CHAPTER FOUR
The small, gray cat sat on Parker’s windowsill, smashed against the glass in a ball, looking like he lost his paws and tail to the cold. Parker was going about his morning routine and he never thought to look out the window. It was a Saturday, his head and ribs had healed in the last three weeks, and he was on his way out to buy a copy of the magazine he worked for. The new edition had come out that day, at two in the morning, and he wanted to read his latest article over coffee.
He liked to imagine his father reading his printed words after he’d shoveled the driveway in his Detroit suburb. His parents had retired from the city life ten years ago. His father was in his sixties, and would have worked into his nineties, but he’d had a lucky break with the stock market. Parker still wasn’t sure what his father had done to support his family. He only knew Dad had worn a tie and did “office work.” His mother had never known a job. He smiled at himself in the bathroom mirror as he imagined her deep voice say, “Other than raising two boys and taming a house, you mean.” Then he remembered the way she had looked in her coffin at the funeral, an image that came every time he thought of her. He wished he had never seen that still face, that he could associate only living memories of her when he remembered her.
He walked through the living room and stopped, feeling he was being watched. He looked around, stopping his gaze on Missy’s photo, then went into the kitchen for his keys and a ten-dollar bill. The cat propped his paws up on the screen and pushed on the glass. His mouth opened and closed without sound, a furry mime.
The November temperature had dropped below freezing during the night.
After throwing back one cup of coffee, Parker walked to the corner of 6th Street and Kepler, nodding to the old man and woman he had been buying periodicals from for years. He had never learned their names, and wondered on this day as he handed them ten dollars (“Keep the change”) if they rubbed each other’s mitten-clad hands to keep warm from the cold. Was there love still between them? Did their matching braided-silver wedding bands he had spied in the summer time mirror the similarity of their souls?
He realized he was quite excited about himself and his article as he walked away, because he was thinking such romantic thoughts. Everything in the world had been compared to love. He laughed like a giddy girl with a crush as he rolled the magazine and, with it, slapped his bare hand. He still hadn’t replaced his gloves.
Back at his apartment, he poured the last of the coffee, adding a kiss of cream, kicked off his shoes and sat on the couch. He took a slight sip, sucking in air along with the coffee in order to cool the thimbleful he received, propped his feet on the coffee table, and opened the magazine. He turned the pages one at a time, as though he’d never seen such a contraption. He blushed like looking at his first centerfold, feeling warmth spread across the skin of his chest as he saw his name under his article’s title in the table of contents. It was an old reaction that never went away or lessened. “Like the flush of true love,” he muttered, and then laughed. He hoped he never stopped getting excited.
The fire escape rattled behind him like the wind had decided to dance there. He almost turned around to see if it was still there, but the dazzle of his name in ink kept him from distraction. On the way through the magazine he read a line about rain forests, an advertisement for stereo speakers, a blip about something in Italian food that is good for the body. As he reached the desired page, he heard it again - a rattle from behind him - this time sounding like two well-paid wrestlers in a cage.
Someone knocked on the window. Rap-rap.
He dropped the magazine to his feet and he turned around to see what was happening to his fire escape.
There was Cleo, in a huge, long, black skirt and wrapped in a brown blanket, her thin eyebrows raised, head tilted, looking at him like he owed her money for the article. He stared back at her without moving. When she knocked again, rap-rap, as urgent as a nurse wanting to go on smoke break, he realized that in her other hand she cuddled a small, gray cat.
He almost took the Lord’s name in vain again, but his skull throbbed once as a reminder before the thought could cross his lips. He turned and hopped on the couch on his knees, unlocked and opened the window, and leaned into the screen as he asked, “What are you doing here?”
She stroked the cat’s head. “I was under the impression from your article that you wanted to see me.” She held up the gray. “Your cat’s freezing. Shouldn’t let him out in this weather. It’s twenty-eight degrees out.”
He stared at the cat like it was a green alien infant, pointing toward it until his finger was blocked by the screen. “I’ve never seen that.”
Her blue eyes glowed as she looked down at the feline. “Oh. Not yours, you think. It’s a he. Are you going to invite this odd couple in for a coffee, or are you going to watch us like we’re street performers?”
