Cat In An Aqua Storm

I hear the night maintenance man shuffle out. Other occasional footsteps come and go. My ears prick and flatten at each advance and retreat of shoes. High heels clatter past twice, but not in the rhythm favored by Miss Savannah Ashleigh (arrogant, yet languid) or my own Miss Temple Barr (brisk and snappy). Softer footsteps come, An odor of chemicals pushes past the ajar door to my sensitive nostrils. My whiskers twitch, then my back. I shut my eyes at this noxious smell. Miraculously, it blends with the other unpleasant scents and becomes a background note, sharp but less shrill among the many others.

At last! Miss Savannah Ashleigh’s sullen steps. She stumbles outside my lair and mutters a rude expression. I wince to think of the Divine Yvette’s pink-and-silver ears flattening at the sound of such language.

Her mistress clatters and curses on, toward the dressing room they share. All is quiet for a time. I rise, stretch until my belly touches the floor (contrary to the impression of some, this does not happen without my making a special effort) and amble to the door.

Other voices murmur from the farther dressing room, the very location in which Miss Glinda North went West and I first encountered Black Legs. I detect the sound of makeup jars being unscrewed and an ongoing family argument. The sweetest sound of all is that of Miss Savannah Ashleigh’s heels scraping along the concrete as she retreats up the stairs.

Alone at last. I am halfway to the dressing-room door before you can say “Puss-in-Boots." Luckily, theatrical sorts do not close dressing-room doors behind them, always expecting a hurried return. Also, they are not much on privacy unless they are up to something of a naughty nature.

So I throw myself casually against the door just below the doorknob, and my weight pushes it open enough for me to enter without cramping my midsection.

First I sniff. The Divine Yvette is a victim of air pollution as well. Some odious drugstore perfume poisons the air. I carefully avoid a gleaming slick of spilled powder and walk to the loveseat. There, beside its white wicker legs, rests the soft-sided cell containing my lost love.

She has long since sensed my arrival, and is waiting with round, limpid eyes at the mesh window to her cell. I must silence her welcoming cries with a quick lash of my tail. Who knows when her mistress wilt return?