Petting the Cat

It was raining. I skidded down the hill wearing inappropriate shoes, fifteen minutes late. Three months later I found out that he was half an hour early. He stood and smoked under the awning, eyes peeled for short girls with long brown hair. The city is full of them. Just as it is full of burly men with glasses. He planned on giving me five more minutes before assuming that he had been stood up. Had I taken one bad step on the uneven brick we never would have hung curtains or argued over a sink full of dishes.

This was not an occasion of love at first sight, but I recall making eye contact and realizing that this was a man I would very much like to smell. An elderly professor of mine who reminded me of a living, highly functional Miss Havisham (if Miss Havisham had married, divorced, hired a stylist, and taught English at a women’s college) once gave me some of the best relationship advice I have ever heard. “Drew,” she said in a meeting about a term paper that was not going very well and had been derailed by my mentioning that I was going through a difficult break up, “only marry a man whose smell drives you mad. I married two men who didn’t smell like anything and divorced them both.” I sincerely advise taking a good, strong whiff of all potential love interests.

But, of course, I do not share that advice with strangers. Especially strangers from dating websites who have offered to purchase a drink for me. So, after recognizing each other, we exchanged greetings and embraced. Through the initial coat of cigarette smoke and early evening drizzle I inhaled a mixture of detergent and what I imagined he must smell like after a nap on clean sheets. It was at that point I knew that we would kiss.

One month later, reclining on my overstuffed couch, he told me he loved me.

Five months later I moved exactly one mile to a mid-century apartment on a good bus line. He hung my paintings and changed the batteries in the smoke detector.

He slept over every night from then on. We bought matching nightstands. We shopped for raw milk at the farmer’s market. We went to brunch on Saturdays. Week by week he moved pieces of himself into this new space. A guitar, a stack of books, a pile of sweaters. I rearranged my closet. I slid my towel over on the rack. Our toothbrushes necked gently in their glass on the sink.

He proposed at some point. We held hands and browsed costume jewelry at an antique store. We found a cluster of pearls set into a gold-plated ring, two sizes too big. I wore it for the next eight months.

It got colder. There was fighting. For hours, weeks, months. We separated what was his from ours and he moved exactly one mile to the home where he was raised. I ordered a new mattress. I bought new sheets. I took off the ring and placed it in the hall closet between my tampons and extra soap.

He came back and then left again. This happened several times. I began to think of our relationship as a large, old cat. The kind that hosts warn you about. They are sweet, but persnickety in their many years. They can only be petted for so long before scratching at your arm. Those sorts of cats are not to be overstimulated.

When he was around we would lay on my new mattress and begin to forget what it was that we had fought about. We would make plans. “Let’s not pet The Cat too much,” I’d warn. This statement was not always received as charming as it was intended to be. After awhile, I got scratched. Things continued to deteriorate, as they typically do. There was a lot of talking, as there always is.

Now there are nights when he is gone and I sleep spread across the bed using all five pillows. There are nights when I roll over to find the warmth of his breath on my face, his scent surrounding me. I watch him laying in my bed, between the identical nightstands, and wonder if this is the last time.

I am walking delicately. I am breathing softly.