 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| The Reading Room |
 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
The Tastiest Grooming
by Ann Pai
Rocky's a flame-point Siamese, a slender lad in a fat, white jacket. When he speaks, he's loud;
when he's lonesome, insistent. He yowls at invisible friends, chatters at birds and squirrels. He
leaps to my shoulder or stretches himself, claws lightly snagged in my trouser knee, when I sit
paying bills. He nudges a hand, an arm, to be petted; he displaces newspapers, dinner plates,
other obstacles from laps.
And he grooms. He grooms himself, of course, with the attention of an anesthesiologist to the drip.
We do not interrupt him, the way one does not interrupt a sleepwalker. He grooms himself with a
competitive pressure and intensity. His wet fur stands stiff and peaked as egg whites.
Self-grooming seems his meditative practice, a strengthening of soul and technique toward his life's
work: to attend those around him, to groom those whom he loves. He's groomed the dog's sleek,
cinnamon coat, briefly—a passing hint of status, a reminder. He grooms the younger cat, who didn't
bathe herself the first year of her life. Every afternoon between two and two-thirty, Rocky hovered
over her where she slept in the sunny sag of the sofa's back cushion. He'd lick her calico nape, the
sleek delta between her ears, each of her white paws, and the sharp ridge of her spine. She slept
through it all, deep in pleasure, not even purring.
My husband, though, doesn't sleep through the grooming.
In the hours of profound human dreaming, Rocky leaps lightly to the pillow. He rocks and settles in
above my husband's head, then chooses the night's target. With his fine-splintered kiss he scrapes
one or the other of my husband's eyebrows, or sleeks down the fringe of hair behind his ear, or
caresses his bald scalp in mighty swipes of the long, pink tongue.
This is a five-year habit. At least two nights a week, the cat has woken my husband with this
ardent, painstaking bath. I'm told it can continue for a half hour at a go. I wouldn't know. I never
wake up for it. Rocky has never tried to groom me, never so much as sniffed at my pixie cut.
So I wonder: What strange compulsion governs my little cat's heart? And—what kind of man have I
married, who for five years has not tossed the cat off the pillow?
Some mornings, he grumbles. "Rocky knocked me off the pillow," he says. Usually, though, he
wakes and smiles dreamily at the cat. "Those were some good groomings you gave me last night,
Rocky," he says. "Those were tasty groomings."
I don't think I'm jealous. I adore waking rested. I know how it feels to sleep and not rest; I'd not
give up physical placidity in favor of having a one-inch palm sander dragged over my cheekbones
every night. But if I'm not jealous, what do I feel? What's this longing, this greed, this whiff of
desolate wishfulness?
I wish our little lives weren't also short. I wish that every morning back to my husband's past, back
to his childhood, he could have woken to Rocky's grooming, which amuses and pleases him, charms
him and comforts. I'm greedy to see my husband's smile, the cat's drowsy squint. I covet the
illusory safety of it—that in the world's throes of merciless posturing and casual harm, we pause in
this one, shallow pocket of weird, pure sweetness, the cat sated by my husband of its odd need
and my husband loving the cat and the cat's erratic, tender gesture.
I'll probably never understand it about either of them. It's enough, how lucky I feel to see it, their
affection. It could have been kept a secret. People keep such things secret.
"Why don't you groom me, Rocky?" I ask him. I curl in bed a few minutes longer in the morning, and
he nests in the sheltered hinge of my flannel-clad hips and torso. He purrs, and I work my hand
under his leg to rub his tummy. "Am I not tasty to you?"
Rocky braces his paw on my arm and arches his back into my body. This is our time. My husband
watches us and laughs. "Is she warm, little one? Is she very warm and toasty?" I must be. Rocky
squints and presents his chin for scratching. I kiss the tips of his ears, and with my fingertips, I
groom him.
Rocky's a flame-point Siamese, a slender lad in a fat, white jacket. When he speaks, he's loud;
when he's lonesome, insistent. He yowls at invisible friends, chatters at birds and squirrels. He
leaps to my shoulder or stretches himself, claws lightly snagged in my trouser knee, when I sit
paying bills. He nudges a hand, an arm, to be petted; he displaces newspapers, dinner plates,
other obstacles from laps.
And he grooms. He grooms himself, of course, with the attention of an anesthesiologist to the drip.
We do not interrupt him, the way one does not interrupt a sleepwalker. He grooms himself with a
competitive pressure and intensity. His wet fur stands stiff and peaked as egg whites.
Self-grooming seems his meditative practice, a strengthening of soul and technique toward his life's
work: to attend those around him, to groom those whom he loves. He's groomed the dog's sleek,
cinnamon coat, briefly—a passing hint of status, a reminder. He grooms the younger cat, who didn't
bathe herself the first year of her life. Every afternoon between two and two-thirty, Rocky hovered
over her where she slept in the sunny sag of the sofa's back cushion. He'd lick her calico nape, the
sleek delta between her ears, each of her white paws, and the sharp ridge of her spine. She slept
through it all, deep in pleasure, not even purring.
My husband, though, doesn't sleep through the grooming.
In the hours of profound human dreaming, Rocky leaps lightly to the pillow. He rocks and settles in
above my husband's head, then chooses the night's target. With his fine-splintered kiss he scrapes
one or the other of my husband's eyebrows, or sleeks down the fringe of hair behind his ear, or
caresses his bald scalp in mighty swipes of the long, pink tongue.
This is a five-year habit. At least two nights a week, the cat has woken my husband with this
ardent, painstaking bath. I'm told it can continue for a half hour at a go. I wouldn't know. I never
wake up for it. Rocky has never tried to groom me, never so much as sniffed at my pixie cut.
So I wonder: What strange compulsion governs my little cat's heart? And—what kind of man have I
married, who for five years has not tossed the cat off the pillow?
Some mornings, he grumbles. "Rocky knocked me off the pillow," he says. Usually, though, he
wakes and smiles dreamily at the cat. "Those were some good groomings you gave me last night,
Rocky," he says. "Those were tasty groomings."
I don't think I'm jealous. I adore waking rested. I know how it feels to sleep and not rest; I'd not
give up physical placidity in favor of having a one-inch palm sander dragged over my cheekbones
every night. But if I'm not jealous, what do I feel? What's this longing, this greed, this whiff of
desolate wishfulness?
I wish our little lives weren't also short. I wish that every morning back to my husband's past, back
to his childhood, he could have woken to Rocky's grooming, which amuses and pleases him, charms
him and comforts. I'm greedy to see my husband's smile, the cat's drowsy squint. I covet the
illusory safety of it—that in the world's throes of merciless posturing and casual harm, we pause in
this one, shallow pocket of weird, pure sweetness, the cat sated by my husband of its odd need
and my husband loving the cat and the cat's erratic, tender gesture.
I'll probably never understand it about either of them. It's enough, how lucky I feel to see it, their
affection. It could have been kept a secret. People keep such things secret.
"Why don't you groom me, Rocky?" I ask him. I curl in bed a few minutes longer in the morning, and
he nests in the sheltered hinge of my flannel-clad hips and torso. He purrs, and I work my hand
under his leg to rub his tummy. "Am I not tasty to you?"
Rocky braces his paw on my arm and arches his back into my body. This is our time. My husband
watches us and laughs. "Is she warm, little one? Is she very warm and toasty?" I must be. Rocky
squints and presents his chin for scratching. I kiss the tips of his ears, and with my fingertips, I
groom him.