I reach into the carrier and take out the closest kitten and hand it to her. The woman puts the kitten up to her face-rubbing its body over her cheeks, her nose, her mouth. "Yum-yum-yum," she says, making lip-smacking sounds. The kitten looks stressed. "So fragile," she says, "like a baby bird."
I reach for the kitten. "Let"s keep it in the box; you can pet it there."
She dutifully follows directions and puts the kitten in the box, then asks if she can try another one. I put the first one away and take another out.
"Do you have any pets?" I ask the woman.
"No," she says. "No pets. Pets are against the rules."
"Aggie," a woman calls, spotting her from a distance. "We"ve been looking for you everywhere. Remember we said we"d meet in the produce section? And whose groceries have you got?"
"Mine," Agatha says, putting the second kitten down.
"Where did you get the money to buy all that?"
"My parents sent it to me."
"I think they meant for you to use a little bit each week, not spend it all at once."
Agatha shrugs. She doesn"t seem to mind. "The man has kitties," Agatha says. "They taste good."
"That"s nice," the woman, who is clearly younger than Agatha, says. "Now, come along, and let"s catch up with the others." I track Agatha with my eye, watching as she joins the others and, hand in hand, they walk across the parking lot like a twisted rope of Arbus imagery.
"Are the kittens returnable?"
"Pardon?" Someone is standing in front of me. Her enormous purse, the size of a lawn-and-leaf bag, is blocking my view.
"If I take one and am not happy, can I bring it back?" she asks.
"Not happy in what way?"
"Like, if our dog, or cat, or my husband, or the kids don"t like it-can I bring it back?"
"Sounds like you"ve got a full house," I say.
She nods. "I love a new baby."
I don"t like her; I don"t like how she"s just planted herself in front of me; I am anxious for her to leave. "Why don"t you think on it while you do your shopping, and then you can come back and see me? I"ll be here for a while."
The A&P and surrounding shopping mall is a whole other world. Conspicuously absent are men between twenty-five and sixty, and there is an abundance of older couples, women with babies and toddlers, and the straggling unemployed shopping the sale flyer. A woman with twins approaches.
"Can we get a kitty?" the little girl asks.
"Can we?" the boy seconds.
The children are fascinated and stare into the cat carrier.
"How many are in there?" the boy asks.
"Five," I say.
"They have enough," the girl tells her mother.
"What will your father say?"
"He"s never home anyway," the boy says.
"Maybe we don"t have to tell him," the girl says. "We can just keep them in our room."
I put two kittens in the box, so they can each play with one.
"Let me check with Daddy," the mother says as she uses her long nails to peck out a text. Seconds later she gets a reply-which she holds up for me to read. It says, "Use your best judgment." "I think it"s an automated response," the mother says. "He"s got a smartphone-you can program auto-responses to anything. Watch," she says, texting back. "Do you want chicken or steak for dinner?" And again, "Use your best judgment" comes back. "See what I mean?" she says. "He"s probably having an affair."
"Why do you always say that?" the daughter asks.
"I"m no dummy," she says. "I went to Yale." She turns to me. "We"ll take two. There"s no point in having one of anything anymore."
"Can we go into the pet store and buy them a carrier like his?" the girl asks.
"Yes," the mother says.
"And some food and some toys?" the boy asks.
"And maybe some clothing, so I can dress them up?" the girl asks.
"We"ll be right back," the mother says. "If you could just put those two on hold for us..."
She is true to her word: about ten minutes later, bearing shopping bags of cat products and fancy carrying cases, they return. I put both kittens in one case.
"Enjoy," I say.
"We already are," the boy says.
Something is happening; the mood is shifting, like a sea change, like the quickening of the breeze before a spring storm. I begin to hear snippets, bits and pieces of conversations, as everyone anxiously comes and goes a little faster. "I know the mother...." "She went to camp with my kids." "Regular people-just like us." "You never know what"s on someone"s mind." Apparently, a girl has gone missing.
An old man and his wife stop at my table; their stooped shoulders and curved spines fit together like a pair of salt and pepper shakers.
