Simon was still a dear friend of hers; although he could never understand why Rebecca chose to name her kitten after him. He vacillated between being flattered and annoyed. But that’s the way he spent their Relationship too. Just because they’d downgraded things between them to a lowercase-R relationship doesn’t mean he should begin to understand her any better.
Although he often found her emotional tirades sort of quirky, he still figured that Rebecca was the type who could really benefit from just a little therapy.
“She’s the kind of woman,” he once described to a drinking buddy, “who thinks the spotlight that shines on her while she’s living her life is a whole lot brighter than the wattage on the bulb would indicate.” The two men clinked beer bottles over that one. Something about that last round of Molsons elevated them to doctors of psychology.
Rebecca loved Simon, or at least he felt as though she really did. And he loved her. But there was some sort of strange cosmic imbalance that allowed them to remain friends in a universe where that stuff just doesn’t happen. But he still had a hard time petting the cat when he dropped by Rebecca’s apartment. It was just too weird.
Today, Rebecca was going on about some woman that she worked with who, she was convinced, was “the type of person who tells vegetarians there’s no meat in dishes containing meat just because she derives pleasure from imagining their bodies rejecting the meat while their minds feel so righteous over being above eating the flesh of other animals.” This was another of those observations that was going to require a few rounds at Melear’s to sort out.
Simon held Simon in his lap and wondered how Rebecca could ever take herself and her life as seriously as she did. But he found himself nodding anyway, as though he was registering this conversation somewhere in his brain – and not just the sound of her voice.
“Oh! I have got to tell you about this guy at work!” Rebecca began. Simon watched as Simon jumped off his lap and went to his food dish to inspect its emptiness. He wanted to be interested in Rebecca’s new “find,” but he found himself wondering if she’d be having this same dialog with Simon-the-Cat if he weren’t around.
“Clayton,” she smiled. “That’s his name.” And all Simon could wonder was if, within the next year, there’d be a new pet in Rebecca’s apartment or if she’d just re-name Simon.