Furry Faux Paw, A

1

I SLAP THE MAILBOX SHUT.

Empty.

Darn it, darn it. Darn it.

In my head, Mauve’s tail twitches. Irritated. I should have an actual tail by now, but it hasn’t arrived. I guess it doesn’t really matter, though, because I can’t wear my tail or ears for graduation. The school was quite clear about that in the pearly note with our instructions.

I drum my fingers along the top of the mailbox painted with tulips and posies and minuscule bluebirds. I remember the day we worked on it, Mom and I, back when we still did stuff together. I shoulder my backpack and stomp my skateboard to flip it up into my hand. Last day of school, check. Graduation is in two days.

Still buzzing from the sugar high from our last-day-of-class party, I step up the short sidewalk to my house, checking the lawn for dandelions. It’s cut. Weeds pulled. Good. The kid at the end of the block is keeping up his promise. I have to remember to pay him.

One window is open, and the sour reek of rotting food and mold drifts from inside.

Ugh.

Ugh.

Mom, I mutter, my chest tightening as my mood sinks. On this day, this launch into adulthood, or at least something new, I should feel a hundred feet tall, shouldn’t I?

I’d really been counting on the tail arriving. A little early birthday and graduation present from me to myself. I trudge up the three concrete steps to the porch littered with cigarette butts. Mom isn’t allowed to smoke in the house. No, literally—it’s not my rule. The fire marshal suggested we not have any open flame in the house, and now our insurance backs that up. That was a year ago, the last time the city paid a visit.

At least we’ve managed to keep the yard in check, which keeps the neighbors from calling in complaints. I scuff the butts off the step with a toe and budge the door open just enough to slide inside.

Mom! Easing the door shut causes a waterfall of papers to cascade down from the heap behind the door and flood around my shins. Fresh bundles of free ads slide down. You’d think it would all blend together, but I can always tell what’s new.

Mom must have grabbed them off the porch the second someone tossed them there so it looks like people actually live here.

Correction—so it looks like the people who live here actually care.

Mom! Two-foot entryway remember?

There’s two feet! Her voice floats back, unconcerned.

There’s … nothing, I grunt, shoving boxes and totes and one rogue pile of laundry (unclear if it’s dirty or clean, and I don’t want to sniff it) as tight to the wall as I can. From the direction of her call, Mom must be in her office. Not surprising. I shove the papers back up into a rough heap, prop my skateboard by the door, and negotiate my way forward.

It takes a bit of oozing to pass the second barricade—a towering wall of bank boxes marked Recycle.

You got some mail! Mom calls, and I left a little something in the kitchen for you.

My heart picks up. She actually ventured outside to get the mail! I hope she didn’t get a sunburn.

The sound of typing drifts from her office. Tickity-tickity-tickity. She’s working. Or whatever. Taking surveys. She thinks she pays the mortgage with a strict schedule of surveys, Google affiliating, ninety-nine cent ebooks on organization, and other things like that. Couponing.

But I have mail. And a little something in the kitchen. Oh God, I hope she didn’t try to make food in that kitchen. Walls of junk and sticky countertops and mouse poop aside, one rogue flame from the gas stove and that would be it. I take the fire marshal more seriously than Mom does.

Actually, I take most things more seriously than Mom does, except when she’s weird and zeroes in on weird things and takes them very seriously.

After bending around the maze of totes marked Sort, and clambering through the lake of clothing (Clean & Sort) and a menagerie of lampshades (Sell) in the living room, I reach the kitchen. The mail is stacked with incongruous tidiness on top of a pile of crusty plates that have been there since the last time I had access to the sink. The scent of rotten lettuce washes over me and I swallow hard, resisting the urge to hack up an imaginary hairball. It’s not so much the smell of rotten lettuce as knowing that whatever is causing the smell is most likely not rotten lettuce.

My practiced solution is to cock my jaw and breathe purposefully through my mouth so the smell is less. Not so for Mauve, who senses rottenness more sharply when we breathe across her scent glands. She retreats, leaving me alone to my dull human senses. I don’t blame her.

A single, straining rubber band holds together the wad of mail. A giant, padded manila envelope is squashed against the myriad of catalogs and bills stamped with intimidating red or black letters.

YOU’RE PRE-QUALIFIED!

SECOND NOTICE

FINAL

PAST DUE

Only the manila envelope is addressed to me. The return address, Haute Creatoure, makes me squeak with excitement. Mauve springs back to life in my heart, poised.

Mom calls from her office. Wait, wait, I want to see you open it! Bring it in here!