"This might be the day," the man says to his wife.
They smile. Their faces are open and cheerful, good-natured despite the effects of time.
"That would be nice," she says.
"Ours died," she tells me. "She was nineteen years old."
I nod, half thinking we"re talking cat, half thinking about the missing girl.
"Do you have one who is mature for its age?" the man asks.
"Playful, independent, and wise," the wife adds.
I look into the carrier and take out the one I would describe as thoughtful.
"He"s beautiful," the wife says, stroking him as I put him into the box.
"I can give you some samples of the food and litter they"ve been getting-they"re very healthy, been to the vet, and have their first shots."
"We got the last one from a little girl who had a stand like this-she was selling Girl Scout cookies and giving away kittens."
"An entrepreneur. We gave her twenty bucks," the husband says.
"I think you"ll like the kitten," I say.
"I think so," the husband says, excusing himself to go back into the store to get a cardboard box. "Just something we can put him in for the ride home."
Across the parking lot, a woman is putting up posters on light posts, on the cement parking stanchions-"MISSING PERSON."
"It"s worrisome," I say to the woman.
"Where do you think she"s gone?" the old woman asks.
The husband comes back with an empty banana box, and we slip the kitten in. I give them food, litter samples, and my phone number, and then, remembering my promise to Ashley, I ask, "Could I trouble you for your name, address, and phone, just in case we need to be in touch?"
"What a good idea," the old woman says, and she writes her name and information in glorious script.
Brad comes out of the pet store and walks towards me. "On my break," he says, as though that means "truce."
"How many do you have left?"
"Two."
"Can I see?"
I take the kittens out.
"I know we had a little altercation," Brad says. "But if you can get over it-I"d like to adopt these two."
"But you sell kittens," I say. "And I"m sure you get a discount."
"The kittens we sell are from animal mills, but this is a real kitten, raised with love." He extends his hand as though we"ve not met before. "I"m Brad," he says. And I"m compelled to shake his hand. "What do you think? Is there room for second chances?"
"I hope so," I say.
"I"ve always loved animals."
"Why else would you be working in a pet store?"
"When we lived in Arizona, I worked in my uncle"s pet store-mostly lizard sales. I myself have a bearded dragon," he says, "but I don"t think it contradicts a cat. The dragon lives in a large heated tank. Very sensitive, dragons."
"I didn"t know there was such a thing as a domesticated dragon," I say.
"Oh, sure there is," Brad says. "So what do you say?"
"They"re yours," I say, giving him the kittens, the cardboard box, and what I"ve got left of my samples.
"I"ll spoil them silly," Brad says.
Doing my due diligence, I collect his full name, address, and phone and tell him that I"ll check in next week and I expect to see a photo.
"I really appreciate it," Brad says. "And if there"s something I can do for you, let me know."
"Thanks," I say, painfully pinching my finger as I fold the card table down, but otherwise happy to close on an up note.
A cop car crawls through the parking lot. In the distance, I spot a school crossing guard working the intersection. She uses her body, her orange vest, her meter-reader hat like the elements of a human shield, spreading her arms wide as she blocks the crosswalk; the children spill forth, truly oblivious.
I keep thinking about the missing girl. I"m not sure why, but I feel guilty, like I"m somehow a partic.i.p.ant. It"s not a sensation I"ve had before-but this one crawls under my skin. Because of the woman I met at the A&P, because of Ashley, because of Jane, because I am now more awake than ever before, because I can"t stop thinking...
There is a world out there, so new, so random and disa.s.sociated that it puts us all in danger. We talk online, we "friend" each other when we don"t know who we are really talking to-we f.u.c.k strangers. We mistake almost anything for a relationship, a community of sorts, and yet, when we are with our families, in our communities, we are clueless, we short-circuit and immediately dive back into the digitized version-it is easier, because we can be both our truer selves and our fantasy selves all at once, with each carrying equal weight.
