Ginger Bread

Chapter 1-1

Chapter 1

My name is Ginger. I’m a cat, a rather famous tomcat at that. You might have one of my rhyming books on the shelf in your child’s bedroom or my latest calendar hanging on the wall in your kitchen. You don’t? Well, there are still plenty of shopping days left before Christmas!

Maybe you drink your morning coffee out of a Ginger the Cat mug, instead, or sleep in pajamas with my face all over them. Baily, one of my humans, looks really sexy in his. Perhaps you’ve reached an age where a ceramic replica of my orange chubbiness in your curio cabinet is the more appropriate choice, there or atop your grand piano. That’s where my other human, Katherine, kept some of the ones she’d collected.

It’s possible you simply prefer to watch my real-life antics online or one of my animated holiday specials over and over on DVD. Even if you don’t own a single piece of Ginger the Cat merchandise, other people do. My third quarter profits were big enough to move me up the monetary scale from “well off” to “filthy rich,” even if the bank accounts aren’t in my name. A feature film deal is in the works for 2020—Watch your back, Garfield—though who knows where my career might stand, now?

Katherine Swann adopted me from a small local shelter when I was only ten weeks old. She was a wonderful human, very loving and obedient, and followed my orders with swiftness and accuracy. I always had a full food dish and a clean litter pan. Katherine bought all sorts of toys, too, some I ignored, and some that made me mellow. Most of the time, it was more fun to play in the Pet Mart bag or the cardboard box from sss. My favorite game of all has always been Toilet Paper, though. Our humble abode in the beautiful American North West has seven bathrooms. Seven! That’s two for every member of the household with one extra. If I only count the humans, that’s three for each, with one extra. Every bathroom, used or not, has a roll of name brand toilet paper I can unfurl anytime I want and pull halfway down the long, fancy, wood paneled and royal blue carpeted hallway. The object of Toilet Paper the game is twofold. One: See how far I can go without the paper tearing at the perforation. When the result is less than hoped for, the second objective is to shred the entire roll to make it look like an indoor snowstorm has hit the john. Good times.

“Ginger Wayne Swann! What have you done?”

Though I first learned my middle name, a decidedly more masculine name than my first, while playing TP, my human never really got angry at me for it. Sometimes, she’d gather up armfuls and toss it into the air, so we could play together. Baily will often do that, too. He’ll still do it, I hope.

Ah, Baily. He came to us a little less than seven years ago, not long after I moved in with Katherine. This tall, shy, ruggedly handsome stranger, with his hard, strong body, soft cozy hoodies, and deep, loving brown eyes is super crush worthy. Katherine was looking for someone to keep the yard neat and tidy. Baily is good at that. I often watch through the window as he works in the yard, my supervision extremely valuable, I trust.

It’s hard to determine which of the four seasons of Baily I like best. Sweltering summer days mean a sweaty, shirtless Baily pruning or mowing, as sunbeams catch his flexing muscles and highlight his furriness just so. Baily may not be as furry as I am, but he has quite a bit. Katherine would always have him come in for lemonade or iced tea on those June, July, and August afternoons. I’d claim his lap almost immediately for a catnap. Same in spring, when he takes a break from preparing flowerbeds, or in autumn when he smells like dry leaves and wood smoke. In winter, he’ll do a silly little dance for me at the kitchen door to stomp snow off his boots, once done clearing the steps and a path to the driveway.

“I get a kick out of the way he touches the snow and then shakes his paw,” he’d often tell Katherine.

I do what I can to make Baily smile. He didn’t smile a lot, at first.

“Get out of those wet clothes and into your warm Ginger pjs,” Katherine would tell him. “I’ve made hot chocolate.”

Once he’s changed, on his lap I get again, and before you know it, I’m asleep. Watching Baily toil is enjoyable, but it also tires me out. Hard work looks quite exhausting.

“I really should get back at it, Mrs. Swann,” Baily would say. “It’s still coming down. I hate to disturb sweet Ginger, though.”

Often, I only pretend to be sleeping when in Baily’s lap. I usually hear every word.

“The snow will be there. Let him, nap,” Katherine would respond. “Let’s play cards.” I think she enjoyed Baily’s company, too. “And call me Miss Kitty. Everyone does.”

I’ve always suspected the origin of my human’s nickname had something to do with her singing voice. She loved to belt out a tune, especially Christmas carols. Katherine would start butchering “Joy to the World” the day after Halloween and keep right on singing through January. Sometimes, I had to hide deep in the closet, behind the box of important papers, valuables, and memorabilia to get away from her caterwauling. No sound so hideous has ever come from me. Still, I’m going to miss her singing this year.

Now that everything has changed.

A few days before Thanksgiving, something sad happened. It was six in the morning. I knew that, because the big fancy clock on the fireplace mantel already festooned with fake pine boughs I often chewed on and then brought back up chimed that many times in my ear, while I was up there licking my haunches. I’m not supposed to take my morning bath on the mantel. I’m not supposed to know how to count to six, either. I do what I do. I know what I know.

I immediately hopped down and headed for Katherine’s room to remind her of my breakfast time, just in case she’d forgotten. Up on the bed, my first attempt to wake her failed. Usually, I only had to lick her cheek once to hear, “Good morning, Ginger.” On those rare occasions when I had to double down, I’d burrow under the covers to make my way to the foot of the bed to bite her toes. Even that didn’t work this time.

