male companionship?
“Do you like football?” she asked.
Joe looked up in surprise. “Yeah, you?”
“No, but Max… Well, I think Max likes football. Do you drink beer?”
“Not a lot. I mean, I’m not an alcoholic, if that’s what you’re asking.” He was eying her with perplexity now. A little afraid.
“I think Max likes beer. Not drinking beer, but sitting on a person’s lap when he drinks beer.”
“Okay.” More perplexity. “Do you have any beer?”
“I don’t know. I’ll check.” She ran to the kitchen, dress and apron swirling. Yes, a couple of bottles in the back of the refrigerator. “It says I should have drunk these a year and a half ago!” she shouted, then turned to find the man right behind her.
“Doesn’t really matter, since this is just a test.” He slipped the bottle from her grasp. She dug an opener shaped like a cat from the silverware drawer, and handed it to Joe. He popped the top and headed back to the living room, planting himself in the corner of the couch. He put his feet on the footstool and took a timid sip of the stale beer. Max silently jumped on his lap and curled up.
Melody watched as Joe petted Max in a way Max didn’t like to be petted. But Max didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to like it. “Good grief. I don’t even know what to say. I really think Max is looking for male companionship.”
“No males around here?”
“Not for a while.”
“I see,” he said in a way that meant he understood she was no longer in a relationship. She didn’t like to tell people about David, especially strangers. It always made it seem that she was looking for sympathy, or it caused a long, awkward silence, followed by escape. “My husband died.” She waited for the awkward stuff. “Max was actually his cat.”
“I’m sorry.” Joe scratched Max behind the ear, and Max pushed into his hand and purred even louder. “I don’t know anything about cats, but he does seem to have formed an odd attachment to me.”
That hurt.
“But hey, I’ll bet it’s because I fed him chicken.”
She liked the way Joe didn’t ignore her dark revelation but commented, sympathized, and moved on. “I didn’t even know he ate chicken.”
Max didn’t even seem like her cat anymore. One minute he was peeing on a stranger’s clothes, the next he was snuggled up to somebody he’d never seen before yesterday. Did Max need a kitty shrink?
Joe seemed to be mulling something over in his head. “You don’t know me, but I could drop by sometimes. After I get off work.”
Melody remembered how she’d thought of him after he’d left. Even today at the library her brain had wandered back that direction.
“To hang out with Max,” Joe said, making it clear it was all about the cat.
“Kind of like a Big Brother?”
“Exactly.” He gave Max a head massage and fluff. “How does that sound, buddy? You and me? Hanging out?”
Max dove off the couch, slid under the red chair with the skirt, grabbed a catnip mouse, curled up with it in the center of the room, and clawed it madly with both back feet.
Chapter 5
Joe stopped by the next night. And the next.
Very quickly the pretense of the visits being for Max was forgotten.
Joe told Melody he worked at a shelter, and Melody had already confessed that she was a kids’ librarian. Neither flinched or recoiled. Max took this as a very good sign. So good, in fact, that he once again found himself racing through the house and sliding under the bed to come nose to nose with his favorite toy mouse. He nipped it gently on the head and trotted back to the living room with it dangling from his mouth.
Melody laughed the way she always laughed when he appeared with the mouse. “I swear he thinks that thing’s alive.”
Of course he didn’t, but it was the next best thing to a living mouse. Confession time. He actually liked it better than a real mouse. Once he’d seen a real mouse in the basement. It squeaked and jumped out from behind a broom. Max ran like hell, and for quite some time he avoided that area.
Now, his legs weak with joy, he rolled in a strip of sunshine, the mouse between his front paws. He was that happy. The only thing that could have made his world better was if Melody hadn’t closed off the doggy door. But Max’s freedom was a small price to pay for his mistress’s happiness.
The relationship moved quickly.
Too quickly.
Max would have preferred they take it a little slower. Max was all about caution and patience. He could wait all day for a treat, and he could wait all day for Melody to come home. Life was all about waiting, but people were dangerously spontaneous, especially Melody. Humans tended to jump into things with no thought, when in truth the most pleasurable part of life came from the anticipation of catnip, not the crazy buzz.
But he had to step back and give Melody her freedom, and giving her that freedom meant allowing her to make mistakes without his intervention. This was a different kind of love that didn’t come easily for Max. This kind of love took restraint. Sure, it would have been simple to pounce on her back when she was making dreamy eyes at Joe. Sure it would have been simple for Max to fake illness when she was preparing to go out with Joe for the third night in a row, but throwing herself too quickly into a relationship was who Melody was. It wasn’t Max’s role to try to make her more like him. That’s not what love was about.
So, when Melody and Joe came into the house, laughing and hugging, Melody’s eyes bright and her face flushed, Max tried not to worry. And he tried not to feel jealous. But he did try to make her feel guilty for forgetting to feed him any special treats. There was only so much a cat could take.
“I think Max feels neglected,” Melody said.
She and Joe were standing in the kitchen, both holding a glass of wine. Max was in the dining room watching them from a distance, wondering if Melody would think about giving him a treat from the green bag.
“I have been away more than usual, and I think he’s also upset with me for sealing the doggy door.”
Joe pulled the cork out of the wine bottle. “I have an idea.” He poured more wine into their glasses, then recorked the bottle and placed it on the counter. “Why not take him to some of your story hours? He could be kind of a mascot.”
Melody stared at Max as if seeing him in a whole new light. “Wow, I don’t know. I’m not sure he’d like that.”
“He’s pretty social. Think about how he came to the shelter two times. In fact, why not have a story hour at the shelter?”
Max was pretty sure story hour involved kids. He’d been around kids a few times in his life, and it wasn’t something he wanted to repeat. He straightened from a sitting position and rubbed against Melody’s legs, meowing, hoping to distract her, hoping she’d forget Joe’s suggestion.
Melody smiled. “I think he likes the idea!”
“I think you’re right.”
Melody and Joe laughed in shared camaraderie, as if the idea of a cat understanding the conversation was hilarious. Max hated Joe in that moment, and he wished he’d never brought him home to Melody.
Be careful what you wish for. That’s what his sister used to tell him.
It had been better when it was just the two of them-Max and Melody.
