Young Writers Society

This is my first attempt here at YWS so I'm not exactly sure of the protocol for posting. Hopefully this works out! Summary: She wears odd clothes. She doesn’t socialize with anyone in the neighborhood. And Jack’s almost positive he saw her holding a conversation with her cat. Morgan's completely out there and she’s decided he’s the one she’s been waiting for.

“Bim, if you don’t come down this instant I will go and get the bucket!”

I sighed. The problem with windows was that you couldn’t just let one thing in. I just wanted some cool breezes to come in and cool off my house while my air conditioner was broken. Unfortunately, it also meant I now got a front row seat to whatever the crazy lady across the street was doing. I turned up the volume on the TV, praying that the football game would drown out her racket.

“Because, you ungrateful little louse, that’s what you do with pets that aren’t cooperating. You punish them.”

No such luck. The woman had a voice that defied logic. It wasn’t shrill but it cut through the air like a knife through butter.

“You’re a pet here, Bim. My pet. Thus you must do as I say and I say get out of that infernal tree!”

Was this woman holding a conversation with her pet? I’ve heard of people talking to their animal, not with them. This I had to see. I was too much of a man to peep through the curtains like some gossipy old woman so I went to my front door just in time to catch the woman’s next response.

“A what? You dumb blonde, firemen don’t really rescue cats out of trees! And even if they did, what pray tell, would you do with a fireman?”

I leaned against the doorjamb, watching the scene across the narrow street. I’d only seen her a handful of times since she’d moved in over a month ago but I could see the woman was dressed in her usual way: that is to say weird. She looked like a throwback to the fifties from the waist down and a medieval movie reject on top. Her hair was dark brown with lots of red and gold highlights and curled wildly to halfway down her back. On one of the middle branches of a large oak tree was a lean gold cat stretched out on its back with its head lolling over the edge of the branch towards the woman.

The cat mewed loudly to which the woman snorted, “Don’t try to play the helping card. You can’t pull it off. I can find my own—what?”

The woman whipped around when the cat suddenly flipped over onto its back. I was now being watched by a pair of brown eyes from the woman and light blue ones from the cat.

“Enjoying yourself?” the woman snapped. I imagine that when her red mouth wasn’t drawn into a thin line it could be quite enticing. It had the look of it.

I raised one eyebrow slowly. “Do I need to pay admission to watch the scene you’re making?” I drawled, not moving from my post.

The woman’s eyes somehow managed to narrow even more. “I bet you just love being clever.”

I shrugged. “Generally, yes.”

Apparently that wasn’t the answer she was looking for because she huffed and turned her back to me.

Although the woman was more than a little insane, it went against my nature to just watch someone in need and not offer assistance. “Anything I can do to help?” I asked loud enough that she couldn’t ignore me.

She didn’t even turn around when she said, “Unless you’re a firefighter, no.”

I pushed off of the door jamb to grab my keys. “It must be your lucky day,” I said as I shut my door and walked down my driveway towards her.

That made her turn around again. “You’re a fireman?” she asked skeptically.

I tapped the city fire department sticker on the back of my truck as I passed it. “At your service. Although you were right earlier. We don’t usually rescue cats from trees.”

The cat mewed again to which the woman gave it a death glare. She mumbled something that sounded a lot like ‘slut’ but I couldn’t say for sure.

“You got a ladder?” I asked when I drew up next to the woman. I was slightly surprised, I was six foot even and she barely came to my chin. It must have been all the hot air in her personality that made her seem bigger than she really was.

“No.” she replied shortly.

I turned back to my house. “I’ve got one, hold on a minute.”

“No. That thing will ruin my grass. Just climb the tree. She won’t hurt you.”

My eyebrows flew up, who worried about a ladder ruining their grass? “Why don’t you climb the tree then?”

“I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction,” she muttered under her breath with a dark look upwards. She moved her attention back to me suddenly. “I thought you were going to help?”

