The view of the lake had been a slight exaggeration. You could see it from the back steps of the double-wide in the gap between the old-time bait & tackle shop and the corner of the strip mall haircut franchise, so it wasn’t a lie, per se.
Everything else that week had been a jackpot, a montage of laughs, adventures, and sex, all of it worthy of a rom-com Bryant Kelleher would never willingly watch if he wasn’t living it.
Dana said to make himself at home while she was at work, so he decided to make them an extravagant dinner.Â
He was already so enamored he felt guilty moving her cat off his ankles so he could begin the preparations.Â
Bryant thought about cooking nude, then realized he’d have to put pants on to accept the grocery delivery. He tweaked his app to Dana’s address-he had to check her mail on the counter for the zip- ordered enough to feed six people because he was in love and still slightly buzzed from the night before, and cobbled together a mise-en-place.Â
The ChowChurners delivery person was an attractive woman in her 20’s and Bryant felt a bit silly, shirtless, with flour sticking to his hairy (some would say overgrown or Yetiesque) chest.
He tipped the woman a ten, cash, on top of what he added on the app and she smiled happily as she walked back to her car with Dana’s cat following.
Bryant heaved the last bag of groceries to the side as he jumped off the porch to grab the cat, who was not going to willingly jump in Bryant-or anyone else’s-hairy arms.
Bryant slowed, walked closer to the street, and slowly circled back toward the cat, who was momentarily amused by a blowing leaf.
He did the kissy sounds that cats seemed to respond to as he slowly went into a crouch. The cat...what was the damn thing’s name?...stared at him briefly before bounding back halfway to the house. Progress.
More kissy sounds, as Bryant wished he had ordered salmon instead of steak to lure the cat back in. The cat walked closer to the door.
He wished he could remember the cat’s name. It came when Dana called it. It was a cigarette brand, he remembered. Winston? Salem? No...it wasn’t black, it was not Salem.
Bryant got two steps closer to the cat, went into a deeper crouch, and the cat bolted into the crawlspace under the trailer.
Bryant got down into a military-style chest crawl and went under the trailer, headed in the direction of the salami slice view of the lake.Â
The cat sat a body length away, calmly licking itself.
Marlboro? Nah, that was a dog’s name.
Then Bryant noticed cans. Empty cans. Tuna. The cat had done this before, and Dana had lured the damn thing with tuna.
In the throes of Bryant’s eureka moment, at the instant he decided to run back into the trailer to find tuna, he jerked his head up into the polyethylene sheeting that was the underbelly of the trailer.
It startled him. It also startled the nest of bees that had taken up residence just under where Dana’s kitchen sink was.
Bryant felt a bee behind his ear, brushed at it, and felt the first sting on his forearm.
More would follow, in rapid succession.Â
In his haste to rescue Dana’s cat, in his somewhat foggy morning buzz of joy and residual IPA, he had temporarily forgotten he was allergic to bees.
His EpiPen was clipped to the breast pocket of his shirt, draped over a chair in Dana’s bedroom.
His skin began to swell, his throat began to constrict. Bryant crawled in a panic, back the way he came under.Â
Bees began to sting his bare feet, as Viceroy looked on, dispassionate, licking itself.
***
Photo by Daniel Romero on Unsplash
Dark.
Cats!😂