I freeze, one hand poised to tug the rubber band off the mail. Mauve’s tail flicks. Mom doesn’t even know about my package or what it should be. Does she?

Then I see the thing. Next to the bundle of mail sits a suspiciously gift-wrapped, squarish item adorned with a crumpled bow, and I realize she’s talking about that.

Oh.

Oh.

It’s box-shaped, the length of my forearm by ten inches by about three inches deep, and I cannot comprehend what Mom might’ve gotten me (and spent money on) that she would actually bother to wrap. Eyeing the plaid wrapping paper, my mind zooms through the house. From my mental inventory, I know that she got the bow and the paper from Christmas Box #12, although both are innocuous, not overtly Christmasy, shades of green.

Green. Effing green. For my birthday, my graduation, she couldn’t even be bothered to find something vaguely pink?

I guess it doesn’t matter.

Mae? Did you find it?

Yeah. I’ll bring it into the office! Just a sec … hey, the water bill’s due.

Catlike, I rise to my toes, peering around the kitchen for something sharp to open my package. The bitter irony is that we have fifty pairs of scissors, but what you need never floats to the top.

Mom’s voice cracks like a whip. They know I don’t get my check until the fifteenth. They know, don’t worry, they won’t shut it off. They never do.

Mmkay.

Rather than wade through the kitchen again, I set my teeth to the paper. Between that and my sharpened, fuchsia nails, the package doesn’t have a chance. A quick brush of my hand inside the package rewards me with the touch of cotton-soft fur.

Eeeeee, I whisper.

You always read the card before you open the gift. Or you should, even though this was a commission and not a gift. That way, you can draw it out, read the note, build your anticipation. Anyway, there’s a note written in impossibly gorgeous calligraphy, and it makes it more like Christmas.

Dearest Mauve—

Maeve! Bring your present in here!

Just a sec!

So sorry for the delay with your order. We have also included—

And can you bring my East-West Trading catalog too?

I let out a slow breath then inhale through my mouth. My therapist always playfully reminded me that breathing is helpful, and I follow an Insta with little exercises.

Yeah. Just a sec, okay.

a belt clip and string animation attachment—no charge. Happy early birthday!

Eee! I purr. Yep, I purr. Not the real way a cat purrs, of course. I don’t have the proper biological equipment, but I have perfected a warm, thrumming droll with a hum in my chest and a rolling tongue.

You can see the string if you look for it, but it isn’t too obvious in a photo or video (you might ’shop it out) or from a distance. Looking forward to pics and still working on that perfect paw design for you.

All the Best,

Haute Creatoure

PS FURLYMPIA COMING UP PLS COME kthxbye

The elegant calligraphy makes the silly and informal PS extra amazing. It makes me laugh, light, even though I know I won’t be able to go to the furcon. It’s all everyone’s talking about on Twitter. In my chest, Mauve bounces like a kitten.

Mauve is my fursona since forever ago. Okay, ever since I was thirteen, when I was allowed to get my own online accounts and join the art communities and post my artwork, and I decided to really go as myself—my real self. Not short, soft, plain-eyed, plain-haired, lisping Maeve, but the me inside. The smart, quick, brave, spunky me who isn’t afraid to rejoice about uncool colors or be nerdy about really amazing animal facts and senses—frankly, superpowers—and wishes I could be a little something extra. So I put myself out there—myself with a little something extra.

And MauveCat was born (color plus animal isn’t exactly original, but I was a wee babe).

She’s fun, she laughs, she has mystical powers, and she’s popular.

She’s also an anthropomorphic cat.

(Anthropomorphic: adjective. 1. relating to or characterized by anthropomorphism; having human characteristics.)

Well, she’s sometimes other things, but almost always a cat, and I’ll leave it at that for now because I know it’s a lot for some people to take in. Everyone is different about their fursona. Maybe it’s just an online personality, or maybe it represents everything they wish they could be, or maybe they just really love birds, or maybe it’s closer to them.

For me, it’s closer.

Mauve lives under my skin. She’s the brighter, more real version of me. Her eyes see everything I see and more in the dark. She hears more than I hear, and she notices different things—like the hindquarters of a dead mouse sticking out from under the fridge just now.

Ugh.

So there’s me, and there’s Mauve, and we’re the same being, but since no one else can see her except when I’m online, I have to make the distinction between us so I don’t have to see a therapist anymore (although she was helpful about divorce stuff). Thank God my parents finally accepted the online persona—fursona—explanation. I pass my classes, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, and the boys (as Mom calls them as if we live in the ’50s) leave me alone and I leave them alone. Actually, I leave everyone alone in that sense. But at this juncture, I don’t know if it’s because the thought of romance is exhausting or because I’m surrounded by too much stuff and Mom is exhausting, or because … well, Jade asked me if I’m ace, once. I’ve Googled stuff, and maybe? I like looking at people and the idea of having someone to laugh and cuddle with and call. A special someone. Maybe just a friend.

