First and foremost I want to thank my editor Kenjisato for tirelessly correcting my numerous mistakes. His hours of volunteer work converted this story from a grammatical bloodbath to a far better piece of writing. The smoothness of this work is largely due to him. Any and all remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone.
Do please leave ratings and comments I do find them helpful.
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"Rita, where is the extra cat litter?" I said into my phone, as the Furious Five curled amongst my legs and rubbed my arms from the counter. I swept all twenty-two pounds of Maine Coon, leader and most notorious of the Furious Five and also known as Lynx, from the counter to stop him from nudging my coffee cup over the edge, while shoving two others of the five aside with my feet. I was pet-sitting for my Rita and her husband, Jason, while they were on vacation in Florida.
As you must surely already know, Rita is probably my best friend. How do you know? Would you pet sit five undisciplined, rowdy felines for anyone but your best friend? I sure as hell would not. I like cats, I really do, but I want them sitting in my lap rather than crawling up my legs, around my legs, and competing with each other for how many things can be shoved off of the counter.
"Sure, Olivia, you will find a bunch of bags in the basement closet," Rita told me.
So, I am off to the basement accompanied by the Furious Five. I somehow managed to make it safely to the basement, whilst the cats used my legs as a slalom course.
"The back closet," Rita added, as I stepped over a myriad of cat toys and past Jason's workbench, with tools hung on the walls. Chloe, the calico was up on the workbench immediately. Jason, Rita's patient and wonderful husband, does like cats, but I do think he wants calmer ones. He does have one sanctuary, his office and tech repair center on the second floor. Also, the cats are often banished to the guest room when guests visit; Rita and Jason can have nights of good company and good cheer, rather than nights of chaos, mayhem, and misfortune.
I found the closet and opened the door. The litter is on the floor and I bend at the knees, proper lifting to take care of the old back, to get a bag. I am almost six-foot-four and strong, but there is no reason to have to miss work at my basketball camp, out of carelessness. I see myself as a human crouching to get a bag of litter. Lynx, the Maine Coon, sees me as a vault platform. He is on my shoulders in an instant, springing for the top shelf. Even at twenty-two pounds, he might have made it, except his launch knocked me off balance. He made a desperate scramble, back paws on the winter coats, front paws scrambling amongst the stuff on the top shelf.
His powerful front paws knocked down an old makeup mirror and a cribbage board, before finally finding purchase on a medium-sized cardboard box. As the cribbage board struck me on the head, I looked up to see the cardboard box slowly sliding forward. Lynx, realizing that the situation was a losing proposition, tried to leap clear, but both cat and box tumbled from the shelf. As the box fell, the top came off--cat, box and contents--poured down on and around me. My left arm, protecting my head from most of it, took the brunt of the impact as the clatter of plastic filled the room and the entire Furious Five made a swift retreat back upstairs. Thankfully, the box was light and I was essentially unhurt, although the cribbage board might have bruised my forehead.
I looked around amongst the chaos, finding myself surrounded by old, homemade VCR cassettes. Scrambling to my knees, I grabbed my phone, as Rita was hollering in alarm, "What happened? Are you okay, Olivia?"
"Lynx happened," I said, knowing that would explain much to Rita. "When I was bending down to get the litter box, he sprang for the top shelf pulling a bunch of stuff down," I clarified, as I righted the box and reached for the first cassette. It was labeled in Rita's elegant script, of which I have been jealous of for the last twelve years-- Jason, Rita, Demarcus and Carla April 1993.
"It sounded like an avalanche. Are you sure you're okay? Are the cats fine?"
I heard her, but barely. Demarcus was my husband. That date on the VCR tape was about a year before he and I started dating. It did not say anything else.
"You there? Are you sure you are okay?" Rita said again.
"Yeah, yeah, I am fine. I, uh, I just... Uh, what are all these VCR tapes?"
A long pause, too long a pause. "Oh, nothing. Look, I am paying roaming charges, so I should go. I am glad you are okay."
"Rita, wait, but what are they?" I said, with more insistence.
"Look, just ignore them for now. It is not really all that important, but it will take too long to explain. I will tell you when I get back, okay?"
"But, Rita..."
"Look, I gotta go. Do you trust me? Just trust me, and we will talk when I get back. I promise; just trust me."
This conversation was taking place in 2004. Roaming charges were very real and very expensive. If you were out of your network, you would be paying four or five dollars a minute.
I had known Rita forever, and she was my best friend. I had to be able to trust her. "Okay, Rita," I said, in the most cheerful voice I could muster. "Of course, I trust you, and I will wait! Have fun and I will see you in a few days."
