The Whitman Street Spring Festival was an annual harbinger of the impending spring, falling in early April when winter’s clutches finally loosened. Ten blocks of Whitman Street shut down to give the space to food trucks, tables for local businesses and independent vendors, and carnival rides.
Paige manned the Cat Café’s table. She’d found a bedsheet covered in cats at a discount store and used it as a tablecloth. Then she set up plastic display containers and filled them with flyers and brochures advertising the café’s regular events—Paige had just started after-hours movie nights once a month with cat-themed films—and cat adoption opportunities. She’d also let Mitch come by with flyers for his own organization, and he hung out around the table to answer questions about how people could volunteer to catch and tag feral cats in Brooklyn.
Sunday had been chosen as the feline ambassador—Sadie couldn’t handle outside noise and would have panicked the whole time—and she was in a huge kennel set up on the table so that people walking by could be lured in by the very cute cat. Sunday seemed very mellow now, lying on her little cat bed and occasionally yawning and stretching like this was no big deal.
Lauren walked back and forth between the table and the café. Monique was in charge inside, with Victor slinging lattes at the counter, and they were getting a fair number of customers who had indeed been lured in by the table and wanted to check out the space. Lauren struggled a little to figure out where she’d be the most useful.
When Lauren went back outside, Caleb walked out of the vet clinic with a Tupperware bin the size of a shoebox that appeared to be full of paper. He looked infuriatingly handsome today, his skin a bit flushed, his hair neat aside from one thin tuft that had escaped and draped over his forehead. He had on his white doctor’s coat over his standard uniform of a button-down shirt and khakis. That Lauren knew what he looked like under all that clothing made her flush a bit.
If Caleb felt any of that, he didn’t show it. “Olivia said you said we could put some pamphlets for the clinic on your table.”
“You could get your own table, you know,” Paige said. “All businesses on Whitman Street are allowed to put one table out on the street here. The fee is waived just for the street fair.”
Caleb said, “There’s no one to man it. We all have patients today. It’s Saturday.”
Lauren supposed the “Saturday is our busiest day” was implied. Caleb’s haughty tone irritated her like a bugbite, though, so she said, “Oh, well, I didn’t realize you all were so important.”
He leveled his gaze at her. “Oh, you know. No big deal. Just the lives of living creatures hanging in the balance. Where should I put these?”
Paige reached over and took the box. She took some pamphlets out of it and slid them into an empty slot in her plastic display, then put the box with the remaining pamphlets under the table.
Lauren looked Caleb over. It would have been nice if they could walk around the fair together like a couple instead of playing at being adversaries. Neither seemed that offended by the mocking. It would have been nice if they didn’t feel the need to be so performative in their dislike of each other, though. Or else Caleb had reverted to his bratty self, back to the man Lauren hadn’t seen in a week or two as they’d had good sex and pleasant conversation a few times. Maybe he was…overcompensating now. Or Lauren was wrong in thinking he’d turned some new leaf and this was just who he always was.
Lauren saw in her peripheral vision a blond standard poodle and a harried-looking woman going into the vet clinic. Caleb must have seen it, too, because he said, “That’s my next appointment.” He looked around. “This is quite an operation.”
“It is,” said Lauren. “If you have a spare few minutes and can bear spending time among the hoi polloi later, I’ll give you a tour.”
“All right. Well. Uh. Break a leg?”
“Later, Caleb,” said Paige, waving in a way that looked a little patronizing. He mirrored her movement and went inside. “So he’s still a dick.”
“Yep,” said Lauren. But he was hers, wasn’t he? At least for now. Something had definitely changed between them recently, at least in private.
Evan came by the table then, a plastic bag from the bookstore hooked around his wrist. “Don’t look,” he said, “but Pablo has a table with a mix of weird used books and new releases, and there is absolutely no more shelf space anywhere in my apartment, but he had, like, eight things I want to read.”
Lauren turned to look despite Evan’s warnings. Pablo was indeed a few tables down, chatting with a woman who was pointing at books in the new release display.
“These excuses for talking to Pablo are costing you quite a bit of money. You pay full cover price for those books in your bag?”
“There’s a ten percent off street fair special.”
“Right.”
Evan frowned and looked at his bag. “He must think I’m way smarter than I am. I’ve only read a tiny fraction of the books I’ve bought from him since he started working at Stories.”
“Or you could ask him out.”
