I laughed, but Sandra looked like she’d heard that one before. “It’s a type of brush,” she explained without a change in expression. “It helps strip the shedding fur, especially the undercoat. A lot of cats like the sensation, which supposedly feels like being groomed by their mama.”
Jamison looked at me with wide eyes. “We didn’t buy a Furminator! We didn’t buy a brush at all. Oh no,” he moaned. “What else did we forget that we didn’t even think of? What ifI get a cat home and then I don’t have what I need? I don’t want my cat to get tangled!” He stroked a hand over Solo’s back, carefully soothing the fur into place.
Solo, having none of that, immediately bristled his fur back as it was and directed a nip at Jamison’s inner arm. Jamison yelped, holding the cat out. “He bit me!”
A bit alarmed at the loose hold he seemed to have on Solo, I reflexively reached out and settled a hand under the cat’s butt and one on his withers, beating Sandra to the punch. To my surprise, Solo didn’t appear to take offense to my hands, instead relaxing into my hold.
Jamison, pursing his lips, pushed the cat a little more toward me. “I think he likes you better.”
With nothing else to do, I accepted the cat’s full weight and brought him to my chest. Immediately, he started purring. I warily ran a hand over his back, not wanting to earn myself a matching nip, but he showed no sign of disapproval this time, nudging his head into the crook of my elbow contentedly.
My stomach went a little light, and I felt my heart tap out a double beat as I looked down at the cat cuddled in my arms. He wasso ugly, so why was this so damn cute?
Sandra’s eyes danced from Jamison’s empty arms to my full ones, and she directed a sly grin in my direction. “You in the market for a cat?”
“Oh, I…” I stammered. “I’m really not, my cat…I don’t know how she is with other animals, she’s always been an only cat since she was a kitten, and anyway I don’t have…” What didn’t I have? Surely something. Something that you needed for two cats that you didn’t need for one. “I only have one litterbox!” I finally managed to come up with, weakly.
Solo’s rough tongue came out and started licking my inner arm, and I died a little. He turned his smooshed little face up to me, and I swear he smirked. The damn cat knew he wascharming me. This was all part of his plot. “How…is he with other cats?” came out of my mouth, surprising me because that was not at all what I’d intended to say, which had beenHe’s adorable but I can’t.
Sandra waggled her hand from side to side. “Mostly disinterested. We put him together with Snowball for a meet ‘n’ greet, and they ignored each other. With Lady Snazzle-pants” -Lady Snazzle-pants?Who was naming the cats in this shelter? “- he was polite and they played a little and then they took separate naps.” She offered me a confident smile. “That’s actually a good sign, that he could relax around another cat enough to nap. If he hadn’t felt comfortable he’d have been puffed up and wary, instead.”
I couldn’t adopt a second cat. I hadn’t even asked Curie!
Ignoring what was surely the obvious indecision on my face, Sandra bustled over to another cage without taking Solo back from me. “This is Lady Snazzle-pants,” she narrated, reaching into the cage and pulling out a sleek black cat with a white blaze on her forehead. “She’s two-ish, so in between Kellogg’s age and Solo’s.” She turned to hand the cat to Jamison, who accepted her with a lot more ease than he’d accepted the first couple of kittens. Looked like he was getting the hang of things. “She’s low-energy and independent, but doesn’t mind being held, though she prefers to do it on her schedule.”
Lady Snazzle-pants’s schedule was apparently full, because she was hardly settled in Jamison’s grip before she started trying to climb out of his arms and up to his shoulder. He shot an uncertain look at Sandra, who just smiled calmly and waved a hand as if to encourage him to let the cat do what she wanted. Before long, the Lady was perched on Jamison’s shoulder like a parrot, surveying the room regally. She appeared far more interested in the other cats than in the person she was sitting on.
Sandra tsked, stroking Lady Snazzle-pants’s back. “Hey now, don’t you want to make him fall in love with you?”
Lady Snazzle-pants apparently did not, because she continued to ignore Jamison and me in favor of eyeing the other cats and then twisting around to groom Sandra’s petting hand.
“Ouch, the claws,” Jamison complained, waving a limp hand up to his shoulder. “I don’t think she’s interested in me as a person. I feel so objectified.”
“Hmm,” Sandra mused, still running her hand up and down Lady Snazzle-pants’s back. “I think you might be right. I don’t think the chemistry is there.” She stepped in and retrieved the cat from Jamison’s shoulder (with my help in separating claws from clothing when she clung on a little too hard) and popped her back into her cage. “We’ve got a couple more you could meet, but they’re generally the more independent ones who maybe won’t want to snuggle, or won’t want to snuggle as often. Or you can make your choice from who you’ve already met. Or,” she added reluctantly, “if you don’t feel like you’ve made a connection with anyone, we’re always getting new cats in, so you could come back another week and see who’s new to meet.”
Jamison glanced furtively over his shoulder at the crate holding Kellogg and her litter, then focused back on Sandra. “I feel like I should say I’ll meet the other cats, because I’m not sure how to judge ‘connection’, but honestly, I just want to hang out more with Minnie and Kellogg.”
“Sounds like a connection to me!” Sandra crowed, throwing her arms wide. “Are they your choice?”
I noticed that at some point, his intention to adopt one cat had officially become two. Jamison didn’t appear to have even noticed the upgrade, treating the two cats as a package deal. “Can I hold them again?” he asked eagerly.
“I’ll do you one better,” she told him. “Let’s grab them and bring them to the office, I’ll bring in a few toys, and we’ll see if they’ll play with you.”
Jamison made that high-pitched whine again and clapped. “Yes, please!”
A few minutes later, we were all settled in chairs in the shelter’s office space. Kellogg and Cinnamon Toast Crunch were on the floor, rolling around in a small pile of catnip with their eyes wide. Jamison held a wand toy with a feather on the end, and as I watched, he dragged it along the ground to get the cats’ attention. Both cats froze mid-roll, their pupils going wide, and then Minnie pounced wildly on the toy, going ass over teakettle in the attempt.
She rolled to a stop near my foot, and I gently gave her a nudge. She batted at my shoelace, then got back to her feet and charged back into the fray with the toy.
A delighted laugh rose out of Jamison’s throat as Minnie climbed over her mother to get to the feather. Kellogg, obviously used to this treatment, allowed herself to be used as a springboard with no complaint.
“Kellogg is young enough,” Sandra said, watching their antics with a grin, “that she and Minnie should have no trouble keeping each other entertained. If you’d gone for an older cat like Solo, they might not have been interested in playing with Minnie as much as she wants to play, but Kellogg is basically still a kitten herself, so they match well.” She side-eyed me. “Solo would probably do better in a house with an older cat who’s more settled.”
I pretended I didn’t get her point and kept my eyes focused on the playing cats. I wasn’t adopting Solo. I wasn’t.
“You know,” Sandra went on in a tone practically dripping deliberate innocence, “we’ve had people who already had a cat bring their cat in for a one-on-one with a potential cat, to see ifthey get along. Most of the time, they either get along or they ignore each other.” I could see out of the corner of my eye that she was still watching me meaningfully. “You’d be welcome to bring your cat in to do that test. Maybe we could do it the day Jamison, here, comes to pick up Kellogg and Minnie for good. Kill two birds with one stone.”
“So I can have them?” Jamison cut in excitedly, apparently so caught up in the cats we were watching that he was oblivious to the polite pressure being applied to me. “I mean, I know you still need to call my references, but…really?”
