Cat in the Flock (Dreamslippers Book 1) Read online

  "What? No," she said defensively. "At least I don't think so. Not the way you fear. It's just..." She stopped. "There's this girl at the church, Wendy. Her mom's a real piece of work. Wendy's been with a foster family all through high school—that's how she joined the church—and her mother's sort of this lost cause. But Wendy keeps trying to reach out to her."

  "That's lovely," her mother said. "You obviously care about your friend very much. But Jim's teachings are very divisive. They actively support the most reactionary Republican candidates. And I bet there's not a black face to be seen in that ministry."

  "All true," Cat conceded. "But Mom, look what the archbishop is saying these days about homosexuality."

  Her mother was silent. "Well, that's different."

  "Is it?" Cat said quietly. She felt her temperature rise but didn't want to fight with her mother. Not today, not over this.

  Her mother got up from the table. "I'll leave you two to chat. I've got to get my things together for the sewing circle."

  Cat and her father sat in silence for a minute before her father sighed. "Well, that didn't last long," he observed.

  "I'm sorry," Cat said.

  "It's not just your fault," her father said. He reached over and squeezed her arm. "My ladies... Ugh. What's a man to do?" He stood up and began clearing the table. Cat checked her phone for the time. She had better start canvassing the bars if she wanted to hit all of them tonight.

  "Stay for dinner?" her father asked, but Cat demurred, noticing she had a voice mail message from Granny Grace.

  "Mind if I go upstairs to make a phone call?" she asked.

  "Knock yourself out," her father said, taking the wine glasses out of her hand. "I'll take care of this." He had taken responsibility for the kitchen when he retired, saying Cat's mother had handled it for the last thirty years, and he was effectively relieving her from duty.

  Cat closed the door to the guest bedroom and sat down on the bed. The macramé owl was in her eye line again as she tapped "Granny Grace" in her cell phone listing.

  "Hi, Gran," Cat said. "How are you?"

  "Oh, I'm fine," Granny Grace answered. "But I miss you. How's the case? Have you tracked down Jim? I've been worried about you."

  "Yes, well, I'm sorry I haven't been in touch," Cat said. "I'm undercover in Jim's church."

  "You're what?!" Granny Grace exclaimed. "Wow. Now that takes guts! Good for you, Cat."

  Cat quickly filled her grandmother in on the details, relieved that she could finally unburden herself. However, her grandmother was even less charitable than her mother had been about Cat bonding with others in the church. "Be careful, Cat. It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers in places like that. You won't even know what hit you. Suddenly, you're just one of them."

  "Thanks. I should think you'd have more faith in me than that."

  "Oh, don't take it personally. It's not a reflection on you. It's just how those cults are. I should know. I went undercover in a so-called satanic cult once."

  "What?!" Cat gasped. "You never told me that."

  "It's not as exciting as it sounds. There wasn't anything supernatural going on at all—not even anyone with our sort of ability. Just a lot of wayward girls and boys following this guy who ended up basically using them as prostitutes and drug runners. He used the 'satanism' as a way to control them."

  "Jeez, Granny Grace," said Cat. "That's really sad."

  "Yeah, I know. But at least I sent him to prison."

  "Is there anything you haven't done?" Cat asked.

  "Well, I've never spoken in tongues, but it sounds like you might," said Granny Grace, laughing.

  "Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Cat replied. Then: "How are things in Seattle?"

  "Oh, same-old, same-old. But I am working on a little side project for the mayor. Just a simple little case. Not as exciting as yours."

  "Well, tell me about it."

  "His son scored very high on his ACT test. The problem was, so did another kid in the same testing pool, and both their tests were flagged for being too similar, as if one had copied many of his answers from the other."

  "Oh, no," said Cat. "Isn't there a way to see who was cheating off whom?"

  "They run all these checks to try to catch any anomalies or similarities between the tests in every batch," explained Granny Grace. "They also look for significant jumps between one test and another, if the student has taken it more than once. But they don't call it 'cheating' outright. They 'withhold' them and do an audit."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "The mayor's son—Felix is his name—he's taken the test before, and his score was a good deal lower the first time. This only adds to the suspicion. The mayor is very worried. If he doesn't clear his son's name, the test will be sent on to colleges with the flag attached, which isn't the same as being called a cheater, but it might as well be. Felix is really hoping for a scholarship to Yale, his father's alma mater."

