This Is How To Touch Me by Rufi Thorpe

Roisin breaks every rule and texts Daniel first because the kiss was bananas.

When I found myself unexpectedly pregnant, I discovered that the buzzing of a particular willow tree in an overgrown garden in Essex, a willow tree planted by a man and woman blindingly in love, relaxed my whiskers almost to the point of numbness. So I began skulking about the man, David’s, garden. It was the perfect situation for a cat like me. I will not bore you with the spiritual hierarchy of the cats in the greater London area (I am aware you may be distressed that this story is being narrated by a cat at all), but suffice it to say there is one, and I occupy a not unprestigious place within this byzantine and occasionally bothersome hierarchy.

On the day I first met the man’s daughter, Roisin, I decided that I would like to be worshipped, not least because I was very hungry, and so I spread myself before her, and then, of course, as I should have known she would, she touched me incorrectly, palpating the buds of my kittens in my abdomen. I knew suddenly that she imagined them as tennis balls, that was the phrase in her head, that I had “swallowed a load of tennis balls,” which was very insulting. My kitten buds were majestic and nothing at all like tennis balls, which only dogs love and are a bad color. I was forced to bite her extremely hard on the hand.

Not all humans take being bitten as well as Roisin did — I give her credit for that. (I have bitten rather a lot of people.) Roisin decided I must be hungry and brought me some stale kibble left over from their last cat. Not long after, I was formally invited into her father’s home, a narrow council house filled with batiks and floor cushions and the agreeable odor of Nag Champa. It was the house Roisin had grown up in and I saw all of it still vibrating in the rooms: baby Roisin sprawled on a quilt, her mother, Maureen, though everyone called her Mo, blowing raspberries on her fat belly; 6-year-old Roisin drawing on the floor, painting on the walls, anywhere she liked because her parents, a DJ and a grassroots art therapist respectively, believed in freedom; 10-year-old Roisin with her little girlfriends collecting worms, making potions and mudpies in the garden; 15-year-old Roisin putting on far too much eyeliner, her hair dyed letter-box red. I saw and liked the wildness in her, almost against my will. As I said, I was only there originally for the tree.

But the following November, a full year after I had joined her father’s household, when Roisin was 22-years-old and freshly out of a bad relationship, she decided she needed to do something about her love life. She had lived her whole life responding yes or no to whoever chose her. This time, she was determined to do the choosing.

Earlier that week, when she was checking Hinge, the same man’s profile had shown up three times in a row in her Standouts. She had never seen another profile appear multiple times on Standouts. It must be fate, a sign from the universe. There was nothing remarkable about the profile itself, Daniel was his name, and he looked handsome and normal, maybe too normal. Roisin’s upbringing had been far enough outside the mainstream that she honestly wasn’t sure how she would relate to a man who was entirely normal. But she sent him a Rose anyway.

Roisin’s own parents, David and Mo, planters of the willow tree, had met on a communal farm, living in yurts, love at first sight. But when David asked to marry Mo, she turned him down. She had been in an abusive marriage before and never wanted to be legally bound to a man again, even if that man was the love of her life. Roisin’s father, his pride a little hurt, nevertheless accepted this, and it turned out, her parents didn’t need a contract to love each other forever, weaving their lives together like a braid, true partners, a love that shaped their whole lives. It seemed unlikely you could find a love like that on a dating app. She felt foolish and childish for even thinking she could. And now she was supposed to go out with this normal Daniel person on Tuesday.

When Roisin stopped by her father’s house that weekend, and I discovered so many brightly-colored thoughts inside her mind, I decided to do a little investigating. (Astrally, of course; in the physical realm I remained quite securely on the roof of the shed in the garden where I liked to keep watch over the willow tree.) I didn’t want her going on a date with this “Daniel.” What if she fell in love and stopped coming to visit us as frequently? She had gotten much better at knowing how to touch me and gave the most delicious skritches behind my ears.

I dipped my paws in and out of their digital streams, reading through their messages, delighted to find she had already told him all about me. About the kittens, six of them, black as spacetime, just like me. And then about taking me to the vet finally, and the vet referring to me as male, and how Roisin had said, “I think you have something wrong here, that is definitely a female cat, she just had kittens a few months ago,” and the vet saying, “Well, this can’t be the same cat then, because this cat has testicles.” And they had to get an ultrasound just to wrap their puny minds around the idea that I was both.

