Her name, as it turns out, was Claire. Is Claire. She still is Claire, to the best of my knowledge. It’s been a couple weeks, honestly. It was hard to tell if she was elusive–most people with underground layers and hidden tunnels are, in my experience–or evasive. Plus I got weird looks from all the people she’s surrounded with. It is worth noting those looks came while I was clad in the clothing equivalent of saran wrap at the time, though they also seem like the kind of people who were looking to spread the tent poles and allow more people under. That was fine; I didn’t need the coverage, anyway. What I needed was to find out more about her…

It wasn’t hard to keep up with what Claire was up to. The paper she was carrying and set down inside the apartment was her latest project: A newspaper. A city like Polk, there were plenty of news sources floating about and only so much news for them to cover. Claire’s paper wasn’t chasing the same headlines as the others, though. It was making headlines in the others, but Claire was focused on harassing public officials and taunting her pursuers–myself included–via the written word. There’s something exciting about seeing your name in print, though the thrill subsides when the words that follow your name are phrases like “filled with unthriftless talents,” “purveyor of fraudulent authority”, and “self-pitying brown-noser.” The girl could write.

Whatever abilities of avoidance she was using on me, it paled in comparison to the sidestepping she was able to execute on law enforcement. In the two weeks it had been since she was in my apartment waiting out the lawful gaze of Paragon and in that time, she had become the object of interest for every cop in the city. I received calls to take on the case last week. They came sporadically but lined up perfectly in correlation with the distribution of the “New Polk Times.” Within the hour of the paper appearing on news stands, the calls came. Three days in a row this week, now completely independent of circulation because it’s about the greater nuisance. Today I finally said yes. Yes, I’ll take the case. Yes, I’ll do what the cops can’t–if only because of the threat of what happens if I keep turning it down. I don’t need Paragon playing hero on this one.

I have to stop down at the Polk City Police headquarters to pick up the file. They want me arms with all the information they’ve collected thus far. How useful it’ll be, I have no idea. I know Claire’s not exactly a hardened criminal–hardened, sure, but criminal’s a stretch–so they likely haven’t been using their full resources on her operation. Then again, the urgency expressed increased with every call. The last one made me think the city was burning to the ground. And here I come with a bucket of apathetic water.

“Can I help you?” The officer at the first desk inside the station asked. He looked to be in his mid-twenties. I could tell he was in training by tone. He wanted to be out on the street waiting for a crime code to be paged through his radio. Also he was filing a crime report in a box that was labeled “To Be Shredded.” That seems like a rookie mistake to me.

“Yeah, I’m meeting with Chief Jensen about a case I’ll be undertaking. Is he back in his office?”

“Oh, so you’re the ‘freelancer’ huh? They really give you the ‘important’ stuff, don’t they? Track down the girl at the liberal college who doesn’t like the government–there’s a tough assignment.” Ah, this was pleasant. Nothing I like better then the guy doing grunt work saying I’m not good enough. I eyed his desk.

“Are you sure you have time to help me? Looks like you’re really busy completely the latest episode of ‘Officer Cocksure and the Curious Case of the Unfinished Busy Work.’ I can just show myself back.” I wanted alliteration but it’s really hard on short notice.

“Without us this city doesn’t run, pal. You just get our scraps,” he countered. A fair assessment, really, though this seemed like a little more than scraps to these guys. Regardless, I figured it was probably best to let him have the last word. It seemed more important to him, honestly.

Offering a smile, I walked past him and back toward the chief’s office. As stereotypically noir as this felt, it kind of comes with the territory. It’s nearly impossible not to sucked up in the atmosphere, which is why I don’t really blame the paper pusher back there for resenting his work load. He was still an asshole, but better an asshole with a stack of paper than an asshole with a baton.

“There you are, kid. I was wondering when you’d get around to coming down here. You really take advantage of not having to punch that clock, don’t you?” Speaking of assholes, the Chief of them greeted me as I opened the door to his office. I was never really a fan of this guy, and I’m pretty sure the sentiment was likewise. I mean, I’m the second generation of person that is putting his crew out of business, though really he should be thanking me. If I committed to the damn thing fully like Paragon does, he’d be looking for work instead of passing it on to me.