  "Sounds impossible," said Cat, shaking her head.

  "The other student has also taken the test before," said Granny Grace. "And his was even lower the first time. But Felix has been through an extensive—and expensive, I might add—round of tutoring courses in order to improve his score. The other student has not."

  "That's a start, but there's probably not enough evidence to clear Felix," said Cat.

  "You're right," agreed Granny Grace. "But I've got some other ideas. I'll let you know how it all pans out. Oh, and before I forget, I saw Lee's parents again the other night. They asked about you."

  "That reminds me, Gran. Have you ever slipped into the dream of someone who is hundreds of miles away at the time?"

  "Mmm... No, I haven't. But my grandmother told me a story once. She swore she continued to slip into the dreams of her childhood best friend, Carmen, even after Carmen and her family had long since gone back to Spain."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah," Granny Grace said. "The two of them had a preternatural connection, though. My grandmother talked about Carmen on her deathbed. It did raise certain questions... Why do you ask?"

  Cat suddenly felt too self-conscious to talk about Lee over the phone, and to her grandmother. "Oh, no reason," she said. "It's just something I wondered."

  "Yeah, right. Have you been having Lee's dreams out there, Cat?"

  Cat was silent for a few beats. "Maybe. I'm not sure. I'll have to talk to him to find out."

  "Well, isn't that something!" Granny Grace said. "How many miles?"

  "Eight hundred," Cat said. She felt her face flush. "Listen, I have to go. I'm canvassing the bars around here tonight for anyone who's seen Jim and Larry."

  "Well, good luck," Granny Grace told her, adding, "Don't go home with anyone whose dreams you wouldn't want to see."

  Cat laughed. Her grandmother had just hit upon the main reason that, unlike for many of her college friends, the one-night stand had never really worked for Cat.

  They said good-bye, and Cat ran downstairs. Her mother had gone already to her sewing circle meeting. Her father was at the dining room table, wearing reading glasses and working on a model of a '71 Corvette painted yellow.

  She pecked her father on the forehead. "Tell Mom I love her," she said.

  "Cathedral Candle, that's something she probably needs to hear from you," he replied.

  Cat sighed. "You're right, Dad. I'll be back."

  He smiled. "Remain pure and chaste, my good daughter."

  Cat curtsied. "As you command, dear father."

  It took Cat a few tries before she found a bar where anyone recognized Larry or Jim, but she finally found what she was searching for in Oasis.

  It was a new bar in a revitalized section of downtown that Cat remembered fondly from her early college days, before the money moved in and took over. Back then, she'd frequented a hipster bar called Tangerine, which had a bubble machine out front and a slide show featuring old eighties TV shows inside. Martinis were cheap, and they always gave you the remainder in the mi
xing glass along with your stem, so it was like getting two or even three drinks for the price of one.

  In stark contrast was Oasis. If it were trying to convey its namesake in any way at all, it would be as an oasis of old-world maleness in a sea of sports bars. Oasis was dark wood and red walls. The bar itself was leather. The lighting was low but somehow still cold. The clientele in Oasis was almost entirely male, and all were well-dressed. There wasn't a T-shirt in the place, and there were no TVs.

  She found a seat at the bar and had to put up with a couple of snobby waiters, who studiously ignored her, till a young newbie waiter took pity on her and lent her his ear. She showed him photos of Jim and Larry.

  "I've never seen that guy," he said, pointing to Larry. "But I remember this one really well," he said about Jim. "It was my first night here, and he totally hit on me. Saddest sack I've ever seen. Drank straight whiskey, shot after shot, and cried in his glass for hours. Then he was all over me, asking me to take him home."

  Cat looked at him inquisitively.

  "No, I didn't," he retorted, miffed. "Do I look that desperate?"

  "What night did you start working here?" Cat asked.

  "Oh, it was June 12," he said.

