Clair

Clair

“Hey have you seen Clair recently?”

“No, why?”

“I think she might be missing….”

The conversation no parent wants to have - where’s the baby.

In this case, our baby was a miniature cactus - something that should not have been able to move on it’s own considering the lack of legs.

“Where did you put her last?”

“Last I knew she was by the window in front here, but I thought you put her in the kitchen when we were making dinner.”

I looked back into the kitchen and noticed that the windowsill was empty, like much of the house was at this point.

“Did you bring her into the bedroom?”

He walked up the steps to the loft that overlooked the rest of the apartment. No plants on the railing, no plants on the windowsill.

“You check that bathroom I’ll check this one?”

He ducked into the tiny bathroom upstairs and didn’t find Clair, while I looked in the larger bathroom off the kitchen. She wasn’t sitting on top of the toilet, she wasn’t in the sink, she wasn’t in the cupboard, she wasn’t in the shower. I passed by the laundry and took a glance in, but didn’t see her whirling around with the curtains.

“You did pack her, right?”

He glared over the edge of the balcony at that suggestion.

“You think I would willingly move without remembering our child? I can’t believe you don’t trust me. She sat in the cup holder the entire drive, remember?”

He always liked to be over dramatic.

“I didn’t say I don’t trust you, I’m saying that I don’t want to walk down the seven flights of stairs to check and see if she’s wilting away in the car.”

He looked at me for a solid twenty seconds before going wide eyed, realizing the late summer heat wouldn’t be the best despite her being a cactus, and started flying down the steps, sliding his shoes on and grabbing his keys off the floor before giving me a quick kiss and running out the door to double check that Clair wasn’t actually wilting away in the car.

While he investigated the car, I started cleaning up more after last night’s party. We had picked up all the recycling this morning, so I knew she wasn’t hidden in a can somewhere. Maybe she had ended up in the sink with the dishes? Washing the dishes was always nice, methodical, familiar. My mom gave me these dishes when I first moved out of her house, so it was comforting that they were still around, even if there were a few pieces missing.

It wasn’t right though. The soap was new, whatever we were able to find for cheap at the grocery store yesterday, and the scrubbing pads weren’t worn in to the point of softness, still the coarse material that they were supposed to be. And Clair wasn’t watching over from the windowsill, the sun on her pot there to light up the room when the rain beat down on the world.

“She wasn’t in the car.”

He was winded. I don’t know if he actually ran all of the steps to check, but if he did I think that would almost be as attractive as him actually going all the way out to our car to check.

“There’s not really anywhere else for her to hide at this point….”

The cupboards were all mostly barren still, so checking them was mostly a matter of opening and then closing the doors. A few bowls had been unpacked, and we looked in each one, but again, she wasn’t there.

“Do you think someone took her?”

His question took me by surprise, even though I had been thinking the same thing.

“Did anyone seem overly attached to her last night? I mean, who would want to take a plant from a housewarming party?”

He didn’t respond and I noticed he stopped digging through one of the boxes we had already opened.

“Is that what she is to you? Just ‘a plant’?”

I had been the one to push for getting Clair in the first place, never foreseeing how attached he might get.

“That’s not what I said, baby.”

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket that someone was calling me, but I knew that if I answered the phone now he would think I wasn’t paying any attention.

“You said ‘who would steal a plant from a housewarming party’ as if calling Clair just some random plant.”

I couldn’t help but give him a look. He had to know he was being ridiculous right now, right?

“You know she’s a plant. I know she’s a plant. She knows she’s a plant. It’s okay for me to say that she’s a plant because she is. Obviously she’s not just any plant, and I want to find her, because it’s not like we can just go to the store and buy a new plant to replace her. If you think that’s what I mean, you’re so wrong. The point is that she’s a plant.”

“How does that make anything better?”

I looked at him. Really looked. He was generally pretty smart, usually looked the part too since he was in grad school, but it amazed me how frequently he could leave all of that behind and act like a total ditz.

“Plants don’t have legs. If we don’t know where she is, and we can’t find her, then someone must’ve grabbed her, because she’s a plant. Which means she doesn’t have legs.”

My phone buzzed again, another call coming through. I left him to ponder the fact that plants don’t have legs while I answered my phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey!!”

Of course. Amy.

“Hey Amy, how’s it goin?”

