(This is another one that just ended up writing itself--I hope everyone enjoys!)
Drone’s wasn’t that sort of club, he’d explained many times. Neither was Fox’s or the Stage and Screen. Ladies and gentlemen of “good breeding” (what exactly that meant in a human context, Bustopher didn’t pretend to know) came there to socialize, to play billiards and other idle games, to organize golfing or hunting trips that would inevitably be canceled by atrocious weather, and of course to enjoy good food. Their cats did largely the same, albeit at floor level with smaller plates, although Bustopher had his usual spot on Old Harold’s lap reserved for teatime. Music and other forms of livelier entertainment was primarily a background feature, something to listen to only when the conversation was less than scintillating and to politely clap for when you noticed the sudden silence. No one really… danced. Not even the cats. The one time Bustopher had suggested it, the tom on the other chair had looked at him like he’d suddenly sprouted antlers, and the subject was summarily dropped.
For a very long time, Bustopher was rather afraid he’d never know how to dance.
Octavia had tried to remedy that, Everlasting bless and keep her dear soul; she’d been a fellow regular at the Glutton with a similarly curious mindset and a better ear for music than he could ever claim. After cleverly orchestrating a meeting between her Carlotta and Old Harold–and the exchange of some Scott Joplin and Noel Coward in the place of Enrico Caruso–she began to give him lessons while the humans were occupied. Patiently guiding him across the sitting room as he didn’t so much glide as stumble, adjusting his paws with every step, encouraging him to look at me, not at your feet, you goose, how do you expect to see where you’re going? She cut such a stately, but vibrant figure: back straight, ankles and wrists turned just so, neck longer and more poised than the entire Ballet Russe. How could he help but listen and watch and marvel? They were lovely evenings–more than lovely, they were (she was) breathtaking–but they danced the way cats of their “station” were expected to dance. A certain cordiality was expected, embedded in them, and cordiality was often the enemy of freedom. And he could never imitate the quickness of her own paws, the flexibility of her spine, the way she could dart and weave and leap about as if gravity were only a polite suggestion. Bustopher was still too stiff, too clumsy and unnatural. The years of dancing as an impossible rarity were still too carved into his body, and he could feel the difference when he walked now like a phantom ache. He wanted to move, to loosen the marble column under his coat and enjoy himself, but he wasn’t sure he knew how.
The Jellicle Ball was always a bittersweet affair for that very reason. He’d never dream of missing it, good heavens no. But whenever he’d hear some excited newcomer talking about the Midnight Dance, how the Jellicle Moon would free every cat from their inhibitions and instill them with the same freedom and muscle memory no matter how young or old, he could only think, How I wish that were true. He couldn’t dream of following his family–Mistoffelees’s electricity and Alessi’s elegance, Mungojerrie’s acrobatics and Etcetera’s energy, darling Jenny’s firecracker taps across the pavement. Even watching Noilly Prat take to the air like a bird, he found himself recognizing some of the steps he’d taught her and wishing that her mother could have done better. The dear girl always had Octavia’s spirit, after all.
Little Electra must have noticed him looking wistful because she tucked up against his side midway through the Dance and gave him a determinedly cheerful smile. “Cassandra’s such a good dancer, isn’t she?” she said, startling him out of his reverie. “I wish I could dance half as well as her and Mom.”
“Oh, now, you must give yourself a bit more credit,” Bustopher replied, injecting an airiness he didn’t feel into his voice and folding his paws over his spoon as if he were just watching leisurely without a care in the world. “I’ve heard no complaints about your own dancing.”
Electra shrugged. “I keep up, I guess. Y’know Gareth actually asked me to teach him–tonight’s only his second Ball, and he didn’t feel like he was good enough the first time. I just… did my best.”
“Mmm–and which one is Gareth?”
“That one.” Electra pointed a claw to an earnest-looking young tom with cream and brown fur, dancing alongside Alonzo as if he’d dreamed of it all his life. “We’re in Protector training together… I think he’s doing pretty all right, don’t you?”
“Indeed.” Bustopher gave her a nod and watched her glow faintly with pride. “I’d say you were an excellent teacher.”
