Mique
Part 2
by Rocky & Lyraine
E-Mail: shaunday@shaw.ca or lyraine@yahoo.com
It sat there
amidst the Volvos and the Ramblers like a thing out of place, glistening in the
sunlight. The lime-green placard on the windshield announced, "ONE
OWNER!!" Sitting sublimely on the pavement as if placed there waiting for
her and her alone...a '72 Mustang rag-top, the car of her dreams.
Beyond a shadow
of a doubt, she had to have that car. "That's it!" she practically
squealed with excitement. "I have got to have that car!" Grabbing
Mique by the arm, she spun him in the direction of the epitome of automotive
perfection.
"Whoa! You
almost made me spill my hat," Mique muttered, trying to adjust his two-can
beer helmet while he looked to see what Melly was squealing about. "Shit,
Mel, it's a crappy Ford, an old Ford at that!"
"Ah, oh,"
Melly sputtered "You...don't dis' the car. It's gorgeous! That's the one I
want. Humor me; I let you wear that damn hat."
Taking a long
draw from the straw in beer number two (you have to keep them even, or the hat
will fall off), Mique walked over to the little convertible and kicked the
fender. "Losers kick the tires," he explained. "I always kick
the fenders." Bending down to peek under the car, he added, "Would
you look at that? No rust fell down. This might be a keeper after all."
"Of course
it's a keeper. Besides, what difference would a little rust make? At least it's
got windows." Melly moved around the other side of the car, peering
through each window as she passed it. "The interior looks pretty cherry,
too. Not too...Oh-oh, better duck. There's a salesman headed our way."
A gawky-looking
man in a baggy gabardine suit was walking towards them, pretending to talk into
what was obviously a toy cell phone. As he drew up to them, he folded the phone
and tucked it into his jacket pocket. "She's a beaut; just came onto the
lot. I can see that you and your wife have an eye for a fine automobile."
Melly gaped with astonishment that the man didn't even blink at the fact that
she was standing beside a short cat person with beer on his head...wait a
minute; did he say "wife"?
"I'm not..."
she began, then stopped as Mique kicked her in the shin. Annoyed, she stood
there fuming. "What in hell is going on?" she wondered. "What is
it with this goof? Can't he see Mique?"
The seedy-heap
huckster frowned slightly at this apparent case of wife battery, but who was he
to judge? There was a sale here. He could almost taste it. "Yup, this little
car has everything: good rubber, new wiper blades, and a classic eight-track
stereo!" He opened the driver's door and smiled an oily grin. "Wanna
take her for a test drive?"
Mique took
another long draw from beer number one. "Is it an automatic or four on the
floor?" He giggled, as the salesman had to look before answering the
question.
"Um...definitely,
um...automatic," the salesman answered, his Adam's apple bobbing up and
down.
Before Mique
could say a word, Melly answered, in an amazingly saccharine voice, "Oh,
can we, honey? Try before you buy, right? Can we, can we, puleeez?" The
odd glint in her eye and her sugary tone were almost frightening.
Mique cast a
baleful eye at the redhead tugging on his arm and, much to his dismay, jostling
his beer, causing foam to back up the straw. "Sure, pumpkin." He
winked at the goofy salesman. "Let's take her for a spin."
"Pumpkin"
earned him another dirty look, but Melly got in the car beside him. As soon as
they were out of earshot from the salesman, though, she turned on him.
"Spill it, Fur Face. Why wasn't he freaking over having a talking cat on
his lot? And what the hell is with the 'wife' bit, anyway?" She tapped the
dashboard impatiently. "Well?"
Mique twitched
his whiskers and scratched the end of his nose. "When he looks at me, he
sees a short little guy with a bad haircut." He scratched his nose again.
"I can make most people see what they want to see when they look at
me."
Melly looked at
him in disbelief. "I don't believe you. You can do that, and we've been
staying stuck in the apartment? Why, you...Wait a minute; does that mean I want
to see you as a cat?"
"Ah, no, I
can't do it to you at all. You're special."
"I see. No,
actually, I don't, but..." Melly trailed off as she noticed the driver of
the car in the next lane. "Uh, Mique, I think you should take a look at
this."
"Oh,
shit!" Mique yanked the wheel around, forcing the poor little Ford into a
three-sixty turn. The driver in the other car, a huge hairy man who looked for
all the world like a duck in an ape suit, careened through traffic in an effort
to catch them. Mique wheeled the car in and out of traffic like a stunt man,
only managing to hit one parking meter and slightly dinging a mailbox. They
waited for fifteen minutes in an alley before deciding the coast was clear.
Mique wheeled the
car back into the used-car lot, steam pouring out from under the hood. A hubcap
bounced free and rolled to a stop at the feet of the wide-eyed salesman.
"We'll take it!" Mique called to the man just as the back bumper fell
off.
After the dust
had settled, and the hysterical salesman calmed down, things got back to
normal. Once again, Melly found herself the dismayed owner of an unbelievably
trashed car. Of course, this time, the car was salvageable. They made
arrangements to have it repaired, then headed back towards the apartment. Melly
found it impossible not to glance warily over her shoulder as she walked. She
had this horrified feeling that the roller-coaster ride was about to begin
again. Looking over at Mique, she said plaintively, "What did I ever do to
deserve you?"
"Did you
bite the heads off of chickens in your last life?" Mique didn't look up
for the dirty look he could almost feel bouncing off his aura. "You must
be a trouble magnet...and I'm trouble, with a capital T," he explained,
hoping he wasn't going to get hit.
Melly merely
glared at him. "Oh, yeah, that makes me feel a whole lot better. Thanks a
lot, shithead. Give over; what's up with the hairy duck-man? What'd you get me
into now?"
