Adopting Julie

Aaron A. Polson

 

            The weekend after my roommate, Marissa, broke up with her boyfriend of four years, I drove her to the Humane Society to pick out a cat.  She seemed sort of needy, like the break-up sapped all her self-worth and I figured some lonely cat would find a home, so this was a win-win.

            Marissa chose this ragged-looking little grey tabby, and we brought her back to the apartment.  Our lease stipulated no pets, but what harm could a little grey tabby cause?  Marissa busied herself with buying and arranging all sorts of cute little accoutrements for the cat. She named her Julie.

            “Julie’s a people name,” I said.

            “So.  I like Julie.” 

            “Whatever.  It’s still a people name.” 

            Marissa shared the largest bedroom in the apartment with Julie.  Having the smaller bedroom didn’t bother me as I spent most of my time at my fiancée’s place.  As long as the cat used the kitty litter and refrained from scratching my stuff, all was cool.  Each time I’d stop in for a change of clothes, meal, or whatever, Marissa would be there with the cat, often sitting on the couch watching television.  She loved Julie—at first. 

            I guess the cat mainly just filled a void for Marissa.  She had dated her ex-boyfriend for four years—since they were both seniors in high school.  I’d met him once.  Darren was short, about Marissa’s height, and he acted nice enough.  According to Marissa, the “final straw” came when Darren chose to transfer to another state college and move away from Lawrence.  Marissa reacted as though this was some sort of implicit rejection. 

            Marissa brought home a new boyfriend, complicating Julie’s life.  This new guy, Seth, was taller than Darren, and blond.  He also had a pretty severe allergy to pet dander.  I was in my room during the conversation about pet dander, and I heard Marissa whining and pleading with Seth.  She left that night and didn’t return to the apartment for at least a week. 

            As a first-year teacher, I spent most daylight hours at school, but Marissa must have come home occasionally.  Julie seemed to have enough food; maybe she just found things to eat in the apartment.  Cats will eat cockroaches if they must, and I know there were mice in that apartment because Julie left one at my door as a gift—I immediately tossed the disgusting little corpse in the trash. The kitty litter became a bit foul, but I vowed not to take on that chore.

            Each time I would walk through the front door, Julie would immediately intertwine her lithe grey body between my legs.  The cat really craved attention.  I tried to provide a bit of affection, but I didn’t stay home that often, what with wedding plans, work, and all.  Besides, I never really was much of a cat person.

I coexisted with Julie more than Marissa during the next few months, and the cat’s behavior started to alarm me at times.  Left alone most of the time, the cat claimed most of the apartment as her territory.  I often found her hiding in my closet, stalking behind the furniture in the living room and dining area, or just deposited wherever she pleased.  Not only did she command the whole of the place, Julie seemed to grow more and more feral as time passed, hissing and spitting more than purring.  Maybe I’d offended her by throwing away her little love offering.

After a long week at school—and there were many that first year—I sometimes liked to watch movies alone on a Friday night, taking time to myself to rest and regroup.  One night, while I watched some old black and white suspense film with Lugosi and Karloff, Julie leapt from the shadows and sunk her claws into my left wrist. 

“Damn!” I exclaimed while shaking the cat from my arm.  Julie landed, as cats will, feet first and stalked across the room with her shadow blown to obscene scale by the light of the flickering television.  She stopped just to the right of the entertainment center, looked at me reproachfully, and crept into Marissa’s room.  My arm bled slightly from the minute punctures, and I sucked the wound as I sat on the couch.

            After I finished the movie, I cautiously approached the open doorway to the bedroom.  I squinted into the room, searching for Julie, willing to make amends.  Marissa was never known for her cleanliness, and piles of clothing, scraps of paper, books, and other detritus lay haphazardly about the room.  Enhanced by the dull light from the moon outside, the room took on an unnatural silver hue.

            I heard her before I saw her glowing eyes.  She hissed, and for a moment, the sound seemed far too large for her small tabby body.  The golden eyes appeared between prodigious mounds of clothes, and they were clearly fixed on me.  Something in my brain announced that now would be a good time to spend the weekend away from the apartment, so I quickly backed out of the doorway, threw a few essentials in a bag, and didn’t return until Sunday night. 

