Cat In An Aqua Storm

Oh, says Miss Yvette with a soft little trill, those are my beauty supplies.

I paw through them, never having seen the like, and overturn a steel-tooth comb and a powder puff (the erstwhile pastel mouse) with a satin ribbon on one side on which is written the ineffable name, Yvette, in silver script.

I flip this frippery over again. “Do you mean to say that Miss Savannah Ashleigh powders you? For fleas?"

Oh, no, Miss Yvette answers, shocked. Miss Savannah Ashleigh powders her, she tells me, so that her hairs will be clean and fluffy and smell good.

I can attest to the efficacy of this beauty regimen as I push the front of the carrier flat, the better for Miss Yvette to step out An almond-scented wave of fur brushes past.

I am about to take matters in their foreordained direction, when my alert senses detect voices growing louder in the hall. I have not been forewarned by the sound of nearing shoes, a puzzlement that immediately becomes an annoyance.

“Quick!” I hiss at the Divine Yvette, slapping the empty carrier farther into the shadows and pushing my companion rather rudely underneath the sofa.

Not a moment too soon. A trio of feet enter, two bare but painted with the gaudy color of the twenty-four-carat trim on a Cadillac Seville, the other wearing black sneakers. No wonder I heard no approach. Beside me, Yvette's airy whiskers tremble at the dust we have bestirred beneath the sofa, but I clap a paw over her nose before she sneezes.

“Here it is,” announces one of the barefoot girls with cheek of gold (from my position I can see more of the scenery than the Divine Yvette).

"Let me finish you off,” a new voice suggests.

I hear a plastic cap being unscrewed and am nearly leveled by a strong odor with an undertone of glycerine. Beside me, the Divine Yvette trembles in fear.

I begin to appreciate her reaction, for I do not like what is transpiring in the room beyond us one bit. The two girls talk, as girls will who are undressed and used to it, of many things.

“We have never argued like this before,” one says apologetically.

“That's because we never faced the past” the other answers.

“Your past,” the first says, “is not my past.”

A silence increases the tension. Then the second girl says, “Be sure to leave an apple-sized spot.”

And the first says, “Oooh, that’s cold. Oh, well, almost done.” And the second says, "I feel kind of... faint”

And the first says, “Gypsy?”