But the furry community is a good place to find people to talk to about that when I have the energy to.

So really, what’s Mom got to complain about?

And yes, I know Mauve isn’t real (except she is), and my parents’ divorce didn’t cause me to form a separate personality.

If you think about it, everyone has a separate personality. There’s public you, smiling, polite, restrained—or funny, loud, and popular. And there’s inside you. Realer you. Truer you. Thoughtful—or maybe rude and snarky. Either way, it’s the one you hold back. It’s the one you only let certain other people see. It’s the one that’s harder to be because it’s real, and if someone doesn’t like the real you, it hurts. It’s painful and dangerous, and we all have that one inside us.

My inside me just happens to be a bipedal, mauve-colored Scottish Fold who can, if circumstances require, grow pixie wings and become very small and feral and four-legged. And everyone loves her.

Sheer joy washes over me when I slip Haute’s creation out of the envelope—a miracle of fluffy, prismatic pink and ghostly lavender fur. The tail hangs just past my knees, perfectly weighted with bouncy, swinging liveliness. I tuck the coiled string away into a brilliant little pouch at the base for now and clip the tail to my jeans.

Maeve! Mom’s voice has lost its sweetness. Maybe she thinks I’m finally lost in the mercurial quicksand of the kitchen.

Coming! As Mauve springs to life again, I scoop up the mail and the present from Mom, feeling optimistic. I’m almost eighteen and graduating, so maybe she’ll surprise me with something I actually want or need.

That sounds ungrateful, but I know her and this is her thing. She doesn’t need an occasion to buy stuff. She buys herself stuff she doesn’t need, and she buys me stuff I don’t need and don’t want and have to secretly cycle out again like a baggage conveyor so my room doesn’t end up looking like … every other room in the house. There are eight thousand pounds of Stuff in this house, and only about ten pounds of it is mine. But it takes constant vigilance.

So I traverse through the nasty kitchen, mail and gift underarm.

A short hall, made narrow by a gauntlet of broken picture frames (Fix) and boxes of family photos (Frame), leads to Mom’s office. Predictably, she’s in front of her ancient desktop, clicking away. A sour, rank smell immediately wrinkles my nose and Mauve’s, and I almost hiss.

Were you smoking in here?

No. That’s all old. Mom waves a hand. It doesn’t go away. I don’t even smell it anymore.

Hey. I edge along the trail between shoulder-high clothes (Try on, Sort) and hip-high boxes (Storage) and hold out the mail. I thought I’d clean the kitchen today. Absently, my fingers curl in the green bow of my gift.

Mom remains focused on the survey. What’s this weekend? You’re not planning to have people over?

For a moment, I draw a pristine blank. People? Here? Is she joking? I just thought I’d do some cleaning.

Just a second sweetie. My mother, tall and gangly with severely short, pale hair, makes me look like I was adopted. Her diet of soda and power bars and sedentary lifestyle has left her wasted, not overweight.

I’m more like my dad—small, comfy and compact, plain hair, plain eyes—and I’m still not convinced Mom and I are related, except we’re both crafty.

And yes, I did say plain hair. And Dad says my eyes are hazel, but his eyes are hazel and mine are really just eye-colored.

But Mauve is a cozy, warm pink and fuchsia striped with shining amethyst eyes—my glitter and magic and joy.

Mom has completed a complicated, timed question, and answers me at last about the cleaning. Sure, but wait until I can help. There are things I need to save.

Defeat coils in my stomach. Like the smoking, that’s a lie. If it’s up to her, we would never get any cleaning done. Not with her telling me not to throw away the empty mayonnaise jars and insisting food that expired three years ago is fine to eat. Because of the smoking, she can’t smell anymore—the first line of defense in a kitchen like ours.

Mom clicks the last answer on her survey and swivels the creaking office chair to take the bundle of mail. My stomach snarls. Crusty plates, dead mice, and buzzing flies come to mind. Mauve’s ears flick back with a brilliant idea. How about pizza for dinner?

Mom’s face hardens, her pale cheeks starved for sun, turning to stone. It’s not in the budget.

I have no idea what mysterious budget my mother operates off of, except that it prioritizes clearance catalog and thrift store items and ranks things like food and toilet paper at the bottom with the electric bill. It’s still good is the family motto. Est Etiam Bonum.

