I?
A loud meow distracts me and I whip my head toward the noise.
And see the tortoiseshell halfway up the dining room curtains. “Oh, for God’s sake. There you are. Where are your friends?”
The doorbell rings as the tortoiseshell continues talking, as if to say, “Hey, look at me, I can climb!” I head to the door, shuffling my feet so as not to step on a kitten along the way.
It’s Rory, carrying a grocery bag of food for Sunday brunch. “Watch where you walk!”
She studies my face. “Huh?”
“The kittens got out of the box and I don’t know where they are.” The tortoiseshell meows and I cock my head in his direction. “Well, I know where one is.”
“Oooh, I love what you’ve done with the curtains.” Rory comes in and we start looking for the kittens. She finds one under the couch while the other two are busy playing on a chair with a hair scrunchy.
The tortoiseshell protests as I pull him off the curtains. “Okay, I need a bigger cardboard box.”
Rory rolls her eyes as she holds two of the kittens. “Uh, you do know that cats can climb trees, right?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“They’ll just climb out of a bigger box. They have claws.”
“Oh, right.”
“They’re obviously bored and tired of being cooped up. They want to play and explore. Cats have that curiosity thing hardwired into them. You’re gonna have to let them out.”
“Well I can’t have them running around the house getting underfoot. I might accidentally step on one. And I can’t have them climbing up the curtains.”
“Put ‘em in that spare room. All you’ve got in there is exercise equipment. It’s a warm, sunny room and they can run around and play. But make a bed for them so they can snuggle.”
“So now the kittens are getting their own room.”
Rory nods and shoots me a smile. “They’re like the camel asking to stick its nose under the tent. Pretty soon you’ll be asking them for space.”
Befitting my mood, it’s raining heavily as I drive home on Monday evening.
Below the speed limit. (Not a good thing to do in New York if you don’t want the bird flipped at you.)
My emotional roller coaster has sucked the life out of me. And my lead foot. I’ve become like those zombies I see in Grand Central about to go home on the train, one of the commuting undead.
The moment I gave my boss my decision, I began to second guess myself.
Back and forth all day.
I did the right thing.
Or did I?
I pull into my driveway and trudge up the steps, head down. Inside I find Rory working on her laptop. She looks up and studies my face. “Uh-oh. I know that look.”
I shake my head as I attempt to hang up my raincoat, but I miss the hook and it falls to the floor.
I roll my eyes and leave it there.
She gets up and moves toward me. “Well? What did you decide?” She grabs my raincoat off the floor and hangs it up.
“I’m not on Air Force One, am I?”
She flashes a wide smile, then gives me a hug. “I’m proud of you.”
“Are you still proud of me if I tell you I’ve been wondering if I made the wrong decision all day?”
She breaks the embrace and leans back. “Yep. You can replay it all you want. Bottom line, you did the right thing. Freckles, you’ve got nothing to prove. You’ve already reached the top of the food chain in your career. Covering the guy in the White House for several months cannot be that appealing.”
“I guess. Y’know, funny thing I discovered about my chosen profession today that I never noticed before. People will eat their young for a promotion. Right after I told my boss I was turning down the assignment he threw it open to anyone who wanted to toss his hat in the ring.”
“I thought he was gonna give it to that woman you hate?”
“Perhaps the higher-ups realized she’s a brainless bimbo. Anyway, you should have heard my cohorts bad-mouthing one another all day, trying to get the assignment.”
“So who got it?”
“They hadn’t decided when I left.”
“Ah, so you’re thinking it’s not too late to change your mind.”
“Actually, I’m not. I’m thinking that the people in the news business need souls.”
“Well, you’re okay in that department, Freckles. Yours is beautiful.”
A loud meow from behind distracts me. “Aren’t the kittens in the spare room?”
Rory looks past me and points. “That’s not one of your kittens.”
I turn and see a soaking wet cat in the window, shivering and crying. “Awww. Poor thing got stuck in the rain.” I move to the window and open it. The cat dashes in and immediately shakes, sending a spray of water everywhere. But it’s still shivering. I grab a towel from the bathroom and kneel down to begin drying it off. “Talk about a drowned rat. Okay, kitty, you can stay here till the rain stops.”
And then it hits me.
White cat with one blue eye and one green eye.
And a red collar.
“Rory, I know this cat!”
“Huh?”
“She’s been lost. Belongs to a little girl I met at A.J.’s deli.” I quickly run to the kitchen and grab the flyer I’d put on the bulletin board, then head back to the living room and hand it to Rory, who has taken over cat drying duties. “Her name is Snowflake.”
The cat meows and looks up at me when I say her name.
Rory looks at the flyer. “Well, one little girl is gonna be real happy.”
I grab my phone and call the number on the flyer. It goes to voicemail so I leave a message. “Nobody’s home.”
“The cat is probably hungry.”
“I don’t have any adult cat food. I’ve