“I work odd hours, what can I say?” I had no interest in making this a long conversation. “What do you have for me?”

He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a manilla file. It wasn’t too thick, so I knew I wasn’t working with much. Not that I expected much, but it’s always nice to be a little surprised.

“We’re turning everything we have over to you. Names and aliases, accomplices, last sightings, locations the paper has been found. Everything.”

“Did you use a really small font, or something?” I asked jokingly.

“Size 12, Times New Roman. That’s the standard. That’s the rule.”

“Are you guys issued a sense of humor at all?”

“No.”

“I appreciate your honesty. Anything else for me?”

“Yeah, we’re expecting some results with this case kid. Do whatever it is you have to do, but make this problem go away. The mayor’s been breathing down my neck about this for the past week and his breath ain’t pleasant, you know what I mean?”

“Did he have onions or sauerkraut or something?”

“Not that I’m aware.” He started, as I smiled at him and raised my eyebrows. “Joke again,” he realized.

“I’ll be in touch,” I said, as I turned out of his office and headed back toward the doors of the building. I saw a significant stack of folders sitting in the outbox on the desk of my greeter. I put my hand out as I walked passed his desk, knocking the stack to the floor.

“What the?!” was all I heard as I left through the double doors and headed down the short row of steps. An asshole with a stack of paper is better than an asshole with a baton, but he’s still an asshole.

“That voice sounds extremely familiar,” the girl pondered. Her thoughts of attempted identification were likely being drowned out by the continued rapping on the wooden framing that surrounded the glass.

“Oh do you have the same crazy guy that yells random accusations at you from outside your apartment as I do? Small world,” I said, hoping a joke would defuse the tension that having an unknown man screaming at you often creates.

“Louis, you are harboring a person suspected of illegal activity. You are currently the accessory to whatever crime she may have committed or is planning to commit. I must continue to urge you to remove her from your quarters at once,” Paragon said in his usual stern and serious tone.

“She’s petting Eula, and Eula is being extremely complacent. Does that make her equally as guilty?” I asked him as I approached the window to see the top half of his face, brushed with shades of red from the urgent need for action.

“You know animals cannot be convicted in our human courts. The cat is safe from the law, but I would not trust a criminal on the lamb with any possession of mine,” Paragon offered, as if to say I would some day be the cautionary tale that a grandfather tells his grandson when a troublemaker of a girl catches his eye. “She may seem tempting to you now, boy,” he’d say, “but when you wake up in your jail cell cold, alone, and cat-less because some floozy with flowing hair, full lips, and a habit of being bad steals your pet and implicates you in a crime, don’t expect Gramps to have any sympathy.” I don’t know why people in the future talk like people in the past in that example, but I’m going to start trying to bring back the word “floozy.” It has a charm to it, I think.

“Are you accusing her of being a literal cat burglar?” I said with a bit of a snicker at the thought.

“What was that?” She asked, not entirely making out the conversation I was having with Parry. She seemed to have a pretty good sense of humor about all the other implied crimes she had committed, what’s another going to hurt?

“He’s afraid you’re going to steal Eula,” I turned and explained, laughing between words. Judging by the whiteness that rushed to her cheeks, the redness that ran through her eyes, and the balled up fist that occupied the hand not still stroking Eula, I assumed she found it less funny than I.

“No it’s funny. Like, you’d be an actual cat bur–” She put an end to any joke that may have been there.

“Shut up,” she said with force, the words almost palpable as they landed on my whole body rather than just my ears. She gently lifted her hand from Eula, picked herself up and took a full two steps before her other hand became embattled with the first in a “who can make a more intimidating fist” contest. It was pretty even from where I stood. Both were terrifying.

