The Cat That Went to Homecoming (5 page)

I started to cry. I was embarrassed, but
could not stop crying. Hershey, who had been contently curled up in
my lap, became alarmed and stood to nuzzle into my face and lick
away my tears. He always did this when I cried; he hated to see me
cry.

Jane still had her hand on mine, and her soft
eyes watched Hershey console me. “I really want the two of you on
my team,” she said. “So think about what I asked, and call me when
you decide.”

All I could do was nod “yes”.

“We’ll make arrangements for my husband and I
to drop the laptop off at your house and get it all set up for you
once you call me.”

Chapter
Seven

I was laying on my bed staring at the
ceiling, trying to digest everything Jane had said to me. Hershey
was curled up on my stomach snoozing. I looked down my body to
watch him rise and fall with each breath I took.

Jane did not know just how much she’d
affected me. Her generosity captivated me. Not only did she offer
me a computer and a summer job, she offered me the chance to be
someone special. Things like this never happened to me.

I reached across my body to stroke Hershey.
He didn’t open his eyes, but he rolled over onto his back so I
could rub his tummy; he didn’t need to see me to know my touch.

“What do you think, Hershey? What should Mama
do?” I quietly asked him.

My mom gently rapped on my door and opened it
a crack, causing Hershey to wake up and roll back onto his stomach.
“May I come in?”

“Yes,” I replied.

She walked over and sat on the edge of my bed
and gave Hershey a gentle rub on the chin. He lifted his head high
to give her better access.

“I just spoke with Mrs. Spenser,” she said.
Mrs. Spenser lived next door to us. She was a nice older lady who
worked at Wal-Mart with my mom. She actually helped my mom get the
job.

“She is willing to give you access to her
WIFI so you can use the internet.” Apparently I took too long to
respond because she went on, “Oh come on, Ellen! Don’t tell me
you’re going to insult Jane by not accepting her charity! Sometimes
people help other people simply out of the kindness of their
hearts. Not everybody has an ulterior motive.”

“I know that!” I shouted. Our raised voices
startled Hershey and forced him to jump off me and dart out of the
room. I stood up and watched him leave, then paced back and forth
running my hands through my hair. “I just don’t want to….” I
started to say something, and then realized I was revealing too
much.

“You don’t want to what? Put forth all the
effort?” Mom countered me, standing to face me.

“No! It’s not that,” I said, my eyes fixed on
the carpet to avoid hers.

“Then what is it, Ellen?” she demanded.

I let out a deep sigh and plopped back onto
the bed. How could I explain ‘what it is’ when I didn’t understand
it myself. Jane was the nicest person I had ever met in my life. If
I took money and a computer from her, and then failed, I would
disappoint her.

I was afraid I would disappoint her.

Mom sat back on the edge of the bed and put
her hand on my knee. “Ellen, talk to me,” she said. “What are you
afraid of?”

I looked her straight in the eyes and blurted
it out. “I’m afraid I will disappoint her.” There, I said it.

“Ellen, those that try and fail never
disappoint. It’s the ones who don’t try at all that do,” Mom
said.

I saw Hershey peeking in the doorway at us,
his tail curled downward in tension. I gave him eye contact and
patted my lap to show him I needed him to come back. He did; he
jumped onto my lap and head-butted my arm, telling me, “Pet
me!”

I looked at my mom and smiled. “Won’t he look
handsome in his service animal vest?” I said.

Mom clapped her hands and reached out to rub
Hershey’s head, “Yes, he will!” Hershey rubbed his cheek against
her hand in affection.

Chapter
Eight

Jane and her husband, Stan, dropped off the
laptop the following Saturday afternoon while Mom was at work.
Earlier in the day, I had baked brownies so the three of us sat at
the kitchen table with brownies and milk while Stan showed me how
to use the laptop.

Being that I had never used a laptop before,
I did not know how it worked. I just assumed you clicked on an icon
and was magically sent to the internet. That was not the case! Mrs.
Spenser had her WIFI password encrypted, so Stan showed me how to
add my computer to her network.

