Chapter Twenty-Nine: Pawsitive Changes
chapter twenty-nine
PAWSITIVE CHANGES
Kitty
T
his is clearly fate telling us that you’re supposed to move to the city and we’re destined to live together.” Miles kisses me on the temple, then trails several more along my cheek until he reaches my lips.
“Let me get the interview under my belt before you go dusting off your crystal ball.” Any other thoughts I would like to put into words get lost in my head when he covers my mouth with his and kisses me breathless.
Half an hour and two orgasms later, Miles and I are sitting on the couch in his living room. Wilfred and Prince Francis are close by, snuggling in Wilfred’s bed. Which is also now Prince Francis’s bed. Those two are practically inseparable these days. And on the nights where we’re not here at Miles’s, Prince Francis is mopey, as though he misses his best four-legged friend.
“I can put a pin in making officially official plans for you and Prince Francis to move in with me and Wilfred until you’ve
gone for the interview, but this job sounds perfect for you.” Miles adjusts my legs so they lie across his lap.
“It really does.” I called Miles last night to tell him the news, after which he went on a Google mission to find out everything he could about the company. Then he created a pros and cons spreadsheet about taking the job over continuing to grow the Kitty Whisperer. And he also created a third column, with the potential to continue to do both without burning myself out.
“If you want to do both, you can, and there’s real potential for the Kitty Whisperer to continue expanding, if that’s your goal. I bet they’d even be willing to partner with you if you brought that to the table. You’re an invaluable resource, Kitty, and they clearly see that. Your face on their pilot project will go a long way to making it successful. Ask for what you want tomorrow, and tell them you don’t want to give up what you’ve built. And if you like what they’re offering you, then ask them to help you find a way to make it work.”
“It’s hard to believe a few days ago I was plugging along, doing my day to day, and now here I am, interviewing for a new job, potentially moving to the city. It’s like my whole world has been turned upside down in the best way possible.” After the initial panic, in which I questioned whether I could honestly and truly handle all the changes life was throwing at me, I called my sister.
She echoed what my mother said. And then she told me to go upstairs and stand in her bedroom and tell her what I saw. Nothing had changed in the days since she moved, but everything had changed. The things that had made it her room had gone with
her to the apartment in the city. Sure, it was still a bedroom, but the life that had occupied it was missing. The little things that would trigger memories had disappeared.
Change happened regardless of whether we called on it. I could choose to embrace it or fight it, but it was coming for me, no matter what. So I embraced it. All of it. From the interview to moving in with Miles. And I started by bringing over a few outfits to keep in his closet.
The next morning Wilfred wakes us up with his stinky dog-breath alarm.
“Stay right where you are. I’ll take care of these two, and then I’ll take care of you.” Miles rolls out of bed, and Prince Francis and Wilfred follow him to the bathroom. They sit in front of the door, tails wagging in unison while they wait for him to do his business and then continue to the kitchen to feed them.
I grab a fruity Mentos from the roll in the nightstand drawer and lose my nightshirt. We finally figured out what Miles is allergic to. Apparently, as a kid he used to have a strange reaction to anything minty. His tongue would get itchy and his mouth would peel, so he’s avoided all minty things since. A few weeks ago, I kissed him after I had a mint hot chocolate, and his lips puffed up slightly, but an antihistamine later, they were back to their normal full kissableness.
The following week, I picked up a toy for Prince Francis that
contained catnip. And Miles had a full-blown allergic reaction that required me to inject him with his EpiPen, a trip to the ER, and a formal mint allergy diagnosis. Catnip is part of the mint family. No more getting high for Prince Francis, and no more mint-mocha beverages for me.
A minute later, Miles returns and closes the door behind him, so we have some privacy. We’ve learned the hard way that leaving the door open, even a crack, is not a good idea when we’re planning to have naked fun.
Prince Francis yowls when I moan too loudly, and Wilfred joins in with forlorn howling. Feeding them tends to keep them busy long enough that we can get in some private time without an unwanted chorus.
Miles joins me under the sheets, our legs tangling. “I can’t wait to wake up to your beautiful face every single morning.” He slants his mouth over mine, and we both sink into the kiss. We make slow, lazy love, enjoying the closeness and the comfort we find in each other before we leave the haven of his bed.
My interview isn’t until ten this morning, and Miles doesn’t have to be at the rink until eleven, so we take our time making breakfast, and we talk about the interview and the questions I should ask.
Miles walks me down to the parking garage at nine-thirty and gives me a long, lingering kiss. “I’d wish you luck, but you don’t need it, since this is basically them trying to woo you.”
“Cross your fingers for me that it goes well anyway.”
