Years later, I would make it a habit to prop open a side door during library board meetings. Cathy Greiner, a board member, asked me every time, “Aren’t you worried Dewey will run out?”
I looked down at Dewey, who was there as usual to attend the meeting, and he looked up at me. That look told me, as clearly as if he’d crossed his heart and hoped to die, that he wasn’t going to run. Why couldn’t everyone else see it?
“He’s not going anywhere,” I told her. “He’s committed to the library.”
And he was. For sixteen years, Dewey never went into the lobby again. He lounged by the front door, especially in the morning, but he never followed patrons out. If the doors opened and he heard trucks, he sprinted to the staff area. He didn’t want to be anywhere near a passing truck. Dewey was completely done with the outdoors.
Chapter 15
Spencer’s Favorite Cat
About a month after Dewey’s escape, Jodi left Spencer. I wasn’t sure I could afford to send her to college, and she didn’t want to stay home. Jodi wanted to travel, so she took a job as a nanny in California and saved money for college. I’m sure it didn’t hurt that California was a long way from Mom.
I brought Dewey home for her last weekend. As always, he was stuck to Jodi’s side like a flesh-hugging magnet. I think he loved nighttime with her most of all. As soon as Jodi pulled down the covers, Dewey was in her bed. Actually he beat her into bed. By the time she finished brushing her teeth, he was sitting on her pillow, ready to curl up beside her. As soon as she lay down, he was plastered against her face. He wouldn’t even let her breathe. She shoved him down into the covers, but he came back. Shove. On her face. Shove. Across her neck.
“Stay down, Dewey.”
He finally relented and slept by her side, locked onto her hip. She could breathe, but she couldn’t turn over. Did he know our girl was leaving, maybe for good? When he slept with me, Dewey was in and out of bed all night, exploring the house one minute and snuggling the next. With Jodi, he never left. At one point, he wandered down to attack her feet, which were under the covers, but that was as far as he went. Jodi didn’t get any sleep that night.
The next time Dewey came to my house, Jodi was gone. He found a way to stay close to her, though, by spending the night in Jodi’s room, curled up on the floor next to her heater, no doubt dreaming of those warm summer nights spent snuggled up to Jodi’s side.
“I know, Dewey,” I said to him. “I know.”
A month later I took Dewey for his first official photograph. I’d like to say it was for sentimental reasons, that my world was changing and I wanted to freeze that moment, or that I realized Dewey was on the cusp of something far bigger than either of us ever imagined. But the real reason was a coupon. Rick Krebsbach, the town photographer, was offering pet photographs for ten dollars.
Dewey was such an easygoing cat that I convinced myself getting a professional portrait made of him, in a professional portrait studio, would be easy. But Dewey hated the studio. As soon as we walked in, his head was swiveling, his eyes looking at everything. I put him in the chair, and he immediately hopped out. I picked him up and put him in the chair again. I took one step back, and Dewey was gone.
“He’s nervous. He hasn’t been out of the library much,” I said as I watched Dewey sniff the photo backdrop.
“That’s nothing,” Rick said.
“Pets aren’t easy?”
“You have no idea,” he said as we watched Dewey dig his head under a pillow. “One dog tried to eat my camera. Another dog actually ate my fake flowers. Now that I think about it, he puked on that pillow.”
I picked Dewey up quickly, but my touch didn’t calm him. He was still looking around, more nervous than interested.
“There’s been quite a bit of unfortunate peeing. I had to throw away a sheet. I sanitize everything, of course, but to an animal like Dewey it must smell like a zoo.”
“He’s not used to other animals,” I said, but I knew that wasn’t quite right. Dewey never cared about other animals. He always ignored the Seeing Eye dog who came into the library. He even ignored the Dalmatian. This wasn’t fear; it was confusion. “He knows what’s expected of him in the library, but he doesn’t understand this place.”
“Take your time.”
A thought. “May I show Dewey the camera?”
“If you think it will help.”
Dewey posed for photographs at the library all the time, but those were personal cameras. Rick’s camera was a large, boxy, professional model. Dewey had never seen one of those before, but he was a fast learner.
“It’s a camera, Dewey. Camera. We’re here to get your picture taken.”
Dewey sniffed the lens. He leaned back and looked at it, then sniffed it again. I could feel him getting less tense, and I knew he understood.
I pointed. “Chair. Sit in the chair.”
I put him down. He sniffed up and down every leg, and twice on the seat. Then he jumped into the chair and stared right at the camera. Rick hurried over and snapped six photos.
“I can’t believe it,” he said as Dewey climbed down off the chair.
I didn’t want to tell Rick, but this happened all the time. Dewey and I had a means of communicating even I didn’t understand. He always seemed to know what I wanted, but unfortunately that didn’t mean he was always going to obey. I didn’t even have to say brush or bath; all I had to do was think about them, and Dewey disappeared. I remember passing him in the library one afternoon. He looked up at me with his usual lazy indifference. Hi, how you doing?
I thought, “Oh, there are two knots of fur on his neck. I should get the scissors and cut them off.” As soon as the idea formed in my mind, whoosh, Dewey was gone.
But since his escape, Dewey had been using his powers for good, not mischief. He not only anticipated what I wanted, he did it. Not when a brushing or a bath was involved, of course, but for library business. That was one reason he was so willing to have his photograph taken. He wanted to do what was best for the library.
“He knows it’s for the library,” I told Rick, but I could tell he wasn’t buying it. Why, after all, would a cat care about a library? And how could he connect a library with a photo studio a block away? But it was the truth, and I knew it.
I picked Dewey up and petted his favorite spot, the top of his head between the ears. “He knows what a camera is. He’s not afraid of it.”
“Has he ever posed before?”
“At least two or three times a week. For visitors. He loves it.”
“That doesn’t sound like a cat.”
I wanted to tell him Dewey wasn’t just any cat, but Rick had been taking pet photographs for the past week. He’d probably heard it a hundred times already.
And yet if you see Dewey’s official photograph, which Rick shot that day (it’s on the cover of this book), you can tell immediately he’s not just another cat. He’s beautiful, yes, but more than that, he’s relaxed. He has no fear of the camera, no confusion about what’s going on. His eyes are wide and clear. His fur is perfectly groomed. He doesn’t look like a kitten, but he doesn’t look like a grown cat, either. He’s a young man getting his college graduation photograph taken, or a sailor getting a memento for his girl back home before shipping off on his first tour. His posture is remarkably straight, his head cocked, his eyes staring calmly into the camera. I smile every time I see that photo because he looks so serious. He looks like he’s trying to be strong and handsome but can’t quite pull it off because he’s so darn cute.