Page 47 of Kitten

Doing shrooms. Thinking of you

the most romantic thing anyone’s ever messaged me

I relaxed. The shrooms hit. The music poured in waves throughout the room. My stomach felt wormy, and I beganto shiver. Isabelle fished out a sweater for me from a pile on the floor, sparkly and full of intentional holes. Silver and Bruno came up to the bedroom, but they disappeared into the closet to do secret animal things.

Isabelle looked ravishingly pretty dancing to the music in her all-black clothes. She kept her eyes closed, swaying her hips, not following the beat of the song but some gentler secondary rhythm. She did not notice, or care, that a sock had slipped off her foot. Her long hair hung over her face like a cut of expensive silk. I couldn’t get into the songs. I was a little frightened by how wholly she’d retreated into herself. When I tried to dance, my body felt terrible. I opted to sit on the floor and watch her. A long time passed. The sun began to set, purpling the rind of her hair. Swinging her arms above her head, Isabelle said, “Don’t go, don’t go, stay here with me,” and I knew it was time to leave.

Visible through her balcony windows, the gardeners took their break. One of them stood by the gate, a bottle of water in his hand, gazing up at our window. Looking, as I did, at Isabelle dancing. Knowing, as I did, that she could do this her whole life. I felt a wave of tenderness, a fierce and nearly chivalrous desire to protect her from herself. I wanted to tell her that even if she’d done nothing with her life, she still deserved happiness. But I didn’t. It was impossible, I knew, to make a person believe something they did not already want to.

—

Isabelle was too high todrive, so I walked the twenty-five minutes home. There was a light drizzle. Silver sat inmy arms beneath my shirt, her head poking out of my collar. Drops of rain sprinkled over her fur like pieces of dandruff.

I thought of Isabelle’s declaration of her failed potential. I rarely thought about my own potential, but I could see now that James was always thinking about it. That was why he insisted I pick up painting again, why he insisted on the worthiness of my mother’s art, too. He saw something in us, in people, that I didn’t. It wasn’t fair that the people who were already good at life were the ones who knew how to make it even better.

I unlocked the door with James’s spare key. Carefully I lowered Silver onto the floor, where she became engrossed by a piece of lint. Silver didn’t have any potential. Maybe that was why we got along so well.

Not wanting the evening to end, gripped by the desire for more feeling, I took Silver to the living room and put onMamma Mia!I was probably still a little high, because the colors were very bright and Amanda Seyfried looked more beautiful than ever.

Silver watched the movie with the focus that I wanted from James, not moving, not even blinking. Her eyes reflected the screen, distorting the characters into bloated little creatures with mouths that made up their whole faces. I became engrossed by the transformed scenes unfolding in her pupils. Everything looked wrong and sad. I couldn’t tell if I was finally comprehending the true nature of the film, or if it was just the shrooms.

At my favorite scene, Silver’s eyes watered. I held my breath as Sophie’s and Donna’s faces slid into each other’s, pinched and tiny in Silver’s pupil. But as Sophie preparedfor her wedding and Donna lamented losing her forever, I was no longer moved by their blissful melancholy, I felt only pity. These people were not divine. They were merely two trapped creatures with no way out of their terrible devotion and its terrible grief.

The movie ended with Sophie taking a boat out at night, singing about having a dream. Silver kept still as the sea appeared before her eyes, the water rippling across the screen like an enormous piece of fabric. After the film ended, she walked to the front door and pawed at the doorknob, letting out a mournful whine.

“It’s late now.” I picked her up. The stairs creaked as I took her upstairs. “We’ll swim tomorrow.”

In bed, I lay awake, replaying the final scene of the film. Sophie was sailing to a new life somewhere away from the island, away from her mother. But it was nighttime, the rowboat was small, and there were no lights. She would have trouble making it far. I wondered if this was what the movie was all about. Knowing leaving was stupid, doing it anyway. Trying not to turn around.

15

I woke early the next day, sweating through the sheets. Silver paced on my chest, making low, pained cries. I tried to hug her, but she leapt off the bed and slipped out of the room, leading me to the front door. There, she turned to face me, her cries higher in pitch and coming out in fast succession. She wanted me to open the door, that was clear.

“Shh, shh.” I knelt to hold her, but the moment my hands met her fur, she hissed and jumped out of my reach. Her attention was focused entirely on the doorknob, which she attacked in repeated bursts. It was a useless effort; the door was locked. When this became apparent, she stopped and began to shake, producing terrible hacking noises. Her head jerked back and forth, robotic as a pigeon. I ran to the kitchen and returned with a bowl of water. Hoping it would either shock or soothe her, I overturned the water onto her body—she shivered, stilled, then coughed. A splat of paint landed on my toe, dark blue.

I called James.

“Hey, Katie,” he said. “Why haven’t you been responding to my messages?”

“I was with Isabelle,” I said.

“Are you okay?”

I realized I was breathing heavily. I confessed everything that had happened. He made a noise between a cough and a breath. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You weren’t picking up. You were at karaoke, remember?”

“Yeah, but after?”

I bit my lip. Watching Silver pant, hearing the worry in James’s voice, I felt the enormity of my mistakes dawning on me. I thought about apologizing, but I didn’t have faith in my ability to deliver one without coming across as insincere.

James’s voice was stern. “But she’s okay now?”

Silver cracked her mouth open and began to whine, the mewls loud and drawn out.

“She’s upset,” I said.

“Upset?”