My treat. I fidget with the tail, flicking it, rocking to my toes.

Mom’s mouth twitches, but now it’s the principle of the thing: who’s going to win? It’s our little game, I guess. Family bonding—it’s exhausting. But pizza, again? You can eat this way now, but keep it up and you’ll pack on the freshman fifty, and then you’ll look like your father.

One, I already look like my father; and two, it’s the freshman fifteen. I don’t say that either, of course. But I can change tactics, too. I wave one of the red-stamped envelopes to remind Mom of her precarious sense of judgment. Do you want me to pay the water bill?

If I had a real tail, it would be lashing.

Mom levels a look at me that makes my look combust into ashes on the floor. I said I would handle it next week. You don’t need to worry about that stuff.

Except I do. The water was cut off once before, and that’s when I discovered that leaving the house early and showering at school was like going to a day spa every morning. No cleaning empty plastic jars and stepladders out of the tub, or just rinsing my pits and crotch in the sink and hoping the mold smell wasn’t clinging to my clothes. I learned to stash spare outfits in my locker with a lavender air freshener because smelling weird is better than smelling bad.

Okay, fine, pay the water bill. But for dinner, I’m just going to order the pizza anyway, and we both know it. But somehow I want her blessing, and somehow she just can’t give it.

She points at the tail. What’s that?

I remove my hand from the tail, and it drops behind my legs again. It’s a tail.

Thank you for the clarification. Why are you wearing it?

It’s a costume piece. For my photos. She knows about my Instagram, but I can’t tell her the real reason behind the photos is that I would rather be a cat than a person.

How much was it?

Now I’m ready to spring from the room. Most people understand the price of hand-made pieces, but I don’t want to tell my mother. Any price at all would be too expensive for her to understand. As it was, between the quality of hand-brushed fluff and the custom color airbrushing and hand-painted stripes, this tail ran about $75, plus shipping, and Haute gave me a killer deal on it, taking some of the price off in exchange for some art.

Don’t worry about it, Mom.

Mom stands up as a flush darkens her face again and slams the bundle of mail onto her desk. This triggers an avalanche of papers and half-full soda cans, which I have to spin away from like a weird ballet dancer. But she just ignores it as papers slide to the floor and sludgy soda trickles onto them. Did your father buy it? Is he buying you more of this pink crap instead of paying support?

Crap?

I bought it, I snarl and show her teeth. Sometimes the cat comes out. I can’t help it. Mauve’s fur bristles. Mom can’t even appreciate the artistry of the tail. Just inside my skin, Mauve is hunching and hissing and slashing. I take a deep breath. I saved up and did commissions and bought it. And Dad does pay support.

But instead of checks to Mom, he has an agreement with the courts that he directly pays half our mortgage, phone, and a grocery stipend redeemable only at the local mart, not cash. The internet is a carrot on a stick for me, entirely dependent on my grades. I don’t even think Mom knows that. She probably thinks it’s her God-given right. And even though Dad pays for it, she writes it off as a business expense because, somehow, she thinks she’s paying for it.

Sometimes I notice the insanity of my life, like, in the corner of my eye. But most of the time, I maneuver around it like the mountains and valleys of junk in the house.

Hostility flickers in Mom’s face when I mention Dad paying support, then dies. She’s exhausted, probably hungry. I wonder if she’s had anything but soda and granola bars to eat today. At least pizza will have some protein and carbs and good old-fashioned grease.

Sweetie, it’s a waste of money. You have college coming up. She reaches forward as if to touch the tail, but I don’t move because I know she’s not actually close enough. And how awkward would it be to pull away from her right now? She sighs, hand dropping to her lap. This was fun for you in high school, but that’s enough. What are you going to do with this cat stuff then?

Stuff? My lifeline to my inner self, my friends, my social circle, my art—stuff? I clamp down against making that sound she hates, the ch! from between my teeth.

She’s one to talk about stuff.

The … the same thing I’ve always done? It’s part of me, Mom. It’s not just a hobby—it’s fun. It inspires my art. It’s a community, okay? It’s never interfered with grades or work, and it’s not going to when I’m twenty or thirty.

This time, I’m smart enough to cap the age and not remind her that there are people in the fandom who are fifty-plus. When I dropped that bomb the first time, she became positive it was exclusively a weird sex fetish and took away my laptop for a month. A month. I managed to bring her back around with the Disney argument—talking animals and all. Anthropomorphism is not all that outlandish. People just think you should grow out of it, and I don’t know