Once my Miss Temple is safely en route to her date with death, I head back to Maylords and my new undercover role as a stuffed toy. So I am once again lying there, hoping for enlightenment, but observing pretty much nothing, when I hear a shrill, lamentably human voice. It again appears to be directed at yours truly.
“Oh, my goodness! Look at that. Look at that, will you?”
Well, I would, except that I am playing Statue.
“That is fabulous! That is so amazing. That is the best, absolutely best, soft-sculpture cat that I have ever seen. Do not you think so, Irma?”
Not again. Is there no end to my charisma? Yes, Irma, you do think so. You are not alone. But I am a rock, get it? I am an island. Get off my naval chart! You will blow my cover!
“Where is a salesman? I must have a salesman. Look at this.”
Probing nails finger my ruff. My well-groomed, handsome ruff, I might add.
“Where is the tag? There is no tag.”
“Maybe,” Irma suggests in an uncertain voice, “it is on the rear.” No! Not again! Nothing is on the rear but the . . . er, rear.
“I cannot believe they would not tag such a perfect specimen.”
That is exactly what I felt during my serial unhappy interactions with the so-called animal shelter in this town, a.k.a. the city pound. The name must have something to do with the disposability of a pound of flesh, and fur.
“I must have it.”
You are not the first female to feel that way, lady.
“Where is the salesman?”
“Uh, Patsy. This lady here seems to want to help you.”
“Can you sell me this fabulous fake cat?”
“I cannot ‘sell’ you anything, madam. Maylords does not sell. Selling is vulgar. We ‘place’ exquisite objects with appreciative ac-quisitors.”
“Huh?”
I am with Irma. Huh indeed.
“There is no tag on this animal,” she says, quite accurately.
“Even I haven’t seen it out before. Probably some . . . inventive person slipped it into place without the proper paperwork.”
“Can you fix it?’
“Of course. I will simply look this item up in the computer.”
This item!?
“Thank you, Miss—?”
“Blanchard. Beth Blanchard.”
“Well, I must have it. Look at the quality of the faux fur. The expression! So utterly feline. So utterly . . . out of it. I cannot imagine why Maylords would not tag such an exquisite item.”
Exquisite item. Okay, that is more like it.
“You have to understand the Maylords way,” Beth Blanchard says. “Everything we have is exquisite. We have no need to ‘push’ product at a gullible public. We seek a clientele, like yourself, who has the taste to discover the superb palette of perfection we offer.”
Wow. A superb palette of perfection. In midnight black. That is me. Especially when I am playing dead. Superbly.
“If you ladies will wait in the café I’ll look up this item’s SKU number and have the full particulars to you in a few minutes.”
They duly depart, leaving Miss Beth Blanchard staring at me. I have to keep my eyes open and motionless, of course, like taxidermy eyes.
“A cat-shaped pillow!” she mutters. “What bozo bought this tacky piece of junk?”
I brace for a fist pounding into me, which is what people like her do to furniture accessories they do not like. Luckily, Miss Beth Blanchard takes out her frustrations elsewhere. She enters the Art Deco vignette and moves Mr. Simon’s Erté prints back the way they were before she rearranged them this morning.
Talk about obsessive-compulsive! She reminds me of a rat on a wheel running first one way, then the other. As if it much makes a difference in the daily rat race that is Maylords. I know one thing: here the rats are winning.