No response. What would he say, if he could talk? She can just imagine it:Nah, thanks, Flo, but a walk just isn’t the same anymore. Maybe you feel the same way.
Flo says, “I kind of feel the same way, but you know, even if you go slow, you can still have a good time. Maybe even a better time than when you hurry along. You see more.”
True,she imagines him saying.And there’s nothing like those smells you encounter. Why is it that you people never give us enough time for smelling?
“Oh, come on, Champ,” Flo says. “Sometimes when I used to walk you, you would sniff at something seemed like for twenty minutes straight. I’d hold the leash all patient for a while, but then we really did have to move on.”
You humans don’t understand because your sense of smell is so poor. You’re missing a whole universe of things.
“I spect you may have a point. We certainly like smelling flowers.”
They’re all right. But I’ve rolled in some things that—
“I know. You don’t have to go into details.”
And after we go to all the trouble to perfume ourselves, you humans wipe it off.
Flo looks up into the sky. “Isn’t it a lovely day, though? Look at that sky.”
No response from Champ, not even an imaginary one. He’s sound asleep. Not a bad idea, a little nap with the warm sun on her face and the breeze so gentle. Something Flo has learned later in life is the value of a nap, how you awaken fresh and all start-overish.
Flo starts to close her eyes but then she hears a car horn beep and there is Denise coming up the driveway. She climbs Flo’s porch steps and lifts Champ up into her arms.
“Hold on,” Flo tells her, and she goes over to lift one of Champ’s ears to whisper into it, “I love you.”
Thank you, Flo. I feel good. I think I want a marrow bone.
To Denise, Flo says, “I think he just told me he wants a marrow bone.”
“Healwayswants a marrow bone.”
“Well, I was right, then.”
“Thanks for watching him, Flo.”
Back in her house, Flo makes a cup of ginger tea. She’ll drink it, then go back out on the porch and maybe take that nap after all.
But here comes the sound of someone coming up her front porch steps again. Denise must have forgotten to tell her something. But when Flo opens the door, she sees another woman standing there, that serious-faced woman she’s noticed who lives down the block.
“Sorry to disturb you,” the woman says. “I’m Teresa McNair, your neighbor, and my cat is under your porch, and he won’t come out.”
“Well, let’s us corral him,” Flo says. “I’ll take one side, you take the other.”
It doesn’t work. The cat slips past both of them and climbs the tree on the boulevard. Teresa says, “I can’t lose him. I justgothim! I haven’t even named him!”
“You’re not going to lose him,” Flo says. “I’ll get some food, maybe we can tempt him down with that. Keep an eye on him; I’ll be right back.”
Flo goes back into the house filled with an invigorating excitement; there is nothing she likes more than helping people. She opens a little can of salmon, dumps it onto waxed paper, and takes it back outside. “Come over here by the bushes and hide,” Flo tells the woman. “I’ll make a trail of salmon that leads right to you.”
Teresa walks slowly over to the bushes in front of Flo’s house and Flo can tell she doesn’t believe this will work. Well, they’ll see.
Flo goes to the base of the tree and calls up, “Here, kitty,kitty, kitty.” She sees the flick of a white tail, some green eyes peering down.
“Come and get it!” Flo says, making the trail, and then she walks back up onto her porch with extreme nonchalance.Eat it or not, I don’t careis what she wants to convey. She thinks that if there’s one thing cats don’t like, it’s for them to be told what to do. Sure enough, after a few seconds here comes the cat cautiously scaling down the tree. When it reaches the ground it begins eating. Flo bets Teresa wants to run after it, but she holds her position. When the cat is directly before her, eating the last offering, she grabs him.
“Thank you!” Teresa cries. “I live just three doors down. I’ve got to go to work, but after that, may I come back and thank you properly? Say, six o’clock?”
“Why, sure,” Flo says, and goes back inside. Maybe she should put a little color on her face if she’s going to be doing all this socializing.
