Alley Cat

Are you okay, Hel?

The sky rumbles above us tumultuously. Sometimes I wonder if there is a god up there. I wonder why it rains. I imagine that he has the misfortune to be blessed with a turbulent temper and a particularly heightened sensitivity that makes him cry at the smallest pansies growing by the side of a mountain. The clouds darken into an ominous gray and grow thick and heavy with water weight. A drop falls on my face, then another one, and another one. I’m humbled from one world to another at the sound of Todd’s voice.

Hel?

“Yeah. I’m okay.” I take off my clothes with rough and frustrated tugs at the fabric and throw everything into a pile next to the dumpster. These are Shirisha’s clothes, I think to myself. My chest feels like it’s going to cave in on itself at the thought of her. My fingers curl into my palms and tremble. My mind is melting and there’s nothing I can do but grab at puddles.

I lower myself to the ground and revert back to my cat form. It offers me temporary relief, and I sigh. It feels good to be back. I’ve been human for too long, and it’s made me weak. Suddenly, I remember why I chose to stay as a cat in the first place. Being human means you suffer, and I’m tired of suffering. All I’ve ever wanted was a happy ending but as you can see, I’m still waiting.

“Let’s go get some food,” my meow heightens as I try to trick myself into feeling excited. A part of me really is excited. Ever since I learned that the Russo’s aren’t the pretentious royal pricks that I thought they were, Todd and I have stopped by the restaurant more often. Luka is always there to snag us a few leftovers from the kitchen, and he always makes sure they’re warm. If free five-star quality food can’t manage to cheer me up, then nothing will.

Todd and I sit at the front of the door, and I softly rake my claws against the wood. It doesn’t take long before I hear footsteps coming towards us. My heart does a somersault in my chest as the footsteps stop at the door. The door knob turns and the door opens with an eerie squeak. When the door opens wide, revealing the person behind, disappointment lodges itself in my throat which I struggle to swallow. The man standing at the door is tall with a stocky built. A chef’s hat sits askewed on his head, revealing a receding hairline. There’s more lines on his forehead than I can count, the fleshy kind that folds in on itself. His wiry brows join together into one as he glares at us with a beastial rage that makes my blood run cold. And as if he’s not frightening enough already, there’s blood smearing his white chef’s uniform and a gleaming butcher’s knife in his hand.

Todd whimpers next to me, and I can’t help but do the same. The man raises the butcher knife over his shoulder with his eyes set on Todd. I hiss and push Todd out of the way before the knife slams against the concrete, radiating a horrific metallic clang that will forever haunt my ears.

“CAT! CAT!” The man chases us around in circles. I grow dizzy and see that Todd has run past the man’s legs and into Russo’s kitchen. I have no choice but to follow him. The man runs after my tail.

Upon entering the kitchen, I zip past all the line cooks’ legs as I try to find Todd. “TODD?” I shout his name as I dart across the kitchen floor. “TODD!” The flap of doors that directly lead to the restaurant’s dining room has servers bursting from its folds. They’re so busy with work that they don’t look down and nearly trample me in their path. I scream and hiss. The servers look at me with scrunched up noses, and point at me like I’m some atrocious rat. I’m too pumped up on adrenaline to be offended. Todd is my only priority. I refuse to leave without him.

I spot Todd leaping over some pots and pans on the stove. He knocks over a pot of soup all over the floor and a cook’s shoes. The cook curses at Todd in Italian and throws a ladle at him. The ladle misses him by an inch and collides against the kitchen wall before clattering on the floor. Todd’s fur sticks up straight, and he scrambles all over the kitchen counter.

“Todd!”

His eyes float towards me, all wide and gray. He’s terrified, and I don’t blame him. Still, his eyes soften a bit as they focus on me. There’s bravery within him and it grows when he sees that I’m there. Todd tenses his body as he prepares himself to leap my way, but a hand grabs him by his tail and pulls him up in the air.

