Roses

From "Here's What You Do," a short story collection.

A couple of gray striped strays wander into the backyard. They’re skinny with their ribs clearly defined and Tally and her mother discuss whether to feed them.

“We should,” is Tally’s opinion.

“If we put food out, they’ll stay,” Mom says.

“You always say to give where it’s needed and I’ve never seen creatures more needy.”

Tally’s motive is boredom. She’s thirteen, school let out last week, and her two best friends took off two days ago for a month-long camp, which is something her mother couldn’t afford. She anticipates a long and lonely summer, and a couple of cats will at least bring a fresh element to the monotony.

“Having cats around isn’t necessarily a bad thing.” Mom gazes thoughtfully at the scrawny beasts, who’re mewling and begging with their eyes. “They’ll keep the mouse population down. And no mice means no snakes. But they’re not to come in the house.”

Tally eyes the ragged pair dubiously. Fleas and worms seem likely. No, they won’t be coming into the house. But it’ll be interesting to watch them stalk birds.

It turns out Mom is right about them staying if they’re fed. When they’ve been hanging around the back porch for a couple of weeks, she takes them to the vet and gets them fixed and dewormed.

“Even if they’re outdoor cats, we still have a responsibility,” Mom tells her.

Mom lectures a lot. If she’s not going on about accountability, she’s talking about cultivating other good qualities like consideration and honesty.

Tally names the cats Ann and Andy and they fit comfortably into the small household. Now and then, as a show of gratitude, one or the other of them will leave a dead mouse or squirrel on the back door mat.

“It’s how they show their love,” Mom says.

They’re good cats until, after they’ve lived in the backyard for a couple of months, they draw a complaint.

“Your cats are doing their business in my flowerbed.”

This comes from the woman who lives next door, Mrs. Carver, who’s always been friendly enough. She’s a tall, big-hipped woman, usually smiling, but today she carries thunder on her brow.

“I’m not one to gripe about petty things,” she says, standing in the doorway. “But I spent time and money on my new roses, and I don’t want them dug up and poisoned by cat poop.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” Mom says. “It’s just that the regular ground is so hard and dry and the soft soil in your beds is so much easier to dig around in. If I were a cat, I’d prefer that soil, too.”

“You’ve got to make them stop.”

“I don’t see how I can.”

The woman squints angrily, turns, and, with a bullish huff, stomps off.

“Oh dear.” Mom closes the door and turns to Tally. “I don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll look it up.”

Tally types “unwanted cat poop” on her laptop and many simple solutions pop up.

“Pine mulch or planting plastic forks with the tines pointing upward,” Moms reads from over Tally’s shoulder. “That’s easy. Let’s do ’em both.”

They purchase mulch and forks. Mom calls Mrs. Carver to tell her their plan.

“Have at it,” the woman responds.

So they go over there; and it only takes twenty minutes to dump and spread mulch and stick the forks in the yielding soil.

But the next day Mrs. Carver’s back.

“Your solution didn’t work,” she says. “You’ve got to make them stop.”

She holds out her phone, showing them how the forks are no longer in the ground and the mulch has been pushed aside.

“I mean it.” For emphasis.

She marches back home.

“This is making me not like our neighbor,” Tally says.

“On one hand, I can’t blame her. On the other, they’re her plants and protecting them should be her problem, not mine.”

“They’re our cats.”

Sigh. “It’s time to get creative.”

Mom sprinkles an entire large container of ground black pepper over the area.

The next day Mrs. Carver stops by again.

“You put pepper in my beds. Do you have any idea what the pepper will do to my roses?”

“Nothing. Pepper’s organic.”

“Either way, it didn’t work. Have you thought about providing your cats with a litter box?”

“They’re outdoor cats.”

“There’s no rule that says a litter box can only be used inside.”

“Why would I want to mess with a litter box when the whole outdoors is their litter box?”

“Next time I see your cats in my beds, I’m taking matters into my own hands.”

Once again, she marches away.

“This has escalated in the most awful way,” Mom says, flustered and frustrated. “I simply don’t know what else I can possibly do.”

“What does into her own hands mean?” Tally asks fretfully. “What’s she going to do?”

“I never thought I’d go to war with a neighbor over something as silly as cat poop.”

“It’s obviously not silly to her. I’m writing to that advice columnist from the paper.”

