sixteen

Saturday promised to be crazy busy, so Tom and I were up before six. Indian summer had rolled back in and the forecast was for unusually warm and sunny fifties all weekend. That was odd weather for November in northern Indiana, but a relief for everyone involved with the agility trial, because we were hoping to run outdoors. The sponsoring club had lost their usual indoor facility due to a late-summer storm that had damaged the roof. They hadn’t had time to find another, so the trial was being held at Dog Dayz. Marietta Santini, the owner, was prepared to make it work indoors if we had freezing rain or other seasonal unpleasantness, but we would have been jammed in tight. It seemed we had lucked out.

Tom and I also lucked out with a great parking place about thirty feet from the agility course so we decided to leave the dogs’ crates in the van and set our chairs up right there. Leo was fine in his crates on the back seat. I had clipped two small wire crates together and put his bed and water in one and a disposable litter box in the other. I stuck my fingers through the wires to scratch his cheek and then went inside to be sure everything was set up for the demonstration during the break.

Alberta was already there setting up a display about feline TNR—Trap, Neuter, Release—as a way of managing feral populations. She had the money to back an informative, high-tech display, and she had used it to create a video, informational brochures, and a gallery of cat photos, many of which I had taken.

“Oh, Janet! There you are!” Her face was flushed and she was wheezing, but that was normal for Alberta. She pointed at the feline agility area that we had set up in the middle of the building. “That’s going to be so much fun!”

“I hope so. We’ve been practicing, but Leo has never performed anywhere but home.”

“But the other cats have, yes? So even if you mess up, the others will be great.”

Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, I thought. My inner demon didn’t take it so mildly, though, and I felt her heat up and whisper, Leo will show you! Jay’s not the only furry hero in the family! I did imagine Leo having a perfect run around the course that would wow the crowd, many of whom probably thought that cat training was an oxymoron, but mostly I hoped he wouldn’t be frightened by the whole crazy thing.

Alberta emerged from behind her display table and, her arm looping around my waist, pulled me toward the open center of the room. I wondered why, since we were the only ones there. Then she spoke so softly I could barely hear her even at short range. “Janet, you’ll never guess what happened.” She waited as if she thought I should try.

“You’re right. I’ll never guess. What happened?”

“Louise came by last evening. She was roaring mad and said she’s hired an attorney!”

Alberta still had her arm around my middle and it was making me uncomfortable. I squirmed free as politely as I could while she continued in a more normal voice. “Louise said that Charles threatened her father and that was the final straw.” Alberta made a sound remarkably like harumph and went on. “Not enough that he bullied her for the past twenty years, I guess. Her and everyone else he could boss around.”

People were starting to drift into the building to set up displays, so I wanted to cut this conversation short. I’m not paranoid, but Norm’s warning echoed in my mind, so I checked that no one was close enough to listen in before I asked, “He threatened her father? What do you mean?”

“She said that Charles was having him moved from his assisted living place to a different one, which would take him away from his friends.”

Cymbals started to clang in my brain. What were the odds? “Do you know his last name maybe?” I asked. “You know, her maiden name?”

Alberta gave me a funny look, then searched the ceiling. “Martini? Martoni?”

“Marconi?”

“Could be. Something like that. Why?”

Three women pushed a cart holding a big plastic container and two wire cat cages to the table next to Alberta’s. A big gray Persian stared at us from one of the cages, and two short-haired kittens, one black and one black-and-white, curled up and clung together in the other.

I gave Alberta what I hoped was a conspiratorial look and said, “Tell you later.”

“Okay.” I turned to leave but Alberta called, “Oh, Janet, wait! Hang this on the door, will you?” She handed me two signs and a nearly empty roll of tape. One said “PLEASE—NO DOGS” in big red letters. The other announced “Agility—it isn’t just for dogs! Feline Agility Demo after the morning competition.”

I spotted lots of people I knew either by name or, in a shocking number of cases, by their dogs’ names. There was Rhonda Lake and her Golden Retriever Eleanor, and Josie the Border Collie’s dad, and Candace Sweetwater with her perky Papillon and sullen teenager. I wondered why she was dragging him around with her when he so clearly didn’t want to be there. It couldn’t have been fun for her,
either.

An hour later I was on deck to run Jay in the twenty-inch jumpers class. Tom and Drake had already qualified in the twenty-four inch class. Tom was hoping for another Q, or qualifying run, on Sunday to finish Drake’s AXJ—Agility Excellent Jumpers—title. Jay and I were just starting to compete in excellent, which everyone assured me was a giant step beyond the open classes.

They were right. It was a tight course with lots of quick turns. Jay ran perfectly. Me? Not so much. I got in his way on the second turn and accidentally sent him over the wrong jump right after he nailed the weave poles. But here’s the thing with dogs. Just when my mental demon started to call me a bumbling idjit and worse, Jay raced to me and bounced up and down as if to say, “Wasn’t that great? We played together and we ran and jumped and had fun and I’m so happy and I love you so much!” I caught him in my arms on the next bounce, buried my face in his coat for a couple of heartbeats, and let him down to put his leash back. We left the ring laughing and walked to the far end of the field.

“Can’t stay out here long, Bubby,” I told him. “Leo gets to run today, too.” Jay’s upper lip was caught on his tooth when he looked at me, giving him a “say what?” expression. “Yep, Catman is going to show ’em how it’s done. And you’re going to rest for a bit.”

We ran into Jorge Gomez, Marietta’s groundskeeper, about half-way back to the van. “Hola, Jorge. ¿Cómo está?” That’s about all I
remember from high school Spanish, but Jorge seems to get a kick out of my feeble effort.

“Hola, Señora Janet.” He pronounces my name with a soft, breathy “j”. “Haff you seen a cat here?”

I thought he was asking whether I had brought a cat. “Yes, my cat is here. You should come watch him do agility after the dog classes finish this morning. Will you be here?”

“Oh, yes, bueno. But did you see a cat here? The little colored cat?” He gestured with one hand along the tree-lined fence that defined the limits of the Dog Dayz’s property. “Little cat, many colores?” Jay wriggled up to him, nose lifted and sniffing like a shop vac. Jorge raised the other hand out of the dog’s reach and made a clucking sound at him. “Oh, no, Mister Jay. You no get the little cat’s lunch.”

I had Jay lie down and mind his manners, and asked Jorge, “Is it your cat, Jorge?”

“No, no my cat, but I feed. I think she have gatitos somewhere.”

“Oh, my.” I thought of Gypsy and her kittens, and how much harder it was to raise them outside than in the safety of a house. “I’ll watch for her, Jorge. You said she has many colors?”

“Yes, many colors, like arcoiris.” He saw that he had passed my vocabulary limits. “Like, you know,” he made a wide up-and-down motion with his arm, “like rainboo.” He grinned at me. “Yes, she is little rainboo.”