I look up from the countertop to see that it’s the head chef. Todd howls in pain as he dangles in the air, and I can’t help but wince for him. The chef has a deadly grip on his tail, cutting off Todd’s blood circulation. I imagine how many chicken necks he’s snapped with his bare hands alone; the thought strikes me with terror.

The chef hauls him higher so that Todd’s upside down face is leveled to his. The chef sneers at him. The thick hair on his mustache frowns as well. “Stupid cat! How dare you come into MY kitchen? I’ll. Show. YOU!”

He slams Todd against the cutting board and raises his stainless steel butcher knife over his shoulder, ready to drop it over Todd’s neck like a culinary guillotine.

“NO!”

My claws shoot out from my paws, and I leap from the countertop. The chef barely has any time to look at me before I land right on his head. My paws whirl themselves into a rapid frenzy, clawing at his face. My claws sink into flesh, drawing blood. I’m relentless and aim for all his vulnerable parts. I don’t recognize myself in the moment. I don’t even recognize the demonic sounds coming from my mouth and the chef’s screams dull out in my ears. No one messes with Todd. No one.

The flap of doors slam open from behind me and let in a commanding presence that puts all chaos to a stop. While still attached to the chef’s face, I look over my shoulder and fall. I wish I can describe how Luka looked, but I was so shocked that I forgot all about my rage. I land on all fours and run out the kitchen door. Todd joins me outside.

He helps me grab my clothes by the dumpster, and we run to a remote corner by the street. Thunder rumbles above me, hastening my already racing heart. I’m terrified of the chef chasing after us, so I transform into my human form and frantically put on my clothes. Just as I pull my turtleneck over my head, the sky pours. Rain pounds on my back, drenching my hair, my clothes. I rush to pick up Todd from the ground and shove him under my sweater, but it doesn’t do any good. The rain is freezing, and I shiver violently.

Helene. Todd’s so quiet that I could barely hear him over the gusts of wind.

“What?”

You saved me.

I don’t even know how to respond to that. I almost witnessed Todd getting chopped up butcher style. I flinch just thinking about it.

“Shut up,” I say, flustered. “I’m the one that put you in danger in the first place.”

It’s okay. Todd says, pressing himself against my skin. I still love you.

I’m petrified. I don’t know what to say.

I looooovvveeee you. Todd says in a long drawn out way.

I hug him closer to me and hide my face against the massive lump under my shirt.

Hel?

I shut my eyes. My tears don’t feel so hot against the freezing rain.

Are you crying?

I’m out of words. I wonder how it turned out like this. I don’t understand how I came to love a fat cat so much. It feels like a giant wave has knocked me off my feet, and I’m scrambling to get back up. With my eyes closed, I try to remember the shape of Todd and the smell of his scent. I want to remember his softness and the roundness of his belly. I want to remember all these things because for a girl who has nothing, Todd became my everything.

Thunder claps and lightning strikes again. A white flash illuminates the sky and reveals a shadowy figure before me. I tense up. Another flash breaks through the dark, and I see that it’s a boy. He stands before me with his curly hair completely drenched. Cold water slicks down his tan face, turning his small lips blue. His clothes stick to his skin, betraying a shy outline of his chest and collarbone. His golden chain seems heavy around his neck. I see that it’s Luka. He looks at me, surprised to see me here. I return his expression with a weary look.

“Helene.” Luka shouts over the rain. The sky rumbles loud enough to shake the earth as well. “What are you doing here?”

“Funny. I was going to ask you the same thing.” As if the sky god detected and condemned my lie, the sky cracks with white lightning, causing me to flinch.

Luka’s lips press firmly together and I see that his eyes are roaming around the street. “I was looking for some cats. My uncle scared them away.”

I refrain myself from making a terrible joke about the possibility of his uncle having eaten them. “Maybe they’ll come back.” I can’t help but scoff in the back of my mind. As if.

Luka shakes his head, his face gloomy from disappointment. “I doubt it.” He opens his mouth to say something but is caught off guard by the shivering lump underneath my turtleneck. I follow his gaze as it trails down to the blue tail swishing below the hem of my sweater. “Is that your cat?”