“Be sure to keep the password written down
and stored in a safe place. There will be times when you find
yourself disconnected from the network and you will need to
re-establish the connection.”

I would not have known that. He suggested
that I write it on a piece of paper and scotch tape it to the
bottom of my laptop.

Jane downloaded the online Pet Handler’s
Course onto my computer using her credit card to pay the $70.00
fee, and right there my heart sank.

“Jane, I don’t have $70.00 to pay you,” I
meekly said. “I wasn’t expecting you to download this for me
today.”

“I’m downloading this for you as an advance
on your salary. Once I walk you through this, we will set up a work
schedule,” Jane said.

Hershey jumped up onto the table and rubbed
his cheek up against the computer screen.

“Well, hello there, handsome,” Jane said as
she stroked Hershey’s head. He head-butted her hand, wanting more
attention, and Jane chuckled. “He certainly is a social butterfly,
isn’t he?”

Hershey found Jane’s glass of milk and
gingerly stuck his paw into it. After licking the milk off of his
paw, he must have realized that drinking the milk directly out of
the glass would be more satisfying than dunking his paw in twenty
times. He tried to stick his head in the glass, but the
circumference of the glass was smaller than his head so this did
not work.

I knew what his next move would be because we
had gone down this road before, so I swiped the glass up off the
table and removed it. Hershey intended to knock it over to get the
milk. I went to the cabinet and pulled a small dish out to pour the
milk into and offered it to him.

“You are able to predict Hershey’s moves
before he does them. That is an important trait in an animal
handler,” Jane said.

Later that evening, as I read though the
handler course material, I discovered that Hershey and I had many
of the necessary traits. Well, at least Hershey did.

Chapter
Nine

Summer in Wisconsin is a great time for those
who have friends. Summerfest, known as “The World’s Largest Music
Festival,” is eleven days of local and nationally known musicians
playing on over 700 stages. The festival hosts food and shopping
vendors, comedy acts, and fireworks displays that awe and amaze.
Summerfest runs from late June through July fourth. I only knew
this through the local news casts or from what I overheard at
school. I, myself, had never attended Summerfest. I’d never been to
a concert, roller skating, or bowling. I had, however, read every
Judy Blume book ever written and seen every episode of
Degrassi.

During the first week of July, I had been in
Jane’s employ for a month. I had already paid her back the $70.00 I
owed her and had stashed away $130.00. I was on my hands and knees
tugging out dandelions and creeping Charlie with my IPod blaring
Maroon Five. I had heard that they were headlining on the main
stage at Summerfest on the Fourth of July. Boy, wouldn’t it be
awesome if I took Mom to the concert? She and I were both huge fans
of Maroon Five, and I think we’d beat each other up to gain the
attention of their lead singer! I needed about a hundred bucks to
pay Pet Partners, but I would get paid again before that fee was
due, so I technically could afford to splurge.

I just wasn’t sure I could muster up the
courage to go. It was a very crowded event; the main stage alone
held up to 23,000 people! I looked over at Hershey. Jane had strung
a clothesline run for me to clip to his leash so he could come to
work with me, and he would spend the four hours we were there,
sunning himself or helping himself to her wild herbs and
grasses.

“Hersh, what do you think? Should I go to the
concert?” Hershey stopped gnawing on the mint sprig in his mouth
and stared at me. Then he dropped it and stalked me, pouncing onto
my hands in the dirt. What a little devil!

“I take it that’s a
yes
,” I said as my
hand wrestled with him. OUCH! He got my hand in the famous Hershey
choke-hold, his hind claws digging into my forearm while he gnawed
on my palm.

“Take that, Hersh!” I said as my hand
wrestled him to the ground and held him in submission.

Mom was more than overjoyed at my proposal!
She did have to do some begging to get a coworker to pick up her
hours that night, but in the end, we spent the Fourth of July at
Summerfest!

We arrived at the main gate three hours
before Maroon Five was scheduled to play. Mom had been to
Summerfest in the past, and she wanted me to experience the foods
and sights of “The Big Gig.” Her favorite food vendor was a locally
run steak house with a restaurant located on the north end of the
Summerfest grounds. This was where we decided to eat dinner.