I stop at Starbucks. I take a good look at the poster taped to the phone pole outside. Is it the woman from the A&P? I don"t think it"s her, but I don"t really know. I try to remember what the girl I met looks like. I remember the dirty-blond hair-which the missing girl also has. I remember her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, larger than I expected, pale with beautiful blue veins, like an ancient river under the surface of the skin. I remember that her face was plain, blank-her eyes blue-gray.
And I wonder-how does a person take another person? A news truck is setting up on the corner, cranking its satellite up high.
Inside Starbucks, the girls behind the counter are in tears; apparently, the missing girl worked there last summer part-time; they all know her. I leave without coffee-it"s too upsetting.
Pulling into the driveway, I"m really depressed. I carry the empty carrier to the house, the metal door of the cat box swinging open and closed repeatedly, slamming my finger. I"ve done a terrible thing; I"ve taken something that"s not mine, the mama cat"s children, and given them away. I enter empty-handed. The cat approaches, sniffs me, checks the carrier, and seems to have gotten the news. She goes under the sofa. Tessie doesn"t bother getting up until I put her dinner down.
The 6 p.m. news begins with "Breaking Local News"-the story of the missing girl. Heather Ryan is twenty years old and was home visiting her parents for the weekend. "Ryan reportedly went for a run last night and never returned. According to police, her family is especially concerned as she had been having some personal problems and was on a new medication following a basketball injury to the head. We hear a lot about the guys and football or soccer injuries, but as girls" sports have become more compet.i.tive, we"re seeing some of the same injuries. Last fall, while playing a regular-season game at Leduc College, she was struck..."
The reporter prattles on as they replay footage of the ball bouncing off the side of Heather"s head, her head slamming to the left as another girl mows her down, knocking her to the gym floor. "It"s repeated incidents of brain shears that worry us," says the doctor they"ve brought in to comment, "the banging of the brain against the inside of the head." The reporter closes by saying, "If anyone has seen Heather or has any information, please call the special hotline."
Great. So the missing girl has problems. What kind of problems? Problems like she can"t say who she is? Like she"s living in some kind of fugue state? Who is or was the woman from the A&P? There was something odd about her, about that whole encounter, something she made a point of not telling me. Should I inform someone, call that special number and leave my lame confession? I consider it, but then decide that it"s all in my head-that the girl I met looks nothing like the missing girl. I attempt to make a sketch, a re-creation of what I remember about the woman. I draw a kind of an oval for her head; I draw her neck, which I remember was long, her chest-the fact is, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s are the only part I remember well. I draw them over and over again, and then go back, trying to find her neck, her head, her face. I wonder if there"s a DNA sample from her in the Dijon-mustard jar. There must have been one on my c.o.c.k, but I"ve showered multiple times since then. I go over everything she said and did; I think about the stolen TV, the items in her grocery cart, her comments about frosted cake versus plain. I wonder-did she look lost? I wonder if perhaps they could come in and dust for fingerprints. I take Tessie for a walk, circling the house, the yard, wondering whether someone might be there, hiding out.
I"m stuck on how a girl could be there one moment and missing the next-how someone steals another person. Is it sheer physical force? A psychological game? Is it that women, girls, boys are all weaker than adult men, who can simply pick them up and move them from one end of the earth to another? And this happens in a dark vortex, a break from reality; it"s like some door opens to a dark underside and one of us is dragged down under.
By eight o"clock, I"ve worked myself into a frenzy, worried not only about the missing girl and every girl everywhere, but also about the kittens. Are they all right-are they in their new homes weeping, clawing, wishing more than anything to get back to the safety of Mama?
How do any of us survive?
By eight-fifteen, I can"t tolerate my anxiety any longer-I call Ashley at school, just to check in.
There seems to be confusion-she"s not there. I ask for her roommate, who hands me over to the housemother, who tells me that the school made a change in her living accommodations. "I thought you knew," she says.
"I had no idea."
"She"s been staying with one of the teachers. Let me get you that number."
I call that number, get a machine, leave a message; a few minutes later, a very nervous-sounding Ashley calls back.