Photo by Erik Mclean: Pexels.com
by Mary Lynn Reed
The small grey cat sits in the middle of the valet line behind the white Escalade with the throbbing bass and the low-profile tires. It’s late and humid and The Cheesecake Factory is packed, movies are letting out, people everywhere. The valet either doesn’t notice the cat, or doesn’t care, or maybe the cat’s been there all night, and the valet has a bag of treats in his back pocket. Kitty, kitty, please get out of the road – I want to jump out of my car and run to the cat, pull it into my arms and say, come home with me – come scratch my furniture and puke on the rug and meow at three in the morning – my house is large and empty and you can watch the birds out the French doors – you can hear them sing through the windows and I’ll buy you the special food in the small cans – we could be happy, you and me – there is hope; there is a way forward, for both of us. Then the white Escalade screeches out, and I cover my eyes as car horns blast behind me. When I look back, the small grey cat is nowhere to be seen, and the valet flails his arms at me: Come on, Lady, he yells, Get out of the way.
Mary Lynn Reed’s fiction has appeared in Colorado Review, Fourteen Hills, and many other places. Her debut short story collection, PHANTOM ADVANCES, was published by Split/Lip Press in 2023. She co-edits the online literary journal MoonPark Review with her wife.