Dear Sophie,

Our neighbor is angry with us because our outdoor cats are pooping in her rose beds, and she expects us to make them stop. We apologized, and then we tried planting forks tines-up, spreading pine mulch, and sprinkling pepper, but none of these things worked. We feel that we gave it our best shot, but now the neighbor has threatened to take matters into her own hands, which sounds like she’s threatening a couple of cats who’re only doing what cats do.

We don’t like being at odds with a neighbor. How can we make this go away?

Thanks for your thoughts,

Vexed

The next morning the cats are gone.

Mom and Tally go next door and ring Mrs. Carver’s bell.

“Did you do something with our cats?” Mom asks when the woman answers her door.

“Of course not.”

She closes the door in their faces.

“She kidnapped our cats and then lied about it,” Tally says. “I’m sad and mad.”

“Yeah. We tried to make it right. And now she’s added this ugly act to an already touchy situation.”

“I wonder what she did with them.”

“I’m guessing she caught ’em and dumped ’em somewhere far away. There’s nothing we can do.”

“We could call the police.”

“We can’t bother police with a trivial dispute between neighbors. Anyway, she’d just lie to them, too.”

Tally doesn’t like being this angry. Her throat is clogged and her head aches from the fury.

At midnight, when she’s certain her mother’s asleep, she sneaks out of the house, goes next door and, being careful of the thorns, grasps the base of all Mrs. Carver’ roses and pulls them from the ground. Then she messes the whole area up, making holes and hills so that it looks like the work of the feral hogs that occasionally pass through. They’ve been known to dig up small trees and overturn large rocks.

When she gets home she uses the nail brush to clean the dirt from beneath her fingernails and she goes to bed. Having satisfactorily retaliated, she dreams the most peaceful of dreams.

“Looks like hogs got Mrs. Carver’s roses,” Mom says in the morning.

Tally comes up beside her mother and peers out the window toward the neighbor’s.

“Wow. So there was no point in her kidnapping our cats after all. I wonder if maybe now she’ll tell us where she took them.”

“I spent a lot at the vet getting those cats in shape. Money down the drain.”

“She spent a lot on those roses.”

“Roses are hardy. She’ll be able to stick ’em back in the ground. No permanent damage.”

Tally’s surprised to hear this. She assumed that what she did would kill the roses. And sure enough, an hour later she looks out to see Mrs. Carver out there on her hands and knees replanting the rose bushes and patting the soil.

The next day Sophie’s response is in the paper. She and Mom read it together.

Dear Vexed,

It’s never good when something like this comes between neighbors. But sadly, it happens; and, while I agree that you’ve done everything you can, at this point your goal should be to make sure this goes no further.

In this sort of situation, my advice is to meet mean-spiritedness with generosity in an over-the-top way. Don’t just make her a pie—make her a pie every other day for two weeks. Wash her car. Sweep her porch. Roll her garbage bin out to the street. In every way possible, make up for the infraction.

It’s hard to stay angry with someone who’s doing you favors. Soon she’ll forget all about the rose-and-cat issue and you’ll become her favorite people.

Good luck,

Sophie

“This is horrible advice,” Tally says.

“It would’ve been good advice before Mrs. Carver stole our cats. She’s the one who went too far.”

“Mrs. Carver should be making pies for us.”

“Maybe we should give it a try. Kill her with kindness.”

“You’ve never made a pie in your life.”

“You’re being too literal. Let’s make her a cake. We’ll take it to her along with a sugary apology.”

“Maybe she’ll be so thrilled that she’ll tell us where she took our cats.”

So they bake a cake and take it to Mrs. Carver. She accepts the cake with a “Thank you,” but she still seems unbending. The next day is garbage day and, after the truck has come and gone, Tally rolls Mrs. Carver’s bin back up to the house. The day after that, as Tally sweeps her porch, the woman comes out.

“Why’re yall doing all this nice stuff?” she asks.

“In the hope that you’ll tell us where you took our cats.”

“I didn’t do anything with your stupid cats. They wandered off is all.”

Tally quits sweeping and goes home. Dejected, she pulls out a kitchen chair and flops into it.

“She’s never going to admit that she took our cats away,” she tells Mom.

“I don’t know anything to do other than to try to forget about it and move on.”

“When something this awful happens, when someone deliberately hurts you and hurts your pets, it seems like you should at least be able to find a lesson in it. But all I learned from this is how to feel bad.”

“We learned that cats prefer store-bought soil, and that some people like roses more than cats.”

“I hate her. And I will never do another helpful thing for her.”

“Yeah.”