This time, Electra’s shrug was a little more exaggerated, pretending she wasn’t basking in the praise. But she soon turned her clever dark eyes on him again. “How come you’re not out there dancing?”
And now they came to the heart of the matter… “I, ah… I rather find myself in your friend’s position.” His paws tightened around the spoon, and he turned his head away from eye contact. “I have been taught, of course, but my own aptitude for dance is… not quite so athletic.”
“Oh… well, I mean, that’s okay! Jelly doesn’t really dance like that either–her paws don’t quite go the same.” She held her own front paws in front of her to form an inward V shape, her claws hooked together in front. “But she’s good at what she can do. Murad’s not a big dancer either, but he tries, and so does Grandpa Gus. So y’know… you’re good at what you’re good at, that’s all.” And she dropped her paws into her lap with an air of finality, as if that was all there was to it.
If only that, too, were true. “I wish I had your optimism,” he said, draping an arm loosely about her shoulder. “Unfortunately, better teachers than you have tried and not made much progress. I shall have to be content where I am.”
“Well… who taught you?”
One day, he might be able to say her name without that twist in his stomach… “My mate, Octavia. Noilly Prat’s mother–you wouldn’t have met her.”
“Oh.” Bustopher thought for a moment she might leave it there, but she was nothing if not persistent. “And did you teach her? Noilly, I mean?”
“What I could, yes.”
“Tumble and Cass taught her how to do her solo tonight, too. Maybe you could still talk to Cass–I know she likes you, and she’s actually a really good teacher. She’s not nearly as scary as she comes off,” Electra added with a smirk, as if she’d discovered that fact all on her own and felt rightfully proud of it.
Bustopher couldn’t help but smile at her efforts–bless the dear kit for trying, at least. “I shall keep that in mind.”
Electra beamed a triumphant smile at him and suddenly held out her paws. “C’mon–I wanna show you what I showed Gareth!”
“Oh–my dear, you know I–”
“Oh, come on, it’s not that hard! And it’ll help you be more flexible–that way you can get to the harder stuff after you practice.” She wiggled her claws at him in what was clearly meant to be an enticing manner, still grinning from ear to ear. “Come oooonnnnnn…”
… Well, who was he to refuse a kitten’s request? “You may want to manage your expectations a bit more,” he said, taking her paws and getting to his feet all the same.
If Electra understood or even heard him, she didn’t let it on–she just grinned even brighter at him and squeezed his paws in delight. Before she could say a word, however, there came another voice behind her–”Now what’s going on over here?”
Oh, how he wished the ground would open up beneath his feet!
It didn’t do him that kindness, though, and Electra just laughed. “Get in on this, Aunt Jenny–I told Bustopher I’d help teach him to dance.”
“Oh, did you now?” Jennyanydots’s eyes were gleaming in a way that made him feel a quarter of his size, and he suddenly had the terrible (if terrible equated to the blood rushing under your skin like high tide) feeling that any protests he made would be in vain. Still, he had to try.
“Jenny, darling, not you, too–”
“And why not me?” She lifted his head to meet hers straight on, knuckles brazenly under his chin, pulling his complete and undivided attention with dizzying effectiveness. “I might know a thing or two about shaking off some of the cobwebs.” There was already a note of triumph in her smile, clearly not about to take no for an answer.
So he didn’t give her one, and once again he couldn’t help but smile himself., the familiar ache now feeling more like a thrum of anticipation. “Consider me at your mercy, then.”
"i’m very sorry. i… i did not see you. i thought there was no one about."
They kept the posters for the Windmill Follies up. After all this time, frayed and crumpled as they were at the edges, the once vibrant colors now faded in the sun and rain. You can’t read any of the dancers’ names, but you can just make out silhouettes. Bright fur enhanced with paints and makeup. Beads and feathers and gaudy costume jewelry glittering over artfully brushed manes and perfectly poised paws. “And introducing…!” credits trail off into the bricks, lost to time. But some brilliant traces of color and light remain from them.
