Love Saves the Day

As soon as I saw Josh last Friday, I knew that something unusual and bad had happened to him. I was napping on the cat bed in Home Office when he came home from work (inconsiderately) early. He noticed me there when he walked upstairs, and came over like he was going to shoo me off like he always does, but then he seemed to change his mind. He didn’t smell sweaty, exactly, but he smelled like he had been sweating more than he usually does—not exercise-sweaty, but scared-sweaty. He also smelled like he’d stopped somewhere before coming home for a few gulps of the evil-smelling liquid that Laura and Josh keep on a special cart in the dining room. After he left Home Office—without even turning the light off the way he normally does on his way out—he went downstairs, and I heard the sound of the TV going on.

I didn’t know yet what terrible thing had happened to Josh. But the smell of something terrible having happened made me nervous. Then I thought about Laura, who was going to walk right into the apartment after work without knowing she should be on her guard. Against my better judgment (because Laura and I aren’t exactly friends after that horrible holiday dinner), I decided to wait downstairs and try to warn her. That’s what Sarah would want me to do. After all, Sarah loves Laura almost as much as she loves me.

But Josh ended up telling Laura right away what had happened, before I got a chance to convince her to approach him cautiously. He said that magazine companies everywhere were losing money, and when that happens the first thing they do is get rid of the people who work in marketing. Josh said they gutted his entire staff, which is horrible! I once saw a TV show about a human gutting a fish he caught. First he cut the fish open right up the middle, and then he pulled out all its insides and threw what was left into a big container. And even though watching that made me hungry for fish (I wish I had some fish right now), hearing that Josh’s office did the same thing to humans made all my fur stand straight up. How evil the humans at Josh’s office must be! It sounded like Josh was lucky to escape that place with his life, and it made me understand why he looked and smelled so awful when he got home. If I saw a thing like that with my own eyes, I don’t think I’d be able to sleep for at least a month.

I expected that Laura would throw her arms around Josh like in TV movies, and say something like, Thank God you’re okay! Instead, a crease appeared between her eyebrows. When she finally did put her arms around him, she was gentler than I would have thought she’d be (seeing what a narrow escape Josh had) and she said, “I’m so sorry, honey.”

Josh’s eyes over Laura’s shoulder looked worried, even though what his mouth said was, “I don’t want you to worry about anything. I know how rough things have been for you these past few months.”

Josh was still hugging Laura, so he couldn’t see her face the way I could. He couldn’t tell that it got that tight expression Laura always gets whenever Sarah is mentioned. It’s like there’s too much happening in Laura’s head for her face to show it all, so she holds all her face muscles as still as she possibly can so they won’t reveal anything. (This is something cats can do naturally without having to practice the way humans do.) “Josh, I’m fine,” Laura said, and her voice sounded almost annoyed. “You don’t need to worry about me right now.”

Then Josh pulled back to look into Laura’s face, and he pushed the corners of his mouth up until his own face looked more happy than sad. “The good news is that I’ll be getting five months’ severance. They’re emailing me the agreement next week, and once I’ve signed it they’ll mail the check. And in the meantime I’ll start making calls first thing Monday morning.”

The crease in Laura’s forehead smoothed out, and she smiled. “That is good news. Five months should be plenty of time for you to find something else. You have such a great résumé.”

“I think so,” Josh said, and he smiled, too.

The days have been getting longer, and when Laura or Josh pushes open the top half of one of the long windows in the living room, I can feel how much warmer the air outside is. Still, it was cool enough inside the apartment. There was really no reason for the tiny beads of sweat-water that popped up on Josh’s forehead.