  Cat knew the date. The night of Larry's death. "Can you get me someone who can ID this other man? Someone who's worked here longer."

  It took some convincing, but an uptight waiter came over to Cat's end of the bar and looked at her photographs.

  "They're two of my regulars," he said. "A couple. Eyes only for each other."

  Cat was taken aback. "What? Your newbie said this one hit on him." She pointed to Jim's photo.

  "Not likely..." he said, "unless something's changed. I haven't seen them all summer."

  "You know who this one is, don't you?" Cat asked. "The Christian leader. Jim Plantation."

  "Of course I know," the waiter sniffed. "Am I supposed to be shocked?"

  "He campaigns against homosexuality."

  The waiter laughed. "I know that, too," he said, putting his free hand on his hip. "It's the best cover in the world, if you ask me." He paused. "Look," he said. "One night our two love birds in the photo were in here, and in strolled another couple, also regulars, but they'd never been in here before at the same time. All undercover gays, you know what I mean? Well, as soon as the two camps spotted each other, they collectively began to, ah, repent."

  "What?!"

  "Yeah, right here in the bar. Really killed the atmosphere that night, let me tell you. All four guys started praying together right here. I had to ask them to leave, which they did, together."

  The waiter paused to let that sink in, and then with a sniff he announced, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have real customers to serve."

  Cat could tell she'd exhausted her avenue of information at Oasis, and she was herself exhausted, so she drove back across the river and plopped into her bunk bed, mulling over the behavior of the men in the church. When caught out on their homosexuality, they help each other sort of get back on track. What a tremendous amount of effort to deny a natural inclination in the name of an ideology, she thought, feeling the futility of it all.

  It actually felt good to be "home," and that she could feel hominess at the Plantation Church startled her. If she weren't so exhausted, it was the kind of thing that could keep her up at night.

  Chapter 12

  Cat turned over in bed and saw her lover lying there on her side, the curve of her hip a perfect sloping arch. She traced it with her fingertips. Her lover stirred. Cat let her fingertips press harder into the woman's flesh, tracing up and down the curve of her hip and then over to the small of her back and to the cleft in her bottom. Her lover moaned and turned to face her. It was Cat. She was staring at herself.

  She looked at her hands. A man's hands. She recognized the calluses on the knuckles. They were Lee's.

  Okay, making love to herself the old-fashioned way was one thing, but this was just too weird. She was fused with Lee's consciousness, and she felt an overwhelming desire to fuck herself, which just felt... wrong? She needed to pop out of this now. But then... She was captivated by the lost look in her own eyes. Cat's eyes—the Cat in the dream, anyway. She realized that Lee's version of her had no cellulite, no stretch marks from when she hit puberty and her hips grew too fast, no ugly moles that should probably be removed by a dermatologist. He seemed to think her nose was the cutest nose ever created. Her broad shoulders that often made her feel like a linebacker for the Seahawks he apparently found sexy. As Lee turned his attention to her chest, she held her breath for a second but was relieved to find that Lee's dream fantasy version of her had the same small breasts the real Cat had.

  Now she was kissing them, and that was just unbearable. She concentrated on the silvery outline between Lee's mind and hers, pried the two apart, and there she was, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching Lee make love to her. It was oddly arousing, watching him caress and adore her this way. He was also very commanding, taking and moving her this way and that, and the dream Cat responded to his motions with spasms of excitement. Cat was surprised by how lusty and wanton she looked, coaxing and begging him, directing him when he needed to be. The two of them responded to each other as if sex itself were a form of Holy Communion.

  She hadn't had a lot of time to think about her night with Lee, what with the events of the past few weeks and her trip to St. Louis. Seeing them together like this—herself and Lee was... oddly moving.

  Cat heard a shot suddenly zing across the bed, and Lee disengaged from dream Cat, rolled the two of them onto the floor, and pushed her under it. The shot had come from the stairwell of his loft bedroom. The sniper—Cat recognized him from the grocery store dream—was standing on the spiral staircase, pointing a gun at them.

