Have you seen a man walking a cat on a leash?
This man had to be standing in her begonias. As she looked out at him, she saw he had a cat on a leash. And he had his camera out. And he appeared to be taking pictures. Of her in the bathroom.
CAT ON A LEASH BY BEN UMAYAM 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 126
Katherine takes me home from strings practice every Thursday. We really don’t have anything in common except strings practice.
She is a little older than me, from Connecticut, and she has that way of talking through your teeth. Very Yale, very Connecticut suburban as in Auntie Mame. Too young to understand that reference? It’s the way Phoebe talks in Friends when she meets Paul Rudd’s parents for dinner.
Katherine leads hiking groups in the mountains of Colorado. Janis says she walks way too fast. She went on a walk with her, Janis says, and she gave up 30 minutes into the hike. “All I want to do is walk and enjoy the trees, the flowers, the clouds in the sky. She practically jogs, all I want to do is walk.”
In the car after strings practice Katherine and I have run out of things to say.
There is this pregnant silence. My high school English teacher used that phrase. Back then I never understood it. Now I do. In the car, going home from strings, there is a pregnant silence.
Then Katherine breaks it and asks me, “Have you seen a man walking a cat on a leash, going up the hill? From your house.”
“Nooooo,” I respond, the intonation indicating how odd that was of a question.
“The other day, our next-door neighbor called us, upset,” Katherine said. “She had just called the police and she followed up by calling the neighbors. It appears when she was in her bathroom, not taking a shower or anything, just cleaning up the bathroom, there was this man, looking into her bathroom. That alarmed her, the window to the bathroom is off the private road, and this man had to be standing in her begonias. As she looked out at him, she saw he had a cat on a leash. And he had his camera out. And he appeared to be taking pictures. Of her in the bathroom.