Jenyanydots had begged and pleaded with her mother for months to see the Follies. They were everything she wanted to be as a kitten–not just bright and shining and beautiful, but loud and proud and unapologetic. Not content with simply being seen, but never heard. You could hear the strident, brassy voices of their singers and the clack clack clack of tapshoes all the way down the street, and the noise didn’t stop even when the show was over. Encores could go on for hours, and cats by the dozens would come stumbling out afterward, covered in half-broken pearl strings and smelling of sweat and chestnuts and whatever champagne the humans didn’t feel like drinking upstairs. Agrona didn’t approve–”I raised you to be a lady, Jenny darling, and I certainly don’t know about their mothers”--but Jenny eventually wore her down. These were ladies, she insisted, the most wonderful ladies she’d ever seen, and she wanted to meet them and tell them how much she admired them. And there at the stage door, standing with a crumpled program in her paws as a tall ginger queen beamed down at her and called her precious and draped a circle of glass beads around her neck–”I’ll expect you to come back another night to give those back, yes?”--she could feel her heart pounding more insistently than it ever had before.
(Years later, she would tell Jelly that this might have been the moment she realized she liked queens as much as toms. And Jelly would just laugh and say, “Of course it was, darling.”)
It wasn’t for several more years that the chance to return them came… at the Follies’ final performance. That night, she’d taken a very young Munkustrap and Tugger with her while their father was busy, and Tugger especially was enraptured. Munkustrap had enjoyed himself very much, of course, but Tugger had cheered even louder after every song and dance and marveled at the intricate costumes. There was one grey-furred queen with a husky voice and mischievous smile he was especially enamored of, and Jenny thought his paws might bleed from clapping when she made a miraculous quick-change onstage from a bespoke coat and tails to a glimmering black dress mid-key change. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Jenny couldn’t help wondering if perhaps he’d seen her before, but by then the show was over and everyone was on their feet roaring their approval, including her young charges. The applause went on for what felt like hours, and flowers flew from the balconies over their heads for the dancers to collect. It looked as though meeting anyone at stage door was going to be impossible with the crowd still celebrating as they left, so Jenny tried to quietly steer the boys out the nearest door toward home. But right as they were about to turn the corner, Jenny felt a tap on the shoulder, and when she turned around that same paw, now belonging to a familiar ginger queen, unfurled expectantly in her direction with an accompanying grin. Munkustrap and Tugger were full of questions–”how long have you been dancing, did you really meet Jenny when she was little, how much does your costume weigh, where can I get a costume like that?”--and Jenny’s heart still couldn’t help but flutter a bit as she and this dancer she’d only met twice reminisced like old friends.
If she were younger, she might have bitterly regretted not taking her chance to join them there onstage. But time and tide did wonders for your perspective, it really did… and she had her own audience to dance for, her own costumes provided by her own delightful mates. She couldn’t have left them for the world, certainly not for something as fickle as fame. And even if the names on these posters had faded, Jenny could still remember their faces, their voices, their laughs when the lights faded, and that was enough.
Presently, the shuffle of nearby footsteps jolts her out of a trance, and she wheels around with a paw to her chest to see another queen wrapped in a thick coat at the other end of the pavement. “Oh! Dear, but you gave me a shock, I–I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you–I thought there was no one about…”
The queen doesn’t answer or so much as acknowledge her. She just sits down and stairs up at the wall of the Windmill–at the posters. Her expression, even from far away, is soft and sad, as though her thoughts have transported her to those same beautiful nights. Jenny regards her curiously for a moment before settling back into her own thoughts. She’s not sure how long the two of them stay like that afterwards, lost in their own respective fog of memories.