Evan shook his head. “When I was a teenager, I worked at a clothes store in the mall. There was this girl I worked with sometimes who thought my name was Jason. I corrected her a few times, but it never sank in, and she kept calling me Jason. Eventually, it had gone on too long, and I didn’t want to embarrass her by telling her she’d been getting my name wrong for months, so I just…responded when she called me Jason. I feel like this thing with Pablo is like that. I missed the window. I should have asked him out when he left Star Café, but now so much time has gone by that it’s embarrassing if I ask him out now.”
“That’s insane,” said Lauren. “Why not just walk up to him and say, ‘Hey, I really like you, let’s get a drink sometime. There’s a great bar just up the block that has amazing martinis.’ Done and done.”
Evan guffawed. “As if.” He looked around. “Hey, can I stash this bag with you. It’s heavy. That truck with the guy who makes the arepa sandwiches is just on the other side of Henry Street, and I’ve had dreams about his steak sandwich since the last one of these street fairs.”
“I’ll put your books under the table if you get me that chicken and avocado thing he sells.”
“You got it.”
***
Caleb got a break midafternoon. Rachel informed him two of his appointments had rescheduled, probably because of the street fair—a ten-block stretch of Whitman Street was closed to car traffic, and several patients had complained about the ripple effect that had on the rest of the area—so he had about an hour to kill.
He’d brought Hank with him to work that day since he knew he’d probably end up working late. He grabbed Hank’s leash from the coat hooks near the desk.
“You want to walk down to the grocery store that used to be a bank at the intersection with Court Street,” Rachel said as Caleb snapped Hank’s leash into place. “For some reason, the best food trucks park down there. The two best ones are the one with bison burgers and the one with empanadas. The empanadas are small, though, so order one of each kind to get the full experience.”
Caleb laughed. “Thanks for the tip. Is this whole street fair just an excuse to overeat?”
“Pretty much, yeah. And if you end up with any leftovers, your friendly neighborhood vet tech would be appreciative.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
When Caleb walked outside, Lauren was standing near the Cat Café table, looking at her phone. “You got a few minutes?” he asked her. “You promised to show me around. Hope you don’t mind if Hank comes along.”
“Oh. Yeah, sure.” She reached down and pet Hank’s head. He licked her hand as a reward. She looked up at Caleb. “Is it Take Your Dog to Work Day?”
“That’s every day at the clinic. Olivia gave me permission to bring Hank to work, so I have been when I work overnights. I did today, too, because my dogwalker wasn’t feeling well.”
“All right. Well, come on.”
As they walked through the center of the street, she said, “Have you ever been to a street fair in New York?”
“No, I can’t say I have.”
“They’re all kind of the same. This one is a little fancier because they get a bunch of really good food trucks and those have become kind of the draw, but every New York street fair is pretty similar. There are always a couple of trucks or booths with deep fryers, so you can get funnel cakes or falafel. There’s always a table with a guy selling packages of socks or bedsheets. I don’t know why. And then there are a bunch of random vendors, usually jewelry, dresses made to fit only very skinny women, and at least one table that’s just random New York tourist junk. At this street fair, most of the vendors are businesses on Whitman Street. So each of the restaurants has, like, one dish they’ll give you or samples of their popular dishes in little cups. And then all the stores are showing what they sell. Like here.”
Lauren walked over to the table in front of the yarn store and gestured toward it. There was a basket on one end of the table that held colorful balls of yarn. Hank gave it a sniff, but he wasn’t tall enough to do any damage. They also had stacks of knitting books and displays of knitting and sewing notions. A woman behind the table was having an intense conversation with a potential customer using a lot of jargon Caleb didn’t understand: roving, spinning, weight, and other terms he assumed did not mean to these women what they meant to him.
After Lauren made some small talk with the women at the table, they moved on. As they walked, Lauren said, “I’ve already had lunch, but if you see something you want to eat, let me know.”
“Rachel said something about a grocery store that used to be a bank.”
“Oh, yeah! At Court Street. That’s the biggest intersection on Whitman Street until you get to Flatbush, so it’s kind of prime real estate for the food trucks.”
“But…a grocery store that used to be a bank.”
“That’s Brooklyn. Some developer bought a bank building that has been here since the nineteenth century, and the building was landmarked, so they couldn’t tear it down or renovate it, but they could add aisles. It’s this really beautiful building with huge vaulted ceilings and these columns and arches that separate the space. So you go to buy meat in the area I think used to be the vault, and then you can admire the ceiling best from the frozen food aisle. There are cashiers where the tellers once sat.”
