We were awoken by a phone call at 8 o'clock one morning; we let the answering machine pick up. Michael's voice said "Leave a message for Anne and Greg after the beep. If you're calling for Ted and Michael, you can reach them at . . ." Then we heard our landlady saying, "I'm calling to let you know that I'll be coming to the house on Wednesday around 9:30 with the plumber to look at the hot water heater. I don't think I'll have to come inside." In the silence that followed her voice, the pale morning sun, usually the sign that we could sleep for several more hours, was suddenly hostile and ominous. Would we have to wake up into this sunlight before she came, or could we stay in bed and hope that she didn't enter the house? The situation seemed unreal, uninterpretable, incommensurable with our lives. I fell back asleep and when I woke up, I was reminded of the call by the message that had been left on the answering machine. I still couldn't incorporate it into my expectations for the future. How could anyone come into the house at 9:30 in the morning? It was like living under a totalitarian police state. I couldn't conceive of having to get up so early, and as a result, I didn't think about it and acted as though it wasn't going to happen. I went to work as normal, and went to sleep at my usual late hour (around 5 a.m.)

The next day, Anne had set the alarm for 8:30. We sat in bed for a while listening for the landlady and waiting for her to be gone. Around 11, I asked Anne if she wanted to go to the Farmer's Market. We weren't sure that it would be safe to leave the house, but when we opened the door there was no one there. We went and got delicious food.

We got another early morning phone call the next day, on the prophesized Wednesday. The machine spoke to the silence of the hollow room at that ungodly hour of 8:30: "Hello, Anne and Greg. Actually the plumber and I will be coming into the house after we look at the hot water heater, so that we can check the gas heater, that little thing in the corner, for carbon monoxide emissions. Also, if it's not lit, we'll light the pilot, or else turn it on low. It won't take more than half an hour, I don't think. I'll be over soon. Bye." Dust began to settle over the horrible words; Anne and I strained our eyes against the sunbeams pouring in from the skylight and tried to make sense of the situation.

"Why is she coming today?"

"I think I remember now, she said Wednesday in the first message."

"What should we do? We can't be in bed. And what if she sees the cat?" We never told the landlady that we had a cat.

"We could put the cat in the car, and all of her things under the bed, and just go driving," I said.

"Why does she have to come into the house? Goddamn."

"I don't know."

For the next fifteen minutes, we descended chaotically upon the mess all around us like lazy maids a few minutes before the master was due home, sweeping up leaves and kitty liter, washing dishes, packing cat-care items and mice toys under the bed. It was 8:57. "The cat carrier!" Anne flung a chair into the bathroom and stood on it to open the storage closet that's in a wall recess above the door, and I arranged the bedclothes so that they covered what was beneath. We then persuaded Tesuji to get into the box, with the rhetoric of our pushing hands. There was still a huge pile of clothes, overflowing from the hamper. "I guess we could do this while we're waiting," I said. I lifted the hamper, Anne grabbed some snacks, and we fled with the laundry and the cat, locking the door behind us. The sun had an evil brightness so early in the morning, and the air smelled busy. We went up to campus to start washes, and on the way we noticed a little strip of a park along Old Santa Fe Trail with a long, columned wooden shelter and benches sitting among an expanse of chimisa, dust and Birch trees. I parked by the laundry room in lowers and we brought the two hampers down; then we realized that we hadn't brought the detergent. The laundry went back into the trunk, and I moved the car to my library spot. Not having anything else to do, we browsed the bookstore for about an hour and then returned to the car, where the kitten was mewing in confusion.

"I hope they're gone. It'll be 10:30 when we get back." But when we pulled up to our street, we saw an telltale white van parked in front of the mailbox. We couldn't get our detergent, because it was in the house. We decided to go buy some at Albertson's. Tesuji cried softly.

"She doesn't like it in here; she must be hungry. Poor Tesuji."

"Maybe we could get her some food and let her outside in a park."

So we did. I drove to Albertsons, where we bought detergent, two cans of wet cat food, a collar and a leash, and then we went back up to the park we had seen. In the parking lot, Anne attached the collar and the leash, and we took Tesuji for a walk over to the first bench beneath the shelter, where there is long pathway bathed in shade. We let the cat down onto the ground and watched as she shivered for a bit at the car noises, and settled in to investigating as she calmed down. She sniffed the ground, lingering over the first small plant she came to, and then started circling around chewing on beech bark that lay in the gravel. A white-haired man walked by, carefully stepping around us and smiling down at the cat. Tesuji started to get more bold, and all the leash could do was restrain her, so we sat on the bench and gave Tesuji her food. She stuck her nose in the can and greedily swallowed what was inside. As she sat licking herself, I wondered if she needed to relieve herself. "This whole place is made of kitty litter," Anne said.

I shifted the dirt beneath my foot. "Maybe she'd like something softer, though."

"You could try over there, by the weeds." I took Tesuji to a patch of more sand-like dirt by a large growth of weedgrass further back from the road. Tesuji sniffed a bit and then wandered off toward a nearby bush. I picked her back up and we went back to the car, drove to campus, and started a wash. The white van was gone by the time we got back to the house, so we let Tesuji roam free once more over the mountainous chairs and the pool of comforter and sheets.