New Friends
A few days before Christmas, a car turned onto a suburban street in Washington, D.C., and parked at the curb in front of a house occupied by Jody Silverton, late of the U.S. Navy. When the driver's side door opened, a tall, well-built young man with a baby face unfolded his body and stepped around to the passenger side. He opened the passenger door, letting out an elegant brown cat, which immediately ran up the walk to the front porch. The cat stretched his front paws up to bat at the screen door while meowing loudly.
When the young man caught up to the cat, he knocked firmly on the door. They waited only a moment until the inside door opened, and a pretty young woman wearing sweats peeked out.
"Um, are you Jody?" the man asked.
When she affirmed that she was indeed Jody, the man said, "Um, hi, my name's Tim, and I think you know my cat."
Jody looked down toward his feet. When she saw the handsome cat, she squealed "Mikey!" She hurriedly opened the screen door and held out her arms for the cat to jump into. Woman and cat rubbed noses, which caused her to giggle with delight at the way his whiskers tickled her face.
After the two finished their greeting, the cat bounded inside. Jody invited the young man to follow. Once inside, she sat on the couch and gestured to Tim to take a seat on a chair nearby. Mikey jumped into her lap; she massaged his ears while he chin-bumped her, purring loudly.
"How did you find me?" she asked Tim.
"Well, um," he replied. "You left your name and number on my machine, and it was pretty easy to track you down from that."
"I'm glad you did," Jody told him. "I met Mikey on the absolute worst day of my life. I was so glad he came to me to get found." She frowned slightly. "Although I never did see him leave. I was kind of out of it for a while, and I just assumed you came by and picked him up."
"Uh, yeah," Tim said. "And we just wanted to thank you for finding him and being so good about letting me know where he was."
"Not a problem," Jody replied. For a moment she watched Mikey's face. "He's really something else, isn't he?" she said. "You'd almost think he can think like a human and talk like one, too."
"Um, yeah, you could think that," answered Tim, squirming uncomfortably.
"I've been through some rough times recently," Jody went on. "The only thing that's kept me going is remembering how he tried to take care of me and thinking that someday I'd like to have a cat like him."
"Uh, I know a little bit about your troubles," Tim told her. "I'm really sorry all those things happened to you."
"It was my own fault," Jody answered. "When my boy friend, Neal, the total jerk, asked me to do meth, I should have said no. I *could* have said no, but I thought I could handle it. Now I'm out of the Navy, and I'm not sure what's going to happen next."
"Did you get off meth?" Tim wanted to know.
"Yeah, I went through a 28 day program. It was a month of agony, going through withdrawal. I'll probably never get over it completely, but at least now I know enough to work it one day at a time. And I go to daily meetings to help with that."
"Congratulations," Tim said.
"And I testified at a court martial. My pimp and a john that raped me got put away for a long time. Did you know about that?"
"Well, um, yeah. Actually I work at NCIS. Our team…um…did some work on the case—surveillance, that kind of thing. So, yeah, I knew about the court martial."
"I was questioned at NCIS," Jody told him. "The nicest young man. Tony, I think his name was."
"Yes," said Tim. "Tony DiNozzo."
"Did he know you were coming to see me?" Jody asked.
"Well, um, yeah," McGee responded, shifting in his chair a little. His eyes were blinking rapidly, and he raised his hand to scratch his nose. "He really did want to come and see you himself, but he couldn't, so he…um…sent Mikey. And me, of course."
"I'm glad you came. But I'd like to see DiNozzo someday too."
Both were quiet for a minute; Jody spoke first: "I've often wondered how Mikey knew to come to my house, that I was in trouble that day. Not that he could have done anything, like knock out the guys who were abusing me."
"Cats are pretty sensitive," McGee said.
Jody was caressing Mikey's head with her cheek at that moment and consequently didn't see him drop one eyelid in an exaggerated wink at McGee.
