Page 38 of Turnabout Is Fair Cosplay
“What the public doesn’t know is that Mitzy is going through…” Cheryl’s lips quiver as she pulls me aside and whispers, “Mitzy is going through some health challenges.”
“Oh.” I stare at the cat who is sitting placidly, the tip of her tail twitching. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yes, well, keeping up with her followers is doing her a world of good. Keeps her mind off all the unknowns, but I know it’s wearing her out.” She smiles at the cat and looks the way Julie did when Eaton was a newborn. Lost, dazed, completely smitten.
Cheryl stoops down to pick up the cat, and I’m shocked by this feline’s size.
“Such a”—I want to saybigbut catch myself in time—“beauty.”
“Oh.” Cheryl wags a finger in my face with a laugh. “She knows it too. Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Does she have…family in the area?”
“Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s highly intelligent.”
The cat stares at me and flicks her tail. I’m pretty sure she’s big enough to eat me if she wanted.
“Shall we let Miss Beatrice hold the camera?”
The cat meows and jumps down.
“Isn’t she remarkable?” Cheryl says as the cat bounds through the sliding glass door into the living room.
“Yes, and so large.”
Cheryl’s brow furrows.
“Stately.” Oh, jeez. I’ve put my foot in my mouth. “Regal even.”
“She’s part Maine coon, but her mother was in show business. It’s where she gets some of her poise.” Cheryl takes a brush to the cat and floofs up her fur. Not only is this the biggest cat I’ve ever seen, she’s now the fluffiest. “You hold the camera. Try to get her good side.”
Cheryl takes a seat on a cushion, and Mitzy meows and threads her way through rows of color-coordinated buttons on the floor. “Come, come, Mitzy. Use your words.”
The cat claws a pink button on the floor. “Treat. Treat. Treat,” a recorded Cheryl says.
“Oh, you’d like a treat? Pass me that bowl, would you?”
I hand over a lidded cut glass dish. “You have conversations with your cat by pressing these buttons?”
She hands Mitzy a fish-shaped cat treat. “She has the vocabulary of an advanced two-year-old. And limitless intelligence.”
“I see.”
“Beatrice is here for an interview. May Beatrice brush you? Hmm?” Cheryl pushes the Friend button, then the Brush button, followed by a Question button, and waits on her knees.
Mitzy purrs so loudly, it sounds like a car engine. But she eventually pushes the Brush button and then the Treat button again.
Cheryl presents me with a brush the same way Madam Mayor handed my mother the keys to Del Mar. “I’ll take the phone.”
I hand it over and sit down to brush the cat, who keeps pressing the button for treats.
“Our coffee chats are her favorite time of the day,” Cheryl says, reviewing the video.
“You don’t say.” No wonder this cat is enormous. It gets food every time it pushes the Treat button.
“They’re always recorded, and we try to upload them the same day. Would you be comfortable recording content for Mitzy’s socials?”
“Of course. How long do coffee chats last?”
