it jingled open with our next customer. Not wanting to show the kittens off too soon, I hurried down the aisle, toward the middle of the store, saying softly to the kittens, “And this is the place where bestsellers that aren’t end up…the remainder rack. Followed by the place I like best, the used books. You smell the other kitties on these, don’t you,” I found myself saying, as the two kittens leaned forward, their pointed faces seemingly scanning the hundreds of mixed paperbacks and hard-bounds, their moist pink noses working vigorously. I supposed that the smell was enticing to a cat; all those hand-oils rubbed on the worn, cracked spines, not to mention the hundreds of other things which had either rubbed onto the books, or had been spilled on them at one time or another…perhaps they’d even made contact with food. Plus the previous bookstore cats had undoubtedly rubbed against them, maybe even (even as I hoped they hadn’t!) sprayed them. The layers of scent here had to be akin to cat heaven for them.
But as they sniffled the rows of books as I walked slowly down the aisle, I found myself trying to look at the store through their eyes—I’d read up enough about cats to know that they probably did see all colors, albeit not as intensely as humans, so I wondered what they made of Rik’s color-coded filing system, that flowing sweep of blues into reds. Perhaps they noticed the unexpected highs and lows of paperbacks standing next to hard-covers and vice versa, the pleasant undulation of assorted books nestled close—but not so close that you’d have to pry the books off the shelf—for row upon row. Did they notice the abrupt gaps on some shelves, where he’d left some space for the other cats? Or were they merely sensing the traces of old odors on the books?
I did find myself wondering how high a five-foot tall bookcase might seem to a young kitten—would they want to climb from shelf to shelf, seeking the lofty flatness of the top of each bookcase, or would they scurry in fear between the aisles? I also wondered what would happen when Oscar and April finally noticed that they had feline company—I could picture the kittens puffing out like blowfish, rising high on their toes, before backing away from the older gray tabbies…but then again, the lovebirds seemed to have eyes only for each other, so perhaps they might not notice the kittens at all. They certainly hadn’t noticed the Heinlein mice.…
Acting almost as one, the kittens suddenly wanted out of my arms, and jumped down before the lone bookcase positioned along the far narrow wall of the store, close to the back room where I kept the food and litter-pans, as well as whatever incoming books I hadn’t sorted yet. I seldom had customers wanting children’s books, so I routinely placed those titles in the back.… I supposed these books were the most highly-scented, especially since children are wont to try to eat and read at the same time, for Scooter and Mittens were all over the books, rubbing against them, standing up on their hind paws to smell the exposed spines of each book, then batting at them with their mitten feet. “No, no, bad kitties…don’t tear the books,” I said, and they actually stopped. As one, both of them sitting in place, merely staring at the books, before looking up at me with that ubiquitous “Who, us?” cat stare.
Yet, there was something eager about them, apart from mere kitten high spirits. As if they couldn’t wait to explore the bookstore—
“—a nice day,” Rik was telling the departing customers, as I hurried to the front of the store, taking backwards glances every couple of steps to make sure the kittens weren’t following me. They seemed content to sit near the lone children’s shelf.
“”Rik, I think they’d be better off locked in the back room, until you leave this afternoon. I’d hate to have them run out into traffic—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that…they know they’re supposed to stay here. Jake as in and out of the apartment all this morning, and they stayed put there—”
“‘There’ isn’t here, though. And your apartment opens out into a hallway, right? That’s not like the street—”
“Not to worry…they’ll stay put,” Rik persisted, while cupping the head of my white and gray cat pencil holder with his be-ringed left hand—with every other word, his rings clanked against the ceramic head of the holder. Nerves?
“Well, I’d feel a lot better if they slept in the back, for the first couple of days at least,” I persisted. “Even if they are alley kittens, now that they’re here, they’re the store kitties, and I’d hate to think of anything bad happening to them so soon. Remember how sad all the regulars were when Chatty and Muffin passed on?”
“Not just the regulars.” Rik kept on clanking his rings on my poor ceramic cat, until I figured out a way to get him out from behind the counter. “Rik, come here…look down that aisle—”
The Hemingway kittens were both studying the spines of the children’s books before them, their heads moving in unison as they scanned the vertical titles one by one. Even if they weren’t littermates, they had to have spent time together before they were caught or bought or whatever Rik did to obtain them. Their behavior was so similar.…
“That is so adorable…and so strange,” I found myself whispering, as if I were in a library, and not my own store.
“They’re just smart,” Rik said a little too quickly, then added, “Probably trying to figure out which ones say ‘Food’…just kidding. I do wish I had a camera—”
“We do,” I said, remembering the disposable one we’d found in the back book racks last summer, with only a couple of frames of film exposed. No one had come in for it, and I’d almost forgotten it was sitting on a shelf behind the counter—
“Here, let me,” Rik whispered, taking the camera from me and slowly advancing the next frame forward, before crouching down and waiting for the instant flash to warm up, then clicked the button and snapped one shot…then, when the kittens didn’t move, he duck-walked closer to them, and took another picture.
I could just imagine what the picture would look like—two, perfectly posed kittens, their beautiful pointy ears at attention, as they seemed to peer at the books before them, while surrounded by the warm, worn wooden floor, the polished wooden book shelf, and the primary-bright colors of the narrow-spined children’s books…just the sort of picture one might submit to a cat food calendar contest.
Wanting to get a closer look at them, I stepped as lightly as I could in clumpy-lumpy boots down the aisle, but the magical image was gone as the two kittens turned their heads my way, and Scooter began to yawn. Luckily, Rik was able to capture the moment; the camera whizz-whirred and there was a bright, brief flash of white light. Mittens was frightened by the light and ran off toward the back room. Sensing that this might be a good time to shut Scooter up there, too, I reached down and scooped him up, telling him, “Your sister or whatever she is shouldn’t be scared…you tell her it’s all right to be photographed, ok?”
Scooter stared at me solemnly, as if mentally digesting my words.
But when I tried to walk into the back room, he reached out with both front paws and tried to hold onto the door frame, as if to prevent me from locking him up.
“See, he wants to stay out a while…don’t you Scooter?”
Scooter looked Rik’s way, then looked back at me, his green eyes glowing. Closing time wasn’t for another couple of hours, so I supposed I could watch him until Rik was getting ready to close the store—
Rik continued to take care of the last customers of the day as I carried Scooter around the store, talking to him softly as I showed him the sets of nesting cats (some with tiny solid-wood mouse centers) stationed on some of the shelves, and the framed cat pictures, some cut from those calendars featuring famous Impressionist or Pre-Raphaelite paintings reconfigured
