Free The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook by Joanne Rocklin

doorbell rings. I hear laughing in the kitchen.
    â€œDinner, Oona!” calls my mother.
    My suspicions are confirmed. She’s invited the Villain to dinner. There he is, plopped down comfortably in the fourth chair, where my father used to sit.
    â€œWe have a guest tonight,” says my mother.
    She says that to me in a weird, chirpy voice, as if she meant to say, “We have another guest tonight, just like we always do every single Wednesday night!”
    The truth is, we haven’t had guests for dinner in a long, long time, except for Gramma Dee, of course, and Riya when she’s sleeping over. And never, ever on a school night.
    The other strange thing is that my mother has set the kitchen table for a party. Not the kind of party with balloons and party hats, but a fancy dinner party where you use cloth napkins to wipe your mouth. In this case, lacy green-and-white napkins with strawberries hand-stitched around the borders, the ones that used to belong to my mother’s great-aunt Rose. They are kept with old tablecloths and coasters in a special drawer in the kitchen, a drawer that always smells perfumey, like long-ago celebrations. But we never use thenapkins at dinner because they’re not permanent press, my mother always says, and who has time to iron in this day and age?
    â€œI’m glad to be here,” says the Villain. “I usually eat alone.”
    I am speechless, although I’m the only one who is. Freddy is yakking away about that motorcycle. The Villain is yak-king about it, too: how it took him and his guitar all the way cross-country and back, and how he stopped to sing in bars and cafés and work as a nurse in hospitals along the way. My mother is asking him questions about that trip like he’d been to the moon or something.
    â€œIt’s good to be back in Oakland,” says the Villain. “And it’s nice to have a home-cooked meal with all of you. I can’t believe we’ve never met. I’ve lived on Clover Street almost all of my life.”
    He takes his napkin and spreads it on his lap. Under normal circumstances, I’d have a good, loud laugh right about now at the expense of this piratey person in old jeans and cowboy boots, a lacy napkin on his lap.
    I don’t feel like laughing. The truth is, I feel like throwing up. Especially when my mother brings dinner to the table.
    â€œPlease don’t hold this against me,” says my mother in that new, chirpy voice of hers. “I didn’t have the time to cook, soI picked up something from Farmer Joe’s take-out counter called Mediterranean Chicken with Chick, Peas, and Urb Sauce. Doesn’t that sound good?”
    â€œMore than sounds good. Man, it looks and smells wonderful,” says the Villain.
    â€œWonnerful!” says Freddy, chirping like my mother.
    CHIRPING is an important word here.
    My mother has gone too far. Not only is she pretending she has lots of time to iron fancy napkins, but now she’s pretending she has lots of money to spend on gourmet food that she didn’t even make herself! “If you make it yourself, it’s half the price,” she’s always told us.
    And what does she buy at that gourmet counter? Something disgusting! Except for Gramma Dee who doesn’t eat meat (although she does eat smoked fish once in a while), we’re all meat eaters around here, and I do sometimes feel guilty about that. Meat eaters don’t usually think about what they are eating, but you can’t help it when your dish has a title. Chicken with Chick! I squeeze my eyes shut.
    â€œOona, why are you making faces?” my mother asks.
    â€œI’m not eating that,” I say.
    â€œAnd why not, may I ask?”
    â€œDo you really expect us to eat a mother hen lying in asauce with its baby?” I ask. My eyes are still closed. I can’t bear to look.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    There is a pause, and I hear choking