I’ve opened all the doors and windows again, letting the fresh air blow out the cat smells and the humidity. I have no idea where Boo is, but I’m sure she’ll come slinking out as soon as I open the fridge.
Priya wanders around the kitchen while I run cool water from the tap for the cat and clean out the food bowl. Over my shoulder I can see her studying photographs of Brian and Em with their parents, a happy foursome on vacation at Hersheypark and the Jersey Shore and Gettysburg. Were my parents ever that happy?
“Did you take vacations like that when you were a kid?” I ask her.
Priya runs a finger along a photo of the Aokis posing with the Phillies mascot, the tall green long-snouted Phanatic.
“Vacations? I have never been on a vacation,” she says.
“Really? No trips to the Grand Canyon or Yosemite?” I wipe out Boo’s water bowl before refilling it. Water is not enough to draw her from wherever she’s hiding.
She shakes her head. “Would these be for data collection?”
“Uh, yeah, if you’re collecting fun.” I take out the veggies and chicken, chop them, and blend them as I did yesterday. Like magic, Boo appears at my feet, wrapping herself around my legs in a figure eight.
“Felicette!” Priya cries. As her outstretched arms reach for Boo, the cat suddenly notices the back door is open and bolts for it.
“Wait! Boo! No!”
Priya looks stricken. “Felicette?”
I drop the food on the counter and hurry into the backyard, but I don’t see the cat anywhere. “Shit. She’s gone. Emily’s gonna kill me.”
“Your friend will kill you?” Priya is horrified.
“Quite possibly yes, if anything happens to that cat.”
“Felicette will be fine. She’s a brave cat.”
I turn to Priya, who is following me on her tiptoes through the long grass of the backyard. “Who is Felicette? This is Boo.”
For a moment, Priya looks confused, and then she shakes her head with a light laugh. “Yes, yes, I know. Felicette was the first cat in outer space. She was trained by the French and sent up in a research rocket in the year you designated as 1963.”
“Nineteen sixty-three? That cat is long gone by now.” I wonder how far the Aokis’ property goes. Could Boo have run to a neighbor’s house? To the street? To the DQ? “Boo is not an outdoor cat,” I say. “She’s been inside her whole life. Emily never lets her out.”
Behind me, Priya steps delicately as if she were avoiding treading on individual blades of grass. “Felicette parachuted back to Earth,” she tells me. “I wonder what she thought as she was floating.”
“Get me down!” I say in a high-pitched voice.
“I think she enjoyed it. If you were a cat, wouldn’t you like to fly?”
“I guess. It would certainly make it easier to chase birds.”
We’re at the edge of the Aokis’ yard. Beyond this are dense woods. If Boo is in here, it will be nearly impossible to find her. I can feel myself sigh. Only two days into their vacation and I’m going to have to tell Emily I lost her cat.
I feel Priya’s hand on my shoulder. Her fingers press into my back and rest there. “This sucks,” I tell her. “Emily already hated me. Now she’ll never speak to me again.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She would not ask someone she hates to watch her cat.”
“You don’t know Em.”
“I don’t know Em, but that behavior would not make sense.”
“Boo! Where are you? Boo!”
“You are doing this wrong. She will not come to you.”
“How do you know? Boo! Come here, Boo!” But I know she’s right. Boo isn’t a dog; she’s not like Ginger, who responds the exact same way all the time. I know that when I clap my hands and whistle, Ginger will come to me. I know that if I shake a box of biscuits, she’ll sit up and beg. I know that she loves to chase balls and birds and that she barks when she’s excited. I know what to expect from her every single day. And I like that. I don’t like . . . change. I don’t like . . . unpredictability. I don’t like . . . risks.
Asking Emily out was a no-brainer. I mean, we’d known each other for years. We hooked up. She knew I crushed on her—she knew. Didn’t she? It shouldn’t have been a risk at all. It should have been an easy “yes.”
I feel Priya’s hand slide down my back and her fingers intertwine with mine. Why exactly am I thinking about Emily?
She gently tugs me back toward the house.
“But Boo—”
“The cat is not out here.”
Even as I allow her to lead me through the yard, I shake my head. “How do you know that?”
Priya taps her finger at her temple. “Because I am thinking like a cat. That’s what you must do.”
“Think like a cat? You mean, Oh boy, I’m gonna climb this tree and eat that mouse?”
“Your cat has been inside for all of her life, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then why would she run away?”
“Because it’s new and different? I don’t know. I’m not a cat.”
Priya touches the side of my face now. “Think like a cat.”
We’re back at the house and the door is still wide open, but there is no sign of Boo. “I’m telling you, she’s gone.”
Priya positions herself at the back door and looks right, then left, then right again. Still holding my hand, she pulls me along the side of the house, past the cellar stairs and the grill, over the stone patio, and around the table and chairs.
We get to the side porch and Priya pauses by the stairs. “Think like a cat,” she says again, and drops to her knees. She ducks her head under the stairs and I hear a muffled “Aha!”
I follow her gaze to a pair of glow-in-the-dark eyes peeking at us from the other end of the deck. There is barely enough room for my head and shoulders under here; no way could I crawl to the cat to get her out. “Boo!”
Priya’s fingers pinch my wrist. “Do not scare her.”
“But how will we—”
“We wait. We keep thinking.”
We crawl out from under the porch and sit in reverent silence, but as the minutes tick by, Boo makes no move to come out.
“Are you sure that’s a cat and not a raccoon?”
Priya smiles slyly at me. “We are now just waiting for Felicette’s parachute to open and for her to float back to Earth.”
I grin and feel relief spread through my body. “How did you know she was going to be under the porch and not a mile from here?”
“She doesn’t want to run away.”
“Did you mind-meld with the cat?”
“Mind-meld?”
“It’s a Vulcan thing. Forget it.”
“Yes, I know about Vulcans.” Her fingers squeeze mine. “You’re teasing me.”
“I am.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Good, because I don’t plan to stop.” Our eyes meet and I try to send her a message. If you can read my mind, please don’t go. Please stay.
“If you were a cat who had lived its whole life inside and you finally got a chance to go outside, you would not be grateful, you would be terrified,” Priya says. “Indoors is safety and security and food and love. It is your home. The outdoors is not your home.”
I feel her leg against mine, her arm against mine, her shoulder and hip pressed into me very subtly, very gently, as if we are relaxing into each other, melting into each other.
“We all just want to be home, don’t we?” she says without looking at me.
Where is your home? Where is your family? I want to ask but Priya gasps and sits up sharply.
“Felicette! You have returned to Earth.” Boo, covered in dirt and cobwebs, climbs on top of Priya’s lap and begins to lick her paws clean.
“Thank god.” I start to take the cat from Priya but Boo holds fast, her nails digging into the fluffy layers of skirt. “Okay, okay, stay with her, I don’t care. I don’t even like cats.”
I give Priya a hand as she clutches Boo and tries to stand up. Her wide eyes blink slowly. “You are more like this cat than you think,” she says.
What does that mean? I wonder.