  Cat backed away instinctively even though she knew it didn't matter; neither of them could see her. Her dream self was under the bed. Lee lunged for his closet, where he grabbed his own gun, spun around, and shot the sniper, who fell to the bottom of the staircase. Lee sat breathing hard for a few minutes, poised with his gun in case there were more of them. But it was quiet until Cat under the bed called out, "Lee?"

  He rolled under the bed with her. Cat wanted to be a part of their embrace instead of an invisible entity in the room, so she fused with Lee again. Then Cat woke up; the dream had ended. She lay in bed a long time, the feel of her arms around herself as Lee seeming more real to her than her present surroundings. Then she fell back to sleep and dreamed her own dream this time.

  Anita morphed into her mother and scolded her about coming back to St. Louis too soon. "You're not a very good Catholic," she said, "so you might as well sign the Purity Pledge."

  Cat woke up in her bunk at Plantation just as the macramé owl on the wall in her dream flew out the window of her parents' guest bedroom, squawking like a parrot as it went. "Adam and Steve," it called. "Adam and Steve."

  She spent the day helping Wendy draft a Bible lesson plan for the rehab program. Since Wendy's mother was planning to attend, Wendy wanted it to be good. They decided to use the story of Mary Magdalene to show God's loving mercy for all.

  Wendy had been preoccupied with her mother when Mitzi revealed the true back-story of Jim's wife. Cat was curious to know if Wendy's mother had ever mentioned that, if she even knew, and what the official story was on Jim and his wife.

  "So how did Sherrie and Jim meet?" Cat asked.

  "Sherrie? Jim's wife? Hmm..." Wendy had to think about it for a minute. "I don't remember. A church camp, I think?"

  "So she wasn't part of this congregation."

  "Not till Jim married her. There were plenty of women who wanted to be Mrs. Plantation, that's for sure. But he brought someone in from outside."

  "Your mother never... mentioned her?"

  "No. Why would she?"

  "Oh, I don't know. She seemed to pick up on all the Plantation Church gossip." The two of them giggled and rolled their eyes at that one. So if Wendy's mother knew how J
im had met Sherrie, she had kept the secret that Mitzi'd let out of the bag, most likely for Wendy's sake, but maybe for Sherrie's, too.

  "Plantation Church gossip? The biggest news these days is you two." It was Tina, who'd walked into the meeting room in time to pick up on the tail end of their conversation. News of their strip club Christian intervention had already spread like wildfire through the Plantation community, and the two girls were being heralded as heroes. The story had grown a bit in proportion, and some versions included an altercation with a bouncer and a quick getaway in Wendy's Buick.

  "I can't believe you guys spent your only day off bringing a wayward woman to Christ," Tina said. She put her hand on Wendy's shoulder, closed her eyes as if breathing in the Holy Spirit itself, and then sighed. "I'm so, so proud of you," she said. Then her eyes flew open, and she came over to Cat's side of the table. "Both. I'm so proud of both of you. Cat, you've been such a beacon of righteous action in our church!" Tina's arms flew around Cat. There were tears in her eyes. Cat didn't know what to say.

  "It all—it all just... happened," she sputtered, then recovered. "Really, it was Wendy," she said. "She reached out to her mother, and her mother responded."

  "I can feel Jesus’ love coursing through both of you," said Tina.

  Wendy's face was red. "Tina, please."

  Anita walked in. "It's wonderful, isn't it?" she gushed. "Oh, what the Lord can do when his flock comes together."

  "Amen," said Tina. "Hey, aren't you hungry? I'm famished."

  "Me, too. Should be almost time for dinner, and if we get there early, we get seconds," said Wendy. She stood up, Tina linked arms with her, and they walked out the door. They'd come to the end of the lesson planning anyway. Cat gathered up her things.

  "The only thing I can't figure out,” Anita said as if wondering aloud, "is why the two of you were at that... fleshpot to begin with. Did you go there with the express purpose of talking to Wendy's mother? Or was there another reason?"

  Cat felt put on the defensive, and playing the role of high schooler was wearing on her. Anger about the church's hypocrisy flashed through her. Maybe it was time anyway to show Anita a little authenticity.