She Understands ‘Cookie’

 

She’s bent over a tacky birdbath, painted a hideous green with two fake hummingbirds on its sides, yanking up the overgrowth of weeds. At least 120 years old, gray hair frazzled down the back of her neck, a hippy floral print smock dress on, she rises to see me passing. A missing tooth smile and a wave; I stop.

            Spying a large gray and white tuxedo cat behind her, I grin, pointing at the feline. “You have a cat!” Previously, I’d only seen her with the cancer-ridden 3-legged dog which was nowhere in sight. I could only surmise that it’d met its maker.

            “A what?” she hollers at me now.

            “A CAT!” I motion again at the grooming kitty behind her on the front porch.

            “A CAT?” she seems puzzled, then turns around, sees the cat, and turns back to me, grinning. “Oh, that’s Lily. She follows me everywhere I go. At night, she is on the bed with me, sleeps in my arms, during the day she is always underfoot. And she loves cookies! I ask her, ‘Lily, want a cookie?’ and she jumps around my legs, reaching for it.”

            “Ah, she understands English!” I offer, thinking of how my friend CM had a cat who understood the word ‘avocado.’ Every time CM would say the word ‘avocado’ the cat, Rusty, would come running. Not only was it amazing that Rusty understood the word avocado, but I’d never met a cat who liked avocados!

            “She does!” Lily’s mom beams, proud parent of a linguistically prow child. “And that’s not all! She understands some other words too.”

            “Like what?”

            “Oh, I don’t know. I think she understands cookie best though.” She stands for a moment, staring off into space. I wonder what is going through her mind. Does she remember me from previous conversations about the 3-legged dog? I recall a day when I had marched past her, 3-legged on a leash, balancing precariously, staring at me. “She’s not barking at you!” Old Woman had marveled. “Yes, well, she knows me,” I had said, secretly thrilled that at least one dog in the neighborhood knew me well enough to not bark at me. Or maybe this dog was just too sick and old to be bothered.

Now, she turns around and asks the cat, her voice serious. “What else do you understand, Lily?”

            The cat stops her grooming for a moment, seeming to think on the question, before turning back to a spot on her haunch that she didn’t quite finish.

            Lily’s mom nods. She knows what Lily’s thinking. There is interspecies communication going on here. And I remember how my piano student, M, told me one day how she wished she understood cats. “But one day, Miss Carol, we’ll understand Cat Language, and won’t that be awesome!”

            Indeed, it would, as I wave goodbye to Lily and her mom, who resumes her backbreaking task of weed yanking. The cat still focused on grooming. The crows cawing overhead. Another day in the neighborhood.