I couldn’t care less.

“Oh my god I’m so tired after last night, how about you guys?”

“You know, tired, trying to remember where we put some things.”

“Really? It’s still so sparse, what could you possibly be trying to find already?”

Do I care enough to tell her? No. Will I tell her anyways? Sure.

“Our cactus, Clair. We could’ve sworn we knew where she was and as you said, it’s still so sparse so the fact that she’s missing is weird.”

She paused for too long.

“Was that the one in the kitchen with the little sun painted on it?”

My turn to pause for too long.

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“About that…. I have it?”

Back to me for another awkward pause.

“Why do you have my cactus?” I didn’t care what the answer was, I just wanted to get to my follow up question.

“So last night during your party - which was totally amazing by the way, I’m so excited to see how you spruce the place up a bit more - I said that your cactus was just so cute I wanted to take her home. I didn’t mean to of course! I left my purse near the door and I absolutely have no memory of grabbing the cactus and putting it in there. I think someone else honestly might’ve put the cactus in there, like Jeremy? I think he was there when I said it was super cute and wanted it so he might’ve been drunk enough to be like ‘so take it’ you know? I don’t entirely remember.”

“When can I get my cactus back from you then?” I looked over and nodded at him, mouthing the words ‘Amy has her’ at him. He mouthed back ‘That bitch’ and I nodded more vigorously at him, agreeing, waiting for her answer.

“Okay so like, here’s the problem.”

My physical reaction didn’t show to Amy, but I visibly leaned away from the phone for a moment, knowing that this was going to be a shitshow, the same way every conversation with Amy always was. “The problem is you have my cactus.” Awkward silence. “Look, I’m just very tired and really love that plant. I got her… As a gift… from my… Mother in law.”

Well if that blatant lie didn't work, at least I had something to fall back on.

"Okay but listen, so here's the thing."

"You still have my cactus, I'm available right now to come over and get it, would that work for you?"

"Your cactus is really cute and I would like to keep it."

I had to blink for a moment. Did this bitch really just ask me if she could keep my cactus? What was she thinking?

"Amy. I don't know how to say this any more nicely, so I'm going to say it really really bluntly and hope you get it. I want my cactus back right now, no you can't keep my fucking cactus, I just said she was a gift." I'm trying my best not to yell, but it's only marginally working. "Her name is Clair, I’ve named her, I’m very attached. I have a name for my cactus, it's painted on her goddamn pot, what makes you think I would just let you keep her? Seriously, what is wrong with you? What if I came over and took your cat? I will literally come over to your house right now and break a fucking window if that means I can have my cactus back. Maybe I’ll take your cat too!"

"Honey, are you okay?" He called from another room where he was unpacking a box.

"No, Amy took our cactus and she said she wants to keep her. I might have to go over and break her windows, we'll see in a minute."

I heard a faint “oh my god” from the other room with I imagine was likely accompanied by a hand applied to his face.

"Okay, so I think that was misconstrued." She chose now to chime back in so I figured I could direct some anger back at her.

"I WANT my cactus! You don't just TAKE someone's things!" I was starting to feel kind of petulant, but at this point, I was just pissed off. I took a deep breath, but it didn’t do as much as I was hoping. "So are you bringing my cactus back here or am I coming over to your place to forcibly take my cactus back?"

"Damn, fine, I'll bring you the fuckin cactus. Gimme like half an hour."

"Make it twenty minutes." I hung up on her before she could reply to that.

He came over to me and grabbed me by the shoulders, rubbing them up and down. "Alright, that was terrifying. What's up, what's going on? I haven't seen you like this in a long time, so tell me what's going on. And not ‘you dumbass Amy took our cactus’ but like. What’s actually wrong?"

I didn't even notice the tears falling down my cheeks until I was already talking like a blubbering mess. "It's just with the move and then setting up for the party last night and all this other shit, I just want the one thing that's consistent, I want Clair. She’s as close to a pet as we're going to be able to have, and I just want her back. I just want our one thing where it belongs so that this place feels like home." He pulled me into his shoulder as my complaining turned to sobbing, unable to continue speaking.

"It's okay, honey. It's alright." While he was still hugging me he walked me backwards, towards a copy of the paperwork we signed the week before, still sitting out in the open on an old radiator, and began skimming it while I was still in his embrace. "You know..."