            When I walked in the front door on Sunday, I immediately knew something was amiss.  Marissa had been absent for so long, I’d taken to cleaning the kitchen after each meal.  A stack of dirty dishes sat on the counter, and Marissa’s overnight bag sat on the small dining table.  I found Julie’s collar on the counter next to the dishes. 

            Why wouldn’t Julie have her collar?

            “Marissa?”  I searched the apartment, flicked on the light in her room, checked the balcony and the bathroom, and found nothing.  No Julie.  No Marissa. I stood in the kitchen for a few minutes, contemplating the cat-free loop of plastic I held in my hand. 

            I jumped a little when the front door clicked behind me. 

            “Hello?” Marissa’s voice asked.

            “It’s just me . . . ”

            “Oh, yeah.”  Marissa stood in the entrance to the apartment, looking at me, specifically at the collar I held in my hands. 

            I wanted to ask about the cat; I thought how odd it was to find the collar and no Julie. 

            “Yeah, Julie,” Marissa began.  “Well the other day—Saturday night—I was trying to watch TV and eat some crackers and cheese.”  I looked at the couch.  A plate of cracker bits and half-eaten cheese slices still sat there. “Well Julie wouldn’t leave me alone.”

            I looked at the collar.  I looked at Marissa.

            “Yeah, well, I really got a little frustrated, so I let her out. . . .”

            You let her out without her collar, you crazy bitch? I thought, but I said, “You let her out?”

            “I let her out.”  Marissa looked slightly in the direction of the balcony.  We lived on the third floor of the apartment complex.

            I stood in silence, struck dumb by her blatant cruelty. 

            Marissa left that night and didn’t come back to the apartment for another week.  There was no sign of Julie during that time either. 

On the next Saturday night, I found Marissa sitting on the couch, watching TV.  No Seth.  No Julie.

            “Hi,” she said, eyes still fixed on the screen.

            “Hey.” I hadn’t really spoken to her since last week. 

            “So Seth dumped me last night.”  

            Was I supposed to show some sympathy now?  I tried my best, “Sorry . . . look, you going to be okay?”

            “Yeah.”  She sounded really down. I stood there for a moment, trying to think of something sensitive and caring to say, but not particularly feeling those things.  Then she spoke again. “Do you think Julie will come back soon?”

            “I don’t know, maybe . . .” What could I say—maybe if she survived the three story-fall and then wasn’t run over in the parking lot or trying to cross the four-lane street adjacent to our place?  “Look, I’m going to bed, okay?  Let me know if you need anything.”

            I slept well that night. Sometime well after midnight I thought I heard a crash—a few crashes, maybe dishes breaking in the kitchen, but the sounds could have easily come from a dream. 

When I woke in the morning, I felt rested.  I stayed in bed for a long time, simply watching the room slowly brighten. 

            I knew something was wrong as soon as I stepped out of my bedroom.  The rest of the apartment was too cold and I felt a breeze on my face.  I hurried forward, concerned that Marissa had left the balcony door open, and saw the broken glass at once. 

            One of the sliding doors had been shattered from within. Bits of glass still hung in the metal frame, and pieces of glass lay in a random pattern on the balcony.  I stood just inside the apartment, looking down at the glass, and I noticed a dark stain on the edge of some pieces.  My eyes rose to see dark smudges over the top of the wooden railing that surrounded the balcony.  The glass crunched under my slippers as I carefully stepped through the opening in the sliding door.  My stomach crawled slowly toward my throat as I peered over the edge, uncomfortably sure of what I would find. 

            Marissa’s body lay in the courtyard below with her limbs splayed in like a broken toy.  Blood streaked her light pajamas where the glass penetrated, and a dark pool spread around her neck and head on the sidewalk below. 

            Just then I heard a faint meow.  Turning, I saw Julie sitting on the couch behind me, cleaning herself.  She stopped, looked at me, and uttered another weak meow.

            Before I called the police, I dialed my fiancée.  “Honey,” I said, “how would you like to adopt a cat?”

 

 

 

 

Aaron Polson is a high school English teacher who dreams in black and white with Rod Serling narration.  When he isn’t arguing about the definition of irony with his students, he can be found chipping away at some twisted tale.  He currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife and two sons.  His short fiction has appeared in various places, including Reflection’s Edge, GlassFire Magazine, Big Pulp, Johnny America, and Permuted Press’s forthcoming Monstrous anthology.  You can visit him on the web at www.frozenrobot.com.