“Yeah.” My heart seizes a little at the lie. I don’t know why I’m so scared. He doesn’t know enough to connect the dots.

Luka stares at the lump in my shirt with a calculating expression. “And you only have one cat?”

My throat tightens, but I talk through it. “Only one that I know of.”

Luka ponders for a moment until he’s reminded by another clap of thunder that it’s raining. “You can’t go home in this weather. Please, come with me.”

Luka leads the way, expecting me to follow him, but I hold my ground. After what happened with the angry chef, I don’t ever want to step back inside Russo’s ever again. “I...I really need to get home.”

Luka’s expression turns grave, but he pleads with me in a gentle voice. “You’ll catch a cold in this weather, Helene. Please come inside with me. I’ll...I’ll lend you a phone to call your parents.” When I don’t budge, Luka’s voice hushes to a delicate whisper. “I can’t leave you like this.”

My face heats up despite the freezing rain, and I look down at Todd. His head is poking out of my turtleneck, and he looks at me in the most pitiful way. I know that he’s giving me permission to go. “Cats aren’t allowed in restaurants.”

Upon hearing my reasoning, Luka can’t help but break into a smile. As for me, I can’t help but notice how straight his teeth are. “No one will hurt your cat as long as I’m with you. I promise. Now let’s get you two dry.”

Luka takes my hand in his and leads me into the restaurant. We drip water the moment our shoes hit the floor. Our shoes squeak with each step we take and clamor harshly against the natural sounds of sizzling and chopping in the kitchen. I force myself to walk quickly. Even though I’m human and none of the cooks remember me, I still expect one of them to throw a knife at me.

“This way.”

Luka leads me to the storage closet, finds a duffel bag hidden behind a huge sack of flour and unzips it. He takes out some clothes for me and places it in my hands. I unfold the clothes to examine them and see that he’s given me a towel, an Italian soccer jersey, and a pair of shorts. “You can change in here if you like,” Luka says as he ruffles his hair dry with a towel. “Of course, there’s the restroom but people walk in and out of there all the time.”

“Storage closet it is.” I look down at the clothes and smirk. “Thanks,” I say and close the door to the closet. I strip off all my clothes and Todd falls out from underneath my sweater. I towel myself as dry as I can before slipping on the blue jersey. It has Italia in white bold lettering in the center and the small emblem of the Italian flag in the corner. The jersey is oversized, at least on me. The hem meets my lower thighs, and I think about just wearing the jersey as a dress until I hear Luka’s voice on the other side.

“If you mind me asking, what school do you go to?”

I pause to think of an answer and hop into Luka’s shorts. They’re a bit tight on my hips, but they’ll do. “I graduated.”

“From high school? Or college?”

“Both,” I say. It isn’t a lie. What he doesn’t know is that I graduated from high school as the class of 1965, and I graduated from college thirty years later with an English degree. Oh, and the events also happened two lifetimes apart.

“Oh.” I can hear the surprise in Luka’s voice from behind the door.

“Why so surprised?” I say as I bend down to pick up my wet clothes. I also take the time to towel dry Todd’s blue fur. When I’m done, Todd looks like a blue pom-pom from the arts and crafts store. I giggle a little.

“You seem young.”

“I...may have skipped a grade or two.” The lie rushes out of my mouth before I could think. I’m getting good at it.

I put my hand on the door knob and pull. Luka stands before me, freshly changed into dry clothes. He’s changed into a casual white t-shirt and some sweats. The whiteness of his t-shirt emphasizes his bronze skin and accentuates his dark curls. His hair has shrunk from moisture, forming themselves into tight coils.

I think I’m imagining it but a faint flush rises to Luka’s cheeks. “Wow. You wear my clothes better than I do.”

My brow arches at his strange compliment. “Are you kidding? I feel like I’m wearing a tent. I may as well roast some marshmallows in the middle of a soccer field while I’m at it.”

