Page 12 of Kitten

That night, James and Ihad sex, and I couldn’t come. “What’s wrong?” he asked, though he didn’t stop. I didn’t know, the sex was usually good with James. My skin goosebumped against cool sheets. No matter how often I moved around, the sheets remained cool beneath me, the size of the bed ridiculous.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” James asked, slowing down. “You’ve been off since your birthday.”

Remembering that I was twenty-two, too big a number for how small my life felt, nauseated me. Now that both our birthdays had passed without a call, would my mother and I ever speak again? If she saw me in this house, would she laugh at me, or would she feel ashamed? I thought about the fact that I was losing my roommate and, likely with her, the only apartment in the city I could afford. The job that held me since freshman year had ended, and maybe they would never send me my final paycheck.

The closer James got, the more I thought about Lou’smessage.I know for a FACT that you CAN!I repeated this to myself as a mantra for finishing, but it didn’t work. James’s hands were somewhere on my body, but if I closed my eyes, I couldn’t say where. All I could think about was that I could change my life if I wanted to, in a more significant way than when I left for college, only because I met somebody, and I didn’t even realize until Lou pointed it out. “Is it me?” James asked, and I couldn’t help but laugh. He was hurt, and I was sorry. Then Silver jumped between us and I was grateful to see her and it was over.

5

On Monday morning, it rained again. James opened the blinds to a trembling sea. I stayed in bed, enjoying the heavy warmth of the blanket, while he showered. To my pleasure, Silver remained beside me, licking herself with devout concentration. When I reached to touch her, she batted me away. Then, five minutes later, she approached, her fur matted and dark with saliva. “I’m not touching you afterthat,” I said.

James entered the room with a towel around his waist. Steam poured from the en suite door. He leaned in to kiss me, his cheeks slick and clean-shaven. “Bathroom’s all yours.”

“I don’t understand morning showers,” I said. “You just get dirty throughout the day anyway.”

“It wakes me up. More of a mental thing than cleanliness.”

“But you’re already awake. You’ve already gotten up.”

James reached a hand toward me. “Okay, don’t if you don’t want to, I won’t evangelize you. But will you come have breakfast with me?”

I was annoyed that, by not caring whether he was right or wrong, James had won the conversation. While I considered whether to get up, Silver marched across the duvet and rubbed her head beneath his outstretched palm. Her freshly licked fur was as shiny as the back of a spoon. James scooped her up and disappeared with her into the hallway. I made a face. I would shower every morning, too, if only I could do it in bed.

—

By noon, the sky hadcleared. James suggested we go to the beach for a swim. I tugged the sleeves of my sweater. “But it’s freezing.”

“The water’s warmer than it seems,” he said. “We’ll take Silver, too.”

“What? Into the sea?” I looked at Silver, who seemed content to be dry.

James nodded, fiddling with the espresso machine. Next to its dark steel, his shaven jaw looked unusually pale. “We’re still good to see the Hartleys later, right?”

The Hartleys were family friends. James grew up with their daughter, Isabelle. Every time he visited Holme, they went out for drinks together. I didn’t realize growing up required spending so much time with other people’s parents.

Silver crawled into her cat backpack, which was much roomier now without the pee pads. Whether she was preparing for the swim or trying to evade it was unclear, but there was a distant, dreamy expression in her eyes. With her face behind the curved plastic, she looked like an astronaut, or a baby alien.

“You do know how to swim, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Well, no. I’m not good, I never learned to swim properly.”

“Did you not take lessons as a kid?”

“People didn’t do stuff like that where I grew up.” Probably they did, only I didn’t. My first and only encounter with a swimming pool was the pool party at the end of the sixth grade. While my classmates did cannonballs and played mermaids, I sat at the edge of the deep end and swung my legs in the water. Beneath the surface, my calves looked pale and papery, detached from my knees. Air bubbles formed on them and disappeared randomly. I was waiting for a particularly big bubble to pop when somebody shoved me in.

“I promise you won’t drown,” James said. “I used to lifeguard in the summer.”

“How many lives did you save?”

“Absolutely none.”

“You’re telling me to trust a lifeguard with zero saves.”

“It’s not me, it’s Holme,” James said as he put on his shoes. “People are born swimming here. They were very boring summers.”

“I’ll drown,” I said, “and you’ll have the time of your life.”

“You’d do that for me?”