

Then I decided to remain in the spotlight for just a little bit longer, as emotionally damaged people are apt to do when they feel the glow of drama fading. I grabbed Mary’s arm and pulled her towards me, her eyes getting big, mascara running garishly down her cheeks, mouth open in surprise and what was probably shock, although at the time I thought she was being coy and disguising it as protest. I gripped her rigid neck with my other hand and kissed her, hard. Nose smashed against her face, I thought, “This looks sexier on TV than it feels in real life.”

She pushed me away using the wine bottle for extra leverage, the mouth of the green glass a small, toothless guard dog.

“Ow! What the hell did you do that for? That really hurt!” Obviously, she should have punched me in the stomach and then maybe spit on me when I fell to the floor.

“Just stay away from me.” She sounded defeated now, broken in some essential way, and I suppose she had no other way to sound. I had just broken her Christmas ornament heart and then tried to toy with whatever was left of her dignity by fucking with her head. Maybe I should have just punched her in the stomach. A good catfight would have simplified and truncated this whole mess. But this twisted little scene could go on for hours.

I turned towards my bedroom and wrestled with the doorknob. I could feel the quarter-sized mark on my ribs where Mary had nailed me with the bottle. It was going to bruise like a hickie. I deserved it.

I collapsed onto my bed and spun, in the merry-go-round style of drunks, into sleep.

hey kids, you can check out my post-divorce life and whatnot at http://schmangela.blogspot.com, although it will be pretty much abandoned through the end of this next month...