“Please, don’t fall over with gratitude.” I said, moving to the tree.

“Don’t worry, I have very good balance,” she replied saucily.

I grabbed the lowest branch and pulled myself onto it. The cat wasn’t very high up, I could reach it if I moved up just a couple more branches.

“You’re a good climber,” the woman observed while I maneuvered my body to the next branch that could support my weight.

“Careful,” I looked down at her with an amused look, “That almost sounded like a compliment.”

The cat mewed pitifully, turning our attention back to it.

“You don’t have to carry her down,” the woman called up to me, “Just throw her as hard as you can. She likes that.”

The cat hissed at the woman.

I paused as I reached for the branch the cat was on. It was almost like that cat understood what the woman had said and was expressing its displeasure at the idea of being thrown out of the tree. What was up with this household?

“Well? Did you get stuck up there too?”

I figured it would be best if I didn’t answer the woman. Instead, I pulled myself up onto the last branch so I was sitting astride it. I held my hand out to the cat watching me. I didn’t know anything about cats but this one had to be expensive, its short fur practically glittered in the sun and it had an air about it that wouldn’t have look out of place on royalty. “Hey cat, come here and I’ll get you down,” I crooned softly.

The cat crawled on its stomach far enough that it could reach my hand. It sniffed at me for a long moment then looked back down at the woman and mewed again.

“Oh, thank you for that titillating piece of information,” she accompanied her sarcastic remark with an eye roll.

Everyone knew that you weren’t supposed to question a crazy person but this was too much. “Are you really talking to the cat?”

“Only after the cat talks to me. Now hurry up. I’ve a hundred things to do today and watching you is not one of them.”

I’d had enough of the attitude. “You would think that since I’m up in your tree saving your cat for you, you could be just a little bit nicer to me.”

The woman crossed her arms over her chest, glared at me, threw her hands up, and sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry for being such a witch.”

Well, that was unexpected. “It’s alright,” I said. “Let me just get your cat down and you two can have a good long talk together.”

The woman’s hands immediately transferred back to her hips. “Oh, believe me. We will,” she aimed at the cat with the same tone my mom used on me when I’d done something bad in public.

The cat sniffed daintily before rising to its feet and walking over to me. I picked it up with one hand then started lowering myself back down to earth.

I jumped the last few feet down then held the cat out to the woman. “This is the part where you go all weepy and tell me that I’m your hero,” I said with a smirk.

Instead of coming up with a snappy comeback like I expected she looked up at me suspiciously for a long moment. Finally her expression cleared and she took the cat from me. “Well, you are a hero,” she said as the cat curled comfortably in her arms. “Thank you.”

Her stubborn politeness made me want to linger a little longer to see what else I could get out of her. And, when I was close enough to see her features, I could see that she was a good looking woman. Not exactly in the conventional sense, although I still stand by what I said about those lips, but her features were strong enough to match the self confidence in her eyes. It was intriguing.

“You know, I’ve lived across the street from you since you moved in and we’ve not been introduced. I’m Jack Quentin.” I held out my hand.

She slowly put out her hand. “You’re Jack,” she repeated, drawing my name out thoughtfully. “And you’re a good climber. And a hero.”

“Yeah that’s about it,” I replied, a little worried. She’d been lucid a moment ago, now it was like she wasn’t all here. “And you are?”

“Morgan,” she replied although I got the feeling she just said it automatically, the rest of her mind off somewhere else.

“Well, Morgan. I can’t say it’s been a pleasure but it’s definitely been interesting. Just give me a knock the next time the cat needs rescuing.” I’ll admit that she was freaking me out right now and I was escaping.

Morgan snapped out of her daze to look at me in an enterprising way. “Bim won’t be getting into any more trouble but thanks for the offer. Good bye.”

She turned towards the house, leaving me to go back to mine. I was just getting off the sidewalk when I heard Morgan say, “Don’t look so damn pleased with yourself. He lives across the street; I would have found him eventually.”