Unfortunately for me, it was THE most popular
food vendor at Summerfest. As we stood in line, the next to be
seated, I heard a painfully familiar voice behind.

“Isn’t that Ellen?” I didn’t have to look to
know it was John Peck, but I did turn to see him standing there
with Darcel Simmons. She had one arm draped over his shoulders and
one around his waist, and it looked as if he was holding her up.
Was she drunk?

“Look, she’s here with her MOM! Oh, my God,
that’s hilarious!” Darcel squealed, laughing like a hyena.

I did not want my mom to hear them so I
prayed silently,
Please Lord, let them take us to a table
quickly
. The steak house was packed to capacity, so, sadly for
Darcel, the wait to be seated would be long enough for her to
experience my mom in Tigress mode. At first, I didn’t think Mom had
heard Darcel because she never turned to look behind us, but it
soon became clear that she had.

My mom was not unattractive; in fact, some
women in the neighborhood didn’t like their husbands to even look
her way. When she was all dressed up, she looked like a movie
star!

She used her femininity to grab the attention
of a security guard in close proximity to us. She motioned him over
and he strolled to us with a hopeful smile.

“Can I help you with something, Miss?” He
asked her.

“Yes, you can.” She gave him a flirty smile,
and then turned to point out John and Darcel, “Do you see those two
kids back there?” He nodded. “They are being very disruptive and I
can’t be certain, but I think they’re drunk.”

He looked a bit disappointed, but replied,
“Oh I see. I’ll check them out. Thank you for bringing this to my
attention.”

Mom pulled out the charm once again, “I was
happy to do it, especially since it meant seeing you up close.”
Then she winked at him.

I knew Mom drank a wine cooler earlier, but
she couldn’t possibly be drunk! I wondered just where Sexy Mom had
been hiding all this time, and I hoped that one day I could be like
that.

The security guard blushed then straightened
himself out. He walked over to Darcel and John and had a heated
conversation which ended in Darcel ranting at the top of her lungs,
and extra security being called in to help remove the two of
them.

While the shouting match was taking place, it
was our turn to be seated. As we walked to our table, Mom turned
around, smiled, waved good bye to Darcel and John then blew them a
kiss.

Ouch! This was going to hurt me in the later
rounds, but for tonight, I would just savor the sweet satisfaction
of knowing Darcel the Dreadful was unhappy!

“You bitch,” I heard Darcel shout, but Mom
never turned back again.

“Ellen, just wait till you try their baby
back ribs. They are melt-in-your-mouth wonderful,” Mom said and
kept walking to the table without a care in the world.

The ribs were indeed wonderful, but very
expensive. I argued with Mom over the menu, wanting to order the
cheapest thing I could find, whether I liked what it was or not,
but she would not allow me to do that.

“We are not going to worry about money
tonight.” she said, “Trust me on this. We will be fine.”

I watched my mom eat her meal in her
delicate, lady like manner and wondered why it was me sitting
across from her. She obviously had a way with men, so why was she
single?

“Mom,” I asked, “why don’t you ever go out on
dates anymore?’

She looked at me and cocked her head to one
shoulder. “I just don’t want to.” She said in a tone that said
‘don’t push this.’

I wanted to push it! I needed to understand
why someone as beautiful as her was alone. I thought only girls
like me were lonely.

“I’d bet the security guard would like to
take you out,” I said slyly.

Mom laughed and put her fork down. “Come on
Ellen! He’s at least ten years younger than me.” She laughed a
little more and looked over at him. He smiled back at her, making
her look down at the table.

“Oh brother,” she mumbled, “I might have made
a mistake.”

I laughed and had to cover my mouth. Then she
looked at me and we both burst into laughter.

After our laughter calmed, Mom wiped her
mouth and put her napkin down. “I’m going to use the ladies room.
Do you want to come along?” she asked.

“No, I’ll wait here for you, if that’s okay.
Besides, I want to finish my soda.”

“I’ll be back in a little bit. As crowded as
it is tonight, I’m sure there are lines a mile long to get to the
restrooms.”