I sat at the island.
From the living room, I could hear the kittens doing whatever kittens do when unsupervised, which based on the sounds was a combination of sprinting, climbing, and engaging in the kind of small-scale warfare that would be alarming in any species larger than a bread loaf.
General Tso, who had been on the refrigerator, dropped to the floor with the heavy thud of a cat whose patience had been tested to its structural limits. He stalked to address a performance issue.
“General Tso’s going in,” I said.
Benji looked up from his phone. “He’s fine. He tolerates them now.”
“He tolerates Beyoncé. The other four are still on his list.”
“What list?”
“He has a list. You can see it in his face. There areanimals he tolerates, animals he ignores, and animals he’s planning something for. The last category gets a specific look. It’s the narrowed eyes with the slow tail movement.”
“You’re telling me my cat has a hit list.” Benji’s lips curled as his brows rose.
“He’s notyourcat. And yes, he has a list. Don’t make me repeat myself or write it down.”
“On a Post-it?” Benji’s grin grew.
“Obviously.”
“Obvi,” he corrected, his grin turning positively devious.
From the living room, there came a sound. It was General Tso’s low, authoritative rumble, followed by the scattering of five sets of tiny paws fleeing in five different directions, followed by a single triumphant yowl that communicated, in the universal language of cats, that order had been restored and the insurgents had been wholly and completely routed.
Beyoncé, who feared nothing, came trotting back into the kitchen thirty seconds later with her tail high. She sat directly in front of General Tso’s food bowl, which was a provocation so brazen that even General Tso seemed momentarily uncertain how to respond.
“She’s going to get herself killed,” I said.
“She’s going to become his protégé. Mark mywords. By the end of the month, she’ll be on the refrigerator.”
“Nobody gets on the refrigerator. The refrigerator is sovereign territory. It’s sacred ground. There would be war.”
“The refrigerator is the current sovereign’s territory. Empires change, Peter. Beyoncé is playing the long game.”
I watched Beyoncé sit in front of General Tso’s bowl with the quiet, unblinking confidence of a being who had decided that this particular piece of floor was hers and that the twenty-pound orange cat glaring at her from three feet away was a problem that would resolve itself in time.
General Tso watched her with the expression of a ruler who has encountered a rebel too small to crush but too bold to ignore. He turned and walked away, slowly, with dignity, the way a general retreats from a position that has become strategically untenable rather than militarily lost.
“Did General Tso just blink first?” Benji said, his brows reaching his hairline, almost as high as the sudden pitch of his voice.
“He made a tactical withdrawal.”
“He blinked!General Tso blinked. This is unprecedented. This is a regime change. This is—”
“It’s a cat walking away froma kitten.”
“It’s a power shift, Peter. The old guard is yielding to the new generation. This is how dynasties fall. I need to film this.”
He grabbed his phone and went after Beyoncé, who was now eating from General Tso’s bowl with the casual entitlement of a renegade who had conquered a kingdom and was sampling the spoils.
I sat at the island with my tea and watched them, the man and the kitten and the affronted orange monarch and the chaos of the living room behind them.
I felt the corner of my mouth doing something that I did not authorize . . .
And did not stop.