“This city, man. I bet most people don’t even notice the old parts of the building. Developers in New York never want to preserve, they just want to maximize profits.”
“The basis of this city’s economy has been commerce and money for four hundred years. What do you expect? Plus, shopping at this grocery store is kind of a novelty because the architecture is so unusual. I go there sometimes because they’re the only shop in the neighborhood that sells this obscure brand of yogurt I like, plus they have an amazing cheese counter.”
Caleb laughed. Lauren was never shy when talking about food. Kara had always acted in public like she never ate anything. Caleb liked trying new foods, though, and liked having someone who actually enjoyed eating to have elaborate meals with.
He wound up following Rachel’s suggestion and got one of each kind of mini-empanada from the offerings available at the truck: three meat, three vegetarian. Rachel would appreciate it if he shared.
As they walked back toward the Cat Café, Caleb admired Lauren, who seemed to be in fine form today, chatty without being too effusive. Her long hair was pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail, which showed off her pretty face and the dusting of freckles across her nose. She wore a knee-length plaid dress and a baggy black cardigan that seemed to show she cared more about warmth and comfort than style. Still, she always looked put together, even if Caleb didn’t like how the baggy cardigan obscured her amazing body.
He sighed. It was nice of her to walk around with him, and he was enjoying talking with her and checking out the fair. It was a beautiful day, sunny but still too cool for short sleeves. Contentment washed over him as he followed Lauren down the street at a slow pace. He noticed that Hank gazed at her with adoration, and his patience was rewarded when Lauren snagged a dog treat from a table in front of a pet food store and offered it to him.
“I believe you just made a lifelong friend,” Caleb said.
“Aw. You’re a good dog, aren’t you, Hank?”
Hank barked happily.
If they were a real couple, he could take her hand. He could lend her his jacket if she were still cold. He could buy her a necklace from one of the jewelry vendors or an ice cream cone from one of the food trucks. But they weren’t a couple, and none of that was appropriate.
“Has business been good at the Cat Café table?” he asked.
“We’ve gotten a lot of traffic. The goal is more to attract future customers than to make money on the spot. A lot of people have come into the café to check out the cats, but they aren’t really buying anything.”
“You could charge a couple of bucks for people to sit in the cat room, you know.”
“I could, yeah. But the point is to encourage people to come meet the cats and fall in love with them. Hopefully the people stopping by today will come back some other day and spend money on food and beverages. It’s about long-term business, not short-term gain.”
“Makes sense.”
Lauren grinned. “And I don’t even have an MBA. I’ve learned a lot on the job, though. I may make it look haphazard and accidental, but there is actual thought that goes into keeping that place open.”
Caleb chuckled. He could appreciate that she was often self-deprecating.
When they returned to the table, Paige offered a chair so Caleb could sit and eat his empanadas, but only if he was willing to answer questions about cats from random passersby. Caleb was game, so he sat and dug in. Lauren took Hank’s leash and held it tight after Hank started sniffing at Sunday’s crate. Hank didn’t seem to be anything but curious, but Sunday retreated to the back of the crate and stared at Hank.
“You want me to bring him back inside?” Caleb asked. “Rachel can watch him while I eat.”
“Nah, it’s fine. He probably likes being outside.”
Indeed, Hank lost interest in Sunday when a woman with a beagle walked by. Lauren let the leash out a little so that Hank and the beagle could sniff and bark at each other.
Then two familiar faces approached the table.
Caleb didn’t recognize them at first, or didn’t believe what he was seeing. The row of men in dark suits and sunglasses with earpieces behind them gave something away, though. Then Lauren said, “Wow, Mayor Martinez, Senator Schmidt. Thank you so much for stopping by.”
So that was something significant. The mayor of New York City and one of New York’s United States senators were just standing right there at the table.
Hank went looking for attention and barked at the senator. “Who is this friendly guy?” Senator Schmidt asked.
“That’s Hank,” said Caleb.
“Can I pet him?”
“Absolutely. I believe he would love that.”
Hank’s tongue rolled out of his mouth as the senator scratched his ears.
“So tell us about your business,” said the senator.
“We’re a café that allows customers to have coffee and pastries and then sit with cats in our back room,” said Lauren. “We’ve found hanging out with the cats is good for bringing down your stress levels.”
“We also do cat adoptions,” said Paige. “Our goal is to find forever homes for all the cats in the café.”
“Except Sadie,” said Lauren. “She’s kind of our mascot.”
