She followed me into the kitchen. “I don’t like this, Mina. You’re spending every spare moment with these men, and I’ve never met them.”
“You know Heathcliff Earnshaw.”
“Yes, and that worries me. He’s a gypsy. You know what they’re like.”
“Mum, that’s racist, and I’m not talking about this now—” My knife hovered over the cheese as I spied a suspicious-looking set of boxes shoved up against the telly. “What are those boxes?”
“Oh!” Mum bounded over and lifted the flaps, holding up a tiny book. “I’ve been waiting to tell you. They’re my new business.”
“What happened to the wobblelators?” My mum was convinced that she was meant to be a millionaire, and that the way to make her dream a reality was to sell useless crap to unsuspecting people. Over the years she’d tried every get-rich-quick scheme out there, and her latest attempt was wobbling exercise power-plate machines.
“They were just soheavy. And I couldn’t compete against the young, fit salespeople. But with these, I think I’ve finally found my calling. Even you have to admit that this time I’m onto something special.”
She tossed a tiny book onto the table. I picked it up and gaped at the title.
Cat Language – a Cat-to-Human Dictionary.
I flipped the book open. It was a dictionary, all right. Only it translated the language of cats into English. Apparently, ‘mew-mew’ meant ‘I am hungry’ and ‘meeeeorrrrw,’ was ‘feed me now, or I’ll claw your face off.’
I stifled a laugh. “Mum, these are… um…”
“I know, they’re genius! Everyone has a pet they want to understand. And all those cat videos on the internet mean I can try somesearch engine marketing.Plus, the animal behavioral doctor who put these together has no idea how to run a successful business, so it’s an absolute steal. I’m not locked into purchasing a certain amount of books. I lease the rights to the dictionary file, have the local printer make up the copies, and then I get to keepallthe profit.” She dumped a box on the table. I winced as hundreds of books spilled out – not just cat dictionaries, but dogs and hamsters and mice and goldfish.Goldfish? What noises do goldfish even make?“I thought you could set up a display on the counter at Nevermore Bookshop, maybe push them to anyone who buys pet books.”
“Mum,no.”
“But you work at a bookshop. Mina, it’s perfect.”
“I’m not taking these to Heathcliff. No one will buy these.”
“I’ve got ones for dogs and gerbils and mice, too—”
“I saidno. Can we drop this?” I slid two pieces of bread into the oven and turned on the grill. “I’ve got a lot of reading to do tonight. I’m hosting a book club meeting at the shop and I need to finish the book they’re studying. If you need me, I’ll be in my room.”
Mum frowned, flicking through the cat dictionary. I knew I hadn’t heard the last about it.
* * *
Imanaged to shower and crawl into bed without getting into it with Mum again. Our flat was technically only a one bedroom, but we’d blocked out the windows in the tiny conservatory off the living room and added a cheap standing wardrobe Mum found on the side of the road. The room was barely big enough for my bed and clothes, but I’d managed to cover every spare surface in band posters and ticket stubs and Polaroid pictures of Ashley and me as rebellious teens pouting and making rude hand gestures at the camera. Mum hadn’t changed a thing since I left for New York City. Looking at the walls now gave me a weird feeling in my gut. I felt like I hardly knew the person staring back at me. She was another Mina, from another world.
I jammed my headphones in my ears, cranked up a playlist of Nick Cave and The Sisters of Mercy, and openedOf Mice and Men. Bugs slammed into the windows outside, attracted to the too-bright bulb hanging over the bed.
Halfway into the first chapter, I lost touch with the outside world. The words and the music carried me away, and I forgot that I was Mina Wilde, failed fashion designer and soon-to-be blind bookstore assistant sleeping in her old childhood bedroom in the dingy flat she swore she’d never return to. Instead, I was on the cotton fields of southern America with migrant workers George and Lennie as they toiled and dreamed of a future where they owned their own plot of land. A dream so remote and impossible it clung to them like a shroud.
I knew what that was like.
One thing that jumped out at me in the book was how loneliness shaped many of the interactions between characters. George and Lennie’s friendship came about because of loneliness. Candy lost his dog. Everyone had aspirations that drove them from true human connection. Even the nearby town in the story was called Soledad, which a quick Google search revealed means ‘solitude’ in Spanish.
All that loneliness reminded me of myself and the guys. I’d carried loneliness with me my entire life. I thought I’d found a real friend in Ashley, but New York City and her own greed and a knife in the heart had put paid to that. Like me, Heathcliff, Morrie, and Quoth each bore their own loneliness. Heathcliff wore his like a badge of honor, Morrie buried his deep and covered it with cocky jokes and power games, and Quoth… Quoth used his as a shroud.
Loneliness… and powerlessness. Every character inOf Mice and Mensuffered from some lack of power, and each had a scheme by which they could attain more power and status. By the end of the book, every one of those schemes had been torn down and dashed to pieces. Even Lennie, the strongest physical character in the book, had his inherent power stripped away by his intellectual disability. There was no way to halt to march or time or the inevitability of the natural order.
I finishedOf Mice and Menaround midnight, tears streaming down my cheeks as (spoiler alert) George gives into the futility of his powerlessness and kills Lennie. The TV still blared in the living room. I desperately wanted to pee, but I didn’t want another confrontation, so I turned the light off, lay down on the pillow, and stared at the ceiling.
I must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, grey light streamed through the gaps in my moldy curtains. Rain pattered against the glass, and a cold chill nipped my bare skin. I crawled out of bed, tiptoed to the bathroom to relieve my now bursting bladder, pulled on some clothes, and snuck out of the house before Mum could bug me about cat-language dictionaries again. I opened my bag to throw in my phone and found she’d stuffed three inside. I tossed them on the sofa where she was sure to see them, and left.
I hurried through the empty streets. The early hours of the morning were some of the most pleasant on the estate. If I squinted hard enough, I could pretend I didn’t see the hollowed-out cars on the neighbor’s lawn or the windows covered with sheets at the dealer’s house, and that I really lived in a picturesque American candy box suburb.
Not that I’d have to squint much longer.
