Kitabı oxu: «Love Catharsis», səhifə 5

Mary looked at him and cried out, “Why? Why don’t you want me to be happy?”

Simon jumped from the counter and hid behind the couch. Just in case.

Mary moved his pet bed into the living room and locked her bedroom door. Simon wanted to make noise and run around the living room, but he’d worn himself out.

Simon was cold and lonely. He shivered and wished to climb into Mary’s bed. Then he remembered the text from Vergenuis and shook off his dreams of cuddling. Jealousy drove him to cook up more wicked plans.

* * *

Mary left early, leaving dry food in his bowl, her bedroom door locked, and a stack of books on the coffee table. The titles read Heart of Darkness, Orphan Train, The history of the Siege of Lisbon, and One hundred years of Solitude by Gabriel Marquez on the top of the pile.

He knocked the top book to the floor, and it fell open on page 234.

“Then he made one last effort to search in his heart for the place where his affection had rotted away, and he could not find it.”

He felt a tiny sliver of doubt about his evil plans, but Mary’s note for Cassy taped on the fridge pushed them away.

“Cassy, my cell phone broke. I’m getting a new one tomorrow, but today I need a favor. Would you please keep Simon at your place for one evening? I will explain later. I owe you for this one. The pet carrier is in my bedroom under the bed. Please, remember to make dinner for two. Thank you. Mary.”

Getting and destroying Mary’s note didn’t take him long—one skillful jump from the kitchen counter to the fridge’s silver door—and Mary’s neat writing was history.

She was not going to give up, but neither was he.

This was war.

He ate half of the note and hid the rest of it under the couch. Then, heart pounding and claws retracting, he waited for Cassy to show up.

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” said Benjamin Franklin.

Simon was ready. Sharp claws—check. Furball ready to come out after carefully cleaning his gorgeous fur coat for two hours and eating half of Mary’s note—check. Toilet paper—just waiting for the opportunity to steal it.

He curled up into a ball on the windowsill, portraying a perfect housecat—his left eye half-opened to watch Cassy. She cleaned the apartment and left the bathroom door open, giving Simon the ideal opportunity to arm himself with three rolls of toilet paper from the drawer under the sink.

She set the table for two and cooked dinner—cheese ziti in the oven and salad in the fridge.

As soon as Cassy left, Simon dropped to the floor, ready for action. He had only thirty minutes before Mary and her new boyfriend returned from the Broadway play Cats. How pathetic. A kick in the gut. He would show them what real cats were capable of.

He did think twice before knocking the dainty Bone China dishes from the table to the floor, but it was a necessary sacrifice in the name of love. Shredding the silk curtains turned into swaying fun, and rolling toilet paper around the apartment couldn’t have been more pleasant. He should do it more often. Simon destroyed a couple of house plants, left the furball on the couch, and observed his masterpiece.

As Aristotle put it, “Excellence is a habit.”

Click. Clack. The front door opened. Mary’s charming laughter and an unfamiliar baritone filled the corridor, followed by muffled steps, silence, a gasp, and soft sobs.

Simon peeked from behind the couch to see Mary in his favorite green dress, plopped on the floor, crying into the shoulder of a tall man kneeling beside her.

“He hates me. He hates us. I thought we could be happy, the three of us.” Her muffled voice mixed with hiccups and sniffles, evoking shame in Simon’s cold heart. But it broke into a hundred pieces and scattered across the floor when Mary howled, “Grandma’s China!”

What had he done? Did he really believe destroying the apartment would express his love and bring her back? A gentleman would never make his lady cry. She was always there for him, but had he been there for her? Did he consider her needs and interests? Of course, not.