“Oh.” He ripped the screen off the window, and the sound was only masked by his loud apology. As she hiked up her skirt and climbed inside, he said, “Why didn’t you come to my front door?”
She dropped onto the couch, draping her skirt over hairy legs. “Thought I’d make an entrance worth writing about.” She let the cat out of her arms. He jumped to the floor and looked up at Parker, as if to say, nice place.
Parker put the screen back and closed the window. “Where did you get it? Him?”
“He was on your windowsill. Didn’t you see him?”
“He’s so small.”
“He’s still a kitten. I’d say, five months old. Do you have any meat?”
“I…” The gray continued to watch him with dark green eyes. Parker thought he saw a halo of blue around the skinny pupils. He clapped his hands once together and held them. “I have lunch meat. Ham.”
“Good enough,” she said, then pointed across the room to a doorway. “That the kitchen?”
“Yes.”
She looked at him, leaning forward as expectantly as the kitten. He looked from her eyes, to the turban hiding her hair, to the cat, then back to the turban.
“Well, reporter?”
“Of course.” He patted his pants pockets. “Yes, coffee. Ham for the cat.” His guests followed him to the kitchen. He heard Cleo trample over the magazine.
He began preparing the coffee at the counter as a slight sweat broke out on his back. “Why did you come, Cleo?” He looked back at her.
“Shocked?” She smiled.
“Yes.”
The kitten sat next to Parker’s feet as he scooped coffee into the filter.
Cleo spoke again. “I read your article last night. A friend brought it to me.”
He dumped the little drop that was left in the coffee pot and rinsed it in the sink, glad that the water overtook the space their voices would were they to talk for a moment. How had she found out about the article so quickly? He breathed deeply and wriggled his shirtsleeves.
He turned off the tap and asked, “Did you like it, or are you here to yell at me for something?” It was the kind of comment that would have made Missy push him off a curb and into traffic.
Cleo’s voice was touched with humor rather than irritation. “I was impressed.”
“Really?” He sounded unconvinced as he started the coffee maker.
“Yes, I was,” she said.
“Mah,” from below.
Parker looked down at the gray beggar. “Oh, sorry,” he said to it, and he opened the refrigerator next to him. He dropped three slices of ham onto a paper towel and put it on the floor. He could feel cold coming from the creature when it ran forward to the food, brushing Parker’s fingers. Parker pulled his hand back, stood up and looked at Cleo. She was examining his place mat. He said, “You liked it?”
“A woman picked these out.” Without looking up, she added, “He’s thirsty.”
“Oh.” Parker pulled a half-gallon of milk out of the fridge.
“Give him water.”
“Oh. Right.” He filled a coffee mug that read Bob Hates Mondays with ta
p water and put it next to the ham.
He looked at Cleo again. “Should I get him dessert and a latte?”
“You’re an honest reporter.” She met his eyes. “I like that. You even wrote how you were an ass to me, and didn’t try to make yourself out to be anything.”
He leaned back on the counter and folded his arms. The coffee dripped. The cat’s gums smacked like muted tap shoes. “What color is your hair?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Is it black?”
“Men often try not to have a vocabulary. Can’t you be more descriptive?”
Parker smiled. “Why else did you like my article?”
“You made a very poetic plea for my life story.”
His lips stayed tight, but seemed to twist like a branch in a cold breeze as they watched each other across the kitchen. The coffee perked. He said, “I know you’ve slept past dawn before. I want to know when and where and why.”
She pinched her chin and nodded at his coffee maker. “I don’t like cream.”
“The why is what I really want to know.”
The coffee let out a final, steamy breath. The kitten was creeping around on the floor in a crouch, head bobbing like it was loose, nose devouring every scent that had ever crossed the tile.
She propped her elbows on the table. “Just because I’m homeless?”
He filled two blue mugs with coffee. “I thought you read my article.”
“I want sugar.”
He put the mugs and a sugar bowl on the table. He said, “Aren’t you going to mention that they match the place mats?”
“A lady doesn’t point out such things.”
From the living room, they heard, “Mah.”
CHAPTER FIVE