Leonard (My Life as a Cat), Carlie Sorosiak [7 ebook reader .txt] 📗

to salvage the sleekness of my fur, and then we were off to the restaurant, a half mile from the campsite. It was a strange sort of earthly invention: a diner dedicated to the cowboy boot. Food delivered on cowboy-boot platters, cowboy boots pinned on the walls. What was the purpose of it all? And why was it so loud? The hostess gave Stanley and me a triple glance before leading us to a booth, where I was careful—very, very careful—not to scratch the vinyl seats.

When the waitress came, she scrunched her nose, eyeing us up and down, as if searching for fleas. “Um, sorry. But, like, we don’t allow animals?”

If that was indeed true, why was she phrasing it like a question?

Q jumped in. “These aren’t just any animals. This is Leonard, King of Cats, Champion of the Aquarium. And this is Stanley, who might be the size of a bear, but is, in fact, not one.”

“Yeah,” the waitress said, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

It was Norma who saved us with six simple words: “We’ll give you a huge tip.”

The waitress rolled her eyes but miraculously took our order. Olive selected pancakes for herself, half a scrambled egg for me; I rolled it in the smallness of my mouth, trying to savor the taste. Normally, I would have liked the egg: the savory quality, the way it folded against my tongue. But my stomach continued to tumble.

“Good thing I’m trained in the Heimlich,” Norma said, watching Olive scarf down her pancakes. “Slow down, sailor. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Sorry,” Olive said, talking around a mouthful of pancakes. “I planned about twenty-seven minutes for breakfast, and it’s already been eighteen.”

From the floor, Stanley asked if anyone was going to finish those strips of turkey bacon. They smell delicious, he said. Unfortunately, I was the only one who heard him.

Norma stuck a fork in her hash browns. “You know, in my day, everything was slower. We used to play games to pass the time on car trips. Now, I’m not a big games person, but I’d be willing to, this one time.” She sounded hopeful, actually. Grandmotherly.

Olive considered this. “What kind of games?”

“Anything.” Norma shrugged. “I Spy. Twenty questions. Tic-tac-toe.”

So, after we finished our meals and hurried back to the RV, Q suggested a game. “It’s called ‘Best Day on Earth.’ ”

“Never heard of it,” said Norma.

“That’s because I thought of it right now,” he said, backing out of the parking lot before gunning the gas. We jerked forward, pulling onto the highway with a plume of exhaust. “You have two options: You can tell us about your best day on Earth, or you make up what you’d want your best day to look like. Leonard, you start.” My eyes widened as he tossed a look back at me. “Kidding,” he said. “I’m kidding! I’ll go.”

“Well, hold on a second,” Norma said. “I’ve got one.”

Outside, the streets of Nashville were blurring, and the rush of the air conditioner was flitting my fur back. I settled next to Olive on the built-in couch, listening. The world became very quiet, until all we could hear was the hum of the vents, the hush of tires against road.

Norma wrung her hands, turning to face Olive, Stanley, and me. She seemed to be debating something, her eyes glassy and flickering. “This story,” she finally said to Olive, “is about your daddy. I guess I could say what I was going to say, which is some nonsense about riding my motorcycle to Canada, but I figure you deserve the truth.” She tilted her chin upward. “To start with, the shrimp industry in South Carolina was collapsing. It was chaos. The catches were too sparse, too inconsistent—and we couldn’t compete anymore, not with the Gulf of Mexico. People were ditching their boats left and right. I was one of the last locals to hold on, in the water with my crew, just pulling up air.”

Norma’s tone was grim, and Olive shifted uncomfortably beside me.

Q cut in, “And this is your best day?”

“Hold your horses,” Norma said. “I’m getting to it. Now, on the day before I sold my boat, your parents came to visit me, sailor. You’re too young to remember this—you were just a baby, a real little kid—but that’s when I met you for the first time. I was in a horrible mood. A kick-the-world mood. But seeing your face, well, it faded away just a touch. And we went out on the boat: got a tiny life jacket for you, took out the trawler with your parents. I’ve never seen your dad happier, out there on the cove. Calm waters. The sun setting over the pier. It was beautiful—picture sort of stuff. But he kept his eyes on you.” Norma’s throat trembled as she prodded the area right above her heart. It took her a moment to continue. “And that’s my best day on Earth.”

I peered up at Olive. She had water in the corner of her eyes, and I could tell that words were failing her. She was breathing slowly, purposefully, like she was trying very hard to inflate her lungs. I wanted to console her, to breathe for her, because it was hitting me for the first time—hitting me in the most unexpected way—just how much Norma must miss her son. How much Olive must miss her father. All I could do was offer her a long, unblinking stare, my eyes half-slits. For cats, there is no greater gesture.

“Well, shoot,” Q said, breaking the silence. “I was about to tell you about the time I met Jimmy Buffett in Margaritaville, but that’s a no-go now. Doesn’t seem serious enough.” He drummed his fingers against the wheel. “Okay, here’s one. You all know Teddy the dolphin? The team brought him in last week? Man, I’ve never seen an animal with injuries like that. Never. First couple of days, I didn’t even think he was going to make it. But he’s a