It’s certainly a few hours later that Jenny realizes who it was sitting next to her, and the night suddenly becomes a bit colder for it.
and that’s what makes a gumbie cat! - a playlist for jennyanydots (for @the-cat-at-the-theatre-door)
01. a spoonful of sugar - julie andrews | 02. evolution of tap dance - postmodern jukebox feat. sarah reich | 03. one is a bird - shirley jones | 04. it’s today - angela lansbury | 05. takin’ care of business - bachman-turner overdrive | 06. i don’t care - judy garland | 07. paris nights / new york mornings - corinne bailey rae | 08. orange-colored sky - nat king cole | 09. big spender - valerie pettiford and ensemble | 10. just like a doll’s house - frank churchill and paul j. smith | 11. it’s a lovely day today - doris day | 12. obla-di, obla-da - hannah milchak | 13. superwoman - gladys knight, dionne warwick, and patti labelle | 14. shine on harvest moon - ruth etting | 15. no time at all - irene ryan | 16. la stravaganza, i. allegro - antonio vivaldi | 17. remember my name – mitski | 18. strangers in the starlight - eartha kitt | 19. make your own kind of music - cass elliot | 20. ain’t misbehavin’ - billie holliday | 21. fit as a fiddle - tatiana eva-marie and avalon jazz band | 22. dolores - adrien chevalier and charlie roman | 23. if i didn’t care - the ink spots | 24. the glory of love - benny goodman | 25. before the parade passes by - pearl bailey [listen]
Time was, the Junkyard had only a single Healer to attend to all the Jellicles. As a kitten, Jenyanydots could remember the scent that always traveled behind Emmeline wherever she went—the sharp, pungent smell of herbs and chemicals, flavored with the unmistakable tang of stress. Dark circles always ringed Emmeline’s eyes, but the eyes themselves were bright and twinkling and full of mirth and love for her charges. Her paws could be rough, but they were always light and gentle. Her voice could be strained from hours of work and lost sleep, but it never lost its sweetness when she sang to her students. A sort of frenetic energy always radiated from her, like a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower, injury to injury without stopping to rest for long. Jenny had grown up with the utmost respect and affection for her, not least for how much she shouldered on a daily basis.
But with all of that due respect… she couldn’t help but prefer the way things were done now.
Tantomile’s knowledge of every medicinal plant under the sun was staggering. At a glance, she could tell what leaves had come from what stem, what sort of poultice or elixir could be made out of them, what ailment they could best treat—anything that might be relevant and then some. She credited her wisdom to one of her humans, who made human natural remedies for a living, but Jenny suspected that wasn’t the whole truth. Never once did Tanto have to pause to remember what her pet might have told her, and her quiet confidence knew no bounds… it had to be a sort of instinct. Like the knowledge of past lives, or perhaps even the Everlasting Cat’s paws coming down over hers to guide her. It was awe-inspiring to watch her work, even if her patients didn’t always share her serene calm (despite her best efforts).
Coricopat, on the other hand, specialized in the less obvious ills—the ones that plagued a cat’s mind, turned their pain inward rather than outward. He could sit with someone for hours as they poured out their fears, their anxieties, the shadows that followed them and made them doubt their own eyes. All while never saying a word… just listening, ears forward and head tilted to meet their eyes as they talked, drinking it all in. When he finally did speak to offer his thoughts, there was no judgement, no denial of this other cat’s reality—just pure empathy. He always had something for them to fiddle with to keep them grounded: a little paper sculpture, a crystal, a flower, even a blanket or stuffed animal he knew they loved. Nothing could penetrate their little sanctuary, wherever they happened to be, and Cori would never send a cat away until they had said what they wanted to say.
For her own part, Jenny knew that there were some ills that weren’t easily fixed with a pawful of lavender and a kindly word. That was why her nightly excursions also included raiding her pet’s medicine cabinets for anything just strong enough for feline use—things like flea solution for especially bad bites, antiseptic that stung enough for you to know it was working, and pills for stubborn flus and coughs. Not exactly the old-fashioned approach—and Heaviside knew how much the kittens hated those pills—but it was an approach that worked when everything else failed. And whenever her regular visits with this odious “vet” person came around, Jenny forced herself to pay attention to the chatter and jargon. You never knew what might be important later.
That was the unit they formed within the Healers’ den. Whenever a new cat came to them complaining of some ailment or other, there would be a moment where their eyes met overhead in understanding. Trusting Cori and Tanto to take the lead with an efficient cure and a listening ear. Trusting Jenny to step in when a more dire solution was called for. A silent signal of, “We need each other—I need you, you need me.” And they were all three needed by their family in turn.
