Beyoncé had received a speech that I was not going to describe because it involved my voice cracking twice and a level of emotional specificity that I was not prepared to discuss with anyone, including the cat it had been directed at.
“I’m coming out,” I said.
“Take your time.”
“I said I’m coming out.”
“And yet the door remains closed.”
I opened the door to find Peter leaning against the hallway wall. His arms were crossed. He wore his weekend uniform of a faded T-shirt and jeans, his glasses slightly crooked, his face arranged in an expression that was trying to be neutral but that contained, in the precise set of his mouth and the way his eyes moved across my face, something that looked uncomfortably like understanding.
“She’s going to a good home,” he said.
“I know.”
“Two other cats won the big yard lottery. The family has experience with high-energy animals.”
“I know.”
“You named them after Destiny’s Child.” He tried to smirk at that—and looked like he’d just sucked a lemon dry.
“I’m aware of what I did, Peter.”
“I told you not to name them.”
“And I ignored you, and it was the right call, because they had names in the adoption photos, and the names gave them personality, and the personality drove engagement, and the engagement produced applications. My naming strategy was a marketing decision.”
“Your naming strategy was emotional attachmentdisguised as marketing.”
“Same thing, Peter. All good marketing is emotional attachment. Mia taught me that.”
He grunted. “Mia teaches you a lot of things that are convenient for your argument.”
I stared at him.
He stared at me.
Beyoncé, who was sitting on my foot with the proprietary confidence of a kitten who had claimed that particular patch of human as her territory months ago, looked at both of us and mewed once. It was a sound that contained no discernible meaning but that I interpreted, because I had been interpreting this cat’s sounds for two months and was fluent in her language, as, “I know what’s happening, and I’m handling it better than you are.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You said that.”
“I’m saying it again for emphasis.”
Peter uncrossed his arms, reached down, and picked up Beyoncé with one hand. She went limp in his grip with the instant, total surrender that she reserved exclusively for Peter. It was a bonelessness so complete that she looked like a calico dishrag. He held her at eye level and studied her the way he studied all his fosters before they left, with a clinical attention that was also, if you knew how to look, aform of farewell.
“She’s a good cat.” He said it to me, but also to her. “She’s going to give that family a run for their money.”
“She’s going to escape from every room in their house within the first week.”
“Probably.”
“She’s going to terrorize their other cats.”
“Most certainly.”
“She’s going to be magnificent.”
