Theresa Weir - The Girl with the Cat Tattoo

Lola’s solution to everything was a party.

“I’ll invite some of my guy friends.”

Most of her guy friends were unemployed musicians. “No, thanks, I don’t-”

“A tattoo party. How about that? My tattoo artist friend will come, and everybody can get drunk and get tattoos. It’ll be fun.”

Melody was all set to protest, but she didn’t. She kind of liked the idea. “Let’s do that. Maybe all of those things. Fifties clothes, martinis, and tattoos.”

“What kind of tattoo will you get?” Lola asked.

Max was purring away on Melody’s lap. She gave him an extra rub on the head and said, “I have a great idea.”

The front door slammed, and Max waited for Melody to return. She always grabbed the Sunday paper and brought it to bed so they could read it together. He heard his mistress gasp and he stopped kneading the down quilt.

And then she said, “Oh, my God.”

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what had caused her voice to take on such a disturbed tone. He heard the snap of the newspaper, heard her bare feet as she made her way back to the bedroom. But he didn’t think there would be any lazy cuddling. She sounded too upset for that.

“Oh, Max. You should see this.”

He was waiting for her to show him the paper when her cell phone rang. She answered. “I just saw it. Haven’t finished reading it yet. Let me call you back.” She disconnected and dropped to the bed, her eyes on the newspaper she held in both hands.

Max squeezed under her arm so he could get a better look. There, on the front page of the paper, in full color, was a photo of him and Melody. She was holding him protectively to her chest, her eyes huge, her lips sad and worried, the blue of her dress and her ruffled white sleeve nicely visible. He was wearing his striped sweater.

Oh, he loved it! Loved it! Even the smear of blood down her cheek, left from that tender moment when Joe’s fingers had caressed her face-even that looked cool. And it was a great picture of him. A wonderful picture of him. Melody liked to take photos of him acting silly. Photos when his eyes were wild and he’d been doing a little too much catnip. But this was sweet. And wow did his eyes ever look yellow. What a handsome cat he was. And how beautiful Melody was. What a pair they were.

She read the article to him. “Cat saves man’s life.” She gave him a hug and a kiss on his head. “That’s you. They’re writing about you.” The article talked about how he’d bravely run into a danger zone, and, when he spotted the injured man, he’d run toward him rather than away. “A cat on a rescue mission,” Melody read. “Oh, how silly. But we don’t care, do we? It’s silly wonderful.” She continued reading, then stopped and said, “That’s not good. They’re using my full name. I don’t think I like that. I didn’t like that sneaky reporter. Maybe I should have talked to him. I suppose I made him mad by refusing to give him an interview, so now he puts his own spin on our story and it makes the front page.”

She set Max aside and grabbed her silver laptop. He didn’t like it when she messed with her laptop, petting it instead of him. He tried to step on the keyboard, but she kept elbowing him back. “Not now, Max.”

Click, click, click. Her fingers flew. Her back was against the headboard of the bed, the laptop on her thighs, her bare feet crossed at the ankles, her face intense as she examined the computer screen. “You are not only the star of the Pioneer Press, you’re also the star of the Internet,” she said, her voice full of amazement, puzzlement, and worry.

He was hungry. She usually fed him his canned food by now.

He put a tentative paw to her shoulder. She ignored him, so he did it again. And again. Then she dropped back against the headboard and stared into space.

*

Melody was in the kitchen feeding Max when her phone rang. It had been ringing all morning, ever since the paper hit the streets, and she was tempted to ignore it. But she picked it up to check the caller ID. Ellen DeGeneres.

Ha-ha.

How had Lola done that?

Melody would play along. She hit the answer button. “Hi, Ellen.”

“Oh, hi.”

She sounded just like the real Ellen.

“I was reading about Max, your wonderful cat, and I was hoping I could have you and Max and your boyfriend on my show. When he’s well enough to travel. We’ll fly you first class to California.”

She really, really, really sounded like Ellen. “Lola?”

“No, this isn’t Lola. I don’t know who Lola is, but I love the name. Lola.” She started singing.

And Melody started to think that the person on the other end of the line was truly Ellen DeGeneres. “Is this real? Is this a joke? Ellen DeGeneres wouldn’t call me. And not on a Sunday.”

“I use the phone seven days a week. And I also use the Internet every day. Weird, I know. And I love pet stories, and I wanted to talk to you before any of those New York people try to get you to come there. Not that you can’t do both, but wouldn’t you rather come to California? Have you ever been to Burbank?”

“No.”

“There you go.”

“I’ve never been to New York City either.”

“Well, New York. A lot of people running around in dark clothes, drinking lattes. Wouldn’t you rather come to California where people are wearing almost no clothes and driving around in convertibles?”

This was real.

“Let me ask you-where did you get Max?”

“He came from a no-kill shelter in Saint Paul.” She didn’t go into how he’d belonged to David first.

“Okay, so how about this. I will personally donate ten thousand dollars to the shelter if you and Max come to California. And I will kick in another ten thousand if you bring your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“For the story in my head, he’s your boyfriend. Don’t kill my buzz. So what do you say?”

Melody looked down at Max. He’d finished is organic salmon feast and was washing his face. Melody hit the mute button. “What do you think, Max? Should we go?”

Max meowed.

“You’d have to fly,” she told him. “In an airplane.”

Max seemed to give that some thought, then meowed again.

