Page 4 of Fruit
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Sebastian,” he answers, looking at me briefly before returning to his phone. I immediately transform his name to the HispanicSebastiánin my head.
“Iva,” I reply.
“Nice to meet you.”
I nod and look down at the cat. It’s blinking blearily, its breath choppy.
“Hold on, little guy,” I tell it. It doesn’t react, like its strength has been seeped out of it. I stroke its wet fur gently.
“Okay. There’s a twenty-four-hour vet ten minutes away,” Sebastián says.
“That’s lucky.”
“Yeah.” The car rumbles on. The headlights make the rain in front of the car glow, blurred by the water on the windshield.
I lay the kitten on my lap as we move into the street. I’m dripping all over Sebastián’s car, but he doesn’t comment on it. The silence is punctuated by the brush of the windshield wipers, filled by the sound of the wheels on the wet road. I look at Sebastián from the corner of my eye, but he’s concentrating ahead. I let myself relax a little.
I’m probably not going to get murdered tonight, but I’m ready to kick the guy in the head if he drives the car somewhere shady.
The ten minutes pass slowly. I keep half my attention on Sebastián, but mostly I look down at the cat, who doesn’t move from its prone position along my bare thighs.
“I think this is it,” Sebastián says. I look up as the car slows to a stop. A lit sign shines over the squat building, lights glowing from the inside.
“Thanks,” I say, picking up the cat again.
“I’ll come with you. If that’s okay,” Sebastián says.
“Uh, if you want,” I say, a little surprised. The clock on the dashboard tells me it’s 3:32 in the morning, but I guess the guy wants to see how the cat fares. I’m not going to begrudge him that, seeing as he was the one who drove us here.
We get out of the car. The rain has let up to a drizzle, and I rush through it and into the vet’s clinic. It smells like disinfectant and dry pet food. I walk to the unmanned front desk.
“Hello?” I call out. Sebastián walks in at a more sedate pace, stopping behind me.
After a few seconds, a tall, thin woman in a lab coat comes out of the back.
“Oh, hello,” she greets. Her eyes zero in on the cat in my arms. “What do we have here?”
“We found it outside, under a dumpster. I think there’s something wrong with it. It’s not breathing right,” I say.
“Okay. Let’s just pop inside here,” the woman says. We follow her to an exam room and she signals to a tall, metal table covered in a paper sheet. I put the kitten down on it and it lets out a little mewl.
“It’s okay,” I say gently.
“Has she shown any aggression?” the vet asks.
“No, not even when I picked it up.”
“Okay. Let’s check her out.”
I take a step back to stand beside Sebastián as the vet inspects the cat with gloved hands. I chew on my lip as the cat stays silent and still on the table.
“Malnutrition, dehydration, and associated exhaustion. We can give her some enriched fluids and get its weight up slowly with an increasing diet. If she’s been living outside, I’m going to guess she’s got parasites too. We’ll wait until she’s a little more nourished to give her the antiparasitic medication, though. Were you looking to adopt her, or…?”
“Um, I just found it. I wasn’t really planning on…” I trail off. I’ve just finished college a few months ago and have been consumed by my frustrating job as a low-level digital artist ever since. It hadn’t really crossed my mind to take on the extra responsibility a pet would entail.
“That’s okay. We can put her picture on our Facebook page to make sure she doesn’t have an owner and move her to the shelter. It’s young, so she should get picked up quickly.”