“What exactly gives you the goddamn right to…to accuse me of something that…evil,” she said through gritted teeth as she stomped toward the window. Her mouth barely opening to push the words out but the message did not lack volume. “And the fuck are–” she stopped as soon as she had a clear vision of her prosecutor. Her head swung toward me almost immediately after the identity was clear to her.

“What the fuck is he doing here?!” She shouted at me, one of her fists raising instinctually with her voice. I doubted she had any intention of hitting me, it was just an intense moment.

“He, uh, lives around here,” I said as one eye kept contant with her and the other tried to trace the motion of her fist. I was still pretty sure she wasn’t going to hit me, but it can’t hurt to keep note of these things.

“You know him? What, do all you so called ‘heroes’ hang out together? Do you have backyard barbecues to celebrate when one of you jails an innocent man?”

“I, no. That’s not a thing we do at all. There’s only the two of us, anyway. What a pathetic party that’d be. Besides, do you know how hard it would be to find a card for that kind of event?” The end of my sentence was punctuated, not with a period, but with a swiftly delivered “thawack,” followed by the unmistakeable sting that usually follows a punch. She punched me. I watched her hand the entire way, from cock back to the forward push to the impact on my left shoulder. I raised my right hand to it and rubbed it a bit to ease the smarting.

“You punched me,” I said, stating the obvious.

“You were being an idiot,” she said, doing the same.

“That’s fair. I did shut up though, didn’t I?”

“You did for a second when you were babying yourself.”

“You punch really hard. Like, impressively so,” I told her.

“Thanks. Are you sure it’s not just because you’re incredibly weak?” She offered as an alternative, with a bit of a smile developing midway through.

“Good chance of that, too. If you have any other feats of strength to perform, could you do them on someone else so I can watch from a distance?” I asked, only partially joking. It was then Paragon rejoined the conversation with another few knocks.

“What exactly are we going to do about him?” She asked. “I know I can take you down, but I don’t want to deal with him in a fight–or a conversation for that matter.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said.

“What do you mean? Of course you wouldn’t worry about it, you’re not the one he’s after. It’ll take him all of two seconds to get in here once he decides he needs to keep me from dirtying the minds of the community with my crime-causing posters and words.”

“It would, yeah. But here’s the fun part of this: Paragon is unrelentingly good. He can’t break a law, even for justice. He doesn’t have a warrant to get in, he doesn’t own the building, and he doesn’t even pay rent. So the worst thing he can do at the moment is be mildly annoying–” I was briefly interrupted with by some more banging on the windows. “–And probably cause a very light breeze if he knocks on that window frame a few more times. I’m going to have to call maintenance and get that caulked.”

“So? I still can’t go out there while he’s there. Got a solution for that one?”

“No, but it looks like you could use some more coffee,” I said as I picked up her mug and walked toward the kitchen. Before leaving the room, I turned to her. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“So anyway, the Dazzler,” I said, hoping we’d simply be able to pick up conversation where it left off without any acknowledgement of what had to seem like an oddly long search for newspaper clippings. I spoke through heavy breaths with a hint of urgency that hadn’t disappeared after the rushed reappearance. One last deep breath as I stepped through the doorframe into the living room helped me regain my composure. Lucky for me, Eula was still performing her hypnotic act of displaying her tummy in a way that one just can’t help but rub it.

“Right, what about him?” She answered without looking up from her massage subject. Eula struggled to keep her eyes open through the entire thing, and I couldn’t help but let out a little laugh.

“Enjoying yourself, La?” I asked with a chuckle. Eula let out a dull meow which fluctuated up and down, like a singer using vibrato, matching the motion of the girl’s hand. Couldn’t even let out a full meow. She was really milking it.

“Pathetic, La,” I told her. Not that I blamed her. I petted her plenty, and she was always happy to make it clear when she felt like she deserved a little more attention, but I talked to her more than anything. She responded nearly every time I directed something to her. Sure, she couldn’t actually say anything in response–just different tones applied to meows and purrs–but she listened and replied. Sometimes it doesn’t really matter what is said in response, it’s just nice knowing what you said was heard. Right now, she was able to get the physical loving she loved without having to talk or listen. Her current attention-giver was buffering those parts of her responsibilities.

