Miriam Finley, Travel Writer

Todd was telling a story that involved some poorly executed roleplay and the properties of cats. Miriam had stopped listening almost an hour ago and was looking around for a polite exit.


‘So the doctor said to me—did you know that orange female cats are rare but almost always nice? But anyway, at that point I still thought we should look at a farm, not a breeder—’

Behind Todd’s buzzed gray head appeared a man, concave like a parenthese, with smooth clothes and wrinkled skin, leaning heavily on a cane. He didn’t see Miriam as he walked across the empty café and chose a seat a few tables from her. Sitting down he was still bent over. The points of his wool bow-tie stuck up around his cheeks. He sat still, waiting patiently, hands resting on the tip of his cane.

Miriam pulled out a pen and a coffee-ringed napkin and allowed Todd to think she was taking notes on his story. What she really wrote was this:

Mr. McDonald, celebrated high school English teacher who retired after forty seven years, has now returned home after a long and eventful stay in India. The trip was a gift to himself and to his wife, who so faithfully helped him inspire generations of students here in Freeville, NY. It was during his Regents literature class in the class of ‘74’s sophomore year that one most promising pupil, Ms. Miriam Finley, decided once and for all that if she would do anything in her life worth doing, it would be to be a travel writer.


Tragically, she didn’t. She spent a long time in Freeville after graduating, eventually settled down with a Mr. Todd Laringer, but couldn’t even commit enough to marry, so here she is, listening to another tedious tale of Todd’s, having just watched her octogenarian teacher from forever ago surpass her in adventurousness. Good doing, Miriam.


But enough about her. A look into Mr. McDonald’s exciting Indian excursion:

And there she stopped. She couldn’t even pretend to know what people did in India.

‘Todd,’ she said, her throat phlegm-y and rough from milky coffee and prolonged silence. ‘Todd. I don’t want to get a cat.’

Todd looked up, looking surprised to see her.

‘You don’t?’ he said. He had the innocent credulousness of a little boy.

Her original idea had been simply to inform him of her intent. Now she said, ‘Todd, I think I’d like to go away for the weekend. Maybe more. Will you come with me?’

He was staring at her with perfect transparence. ‘Why, of course. I’d go anywhere with you, Miriam.’

She felt like crying; she felt weak inside, and dismayed, and saddened and afraid at what she’d almost done.

‘Let’s go,’ she said.

On the way to the bus station, Todd was silent. In a plaza the block before, she saw something too fitting to pass up: a pet store next to an Office Max. Miriam turned in. They bought a cat collar and a notebook, and then went the next block to buy the bus tickets.