I pulled back. What was he doing reading while trying to comfort me? I wiped away a few tears and rested my head on his shoulder. "What?" He was still skimming the papers. "What? I don't know, just tell me."

"Hold on, I'm looking." I knew he had worse navigational skills than a four year old and that included remembering where something was in some paperwork.

"What are you looking for, I'll find it first." The playfully competitive statement caused him to just turn away, keeping the paperwork out of my reach.

After two more minutes of me standing there, watching as he struggled, periodically sighing and tapping my fingers, he gave up. "I'm trying to figure out if we were allowed pets because I think I remember that lady saying we could have one pet."

I snatched the paperwork from him, wanting to remember for myself. I was happy with just us and Clair, but I had wanted a cat for years and years but my mom had always said no, then in college I still couldn’t, and then the apartment before wouldn't let us so if this was my chance? "Oh, here it is. 'Tenants are allowed one standard sized pet (cat, dog, rabbit, bird, guinea pig, turtle) and will have to pay an additional-' blah blah we can get a cat!" I jumped at him, arms wrapping around him. The waterworks returned out of my excitement. "We can get a cat," I muttered into his shoulder, full of relief.

"We can get a cat, baby." He gently let me down, wiping the tears off of my cheeks. "However."

I looked up at him. "However." I don't want to know whatever lies behind that word that is about to ruin my next plan for happiness.

"I think we need to do some cleaning before we can necessarily get a cat. Like put things away so they can have boxes to sit in?"

My shoulders slumped for a moment, but then I began to imagine a little furball jumping from box to box and I straightened back up, more determined. "So clean the rest of today, get a cat tomorrow?"

"Yes."

The doorbell buzzed and I went over to it. I pressed the button and before I could say anything, I heard Amy saying "get your goddamn plant, b-"

"I'll be right down." I grabbed my key and went down the stairs, taking my time. As I went down, methodically back and forth, it calmed the rage that had started to bubble back up when I heard her voice again. I love Clair, but the idea of having something soft and moving that would meow back at me when I'm having a bad day instead of being there, soil for my tears to soak into to keep her from dying but overall not something that I could cuddle or get physical comfort from. Not cute little paw prints and waking up in the morning to a paw on my face and stinky cat breath facing me down. Well, I guess that was almost what a boyfriend provides, but why not also have a cuter, more compact version with probably the same amount of hair?

I saw Amy's irritated face looking back at me from the other side of the door through the window, and when she saw me finally she went from irritated to nasty faster than I thought possible. I opened the door, figuring I'd give her one last chance to say something before closing the door on her and our "friendship."

"You know you're a bitch, right?"

At this point I was just tired of her. "That's so funny coming from you. Give me my damn plant and get out."

"I hope I never have to talk to you again."

I couldn't keep the sarcasm out of my voice. "Wow, would you look at that! Something we actually agree on. Plant."

She pulled Clair out of her purse and it was clear that she hadn't cared whether my child tipped over or not, half her dirt missing and some of her needles were bent or broken. "Have the thing."

"Wow even if I had ever liked you, clear to see you've got whatever the opposite of a green thumb is. I didn't think you could kill a cactus in a day but damn if you didn't try. Thanks for giving me my shit back, get out." I closed the door before she could say anything back, taking the stairs up a flight before calling the elevator just so I could get out of there.

"Clair, I'm so sorry that evil, awful woman took you away from me, but don't worry, you're safe now. Mommy’s gonna get you some more dirt when we get back upstairs too, don’t worry sweetie. You wanna know what though? Mommy and Daddy might get you a furry feline sibling, how does that sound? Fun, right?" Clair looked back at me with the googly eyes we'd stuck on her pot months ago. If I was a full on crazy plant lady I might've thought that she was looking healthier just since she was back in my hands.

I got back and opened the door to the apartment. He stuck his head around the corner as I started singing "We have our Clair back, my friend, and we'll keep on fighting til the end!" He came over to greet me, crooning at Clair just the same as I was. "Wait wait wait, we gotta put her in her true spot." I walked over to the kitchen, setting her down on the window sill, grabbing just a few drops of water and putting them in what soil she had left.

He came over and put his arm around my waist. "Sometimes a family."

I put my arm around his. "Is two people and their plant."

He paused for a second. "And maybe a cat."

"And maybe a cat."