“Mr Jones! That’s enough now,” Cindy pleaded, “people will hear you!”
His wailing and banging on the side of the cage made her stop twice in the past half hour. First she readjusted the cage in the back of the van and topped up his tranquilising meds. Twenty minutes later she stopped again deciding to move him to the front and covered his cage with a blanket. Still he made enough noise to attract passersby at intersections.
“It’s not like I’m trying to kill you,” she rolled her eyes at him. “This will be good for us” she added more to herself.
Barely a week ago was Cindy’s retirement party. She taught primary school for 30 years. This was supposed to be a happy time, celebrating a long career and her new found freedom. Instead she was packing up her life and looking for a new home. Just before the school year ended, a notice was issued to all residents. The building she lived in most of her adult life was sold to developers who were transforming it into luxury city accommodation. A folder containing an artist’s impression of their vision and the financials for the new apartments was shoved under the door soon after the notice. Their layout converted the ten apartments per floor to only two. Cindy knew right away she could not afford to opt into the new development.
The fine print also noted that pets would not be allowed in the new building. What would she do with Mr Jones? And the other older cats just like him that she rescues? She planned to dedicate her free time to fostering more than one cat at a time, building a sanctuary for the cats no one wants anymore.
“Mr Jones, you’re upsetting yourself,” he was half deaf, half blind, had no teeth and he was filled with anxiety. A literal scaredy-cat. Cindy knew it was hopeless, even if he could hear or understand her. “We’ll be there soon… I think” she assured herself. Typical Cindy let her phone die knowing that the van didn’t have a charging port. “What were the directions again?” Take the N5 south, that she remembered. Then the R42 to Orange County. Check. Drive until the Crocodile Farm and turn right onto Main Street. She remembered chirping sarcastically that it was such an original street name so she couldn’t forget that part.
“Was it the 5th street left then the 4th right? Or the other way around?” Cindy’s only friend Jessi, a neighbour in the building, offered her family’s lakeside cabin for the weekend. Jessi suggested using the time to explore the area – maybe Cindy could find a cabin too. Jessi and her husband used the cabin as a summer retreat. Nearing retirement age they decided to pack up and make the cabin their permanent home at the end of the month.
Cindy jumped at the chance to go to Lake Magnolia again. She spent a childhood summer there with her godparents and dreamed of going back one day. She didn’t think it would be more than fifty years later though.
“5th left?” Cindy wasn’t sure she counted the right streets. Out in the country some of the driveways were so long they looked like streets. Dusk was setting in and Cindy cursed Mr Jones for his antics when she tried to load him into the carrier. For an older cat with joint issues, he was wily. Plus Mr Jones may be blind but he had a sixth sense to find the tiniest nooks to hide in. By the time she loaded him in the car it was already late afternoon. The stops along the way didn’t help.
“One, two, three… this has to be the fourth right,” she told no one in particular knowing that Mr Jones didn’t care either way. He just wanted out. “Then straight to the lake” she recalled the directions. Several minutes later she could see the last of the day light slip away over the water. Then it went dark. Stopping almost at the shoreline she said, “The cabin will be on your left.”
Cindy squinted in the dark, “Jessi, we have to talk about what you and I define as a cabin…”. She jumped out the high van seat and looked up at a double story house. Porches wrapped around on both levels. The trim reminded Cindy of movie houses from the New Orleans French Quarter.
Mr Jones was still wailing but Cindy had to get them into the house. The last instruction was to find the key under a pot plant by the back door. “Which is the back door?” Cindy asked the house. Is the front door facing the street or is that the back door? Maybe the front faces the lake? The half moon light was all she had to feel her way around the house.
The street door proved not to be the back door. No key under any of the pot plants. Cindy didn’t want to think about what she was rubbing her hands over. The image of her as a kid picking up big rocks to watch the bugs scurry to safety flashed in her mind. She was finally grateful for Mr Jones’s wailing because she couldn’t hear the little insecty noises they make. She could pretend it wasn’t happening.
The lakeside door ended up also not being the back door. Cindy groped around the dark side of the house hoping for a third door. When she arrived back at the first door she couldn’t help panicking for a moment, cursing herself for not charging her phone.
“Think Cindy!” in all her years being independent and self-sufficient she could make a plan in any situation.
“The mat!” she just about shouted, hoping that Jessi’s aging mind slipped about where she left the key. Ignoring the slime under the mat, Cindy felt around and found a key. Twenty minutes later the van was unpacked and Mr Jones was safely stowed in the smallest and least hidey-holed room in the house, the downstairs guest bathroom. She opened his cage, set up his litter box, and filled his bowls with soft food and water. She laid his blanket on the floor and left him to come out on his own while she explored the rest of the house.
Cindy’s suspicions of the New Orleans styling outside was confirmed by the decor. Every room was layered in colours and textures. Greens and turquoise, pinks, reds and oranges, pops of yellow. Small rugs lay on top of bigger rugs. Richly embroidered cloths on bright velvet couches. Red lacquered kitchen cabinetry against white and black mosaic tiles. Even the bathroom Mr Jones was in looked like it was done up for a magazine shoot. Deep greens, black trim and brushed gold taps with old photos like art on the walls.