She hung up. I stared at the tapes, thinking how this might explain why they had a VCR in their bedroom and in their living room. VCRs were on their way out for most people. Placing the tapes in chronological order, I discovered that there were one or two a month from February 1993 until May of 1995, but summers and January were not included. Whatever it was, it was happening in college, although not starting until late in their freshmen year. Various names showed up, but I saw some patterns. Rita and Jason showed up on all of them, and I showed up on none of them. Demarcus's last tape was in March of 1994. I know that month; that was the month we started dating.
"Do you trust me?" Rita's words echoed in my head. Resolutely, I put the tapes in the box, and put it away. The Furious Five were finding the courage to come back down stairs, and soon were slinking about, as I filled the litter boxes, one on each floor. The last one was in a little hidey-hole in the master bedroom, under the TV table. As I stood, I looked at Rita's dresser along the side of the bed, and I saw us.
The photo was from early junior year of college; the beginning of autumn colors behind us. Demarcus and I, arm in arm and cheek to cheek, mine freckled ivory and his sharp ebony, so perfectly deep and dark. We were standing comfortably and easy in our pose. I smiled at that younger Demarcus in the picture. It helped him that he had four or five inches on me, I like taller men, and for me that was a challenge.
We had just finished playing a pickup game and my dirty-blonde hair is braided and damp from sweat, despite the cool air. Rita and Jason were not serious yet, although Jason's luxurious black hair and soft-brown Italian eyes were working their way into her heart already. Jason stood next to Demarcus, and Rita next to me. At six-four, I almost have a foot on Rita, who our college basketball team listed as five-foot-six. Well, maybe, when in spike heels, which she often would wear.
Rita being, in so many ways, my opposite, rapidly became my best friend when I transferred. Her flashy outfits made my modest self blush, and her brash, unhesitant opinions, at first, annoyed me, but then taught me courage. Our friendship never would have made it, if I had brought the racist, insular values of my hometown, but I had only brought ignorance, tempered by curiosity, and a willingness to learn. I had never even talked to a Black person, although my first year in college, I had played against them, as my very White and very Christian school accumulated a 5-27 record. People had told me Black people were stupid and violent, but they were the same people who told me women were subservient to men. My awakening had begun when I found the courage to transfer against my parents' wishes.
Rita made such a point to welcome me, striving to make me comfortable as her new roommate, when I arrived at New England State. I did not consider it at the time, but we laugh now about how she was also uncomfortable, as she tried to balance being herself with not wanting to offend me. She did get me to stretch and grow beyond my boundaries and, were it not for her, I never would have finally severed myself from the indoctrinated guilt gifted to me by my family, so I was free to find myself, my husband and my life. Trusting her then was hard, so trusting her now, should not be.
Trust in everything else did not come easy, but trust and chemistry on the basketball court came easy to the two of us, and that chemistry got our school to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament for the first time, and then a national championship a year later, with her running point and me using my agility and height to dominate the high post. We found the beginnings of that chemistry the first time we practiced together, and it slowly bloomed into all parts of our lives, creating a lifelong friendship.
Rita and Jason were back a few days later. It was a relief to have them back. The four of us ran a basketball training camp, and without them it was hard. However, as I sat in Rita's living room early Monday afternoon (camp was closed on Monday's during the school year), it felt awkward. It was just the two of us and we chatted about her trip and how the camp was going for the time they were gone. We both avoided the obvious, but those VCR tapes sat, like a great beast ominously sitting between us. It would not let us really engage with each other, but we both feared what might happen were we to wake it.
Another awkward pause, Rita smiled a soft, quiet smile, looking at me with her dark-brown eyes. "We should just shoot this damn elephant, no?"
I smiled back, "Okay, but you are making me nervous."
She unfolded her jeans-clad, short athletic legs from the couch. "I'll be right back." She was gone and back again, the box of tapes in hand. She thrusted the box into my hands. "Pick one, any one."
Rather than just reaching in and grabbing a random one, I lined them up in date order on the table. "Tell me, does it make a difference?"
She shrugged, "Not really; they are all of the same ilk, except for who's in them."
I pursed my lips in irritation, "The same what?"
She tried to hold my gaze, but looked down. Were her skin pale like mine, I might have seen a blush, but the rich-milk-chocolate hid any evidence. "Well, Olivia, we were all in this club. We would meet once a month. It was a chance to relax, enjoy ourselves, and let off steam without any complications. Before Jason and I ever figured out that we wanted to be in a serious relationship, we knew we wanted to enjoy each other and enjoy college."
I am not stupid, and I was not trying to be a jerk. You, dear reader, know full well what she is hinting at, but is too embarrassed to say. But, I, out of a mixture of denial and naivete, could not make the connection.
I stared at her stupidly. Her oval eyes started to fill with tears, and she shook her head, "Don't be angry at Demarcus. He quit the moment he started dating you. He said you were worth giving it all up for."