“M’row.” I called out for Baily as loudly as I could that morning, and then headed quickly for his room, way on the other side of the house. Over the years, Baily had gone from caring only for the yard, to caring for everything, including Katherine some days, as she was old and sometimes frail. He’d moved into the guest house a few years back, when Katherine found out he was living in his truck. Winter before last, he agreed to settle into a room in the main house, after Katherine took a spill on the slippery sidewalk in town.

“M’row.”

“Hey, Ginger.” Baily sat up, looking like something I’d dragged in, his lips smacking, his brunette hair on end, like mine whenever a raccoon intruder has the nerve to wander through the backyard. “How we doing this morning?” After a few strokes down my back, he tried to calm his bedhead, flashing more disheveled hair under one arm.

“M’row.”

I rarely had to wake Baily. Within a second of getting his bearings, “Miss Kitty?” he realized something was amiss and called to her as he slipped on a sweatshirt from the floor.

Baily doesn’t keep the neatest room, which is okay by me. I like sleeping on dirty clothes sometimes. The fleece pajama pants he wore featured my face as part of my officially licensed Ginger the Cat clothing line, and my fur because I’d climbed up into the laundry basket right after Baily had taken his underwear and pajama bottoms from the dryer. I like sleeping on clean clothes, too.

Out the door with great haste and worry, I took the lead, “Miss Kitty?” as Baily called to Katherine again.

Back in my first human’s bedroom, he confirmed the tragic news.

“Poor Miss Kitty. Poor us, Ginger.”

A lot of people were in and out of the house over the next few days. I hid out upstairs in the den closet a lot. Sometimes, Baily would hide out with me, in the den, not the closet, where I’d try to comfort him whenever he cried.

“Excuse me, we’d really prefer no one be in here,” one of the intruders informed us one morning.

Baily stood from down on the floor, raising me up as I cuddled in his arms. “I’m sorry?”

Were it not for my G-rated celebrity image, I might have gone with, “Who the hell are you?” I’d watched the buttoned up, not a hair out of place, shiny dress shoes wearing, bespectacled man come into our home and take right over. Though I had never seen him before that day, he walked around with an air of arrogance, greeting other guests, offering coffee and canapes with apologies, as if the ones Baily had chosen were not good enough, all the while speaking of my human as if he knew her. Some of the people who’d stopped by after Katherine had been taken out were neighbors. Some claimed to be fans. My first human’s adult children were in and out, and her lawyer came by, the one with whom she talked about me a lot. He’d visited more than any family member. This guy standing in front of us now reminded me of the lawyer, someone else, too. Though I was quite certain I’d never fallen asleep on his lap, there was something familiar in his hazel eyes and mannerisms.

“I’m asking you politely not to be in here.” Not quite as tall as Baily, and nowhere near as handsome, friendly, or soft spoken, he was fairer in coloring, with a shade of hair close to mine, though not as thick and lustrous. Maybe he needed a bath and a brushing. “All guests should be in the front room only.”

When he motioned for Baily and me to move it along, I thought, Forget my image. Who the eff do you think you are?

“I…I live here,” Baily told him.

“Do you?”

“Yes. I’m Baily Hammond. I take care of Mrs. Swann…Took care of her and the estate.”

“I’ll be doing that, now.”

“Oh.”

“Your services will no longer be required.

“I can’t just leave,” Baily said.

“You can. I’m sure you’ll be wanting to get home to your family for the holidays, anyway. Family is important.” The stranger’s voice was shaky. He sniffled. “In the end, it should be all that matters.” After clearing his throat, “We’ll take care of all payroll matters, I promise,” the man with the familiar eyes collected himself, as he used them to study everything but Baily and me. “I’ll make certain to mail a check for whatever you’re owed.”

“I wasn’t thinking about money,” Baily told him.

“Well, either way, you don’t need to be here.”

Don’t go, Baily.

“With all due respect, I do. Ginger needs a familiar face around, so I’d rather stay.”

“I’ll look after the cat.”

The cat? The cat! That called for the whole F-word. You’re a furball, mister!

“Would you mind telling me who you are?” When Baily reached out, hoisting me higher to do it, I extended a paw, claws out, ready for the hand that might come our way in return.

“Del Swann.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Now, we knew.

“There are articles—”

Del cut Baily off again. “We can’t have people all over the house. Things could come up missing.”

“I’m not going to steal anything!”

“Not an accusation, merely an observation. My grandmother has some very valuable belongings.”

Yeah, like me! I thought.

“Your grandmother considered Ginger the most valuable of all.”

Baily knew.

“Though she would never consider him a belonging,” he added.

“We’ll definitely look into assets accumulated from Ginger and her likeness,” Del said.

“I wasn’t speaking monetarily, Mr. Swann.” Baily rarely looked another human being in the face, not even Katherine, sometimes, but he was doing his best, I could tell, to do it, now, even if Del wasn’t. “And Ginger’s a boy. To your grandmother, he’s also as much a member of the family as you.”

I offered Baily some purrs and a rub of my head against his cheek for that. He looked quite fancy in all black, but more than anything, he looked very blue.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me you were like a family member, too, Mr. Hammond?”