Both fell silent again. Jody looked at Tim as if she wanted to ask him another question but wasn't quite sure whether she should. Finally, she seemed to make up her mind.
"Uh, Tim, I don't suppose you'd be willing to sell Mikey to me. I mean, he's just such a great cat, and I know it would help me a lot if I could have him around."
Mikey meowed loudly.
"Oh, no," Tim replied quickly. "I can't sell him. Um, he isn't really mine to sell. But I'm sure, if you looked around, maybe at some animal shelters, you could find a cat just as nice that you could adopt. Of course, Mikey is unique; I can honestly say there's no other cat quite like him."
Jody laughed. "I'm sure of that. But if you ever change your mind, let me know, okay?"
"Sure," Tim said. "Now we really need to go. Like I said, we just wanted to stop by and say thank you and see how you're doing."
He stood up. "Come on, Mikey, let's go."
Mikey jumped off Jody's lap, and the two of them headed for the door.
Before leaving, Tim turned to Jody to shake her hand. "If you ever do find a cat, let me know, okay?" he told her. "I'll bring Mikey over."
"To pass judgment?" she said with a smile.
"To make sure your cat's going to take good care of you," Tim answered firmly.
#####
Six Months Later
A couple of times over the next few months, NCIS Special Agents Tony DiNozzo and Tim McGee commented to each other that they wondered how Jody was doing.
"We really should just go over there and see her," Tim said one day.
"Yeah, we should," Tony replied.
But they were involved in a never-ending stream of cases that demanded more than their full-time attention, and the visit to Jody never happened.
One afternoon the phone on McGee's desk rang, and when he answered it, he found himself talking to Jody.
"Hi, Tim," she said. "I finally got him."
For a moment Tim was confused. "Got who?" he asked.
"My cat," said Jody. "Remember, you told me you wouldn't sell Mikey to me and I should look around and find another one?"
"And you did?"
"Yeah. And I wondered if you and Mikey would like to come over and meet him."
Tim's face lit up. "Wow, Jody, that's great. I'm glad for you. Um, hold on just a minute while I check my schedule."
Tim put his hand over the mouthpiece to speak to Tony. "Remember Jody Silverton? She got a cat, and she wants me and Mikey to come over and see him."
Tony flashed one of his patented DiNozzo smiles. "That's great," he said. "Let's do it."
"Any time you can't go?"
"For Jody, I'll make time."
Tim spoke once again into the phone. "Any time you like will be good for us," he told her.
"How about coming over for dessert tomorrow?" she suggested.
The following evening, when Tim and Mikey made their way to Jody's door, they found the inner door open, and at Tim's knock, Jody's voice floated out from the kitchen. "Come on in," she said. "I'm making ice cream."
Man and cat exchanged glances with eyes gleaming with anticipation. They were both big fans of ice cream. The prospect of fresh, home-made ice cream was irresistible.
The ice cream wasn't quite ready yet, and that meant there was time for Tim to sit at Jody's kitchen table, listening to her tell how the last few months had gone for her.
"I'm still going to my meetings every day," she reported. "In fact, some days I go to two meetings. It's still all I can do not to think about the meth and wish I had some. But so far I'm still clean."
"Good for you," Tim declared.
"Before Christmas I called my family, and they wanted me to come home for Christmas, so I went."
Her expression turned sad. "It was really hard for me to do; I hadn't told them anything about what happened to me, but the people at my meeting encouraged me to tell my folks everything. They were upset, of course, and pretty disappointed in me. But they told me they still loved me and supported me in whatever happened. They've been really, really good to me."
She looked at Tim with a slight laugh. "'Course I get a little irritated when they're asking me if I should be doing this or having that. But I know they mean well.
"And there's more news," she went on proudly. "I finished a couple of semesters of college before I enlisted in the Navy. I've been able to arrange to go back and finish my degree."
"That's wonderful," Tim commented enthusiastically, while Mikey meowed loudly.
"What are you going to study?" Tim asked.