The flight from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport took over three hours. Unfortunately someone in Ellen’s staff had purchased two seats together after Melody had requested separate seating. So now she was sitting at the curved window. Max, inside the pink, soft-sided carrier that he detested, was tucked under the seat in front of her while Joe sat beside her on the aisle. As promised, they were in first class. The seats were roomy, and their arms brushed only occasionally.

Two weeks had passed since the accident, and Melody had been unable to ignore the fact that Joe was still moving pretty slowly when she’d spotted him heading toward the waiting area for their gate. She hadn’t spoken to him since the hospital. Just thought it would be better that way. All communication about the trip had taken place through email.

The two weeks since the shooting had been enough time for her fear and worry over Joe to turn into full-blown irritation. She felt tricked by him. He was just another wrong guy in a long line of wrong guys. Max was the only guy for her. And to prove it, she’d had his likeness tattooed on her shoulder at the fifties party Lola had thrown. In the image, he wore his pink-and-black striped hat and a charmingly silly expression. All the guy she needed.

Cop, cop, cop.

Liar, liar, liar.

“Did you say something?” Joe asked.

He was wearing dark jeans and black leather shoes, a plaid cotton shirt with pearl snaps and sleeves rolled below the elbow. She could smell the fabric of his shirt and his shampoo or deodorant or cologne or something. Some smell she associated with him. A smell that used to make her feel all warm and fuzzy.

Melody shifted closer to the window. They were queued to take off, with just one plane in front of them. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, you did. You just said ‘liar’.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know I said that out loud.”

“I never lied to you.”

“A lie of omission. And when I think about how I opened up to you, how I put myself out there-” It was humiliating to think she’d been so honest with him, when everything about him had been a lie. “The first time we met, I told you I would never date a cop. Ever.” She crossed her arms over her turquoise sweater with its black cat brooch. She tugged at her black skirt and wondered if her matching turquoise tights were too much. As she did these things, she turned her back to him, pretending interest in the lines on the runway. He’d made a mockery of her. A fool of her. She was a silly girl in silly clothes; a girl who baked cute cupcakes and loved her cat. A crazy cat lady in her cat pajamas and fuzzy slippers, and now her cat tattoo that Joe would never, ever, ever see. “It doesn’t matter,” she said to the window. They were so wrong for each other anyway. She’d felt that from the beginning; she just hadn’t understood why. He worked undercover, trying to better the world. At least that was something. But his life was dark and shady and full of lies and secrets.

The doubts she’d had about herself the night Joe was shot had been a brief reaction to an ugly and horrible situation. She truly wanted sunshine and silly clothes and watching TV in bed. She didn’t want guns and blood spatter on her white tights. She didn’t want his blood on her face.

She didn’t want to cry for him. She didn’t want to miss him when he died.

She turned back to him. “You think I’m just a silly girl.”

“That’s not true.”

“There’s the problem. I will never know what is true and what isn’t.” She knew it wasn’t just the deception. She knew it was also tied to seeing him shot just the way she’d seen David shot, but why she couldn’t be with him really didn’t matter. She just couldn’t. She’d worked hard to increase the joy and whimsy in her life. She couldn’t deal with the darkness he brought.

*

The flight was awkward. The attendant assumed they were a couple. The ordering of drinks. The reaching across. The bumping of hands, the bumping of elbows. The not looking. The looking. Getting up to use the restroom. Returning to her seat, her heart diving when she noticed the pallor of his face and the lines of pain around his mouth. The asking if he was okay. His lie, another lie: “I’m fine.”

They landed at LAX. They departed together. He offered to carry Max. She shook her head. He walked stiffly up the walkway, and at one point he had to stop. Just stop, while it looked as if he might pass out.

“This was too soon,” she said. She’d guilted him into coming. What choice had he had? So much money for such a worthy cause.

“I’m fine,” he said again, but she heard the thread of pain in his voice, the airless quality, his words delivered on an exhale.

“Are you taking anything? Can I get you some water?”

“I’ll wait till we get to the room.”

He didn’t want to risk being out of it. And she was surprised to find that she could read him so well. Did that mean she really did know him, regardless of his deception?

She checked on Max. He looked about as miserable as Joe, and he let out a sad meow that seemed meant to reassure her.

At the luggage carousel, a chauffeur stood with a sign. Melody, Joe, and Max.

They followed the man in black to a limousine, and twenty minutes later they were pulling up in front of a hotel that was intimidating and amazing and ridiculous in its opulence.

They were given a suite with a shared door that could be locked or unlocked. It would definitely not be unlocked, Melody decided. Joe vanished into his room and Melody tended to Max, filling his litter box and putting out food and water.

On a mahogany table was a bouquet of gorgeous red roses, along with ice and champagne, strawberries, and tiny sandwiches made with dark bread and cucumbers. Included in the spread were cans of gourmet cat food for Max. While he made a perusal of the room, going from corner to corner, Melody prepared a plate for herself, then wondered about Joe. She could feel him over there, beyond the door. But he was awfully quiet.

With plate in hand, she put her ear to the suite door and gave it a light tap. “Joe?”

She heard the bed shift, then a muffled, “What?”

“Do you have food over there?”

“I dunno.”

“Well, look.”

A moment of silence, followed by a curt “Yeah.”

“Okay, I just wanted to know.”

“The door’s unlocked. On this side anyway.”