"That's Mister
Shithead, if you don't mind," the cat man said, polishing his nails on the
sleeveless sweatshirt he was wearing. (Melly was still kind of mad that it was
her shirt and that it had sleeves when she loaned it to him.)
"Oh, goody.
Again with the evasive tendencies. This must really be a good one. Are you
going to tell me, or do I die of curiosity?" Her voice fairly dripped with
sarcasm.
They walked up
the stairs to Melly's loft. A large green stain still graced the rug just
inside the door. (Mel still hadn't gotten a vacuum, although it was high on her
list of "Buy me"s, and at this rate, the list was going to get a
whole lot longer.) "It's like this, kiddo. We got rid of the top dog; now
the rest of the pound is sniffing around to see what's left."
Melly swore
profusely, then headed to the fridge. "Damn. We're almost out of beer."
She grabbed one for herself and a refill for Mique's hat. "Where does that
leave us?"
"Right in
the middle, darlin'." He sucked furiously for several moments, trying to
keep his helmet from falling off. When this failed, he abandoned the headgear
in favor of drinking straight from the can. "As near as I can see it, we
need to take a road trip as soon as the car's ready. A change of scenery is in
order."
"Car won't
be ready for at least a week. They know where I live. What do we do in the
meantime?" Melly began pacing restlessly. "We need to hole up
somewhere until then. Where, though? The Pit closed down last month."
Mique fingered
the pop-top of his beer can. "Shame about that; it was my second-favorite
watering hole."
"Second-favorite?
What's first?"
"Your
fridge; where else?" Mique snickered as he was backhanded in the gut.
"Turkey."
Melly thought for a second, then snapped her fingers. "That's it. I know
the perfect place. Nobody will ever look for us there. Let's go."
"As long as
we don't have to spend the next week hiding in your underwear drawer, I'm
in."
Melly looked at
him in disgust. "You can't be serious for six seconds, can you? As if I'd
let you anywhere near my underwear drawer, after what you did to my shirt. Grab
the rest of the beer, and we'll book out of here." She picked up her
jacket and looked at him impatiently. "Are you coming or not?"
Melly hadn't even
crossed the room when Mique was standing by the door with the last four cans
from a six of heinie. He had the gall to hum, tap his toe and check a nonexistent
wristwatch. This earned him a slap to the back of the head as they walked out
the door.
She stopped on
the first floor and knocked on the side door. A gnarled old man opened the door
and peered out at them. "We need to borrow the van, Al. Star'll bring it
back in the morning." The man just nodded wordlessly, then handed her a
single key on a grimy plastic fob. "Thanks a lot," Melly said with a
grin, then headed off down the block. A few minutes later, she stopped by a
battered old VW van and got in.
Hopping in the
passenger door, Mique peered into the dusky interior of the bus. "Christ!
It smells like something died in here." He wrinkled up his nose and waved
one paw in front of his face while fighting with the stubborn crank on the
window.
Laughing, Melly
said, "Something probably did. Al's an exterminator. You'll live; a little
bad smell isn't going to kill you." She carefully threaded the cranky old
van through the traffic and out onto the highway. "We won't be in the van
long anyway. Star lives just outside of the city. It's only about a fifteen-minute
drive."
The entire trip
out of town, Mique rode with his head hanging out of the window, squinting into
the wind like a carsick pup. He was grateful when the van finally pulled to a
stop.
Even though there
were about twenty cars in the front of the house, Melly had pulled right around
the back before stopping. Getting out of the van, she closed the door as
quietly as she could. Motioning Mique to do the same, she picked her way
through the darkness to the back door.
The door opened
almost immediately when she knocked, revealing a tall, willowy blonde goddess
just slightly older than Melly. The goddess looked at them for a moment, then
shook her head and motioned them in. "Mom is worried sick about you,
Amelia," she said accusingly. "She called the university, and they
said you'd taken a leave of absence from your classes. She actually
condescended to call me, just in case we'd talked." She looked over at
Mique for a moment in puzzlement, then back at Melly. "What's with the
freak show?"
Mique looked the
young woman up and down several times, sniffed the air appreciatively, and then
grinned and held out his hand. "Hi, I'm Mique, Mel's new boyfriend."
As the blonde
stood there with her mouth open in astonishment, Melly shot Mique a warning
look. "Pay him no mind, Star. He's a perfect ass sometimes." She
shook her head ruefully. "Look, Sis, I'm sorry if Mom called you, but
there isn't much I can do about it now. I didn't have a lot of choice."
Taking a deep breath, she continued, "We need a place to hole up for a
couple of days."
"Shit,
what'd you do now? Aren't you supposed to be the good sister?" Without
waiting for an answer, she turned and headed up the narrow stairs at the far
side of the room. "One of the girls is out of commission for a few months.
You can use her room for a few days." She led them to a door at the far
end of the hall. "I'll talk to you in the morning. We've got a full house
tonight."
She unlocked the
door, then headed quickly back down the hall.
"So Sis runs
a cat house, huh? I think I'm going to fit right in here." Mique wiggled
his eyebrows at Melly and took another deep sniff. "Yup, this is my kinda
hidey hole. Even better than your underwear drawer."
The strain of the
last few weeks was beginning to take its toll on Melly. She had been run
absolutely ragged, and things had been just too weird. Suddenly, she was
terribly, terribly weary. "Leave it alone, Mique" was all she said as
she flopped face-down on the big double bed.
Thinking better
to leave well enough alone, the cat man simply crawled up onto the other side
of the bed and sat silently until he heard soft snores. He stared at the
ceiling for a while before he, too, nodded off into a dreamless sleep.
•••
(c) 1999 Rocky & Lyraine