Cleo

A room is more beautiful when furnished with a cat. Her silken presence transforms a collection of chairs, discarded toys and crumb-sprinkled plates into a temple to soothe the soul. Poised like a goddess on a window ledge she observes the countless frailties of the humans she has blessed with her presence. The poor creatures make countless mistakes with their neurotic attempts to cling to the past and control the future. They need a cat to remind themselves just to be.

A cat’s ears absorb the thump of a school bag hitting the floor or a mother’s curse when she finds ants in the sugar bowl yet again. Humans and their tragic overreactions amuse her. Nothing they can do disturbs her composure, except for the young, when they go through that horrifying stage of wanting to dress her in baby clothes and imprison her in a pram.

Her paws absorb the earth’s slightest tremor. Ever watchful, her eyes perceive more than human eyes can. When she sleeps, a cat draws a third eyelid, a translucent screen, over her eyes so no movement escapes her. A cat is always watching, but wise enough to refrain from offering an opinion.

A black cat is lucky, or not, depending on which side of the Atlantic you are born. If a black cat crosses your path in Britain expect good fortune. In North America, a black cat spells danger.

With their shimmering fur and mirror eyes, black cats were once regarded as malevolent spirits. They blended into darkness, which to some ill-informed minds made them the personification of evil—the devil himself stalking the rooftops of innocent peasants. Even in Britain, where black cats are considered lucky, the superstition isn’t in the felines’ favor. It’s only because a person suffers no harm when a black cat crosses his path, and has therefore escaped evil, that he can congratulate himself on his luck.

There was no point seeing the shrink again. She’d only tell me to have another one-night stand. We all knew how that ended up. Anyway, I’d learned from my mistakes. I withdrew from the dating world and tried to be wise. A scary replica of my mother, I developed the lonely person’s syndrome of telling people the same stories over and over again. As their eyes glazed I’d stop and  say,  “Have I told you this before?” The polite ones said no.

When they asked, I said I’d never been happier. So what? A cat never loses its smile. I did everything possible to become a self-sufficient witch who didn’t need a man. Compromise was no longer part of my vocabulary. The Chinese pantsuit enjoyed regular airings. I nailed kitsch pottery ducks to the wall, drank wine and farted when I felt like it. At night, sometimes, when the kids were at their father’s, I turned the stereo up loud enough for the neighbors to notice and danced half-naked to Marvin Gaye. (Never Ella and Louis!) Women friends approved. They said I was empowered.

Empowerment sounds wonderful, but frankly, it’s not everything it’s cracked up to be. Although a witch may seem in control of her life, she has a diligent stalker: loneliness. After the kids had gone to bed I’d pour a glass of wine. Cleo would pad across the floor towards me. The shadow of her tail, an eerie serpent six feet tall, would flicker against the wall. A charge of electricity would shudder up my arm as I ran my hand over her coat. I’d scoop her up and carry her out to the back deck. We’d sit under the stars together, licking our wounds and studying the moon’s acne.

“Nobody touches a witch’s heart,” I murmured, burying my nose in her velvet fur.

Nevertheless, I leapt at the phone every time it rang. It was never him. Why should it be? He’d made it clear enough when we split up. He said he wasn’t “ready,” whatever that meant. If people waited till everything was ready, nothing would ever happen. Life isn’t a menu; you can’t order courses when you’re “ready” for them. I hadn’t been ready to lose Sam. And I didn’t feel ready to say good-bye to Philip. His words were surgical, but his eyes brimmed with sadness and love. Even though I tried to accept what he said I still believed his eyes. Why had he walked away?

I missed his calm presence, his voice warm as a driftwood fire, his ridiculously conservative clothes, the crooked nose, the hairy groves inside his ears. One of the things I missed most was his smell. Even though he seldom wore aftershave, he always smelled like a grove of cypress trees. How come so few sonnets are written to a lover’s smell? Rob was missing him, too. Philip had been a desperately needed role model that had turned out fake, heartless as a shop mannequin. What a fool I’d been. I vowed no man would ever hurt Rob that way again.

I wondered what Philip was up to. Had he shed us like one of his Italian jackets? No doubt he was being devoured by bimbo dentists and lawyers. If our worlds had been closer, a few discreet phone calls would have answered my questions. But we had no friends in common. He might as well have taken off to Pluto. Weeks dissolved into months.