Luka laughs, the kind that’s unapologetic and wholesome. It takes me off guard. “You’re funny.”

I’m silent. No one’s ever said that about me before and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel. Luka notices my stoic reaction and makes himself serious. “Let’s have dinner.”

I pat the pockets of my shorts (technically they’re Luka’s shorts). “Sorry, forgot my wallet.”

This time it’s Luka’s turn to smirk. “This one’s on me.”

We end up sitting in a remote section of the restaurant. Luka comes back with a whole cart full of food, all served on a silver platter. Todd drools beside me, and I can’t help but do the same. Luka sets everything down on the table with deft movements and quick speed. “Sorry it took so long. This is the fastest thing I can whip up in the kitchen.” He pours us all water, making sure not to spill a single drop. “Alright,” Luka says before he takes a seat across from me. He rubs his hands excitedly, eager to eat as much as the rest of us. “Buon appetito.”

Todd doesn’t wait before shoving his whole face into a bowl of penne. I can’t help but grin as I pop a crispy sardine into my mouth. Rich and beautiful flavors flood my tongue, and I force myself to hide my face behind my hands at the risk of crying.

“What’s wrong?” Luka’s visage pales, his face is written with concern. “Is it bad?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head vigorously. “It’s so good that I might die eating it.”

Color returns to Luka’s face, and he sighs from relief. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“I’m sorry. You know what? To make up for it, I give you five stars.” I show him my whole hand, wiggling my fingers.

Luka feigns an undignified look and huffs. “No. You owe me.”

I catch on to his game and grin. “You said that the food’s on you.”

“I’m not talking about money,” Luka says more seriously. He looks down and raises his gaze to me. I’m captured by the mocha brownness of his eyes. They’re warm and inviting, making me lower my defense. “I want to know you, Helene.”

My smile fades away from my lips at the realization of his meaning. “This...this is a date, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Luka says in a tone that’s firm and shy at the same time.

I feel myself turn red in the face and suddenly I’m overwhelmed by embarrassment. I remember why I ran here in the first place. Shirisha occupies my mind, and I feel frustrated all over again.

I put down my fork and scoot my chair back, ready to stand and leave, but I stay due to the smallest shred of reason and propriety that remains within me. I lower my eyes to my plate and say, “You don’t want to do that. And frankly,” I raise my eyes and glare at him with all the pain I feel in my heart. “I don’t think I’m the right person for you.”

Luka sits back in his chair, scrutinizing me with analytical precision. I glare back at him defiantly. I dare him to judge me, to see through me if he can. I know he can’t. Nine lives merge together into one, into me. Nine lifetime’s worth of pain and suffering and heartbreak have shaped me, broken me, into what I am. And to be honest? I don’t think there’s a single person out there who can handle me.

Luka leans towards the table and lowers his voice to a level of secrecy. What comes out of my mouth surprises me; I don’t think he will ever cease to usurp my expectations. “I apologize if I’ve offended you in any way. I really am. I didn’t mean to trick you into going out with me and please don’t feel obligated to do so. But Helene,” Luka says and bears me down with a look that is equally defiant as mine. “You can’t be so rash as to assume that every person is so weak willed that they’ll run away at the slightest sound. And I ask that you refrain your judgement on me as well. Let me prove that I’m worthy of your respect.”

“Hold on...you don’t think I respect you?” I recoil back at the accusation. I wonder if I really come off as rude.

“No,” Luka’s shoulders sag under heavy weight. “I think you see me as everyone else who knows of me and my family, that I’m just some rich boy who is entitled to everything.”

I’m silent. I can’t say anything because what he said is true. I did judge him and his whole family. If anyone had asked me, I was ready to call them a bunch of Sicilian snobs who shit in golden toilets.

After a long and tense moment of silence, Luka rubs his face with his hand and smiles half-heartedly. “Wow. I just ruined my chances with you, haven’t I?”

“Not really,” I say gently. I watch as his face lights up in a hopeful beam. Then I watch it drop. “It’s not like you had a chance to begin with.”

