“Look at that bald pate,” muttered Gran. “Look at the way it reflects the light. My God, what kind of a monster do you have to be to pretend to have a full head of hair while you’re as bald as Kojak.”
Next to her, Harriet made a dismissive noise.
“Oh, that’s right. You’re too young to remember Kojak. Let me tell you, Telly Savalas was a fine specimen. He was bald but he was gorgeous. His baldness made him even sexier. Not like this asswipe Duane Packer,” she added, gesturing at the screen.
“Men are scum,” Harriet intoned listlessly.
“You’re damn right about that,” said Gran. She studied her feline couchmate for a moment. “Trouble in paradise, toots?”
Harriet shrugged.“I caught Brutus sniffing another cat’s butt. He claims it wasn’t what it looked like.”
Gran roared with laughter.“A classic! How many times have I heard that before!”
In actual fact she hadn’t heard it all that often. Her husband had said it, obviously, when she’d caught him with his pants down boning her best friend Scarlett Canyon. Jack had been bald, too, which might be where her intense dislike for bald men stemmed from. She wasn’t going to delve too deeply into the matter. She was, after all, not a frickin’ shrink.
“I mean, it wasn’t as if they were actually canoodling or anything.”
Gran winced. She preferred to keep the mental picture of her cats strictly PC. Her own motto was that if it wasn’t something Disney would approve of, she didn’t want to know about it. Just imagine Bambi canoodling with Bambo. Or the Lion King with the Lion Queen. Stuff like that was enough to spoil the one thing in her life that remained unspoiled.
“So where is Brutus now?” she asked, without taking her eye from the screen, where Dr. Packer was still being paraded through the hospital, at a snail’s pace, subjected to the scorn of the entire staff and a full wing of patients who, for some reason or other, suddenly had gained the capacityto raise themselves from their sickbeds for this special event.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” said Harriet, intently scrutinizing a nail.
Gran knew better than to persuade Harriet to give Brutus a second chance. She knew for a fact that Brutus and Harriet were mates for life—just like Odelia and Chase. And her own daughter and that moron Tex. Even though she liked to project an image of grating irascibility, Vesta Muffin was a lot more sentimental than she liked to admit. A good love story never failed to bring a tear to her eye. And the love story of Harriet and Brutus was near and dear to her. “So who’s the bimbo?” she asked instead.
“Darlene. I’ve seen her around. She’s in cat choir, of course.”
“Of course.” Cat choir was the hub of Hampton Cove’s cat population’s social life. Not much singing went on, as far as Gran could ascertain, but a lot of schmoozing and yapping did, much to the neighbors’ discontent. “So what are you going to do about it?”
Harriet shrugged.“What can I do? I’d like to bury my claws in his face. Rearrange his features. But then what? It will give me a fleeting moment of satisfaction but his wounds will heal. If there’s a god they will turn into vicious, nasty scars, and the world will move on. Brutus will live happily ever after with his redhead bimbo, always providing she doesn’t dump him on account of his new facial arrangements, and I’ll be left to wonder why.”
Christ, Gran thought. Her cats’ lives were even more complicated thanGeneral Hospital.“Forget about Brutus,” she said. “There’s plenty of good cats for a babe like you.”
Her words didn’t seem to buck Harriet up. On the contrary. They seemed to darken the cloud that had appeared over her head. “I could always cut his throat when he’s sleeping,” she said, pondering ways and means as she spoke. “Or I could gut him. Make him drown in his own blood. And then when he’s screaming and choking, he’ll look into my eyes and know it’s me who did that to him. Or I could cut off his—”
“Okay,” said Gran, getting up from the couch. “I think you’ve been watching too much HBO, missy. Didn’t I tell you never to watch HBO? Those shows will give you ideas.”
“I only watch what you watch,” said Harriet, resting her chin on her paws and staring melancholically at Dr. Packer, who’d finally reached the hospital vestibule and was now locked in a staring contest with the receptionist, a voluptuous blonde named Mandy.
Mandy and Dr. Packer had shared many intimate moments in the doctor’s office, and as the camera zoomed in on a discarded pregnancy test in the reception wastepaper basket, Gran gasped. “She’s pregnant! Mandy is going to have Dr. Packer’s baby!”
“Darlene probably wants Brutus’s babies,” Harriet commented with a sigh. “Too bad he’s been snipped. Maybe I should tell her. Maybe I should tell all of cat choir that Brutus is that way. At least they’ll know what they’re getting.”
“Oh, honey, forget about Brutus,” said Gran. “It’s his loss and your gain if he’s too busy chasing skirts to see that he’s missing out on the best thing that ever happened to him.”
Harriet gave her a sad smile.“Gee, thanks, Gran. Maybe you should tell that to Brutus. He doesn’t seem to have gotten that particular memo.”
Just then, the door swung open and a small procession entered: Odelia was the first, followed by Marge, and then three cats: Max, Dooley and… Brutus.
Instantly, Harriet’s back went up and so did her tail, which was distended to a degree Gran had never seen before. She was also making hissing sounds at the back of her throat.
“Harriet!” said Marge. “What’s gotten into you all of a sudden!”
“Get that cat out of here,” said Harriet in clipped tones. “Before I do something stupid.”
“Harriet, sweetums!” Brutus cried. “Nothing happened!”
“Get. That. Cat. Out. Of. Here!”
“Tootsie roll, please!”
Harriet suddenly streaked towards Brutus, who produced a loud squeak and then streaked off, his tail between his legs, Harriet screaming,“And don’t come back!”
Chapter 13
Brutus was wandering the streets of Hampton Cove, feeling lost and alone. More than the fact of being chased from his own home by his former girlfriend, it was the knowledge that he had only himself to blame for his predicament that stung. If only he hadn’t been so stupid to try his fatal charms on Darlene. But the temptation had been too sweet to resist. She’d immediately invited him into the bushes for some nookie. Not that he would ever have allowed things to go that far. In fact, just when Harriet had descended on the scene with Max and Dooley, he’d already been forming the words in his mind: I’m sorry, Darlene. But there’s only one cat for me and that’s Harriet, so this is where I leave you. The words simply hadn’t rolled from his tongue yet, and then he’d been distracted by a flash that had momentarily blinded him, and then Harriet had appeared.
Still, if he hadn’t gone into those bushes with Darlene, he wouldn’t have been blinded by a flash, and it wouldn’t have looked as if he was sniffing Darlene’s butt.
He knew exactly how it looked and it was bad. Now Harriet would never forgive him, and he’d never be allowed to go home again and he’d be forced to roam these streets forever…
He’d arrived in one of those small alleys Hampton Cove was rife with, and gave the dumpster that was positioned near a store’s back entrance a dubious glance. Would he really have to eat from these dumpsters from now on? No more bowls filled to the rim for him? No more cozy couch to curl up on, or warm body to cuddle?