“The Dazzler was this terribly inept wannabe that popped up right when Paragon Man started getting a significant amount of attention. She didn’t get started until the early 80′s–” I was interrupted.

“She?” The girl asked, apparently surprised by the revelation that the Dazzler was a female.

“Yeah, she. She first popped up in 1980 and.–” Again, I was cut short in my storytelling.

“So what made her so inept, huh? She wasn’t as good as the guys?” she asked, her tone becoming a bit accusatory.

“No, she was just particularly bad at fighting crime.”

“Because you’re so good at it. Don’t you have a ‘criminal’ in your house?”

“I have someone labeled as a law breaker in my apartment, yes. I happen to find the law you broke to be worth breaking and you to be a decent, if not a bit abrasive, person. If you want me to skip ahead in the story to explain why she was so terrible and how it has nothing to do with her gender, I will. There was a fire in the second story of an apartment building and she showed up to try to help put out the flames. She beat the firefighters there, climbed the fire escape and in the second-story window, and started to knock on doors to rescue people. Oddly, it turns out being an exceptionally good dancer and having sparklers and bottle rockets in your sleeves offer little help in an electrical fire. When she tried to get into the room where the fire was, her sleeve caught on fire and started setting off the fireworks in her outfit. At this point, firefighters were up the stairs and were greeted by a light show in the hallway that affectively blinded them. Once they were able to see again, they dragged the Dazzler out and put out the fire.”

“What about the people in the building?” She asked, engaged in the story.

“There were none. The building was undergoing renovations and no one was living there at the time, which is why no one answered when the Dazzler knocked. Or, more specifically, knocked while singing ‘Staying Alive’ by the Bee Gees. She just managed to turn an electrical fire into what was briefly believed to be a terrorist attack.”

“Really, terrorist attack? Doesn’t that seem a bit extreme?”

“Eh, it was the 1980′s. They didn’t know what a terrorist attack would look like, or that terrorists probably wouldn’t attack a small, two story apartment in a city that isn’t even the biggest in the state.”

“Hold on,” she said with a voice that hinted she just had a revelation. “This was in the ’80′s?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

“And she was a disco themed hero?” she asked.

“You see why she was terrible?”

“Yes. Yes I do,” she said.

“Honestly, that’s just one of the stories of her attempts to save the city from the dangers that weren’t that dangerous until she showed up. You know what doesn’t help in a hostage situation? Synth keyboard. Not exactly the soundtrack to reasonableness,” I explained, flipping through the clippings of stories.

“Why do you know all this? And why do you have newspaper archives about her? Do you have a little hero crush on the Dazzler?” Though her last question seemed jokey enough, the other two were legitimate. I never really thought about the fact it might be weird I had papers that chronicled the actions of a failed hero from over thirty years ago. Probably should have considered that beforehand, because now I had the choice to look like an obsessive freak or tell the truth and subsequently still look like an obsessive freak who lives above an old man who wears tights at all times. Neither are really great options.

“I uh–” I was cut off, something I was starting to get used every time I opened my mouth. This time, however, it wasn’t another voice canceling mine–it was pounding at the window. I looked over and saw the perfectly combed hair that sat atop a brow that had grown bigger over the years, clearly viewable in some of the images from papers I was holding.

“Who’s banging on the windows?” the girl asked with some irritation. Her hand didn’t completely leave Eula, but it raised far enough up that it was no longer entangled deeply enough to be an additional color in her orange and black coat. This was enough for La to expel a small complaint as she raised her head and opened her eyes fully for the first time since I came back.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” the girl said, lowering her hand while trying to stretch her neck high enough to see out the window without standing completely. She was conflicted between the two things she seemed to be most driven by: her love of animals and her hatred of people that annoyed her. She wouldn’t have to deal with this internal struggle for long, as the mystery knocker would reveal himself.

