“Trust me, he wouldn’t want to be around me for more than half an hour.”
“That’s true.”
There’s a boy with brown hair and brown eyes that are so pretty he almost looks like a girl. But he’s raising his hand up so high he’s almost standing, and he’s making a face like if I don’t call on him he’s going to drop dead. I cannot wait to hear what he has to say.
I point to him. “Yes?”
He lets his hand drop and takes a big, dramatic breath before standing up and asking, “Okay. Hi, so I’m Noah. My question is—what happens if say you’re acting, okay? And you’re there on the set, with all these people around, right? And say it’s a kissing scene with a girl or something, but what if you have to fart? What do you do?”
There’s an instant reaction from the rest of the class. There’s a bigger reaction to the word fart than there was to me showing up here—not that it means anything—so I will play to that.
“All right, Noah. Sit down.” Mrs. Bean really doesn’t like fart jokes.
Too bad.
“That’s a great question, and it reminds me of something my nephew Sam once said to me when he farted. He said, ‘That wasn’t a fart, Uncle Dylan. That was my butthole blowing you a kiss because it likes you so much.’ And that is what I would say to any actress I was doing a scene with if that happened. However, it hasn’t happened and it probably never will unless it’s something I’m required to do in character. For the scene. Because I love acting so much.”
One thing I had forgotten about what happens when you’re starting over with a new therapist is that everything feels like a trigger or a breakthrough all of a sudden. Sort of like when you first start going to acting classes. My awareness is heightened. Or maybe I’m just in therapy mode all the time now because it’s an excuse to think about my hot new therapist. Whatever it is, I’m making mental connections and I have a lot to talk to Scarlett about on Thursday.
I stand at the edge of the school parking lot, looking for my car, when I hear someone go, “Psssssst.”
The fart question kid is standing by himself, about twenty feet away from me. “Hey. Hey. C’mere.” The kid waves me over, surreptitiously looking around and stage-whispering like some drug dealer on a really weird episode of Sesame Street. “You like kittens?”
“Sure. Who doesn’t like kittens?”
“You want one?” He unzips his jacket and opens it up to reveal a gray-and-white kitten in the inside pocket. Its little head pops out and looks around, and I might be in love.
“Dude. Did you have a kitten in your jacket all day?”
“Nooooo. I just put him in here. I saw him under that bush over there this morning, and then when I came out here at lunch, I brought him some water and pieces of chicken from my sandwich. And he was still there, so I don’t think he has a home, and I know my mom won’t let me keep him because we already have two dogs. And a hamster and fish, and we had a turtle but he died, and that wasn’t my fault.”
“Well, we should probably put up signs to see if anyone lost him.”
“Okay yeah, can you do that?” He reaches into his jacket to pick up the kitten and hands it over to me. “My grandma’s gonna pick me up soon, so you need to take him home with you. Can you?”
“Uhh. I mean.” I didn’t wake up this morning and think I need to adopt a cat, but I have been thinking about getting one, off and on, for the past few years. Also—I know I don’t have ovaries, but—I think my ovaries are melting now that I’m holding this thing. “There’s no reason I can’t take him home until we find out where he came from.”
“He came from a lady cat.”
“Right.” He’s so little. Not teeny tiny, but he’s so light in my hand and he doesn’t seem to be feral. His fur is so soft and fluffy and he’s warm and I want to keep him in my pocket all day. “Hey there, little guy.” His blue-green eyes are wide but not focusing on me. I hold him up so he can look into my eyes. I think it’s a girl. I think she likes me.
“Don’t let anyone see him!”
“Okay.” I hold the kitten close to my chest. I seem to be doing whatever this kid tells me to do, which is interesting.
“His name is Mr. Noodles. He might be a girl though. I can’t tell. You need to ask the vet person if he knows.”
“Okay. Wait, I’m taking her to the vet?”
“Yeah, you have to take her to the vet to make sure he’s healthy and doesn’t have worms and to check if she’s old enough to be wienered from his mom.”
“I think you mean weaned.”
“Oh yeah. So if not, then you’ll have to bottle feed him. And they can check to see if there’s a chip thing inside his neck? Like a tiny little one with stuff on it?”
“A microchip?”
“Yeah! Except I think he’s too small for one of those. but I don’t know. That’s what we did with the other cats I found, but then it turned out they had the chips—what’d you call it?”
“Microchips.”
“Microchips in their necks, yeah. So the vet people called the number on them, and then we couldn’t keep them because they were just lost. But I really, really, really don’t think Mr. Noodles belongs to anyone. Just you. But you have to take her to the vet anyway, and if there’s no chip then they’ll tell you to put up a flyer on their board thing.”
“Bulletin board?”
“Yeah! So anyway, I’m gonna call you to check up on her, okay? And if you keep him, then I’m gonna want to come and visit her, okay?”
“Sure.” I hold Mr. Noodles up again so she can look into my eyes and bond with me because I really don’t think she belongs to anyone either, just me, so fuck it I don’t care if someone sees. “You’re coming home with me, Mr. Noodles.”
“Here.” The kid removes his backpack from his shoulders and pulls a notebook and pencil out from it. “I’ll hold Mr. Noodles—you take this.” He hands me the notebook and pencil. “Put down your phone number so I can call you and check on him, okay?”
“Okay.” I write down my phone number in an eight-year-old stranger’s notebook because he told me to.
“I don’t have my own phone, but I’ll call from the home phone in the kitchen. It won’t say my name. It will say my mom’s name. Or wait, it might say Private Number.”
“Got it.” I take the kitten back from him, and he takes his pencil and notebook with my phone number in it back from me.
“My dad’s an actor too,” he tells me as he slides the notebook back into his bag. “On TV. He’s a doctor.”
“Oh yeah?” If his dad is Patrick Dempsey, my mom will shit herself. “What’s his name?”
“Adam Bryce? Are you friends with him?”
I know that guy. Saw him at Nobu once and did the Hey, man nod, but we didn’t talk at all. “I know who he is, yeah.”
“My dad’s been on TV my whole life too.” He sounds so sad when he says it, it’s like a punch to my heart.