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.