“Louis, I order you to eject that criminal from the building,” Paragon shouted, barely muffled by the glass.

“Speaking of putting up with me,” I started.

“You can’t join our club. You’re stuck with you,” she replied as her fingers itched lightly against Eula’s belly. Eula laid her stamp of approval on this by rubbing her head against the back of the girl’s hand as it crept back toward La’s chin.

“I thought we were sworn enemies from the moment we met and you were going to fight me and my backward justice system until the very fabric of society was changed,” I finished as I shook my head at Eula’s complete immersion into a thorough petting.

“You’d be right, if you weren’t the worst ‘hero’ ever,” she said, throwing air quotes around the word “hero” with her free hand.

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think? I always thought the Dazzler was pretty terrible.”

“Who’s the Dazzler?” she asked in a confounded tone.

“You’ve never heard of the Dazzler? Alright, hold on for just a second.” I turned and walked out of the room and back toward the kitchen, stopping briefly to look over my shoulder quickly and make sure she wouldn’t follow. This history lesson would require a journey into the cave to retrieve some old newspapers. Knowing my luck, she’ll shout something to me from the living room or have a request of some sort or just generally do something that would require a response and I’d ruin any good will built up by not calling back. As a preventative to this, I figured it best if I turn on the intercom system before venturing under the sink. All it took was a flip of a light switch and my preventative action would be complete. I reached out, placed my finger under the switch, and lifted up. Grinding noises started immediately. Wrong switch. Flipping that one down and the one next to it, I heard the light buzz of the speaker as it started. Just as I opened the cabinet under the sink to crawl in, I heard her voice.

“Everything ok in there?” She called out, and I heard partially through the wall and fully through the intercom as I started my descent. Speaking through the other end of the intercom, I replied.

“Yeah, went for the light and missed.” Slightly embarrassing, but not quite as bad as the true shame that was the self-fulfilling prophecy that I put in motion by trying this trick in the first place. At least it seemed to work.

The makeshift metal elevator touched down on the basement floor and the rubber of my shoe followed suit as I stepped out into the hideaway. In the corner of my eye I could see Paragon with the outlining glow of the computer screen surrounding him. Here’s hoping he wasn’t watching the webcam outside of the apartment. If he was, there are two possibilities of how this will play out and I don’t want to deal with either of them. Had he actually identified the girl, I’d have to come up with some sort of story about how I’m simply talking her into peaceful surrender. If he hasn’t figured out who the girl is, I will be reminded of the poor virtues that my generation has and that we mustn’t give in to the allures of promiscuity. Every interaction between the sexes can lead to these breakdowns in chastity. I know it’s not just a Paragon thing, it’s a generational thing. But when it comes out of a man that still wears tights that outline his junk in an extremely unflattering fashion, it’s that much harder to take seriously.

Don’t get caught with Paragon junk imagery in your head, idiot; go look for the paper. I have to remind myself of these things sometimes. It’s hard for me to wash disturbing imagery out of my memory. I’m pretty sure that’s my reason for almost everything I do–I have to be distracted to keep these burned visuals from reappearing. Luckily I had a stack of papers to search through to readjust my focus. I knew about where the paper I needed was located–the ’70′s pile–so it should be a quick search.

I went straight for the era of which it would be in and started paging quickly through the aged paper. The crumbling sound of my search alerted Paragon, and he turned from the computer and toward me.

“Going through the archives?” he asked.

“Yeah, just some research I’m doing,” I replied without looking up.

“Oh, I thought perhaps you were showing the girl something.”

“Parry, you know Eula can’t read,” I answered, hoping to throw him off somehow.

“The girl that walked in the building with you. The girl that you were to stop from paving the college walls with messages of criminal behavior and moral corruption. Did you do that?” he asked. I feared he knew the answer already, so I’d have to play this in a way that would cover my ass and buy some time.

“I spoke with her last night and told her to come over today so I could mount a full case for the righteousness of the law with documented evidence.” Smooth. Perfect.