Luka’s jaw hangs open. I expect him to get angry with me, but he laughs instead. It’s a humorous laugh that rocks him to the core. “I felt that. I think I need some ice for my burn.”

I smile at him, scoot my chair close to the table, and resume eating. “Well then if this is a date, we may as well finish it. What do people normally talk about on dates?” I ask him as I scrape all the contents of my dish into my mouth. Luka doesn’t mind it the slightest.

“Oh, you know...they just talk about themselves. Usually their jobs, their plans for the future, stories…”

“Does emotional baggage count?” I eye him as I take a sip of my drink. Luka does an effortless shug.

“Be my guest. I have nerves of steel.”

I reach over for some bread and take a huge bite before swallowing it dry. “Alright. I was raped when I was twelve years old, got disowned by my family and haven’t seen them since. I fell in love with a girl who abandoned me in some random Chinese city, who also, by the way, wants me back. Ever since then, I’ve harbored a really strong dislike of people and life in general, have made very poor decisions that I’ll regret for the rest of my existence, and I have abandonment issues that no therapist could help me fix.” Luka gives me a priceless expression that can sell for gold. I point at him with my bread before taking another bite from it. “Your turn.”

Luka puts his hand over his chest. He’s taken aback but clearly undaunted. “I wasn’t aware this was a competition.”

“It isn’t. Life is just really unfair. Your turn.”

Luka sets his dish aside and folds his hands on the table. “My story isn’t as interesting as yours.”

“Interesting?” I cock my head to the side and think. “It’s the first time someone’s said that about my life.”

“No. My story takes place many years ago in my home town in Sicily. I was really young then, maybe ten years old, when I fell in love with a beautiful girl.”

“Ah yes. The kind that ruins your life.” I say, leaning my head against my propped up elbow. Now it’s Luka’s turn to glare at me.

“Let me tell my story.”

I raise my hands in defeat. “Please, continue.”

“Her name was Viviana, and because I’ll be so kind as to spare your attention span, I won’t bother on the details of what she looked like. But the only thing you need to know is that I loved her, or at least I thought I loved her. I loved her with the capacity of any standard ten-year-old boy. So like any ambitious boy of my age, I tried to woo her. I played music for her on my cello. I plucked flowers by the nearest field and offered them to her at school. I wrote her love notes that she never read and always found ways to please her.”

“And then what happened? She broke your heart?”

“And my bones.” Luka winced at the memory although he tried to laugh it off. I can tell that the memory was still a fresh wound in his heart. “You see, I come from a very remote village in Sicily where there’s an old tradition. If I wanted her to love me, I had to fight her first. And...I couldn’t imagine myself hurting her. I only agreed because she told me herself that she wasn’t willing to love a weak boy. I had to prove myself to her. And as you could already tell from my poor storytelling sills, I lost. I lost to the humiliation of my whole family and village. My father was so disappointed that he left me to crawl back home with broken femurs.”

“Oh my god.” I dropped the butt of my bread which fell onto my plate with a clang.

“I bet you didn’t expect that from this rich boy.”

“I certainly did not.”

Luka and I continue talking for a whole hour. He told me that his mother passed away when he was six due to some disease he hardly understood and that he immigrated to America with twenty other cousins, his uncle Gieuseppe, his sister and father, and his noona. Before we know it, the heavy rain slows to a stop. Luka promises that he’ll play me a song on his cello some other time and introduce to me the rest of his family to which I shake my head. Luka admits that he’s being too forward and takes no offense.

“Well...it’s not raining anymore.” I look to the windows and see all the beads of raindrops cling onto the glass. “I think I should go.”

“So soon?”

I glance at the rooster themed clock on the wall. “It’s one in the morning.”

Luka’s cheeks flush bright red. “Sorry. I forgot.” Without realizing it, my eyes fall on him. They linger for a moment until Luka breaks me from the spell. “Helene?” He says in a voice so soft that I hardly hear it at first.

