Love in the Time of Serial Killers(42)

That had been more than I’d said aloud to a stranger about my family for a long time. Weirdly, it felt a lot like how it felt to have Sam in this house at all, which I still had conditioning from my childhood to believe was a place where you did not have people inside. The experience was a little surreal, but not unpleasant.

“It sounds like a hard choice,” Sam said. “You were just kids.”

His face was too close to mine, his expression too sympathetic, his eyes too blue. I was saved from having to make any response by the cat, who finally crept out from under the bed on her belly, eyeing us warily as she approached the tuna.

I put my hand on Sam’s arm before I could think about it. His skin was still warm from even the brief walk over here, the lean muscles of his forearm hard beneath my fingertips. I wanted to leave my hand there forever. I wanted to give a squeeze.

“Shh,” I said unnecessarily. “It’s working.”

We watched Lenore lick the plate, as if she wanted to experience the taste of the treat without fully committing to it. I could relate.

“So what now?” Sam whispered.

Alison hadn’t gotten me that far. I snapped a quick picture of Lenore, shooting it off in a text with Sam’s question below it.


Once she’s settled in a bit, you should be able to pick her up with the plate and transfer both outside. Then just let her finish up her snack and voila, she’s out of the house.



Three dots blinked, then another message: That is, assuming you don’t want to keep her?? [gif of cat waving butt, then Shaq shimmying shoulders]

“I can’t have a cat,” I said aloud.

“Why not?” Sam asked. “She seems pretty sweet.”

“For one thing, she doesn’t belong to me.”

“The neighbor feeds all the outside cats,” Sam said. “Just like she feeds the birds and the squirrels. I don’t think she has any particular claim over this particular cat. But you could always ask her, or put up a Found Cat poster around the neighborhood if it would make you feel better.”

Pat did appear to like animals way more than people. I had no doubt that she’d dangle a small toddler in front of an alligator if one came up the street. The idea of asking her anything scared me a little, but the Found Cat poster wasn’t a bad idea.

But I was only going to be here another month or so, and then after that I’d need to look for another apartment in North Carolina, which meant I’d need to put down a pet deposit if I had a cat, only to move again after I graduated in December. No. It would be impossible.

I started to reach for her, but then realized I had no idea how best to pick her up. Should I stand first, so I didn’t have to try to get to my feet holding a ball of fur and claws? But if I made any sudden movement, did I risk spooking her back under the bed? Everything I knew about cats suggested that there were very right ways to handle them, and very wrong ways, and if you stumbled into the latter you risked becoming a human scratching post.

“You grab the cat,” I whispered, as though she could process our speech, “and I’ll grab the tuna. On the count of three. One, two, three . . .”

I let Sam move first, to ensure the animal was restrained before I made a move on her food. He made it look easy, scooping her into his arms, giving her a little scratch on the top of her head as he got to his feet. She stretched her body once, as if trying to escape, but seemed to settle down as he started walking with her toward the front door.

I followed close behind, setting down the plate of tuna next to the garage before the cat leapt out of Sam’s arms and down to the pavement to continue her meal. I swear she gave both of us one withering look before resuming her laser focus on the food, as if to say, Was that necessary?

“Thanks for your help,” I said. “If you hang on for just a minute, I can grab your can opener while Lenore’s distracted.”

I ran back to retrieve the can opener from my room, sliding back out of the door like the cat was going to try to battering-ram her way inside it any minute. “Here you go.”

He took the can opener from me without really looking at it. “Lenore?”

The bandana around my hair had gotten knocked askew in the whole ordeal, and I gave it a self-conscious tug to fix it. “I had to call her something,” I said. “And ‘The Raven’ is a banger.”

I glanced down, and somehow in the time I’d disappeared back inside she’d eaten the entire plate of tuna. It hadn’t been that much, but still—one minute she was demurely licking around the edge, and then the next minute she’d inhaled the rest of it. She lay out on her stomach next to the plate, giving a big yawn.

My phone buzzed, and I took it out of my pocket. So are you keeping her?? [gif of cat hugging teddy bear]

Alison was exacting with her capitalization and punctuation, which wasn’t surprising given her profession, but she was also a much more prolific gif-and emoji-er than I would’ve expected.

“Sorry,” I said to Sam as I typed out my response. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. “My friend is very pro me keeping this cat. Which is hilarious, given that the whole reason I texted her in the first place was to ask how to get the cat out.”

It surprised me, how easily that description of Alison had tripped off my tongue. My friend. Technically, she was the oldest friend I had, and exchanging a few texts did go a long way toward making it feel like we might have a place in each other’s lives after all.