“You’re reasoning with a criminal? Hmm. It’s unorthodox, but if effective than all the better. Perhaps I should join you in your attempts at persuasion,” he offered, standing up.

“I don’t think that’s necessary. She seems pretty rational. If I need extra fire power, though, I know who to call,” I replied, flashing him the finger guns to indicate I meant him. God I hated the finger guns. They always seemed to appease him, so if I really needed to put the emphasis on an action that I wanted from him, I’d turn to that. He sat back down, so they seemed to remain as effective as ever. I holstered the finger guns. Seriously? Did I really have to holster them? I feel so dirty now. Ugh, I need to get the paper and get out of here. I grabbed the couple front page stories about the Dazzler and removed them from the heap. Just then, the speaker crackled again.

“Hey Louie, you coming back out here or what? I could use a refill on this coffee,” her voice rang through the static.

“Louie? How does she know your identity?” Paragon asked as he jumped to his feet.

“I…uh, established trust by offering information about myself?”

“You never surrender such information! What if she were to turn and use it against you? I cannot in good conscious allow you to lead the negotiations with this woman any longer. You’ve allowed too much power to slip from you and she is too dangerous for you to continue leading this operation,” he said as he started to walk with confident steps toward the elevator. I bolted to the door and closed it quickly as I pressed the button to return to the kitchen. “Coming!” I called through the intercom on the way up.

The rise reached the sink and I slammed down the emergency brake so it wouldn’t return down upon Paragon’s call. He’d have to use his exit and come around the front of the building. That I could handle. I just couldn’t have him inside the apartment.

An appropriate host would ask a guest how exactly she would like her coffee. Of course, an appropriate host would also have the proper items to accommodate the answers given, and I definitely did not have that. Given that, I figured it would probably be rude to ask her if there was a specific way she liked her coffee prepared only to inevitably respond with, “Yeah, I can’t actually do that so I’m just going to go ahead and do the thing I know how to do. Thanks for your input, though!” I’ll just stick with what I know: put the coffee grounds in the part where the coffee grounds go, put the water in the part where the water goes and let the cup catch the result of whatever magic happens in that little machine. As long as it’s coffee–and pretty much every time I’ve done this before it has been–then we’ll be solid.

I paced a little in the kitchen as the coffee machine chugged along. Steam rose from the crack between the flap top lid where it should close smoothly over the machine. It’s been too long since I remember it closing correctly, so I assume it’s always been that way. I opened up the refrigerator, the off-white that used to be normal white door held open as I grabbed cream to go with the coffee. Half and half or skim? Honey maybe? What type of person does she seem to be? Am I going to gain any ground by asking myself these questions and am I simply setting myself up for disappointment by even attempting to presume an answer? Yeah, probably. I’ll just take them all.

Behind the wooden door of the pantry that sat aside the refrigerator was packets of sugar. Thousands of them, since you can buy them in bulk for not a lot of money. You don’t even have to be an actual coffee shop, it turns out. I figured they’d check for that kind of thing and I flashed my City Protector badge when purchasing it, as if it were for some sort of very official police related business. Perhaps we were going to circulate it in drug ring in hopes of catching disgruntled cocaine users–though thinking about it, that sounds like an awful way to catch them but a very good way to get them very, very angry. Or maybe it was for the break room in the police station, since there’s that old connection between cops and donuts and coffee. Or maybe I’m thinking about this way more than the cashier that checked me out did when I showed my badge for no apparent reason and none of it matters now as a I have a giant box of sugar packets sitting in my pantry. I grabbed two just in case and still had plenty to spare.

Anything else that I should get? Would it be rude to not offer some sort of snack or meal to go with coffee? I already established I’m not a cafe so I assume it’s not totally expected, but it seems like the right thing to do. What do I have here that I could serve up? Toasted bread. Toasted older bread that is potentially a health risk. A burnt grilled cheese, as that is the only way it’ll turn out if I make it. Runny scrambled eggs, which I didn’t even know was possible until I accidentally did it every single time I make them. Half a jar of pickles, though obviously it wouldn’t be required to eat all that is in the jar. I’ll just ask when I take the coffee out. That seems the most reasonable response here.