“Sorry.” I shake myself from my trance. Desperate to come up with an excuse for my delirium, I stammer, “Y–You look like someone who gets beat up by girls.”

Luka’s jaw drops, and I smirk. “But since I’m feeling so generous today––”

“––You’re the one who’s been generous today?” Luka gestures at our table of empty plates. I ignore him.

“I’ll give you a chance to redeem yourself. Let’s wrestle.”

“Here?” Luka seems astonished, but I can see that he’s actually excited.

“Yeah.”

We take the pain of moving all the tables towards the walls. “If you get to pin me down for ten seconds, you win. No time limit. No foul play. The field is yours.”

“Alright.” Luka puts himself in a defensive stance with his feet spread apart. “Let’s do this. But I have to warn you. I’ve improved a lot since then.”

“Don’t go easy on me.” I say and take my place. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Are we ready?”

“One…” I start the countdown.

“Two…” Luka narrows his eyes at me.

I don’t wait for ‘three’ before I charge at him. We learn right away that we have done a terrible job at moving everything. Luka and I tumble into our dinner table. The collision knocks our glasses off the table, spilling water all over the white table cloth. I hear glass break from behind me as Todd jumps out of the way. Luka’s on me, but I’m careful to keep my legs and arms from out of his reach. I headbutt him, causing him to recoil. I free myself from underneath and pin him down under me.

“ONE!”

Luka knees me in the stomach and sends me flying to the wall. My back smashes against the hard surface and I wince. It’s enough to grab Luka’s attention and distract him.

“Sorry!”

I grin and fling myself at his side and we roll into another table which rams into the wall. The painting hanging above us breaks free from its nail and shatters on the floor. “I’m tougher than I look,” I say and twist the fabric of his white t-shirt in my hands, pressing him down.

“You are,” he says with a lips curling into a haughty smirk. “But not as clever as you think.”

Luka frees his arm and grabs hold of the table cloth, yanking it roughly. All the contents on our dinner table fall in an avalanche over my head, forcing me to remove myself to safety. In the chaos of ceramic dishes shattering and silverware clanging and tables turning over, Luka manages to pin my entire body underneath him. My legs are trapped under his weight and my wrists are held over my head. Luka counts to ten as I struggle to break free, but it’s useless. The countdown ends, and I’m defeated.

“I win.” Luka says with a gloating smile. I think he forgot that he’s still on me, his face just a few inches away from mine. I force myself to look anywhere else, but it’s hard when all I can see is him.

“You cheated.” I try to sit up, but I’m stuck. I can feel the heat of his skin and smell the spiciness of his cologne on his neck. Every sensation I feel is intensified, from the flush of my face to my quivering muscles.

“I was just thinking smart,” Luka whispers as if he’s imparting a special piece of wisdom to me that only I’m allowed to hear. “Not everything is about strength. Before my mother died, she told me that anything in excess can be monstrous. And sometimes, it’s necessary to be delicate.”

Luka lets go of my wrists to brush a stray hair away from my nose. His touch is feather-like. I barely feel it at all.

Before I know it, Luka removes himself from me and pulls me up to my feet. We look at the mess we’ve made. There’s broken plates on the ground, scattered pieces of glass, and tables lying on the floor. I offer to help clean up the mess, but Luka insists I leave before his uncle arrives at the scene.

“Am I invited to your funeral?” I joke as Luka ushers me out the door. Todd strides by my ankles, watching both of us with curious glances.

“Of course,” Luka says with a laugh. “I expect you to write my obituary as well.”

We’re standing outside now. I can taste the rain still lingering in the air. The humidity makes my hair clump into waves and the wind makes it worse by blowing it into my eyes.

“Helene.” When he touches me, the wind stops and he helps me smooth my hair back. My chin tilts up to look at him.

“Yeah?”

“I hope we see each other more often.”

“I hope so too.”

Luka retreats back into the restaurant and it doesn’t take long before I hear a booming voice scream at him from within in Italian. Todd and I make a run for it, laughing all the way.