“What a clever idea,” said Senator Schmidt. “I’ve heard about animal cafés in Japan.”
“I went to an owl café in Tokyo once,” said Mayor Martinez.
“And business is good?” asked the senator.
“Yes, very!” Lauren fidgeted like she was nervous, but it was pretty neat to be talking to high-ranking politicians about one’s business. “Oh, and this is Caleb Fitch. He’s one of the veterinarians at the clinic next door. We work with the vet clinic a lot.”
Caleb stood and shook hands with each man. He felt a little overwhelmed.
“Hank is Caleb’s dog,” Lauren said.
Mayor Martinez chuckled. “So there’s a bit of a cats versus dogs rivalry, huh? Which is better, cats or dogs?”
Caleb said “dogs” at the same time Lauren said “cats.”
“We’re very excited to see such a wide range of successful, flourishing businesses on Whitman Street,” said the Mayor, still chuckling. “Anything else on this block we should be sure to see?”
“Julie’s Closet across the street,” said Paige. “It’s a really nice thrift store. The owner is picky about what she’ll take on consignment, but you can get some amazing deals there if you’re shopping for clothes.”
“Stories,” said Evan. “They sell new and used books.”
“Bloom’s is the best florist in the neighborhood,” said Lauren. “And Stitches, the yarn store over there? They’re very popular.”
“I’m glad so many independent businesses are thriving here,” said Mayor Martinez.
Caleb had to swallow the snort. The development of downtown Brooklyn meant rising rents, to the point that a lot of mom-and-pop businesses were getting pushed out of the area. Whitman Street was like a unique bubble, where these little businesses could still thrive…for now. The chain pharmacy on the corner and the fancy boutique gym across the street were signs that corporate giants were encroaching, too. Some parts of the street were populated mostly by banks and cell phone stores—the sorts of businesses that could afford the astronomical rents. Not to mention that empty café across the street that would surely be some new chain restaurant now that a big developer had gotten a hold of it.
But why burst the mayor’s bubble today?
This building at least was owned by an eccentric rich woman who loved animals enough to want animal-centric businesses occupying her first-floor storefronts.
Speaking of the devil, Diane breezed outside then, floating out from the residential entrance to the building. “Oh, Marco, it’s lovely to see you.” She walked right up to the mayor, and they kissed each other’s cheeks. “I see you’ve met some of my fine young employees.”
“This cat café must have been your idea,” said Mayor Martinez.
“Yes, it was.” Diane chuckled. “Lauren does an amazing job running it, though.”
The mayor and the senator left a short time later to talk to some of the other businesses along Whitman Street, leaving Caleb feeling a bit like he’d been integrated into the fabric of the neighborhood a little. Diane even turned toward him and said, “Hanging out with the girls today instead of seeing patients?”
“We had some cancellations, so I’m checking out the festival,” he said.
“The street closures are probably making it hard to get over here if you’re traveling by car.”
“I imagine so.”
Diane nodded thoughtfully. Hank sat at her feet and let out a little “whumpf” to get her attention. She smiled and pet his head. “Hi, Hank. How are you, big fella? I hope you’re not thinking about trying to get any of the cats?”
Sunday meowed as if to register her displeasure.
Diane laughed. “Oh, I do enjoy festivals like this, though. It feels like spring has finally arrived. That was a hell of a winter, wasn’t it?”
It certainly had been. Caleb nodded. “I’m glad it’s over.”
Diane pat his shoulder. “Well, have a good afternoon with my girls from the Cat Café. I’m going to go find a funnel cake.”
Caleb took a deep breath and shook his head as she walked away. “I should probably get back to work and give Rachel the rest of these empanadas,” he said to Lauren. He reached out his hand to take Hank’s leash.
Lauren handed it over. “All right. We’ll be here until sundown if you get bored again. Then Pop is hosting a party for the vendors who participated in the street fair today, so Evan and I plan to get our martini on if you want to join us.”
“I’ll think about it, although I should probably get Hank home when my shift is over.” Trying to have a conversation in a crowded bar was not really Caleb’s idea of a good time. “Thanks for showing me and Hank around.”
“No problem. I’ll see you around, Caleb.”
“Yeah.” He went back inside, contemplating the fact that, had they been a couple, they might have hugged or made more concrete plans than “see you around.” It felt a little wrong to just leave Lauren after they’d spent a pleasant hour together, but… They weren’t a couple.
That’s what Caleb kept telling himself, anyway.