“I thought you moved faster than most people,” I heard called out through the wall. “Where’s that coffee?” She asked.

“I do, but I can’t make the machine move any faster. I could shake it very fast but seeing as this isn’t hot chocolate mix, that would probably just throw hot water all over the place. I could make the trip to an actual coffee house very quickly, but I have to wait in line at the same speed as everyone else. The world moves at the same pace no matter how fast I go.”

“Well, just bring it out when you’re done–making it, that is. Not when you’re done rambling on, because I imagine you’ll never make it out here then. I’ll be bonding with Eula here.”

Bonding? I could only assume that meant something like performing the slow chase that I had done so many times with La. Get close enough to touch her and she backs off just a bit. Move closer again and she maintains a distance of a couple cat steps and an hand’s length or so away until she’s in or under something that allows her a barrier from you. She was a total lover when she wanted to be, and she softened a bit with the people she liked as she got a little older, but she also increased her distain for new company. The fact there were no hisses coming from the other room was a minor miracle, though there was a low grumbling sound I could faintly hear. I could only expect she’d unleash the usual boxing-like paw swing before she headed for higher ground. I figured I ought to make it out there before that happened to comfort La, and get a little laugh in at the same time.

I heard the machine sputter to a stop. It was perhaps the most pathetic sound any hardware could make at the end of its duty, a near sigh of relief that its work was done though the task it completed is literally the only thing it’s built for. Still not sure at what she’d need to accompany her coffee, I grabbed a tray to take out all the offerings. Well, wasn’t a tray as much as it was a sizable wood cutting board, but it functioned about the same. Placing the now full mug, both the half-and-half creamer and a glass of skim milk, a bottle of honey, two sugar packets, and a spoon for mixing on the tray, I started making my way out to the living room.

“I wasn’t sure how you liked your coffee so here’s all the–” I stopped mid-sentence as I turned the corner into the other room and nearly dropped everything that I had just loaded the tray with. “You’re petting her?” I asked in shock.

“Yeah, I’m petting her. I told you were were bonding.”

“But it sounded like she was growling at you,” I said in confusion with the inflection of a question.

“Yeah, most people call that purring,” she replied.

“La, is that true?”

With her eyes still squinted a bit between blinks as she looked up toward me, she let out a sizable yawn before offering up her chin for scratching to the hand of a stranger.

“There are people that have been around this cat on a regular basis for years that still haven’t earned the privilege of providing under-the-chin rubbing. Yet you waltz in here and win her over like nothing. Do you douce yourself in catnip before leaving the house? Is it the fact that you’re so damn catty yourself? This is…I don’t even know what to make of this, to be honest with you.” My mouth hung open a little too long after that sentence, but my jaw was literally dropping at this.

“I just have my ways, is all. It’s like how people who speak different languages can still communicate through a universal sense of humanity,” she explained. “For example, if I didn’t speak English, I would still find a way to express to you that I would like my damn coffee.”

“Right, I was saying I didn’t know how you liked your coffee so I brought out some options,” I said as I pushed the tray out to put all the choices in front her. She looked them over very briefly, though her focus was clearly on the mug. She grabbed the handle with little hesitation and turned away before crouching back down by Eula.

“Just coffee,” she said. I probably should have figured that.

“Well if you’d like something to eat to do with that I can–” she interrupted.

“Just. Coffee.”

“Ok, but you’re missing out on some mean toast.”

“Thank you for the coffee,” was her reply as she reached her hand out and brushed it gently through the hair that covered Eula’s stomach.

“Belly rubs, too, La? You’ve gone soft,” I told her.

“She has not. She’s gotta be tough–she puts up with you. She just recognized someone currently experiencing that same struggle,” she offered between sips of her coffee as she continued to scratch every sweet spot La has.