She flashed a rueful smile. "Drug and alcohol rehabilitation counseling. What else?"
The timer on the ice cream maker went off, and Jody got up to put the ice cream into the freezer for a few minutes and then clean the machine.
"Why don't you guys go on into the living room, and I'll go see if I can find Timmy."
"Timmy?" McGee was surprised.
"Yeah," Jody replied, blushing slightly. "I couldn't name him Mikey because, like you said, Mikey's unique. But I wanted a reminder of why it's a good idea for me to have him. So I named him after you."
"Wow," McGee said breathlessly, smiling with pleasure.
Mikey swatted McGee's pants leg with a surprisingly strong paw, as if to say, "Don't let it go to your head." His claws remained sheathed, but Tim flinched anyway.
McGee had just sat down on the couch when Jody appeared with Timmy in her arms. He was a smaller, younger version of Mikey but with the same long, sleek body, the intensely colored eyes, and the beautifully brown fur.
McGee stated the obvious. "He looks like a junior version of Mikey!"
"Yeah," Jody explained. "I spent some time on line looking at pictures of cats, to see if there were any like Mikey. He's called a Burmese—sort of like a Siamese. They're pretty expensive."
McGee's thoughts were whirling. Just like TonyCat to look like a feline version of James Bond and to be expensive. What was the cat version of an Aston-Martin?
"Um," he started to ask, "You bought him? How did you…"
"My parents gave me the money," Jody said. "They knew how important it was for me to have him." She buried her nose in the luxuriant fur.
For his part, Timmy obviously knew his space was being invaded; his whiskers were flattened against his face, and he was hissing. When Jody put him down, he caught a glimpse of his visitor. For a moment he hesitated between flight and cat fight. Mikey sat on the floor imitating a cat-shaped Buddha, his eyes half closed as he regarded his younger double, not moving except for the occasional twitch of a whisker. Timmy watched him carefully, swiveling his ears as he listened to the two people urging him to make up with the stranger.
Finally Timmy seemed to decide to take a chance; his whiskers came forward, and he took a few mincing steps toward Mikey. Tentatively, their noses touched.
When it became clear that the two cats were not going to eat each other, Jody returned to the kitchen and scooped ice cream into four dishes. Once she had served her guests, there was no sound except the occasional clink of a spoon against a dish. Then there was lip-smacking from the humans, and the cats moistened their paws to wipe their faces. Finishing his face wash, Mikey, the sleek, the elegant, the gorgeous, opened his mouth and burped loudly. All four of them laughed.
As Tim and Jody sat talking about a variety of subjects, the cats began to play with each other. There was a little hide-and-seek, some mock-wrestling, but finally the cats settled down, their bodies twined together. They didn't seem to be sleeping; maybe the older cat was sharing all his wisdom with the younger one.
Then it was time for McGee and Mikey to go. Jody put some ice cream in a container for them to take home. Goodbyes were said, well-wishes exchanged, and promises to stay in touch made.
Once in his car, McGee glanced over at the man sitting next to him.
"What did you tell my namesake?" he asked.
The other man laughed loudly. "Your namesake?" he said teasingly. "Jody shoulda called him ‘Probie.'"
"Tony!" McGee protested.
"I told him he'd better take good care of her, or we'd come back and ream his butt good."
"Did he believe you?"
"If he knows what's good for him, he will."
The two men looked at each other with wide grins.
Story Notes:
Many, many thanks to the folks who wrote to tell me they enjoyed the previous Mikey stories and that they wanted more. And thanks also to the fiend who wrote "Emetib" and who is therefore resonsible for loosing this bunny...er, kitty...on the world.
Author's Chapter Notes:
DiNozzo and McGee pay a social call...sort of.
Chapter End Notes:
Many, many thanks to the folks who wrote to tell me they enjoyed the previous Mikey stories and that they wanted more. And thanks also to the fiend who wrote "Emetib" and who is therefore resonsible for loosing this bunny...er, kitty...on the world.