twitched.
Mungojerrie stood with his hind paws on the chair, forepaws on the
table, staring intently at my dog.
Orson issued that brief, thin, anxious sound again-and didn’t take his
eyes off the cat.
Unconcerned about Mungojerrie, Roosevelt said, “Gloria told me that
Sloopy was depressed mostly because I wasn’t spending any time with him
anymore. ‘You’re always out with Helen,” she said.
‘And Sloopy knows Helen doesn’t like him. He thinks You’re going to
have to choose between him and Helen, and he knows You’ll have to
choose her.” Now, son, I’m stunned to be hearing all this, because I
was, in fact, dating a woman named Helen here in Moonlight Bay, but no
way could Gloria Chan have known about her.
And I was obsessed with Helen, spending most of my free time with her,
and she didn’t like dogs, which meant Sloopy always got left behind. I
figured she would come around to liking Sloopy, cause even Hitler
couldn’t have helped having a soft spot in his heart for that mutt.
But as it turned out, Helen was already turning as sour on me as she
was on dogs, though I didn’t know it yet.”
Staring intently at Orson, Mungojerrie bared his fangs.
Orson pulled back in his chair, as if afraid the cat was going to
launch itself at him.
“Then Gloria tells me a few other things bothering Sloopy, one of which
was this Ford pickup I’d bought. His arthritis was mild, but the poor
dog couldn’t get in and out of the truck as easy as he could a car, and
he was scared of breaking a bone.”
Still baring his fangs, the cat hissed.
Orson flinched, and a brief keening sound of anxiety escaped him, like
a burst of steam whistling out of a teakettle.
Evidently oblivious to this feline-canine drama, Roosevelt said,
“Gloria and I had lunch and spent the whole afternoon talking about her
work as an animal communicator. She told me she didn’t have any
special talent, that it wasn’t any paranornial psychic nonsense, just a
sensitivity to other species that we all have but that we’ve
repressed.
She said anyone could do it, that I could do it myself if I learned the
techniques and spent enough time at it, which sounded preposterous to
me.”
Mungojerrie hissed again, somewhat more ferociously, and again Orson
flinched, and then I swear the cat smiled or came as close to smiling
as any cat can.
Stranger yet, Orson appeared to break into a wide grin-which requires
no imagination to picture because all dogs are able to grin.
He was panting happily, grinning at the smiling cat, as though their
confrontation had been an amusing joke.
“I ask You, son, who wouldn’t want to learn such a thing?” said
Roosevelt.
“Who indeed?” I replied numbly.
“So Gloria taught me, and it took a frustratingly long time, months and
months, but I eventually got as good at it as she was.
The first big hurdle is believing You can actually do it. Putting
aside your doubt, your cynicism, all your preconceived notions about
what’s possible and what isn’t. Most of all, hardest of all, You have
to stop worrying about looking foolish, ’cause fear of being humiliated
really limits You. Lots of folks could never get past all that, and
I’m sort of surprised that I got past it myself ” Shifting forward in
his chair, Orson leaned over the table and bared his teeth at
Mungojerrie.
The cat’s eyes widened with fear.
Silently but threateningly, Orson gnashed his teeth.
Wistfulness filled Roosevelt’s deep voice: “Sloopy died three years
later. God, how I grieved for him. But what a fascinating and
wonderful three years they were, being so in tune with him.”
Teeth still bared, Orson growled softly at Mungojerrie, and the cat
whimpered. Orson growled again, the cat bawled a pitiful meow of
purest fear-and then both grinned.
“What the hell is going on here?” I wondered.
Orson and Mungojerrie seemed to be perplexed by the nervous tremor in
my voice.
“They’re just having fun,” Roosevelt said.
I blinked at him.
In the candlelight, his face shone like darkly stained and highly
polished teak.