Cindy couldn’t help wondering why this so-called cabin, with five bedrooms on two levels and multiple living rooms, was styled so differently from Jessi’s city apartment. She put it off to this being their own property while they rented in the city. Cindy loved everything about the house. Finally she settled into bed dreaming of childhood summers spent on the lake.
The next morning she woke to a room filled with summer sunlight bouncing off the deep purple walls. For a split second she forgot where she was. Then she remembered and jumped out of bed with the excitement of a teenager to explore the lake. Dressing quickly, she poured a cup of coffee and checked on Mr Jones. He was back to his normal self eager for affection. She topped up his food and left the bathroom door open to include the dining room as his territory.
Outside she couldn’t get enough of the lake. The morning sun glinted off the water, lighting up the whole lake in softness. Cindy walked around the water’s edge taking in every house she passed. The stands were so big that two were equal to what she was used to as a city block. Some houses were big double stories, some were small cabins, some had boat houses or docks, and some were modern container homes.
Cindy imagined what life would look like at Lake Magnolia as a permanent resident. The lake was situated at the base of a mountain surrounded by hardwood forests. In autumn, the leaves turned every colour before falling off. In winter the lake froze over, perfect for skating. In summer everything was green and lush, with a hive of activity on the water and the shores. She watched as more and more people were coming out of their homes.
Cindy walked as far as the general store. She was used to giant supermarkets with endless aisles in the city, a sharp contrast to the limited selection here but the store stocked the essentials. The fresh produce rivaled some of the best farmer’s markets in the city. As she reluctantly turned to head back, she spotted a notice board and stopped. Finally she took a business card of ‘the Lake Magnolia realtor’. Cindy smiled thinking that Nancy Frasier was probably the only realtor in the area.
As Cindy open the bright blue door she knew something was wrong. Mr Jones was wailing again and she could hear furniture toppling. Entering the dining room, she found Mr Jones zooming around knocking down chairs. Despite his ailing joints, he could still get around quite quickly. His blindness though put him in danger of hurting himself. Cindy ignored the strange mechanical whirring while she focused on catching Mr Jones, but she kept an eye on the streams of toilet paper fluttering out of the bathroom. She caught Mr Jones in his next lap around the room, and holding tightly against his struggling body, peaked into the bathroom. A robovac was destroying a roll of toilet paper.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” Cindy laughed out loud and tucked Mr Jones back into his cage so she could tend to the rogue vac. As she switched it off to relieved silence she looked up straight into the barrel of a gun.
“Freeze! Put your hands up!” the officer held his gun steady. “Ma’am, I will not ask you again.” He inched forward. In shock, Cindy raised her hands and nervously rambled.
“It was Mr Jones,” she tried to point at the cage but her movement caused the officer to shout.
“Keep your hands where I can see them!” Cindy obeyed. Shortly after a female officer squeezed past her partner to frisk the old woman, “Rest of the house is clear, Bob.” When assured she wasn’t concealing a weapon, they led her out to the dining room and righted a chair for her to sit on.
“Do you mind telling us what you’re doing here?” Officer Bob asked, his gun holstered but one hand resting on it in the ready position.
Cindy was flustered and frightened and terribly confused. “I… I… I don’t know what you mean?” she stammered.
“Ma’am,” said the female officer, somewhat kinder than her partner. “We’re asking, why are you in this house?”
Cindy looked from one to the other and back again, “This is my friend’s house. I’m staying here for the weekend. I’m supposed to be viewing properties so I can come live out here. I brought my foster cat Mr Jones, somehow he did this,” she gestured to the mess and continued rambling, “I can’t live in my building anymore, you see, I have to find a new place to live. I love cats.”
The officers looked at each other with that look young people often get when exasperated with older people, the look that says, “Do you hear this crazy old lady?” Even at sixty five Cindy did not consider herself an old lady.
The female officer suppressed a laugh but Officer Bob was still annoyed. Finally he said, “Ma’am, your friend, Mrs Jessi, phoned every resident on the lake last night and this morning looking for you,” Cindy gasped. She plugged the phone in but never turned it on. “She couldn’t reach you and wasn’t sure if you had arrived safely.”
“I’m so sorry, officers,” Cindy pleaded. “I’ll call Jessi right away.” She stood but the officers moved closer forcing her to sit back down.
“Ma’am,” Officer Bob said firmly, “last night you were supposed to go to the Johnson cabin which is about a mile down the shore.” He pointed in a direction that Cindy had to accept as true.
Cindy was more confused now, “What?”.
“That means you are in the wrong home,” realisation set in and Cindy put her hands to her face. “I’m afraid I have to arrest you for breaking and entering,” Officer Bob unclips the handcuffs from his belt.
Cindy thought on it for a moment. She must have gotten the directions wrong. “I knew this house was too big to be a cabin,” and she burst out laughing, taking both officers by surprise. “We’ve got to take Mr Jones with us though,” standing up she offered her wrists to be cuffed, still laughing.
Soon the officers were laughing too. Instead of arresting her they helped clean up the vacuum malfunction and packed up her things, including Mr Jones. They escorted Cindy to the cabin she was supposed to be at.
“My wife is the realtor around here,” Officer Bob said as they were about to leave, “I’ll have her pay you a visit to take you around to some properties,” he smiled with a wink. “That way you don’t have to break in again!”
This story was written as part of my YOU ChooseDay feature where YOU Choose the prompts for character, situation, object and setting. Then I write the story.
Loved it!