I hop into my Cat-mobile and drive to A Place for Paws. It’s
only twenty minutes from Miles’s apartment, which is another checkmark in the pro column.
I’m greeted by a young woman dressed in scrubs with a cat face pattern on them. “Kitty Hart! You’re here.” She extends a hand; her eyes are wide and she looks as nervous as I feel.
“Hi. And yes, I am.”
She shakes her head and has a full-body reaction that reminds me of someone being shocked. By a live electrical wire. “I’m so sorry. My name is Annie. I’m one of the resident cat lovers. My job is to love the new kitties they bring in for us to rehabilitate. Mary Jane is just speaking with the vet, but she’ll be out in a minute. Can I show you around while you’re waiting?”
“Sure. That sounds great.”
“Awesome. Fantastic.” She claps her hands and grins. “I’m still kind of in shock that you’re standing here. I’m a huge fan.” She cringes. “I promised myself I’d keep my cool, but I’m failing so hard right now.”
“I’m just a cat lover who happens to have gone viral with a video.” I wink.
Her eyes go wide again. “I can’t believe that happened. And I saw the whole video that Brit Sheers posted. And you were right about the geese. It is like we’ve channeled all our meanness into that one animal.”
“I know! They’re ridiculously surly creatures, aren’t they?”
“They really are.” Annie nods her agreement and leads me down the hall.
She opens a door to a large room. It’s a cat’s playground
paradise. There are cat trees spread throughout the room at various intervals, and stairs fixed to the walls leading to perches for cats to hang out on. Several kitties keep watch from the highest points in the room, guarding their territory. Other cats lounge in beds or zoom around the space, playing with toys or each other.
“This is incredible.” It’s exactly the kind of space I wanted to set up for the Kitty Whisperer in the future when I had my own house and could dedicate a space to my furry charges. Or when I had the capital to rent a space.
“It’s my favorite room. This is where our healthy cats who enjoy the companionship of both humans and furry friends hang out during the day. We have a smaller room for the more skittish ones, and the ones who need social training,” Annie tells me.
“This is perfect. Where do they sleep at night?”
“Come, I’ll show you.” Annie guides me down the hall to another room. This one has individual cages, but they’re not like little cells. Instead, they’re decorated with toys, and each one has a cat bed and a cat stuffie. “This is where we keep the kitties who sleep best on their own, but we have another room for communal sleeping.”
She takes me next door, where there are a few cats curled up together, enjoying naptime. A tabby puts his paw over his eyes and rolls away from us, obviously not interested in being disturbed.
“Do you foster feral families sometimes?”
“We do. We have special rooms for them as well.”
A woman peeks her head in. “I thought I might find you in here. I hope you’re enjoying your tour.”
“It’s great. Annie is a fantastic guide.”
The woman, who I recognize as the CEO of A Place for Paws, holds out a hand. “I’m Mary Jane. We spoke over email. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to meet with us.”
“It’s honestly a pleasure. This place is fabulous.”
She doesn’t take me to a boardroom; instead we grab coffees (with takeout cup lids to avoid drinking cat fur) and sit in the kitty playground, where she tells me all about the pilot project.
We both end up with cats in our laps as she talks about how her vision is to take what I’ve built with the Kitty Whisperer and make it a full-service program, with a vet on staff and feline care support available for the adoptive families.
“We don’t want to take you away from what you’ve already built, Kitty,” Mary Jane explains. “We’re hoping, if you’re interested, that we could merge your business model with ours. That way you can keep doing what you love, while helping us start up this new program.”
“This all sounds amazing. I’ll need a few weeks to get things organized with my staff, though.”
“You can take all the time you need. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but does this mean you’re coming on board?”
I don’t even have to think about it. I already know the answer. “I would love to be part of your team.”
Over the next few weeks, I find myself busier than I’ve ever been. I approach Fancy, my vet tech student, about taking a more
managerial role in the Kitty Whisperer, which she’s more than happy to do. We agree that over the next two months my time will slowly shift from three days a week with the Kitty Whisperer down to two, and eventually down to one, where I’m just signing off on paperwork—we hire someone to take care of most of that—and reviewing client files. But I keep one day a week for visits, because my love of cats is the reason I started the Kitty Whisperer.
And as I transition, that’s what I find myself doing. I not only spend time with my feline friends, but I also help find them new homes, and I work with people who love animals with the same soft heart I do.
While I’m making big life changes, so is my mom. She ends up buying a smaller, two-bedroom house in the same development as Marie and sells the house I grew up in. Hattie and I help her pack. There’s catharsis in sorting through our history. And while we might shed some tears, there’s also laughter and love, and the knowledge that our memories stay with us. Home doesn’t have to be defined by a place, it’s where we find our strongest emotional bonds. It’s a shelter created from love.