You may be wondering any number of things at this point in the story. Are Daniel and Roisin soulmates? Was it, indeed, fate that caused Roisin to send a Rose to Daniel? Am I, an astrally projecting magical cat, going to interfere with their date to cause it to go well or badly? Will I knock his drink into her lap or will I purr into her ear and suggest a kiss? But you only ask these questions because you are human and your laughably unidirectional experience of time has caused you to become obsessed with cause and effect. You think each moment is a domino tipping into the next, causing a cascade you call destiny.

But that is not how reality works.

Reality works like this:

Roisin is running late and she is feeling shit and her skin looks greasy and she thinks she shouldn’t even go, she should cancel, she is vibrating with hesitation. Like a kaleidoscope, I can see every way she is, or has been, or will be. She is looking at her phone; she is holding a newborn lamb; she is drinking tea by a kitchen window hung with hagstones. All the Roisins, from baby to crone, ride together to this date.

When Roisin first sees Daniel, she discovers he is not normal at all; he has blue hair cut in a sexy mullet, and he is wearing a studded leather jacket. She feels the stakes have been suddenly raised, but she also feels the thrill of a bargain hunter: no one but she knows that this incredible man hides behind that nondescript profile.

When Daniel first sees Roisin, he thinks she is prettier even than her pictures, but it is her voice that catches him off guard. He had been expecting something salty and hard, the voice of a girl who’s the life of the party, but instead her voice is soft and shimmering. He is vibrating with curiosity about her, but he is also vibrating with his mother’s Sunday roast, and he smells confusingly like a church. Who exactly is this man? As they enter the bar, I am frantically wrapping my ghostly body around his ankles, trying to rifle through his childhood memories. Nothing but wholesome road trips and family dinners, no matter how fast I flip through. Even his past relationships seem sweet. Finally, I get to the hardcore concerts, the anguished guitars and racing drums, the indie wrestling shows that blur the lines between fake and real violence, and I understand that there is a hunger in Daniel to understand that which is dark. And while I do admire that yearning, in fact it is the first thing I actually like about Daniel, I have already made up my mind that this is an undesirable pairing. Daniel, I think, is an indoor cat who wants to go outside, and Roisin is an outdoor cat to her very core.

The bar Daniel has chosen is a fake 1920s speakeasy with a solve-a-mystery theme. They sit. They order drinks. Daniel orders some kind of sour with flowers floating in it; Roisin orders a Negroni. I weave in between the legs of their chairs, settle into the shadows created by the table.

The barman brings over their first clue, and as they begin solving the fake mystery, several other mysteries are underway. For his part, Daniel is trying to figure out if Roisin understands that they have actually met before. Just a few weeks ago, he had been out seeing music with his brother and friends when he’d been introduced to the prettiest girl in the history of the world and he had absolutely blown it — not managed to get her number or anything. Then, out of the blue, that very same girl had sent him a Rose on Hinge. And her name, Roisin, meant “little rose” in Irish Gaeilge. Daniel doesn’t believe in fate or signs, but he’d wondered if Roisin remembered him, if maybe that was why she sent the Rose, yet he hasn’t asked directly. He hasn’t asked in part because he is telling himself a story that this date doesn’t matter, that he is playing the field, that this time he will date casually instead of falling in love right away. But Daniel is not adept at casual dating. In fact, he hasn’t dated anyone in three years, which felt healthy at the time, but which he now worries will be hard to explain, like a gap in work history on a CV.

For her part, Roisin is trying to understand why this mystery game seems filled with so many eerie coincidences. The first clue is about a black cat in Essex. (Is this another sign from the universe? I want to tell her not to be silly, but even I am unnerved by my presence in this made-up mystery.)

As Daniel and Roisin talk about their lives, they discover they went to the same university. They interrogate one another, trying to understand how it is possible they’ve never met before.

“But we did, I think we did meet,” Daniel says. He has gotten a small amount of flower petal in his mouth and attempts to pick it off his tongue. Roisin can’t stop looking at the newborn-kitten pink of Daniel’s lips. He describes the night a few weeks ago to her, the band they saw. Roisin does remember going to that show, but has no memory of Daniel.

“I think I must have been quite drunk,” she offers. Was that unappealing to say? That she had been drunk enough not to remember him? But Daniel is sweet and easy about it, and he asks more questions. I want to scream at her: this is not the man for you! You should be with a pirate! Or a disgraced monk! Or at least a drummer! Someone who would bring interesting ghosts around, someone who would stink of cigarettes and death! Daniel, instead, is like if someone made a pirate out of flowers.

When they solve the barman’s mystery, Roisin confesses how amazed she has been by the coincidences between the mystery story and her own life, her cat Manouka, and Daniel smiles, panicking slightly that he will have to explain. “It was me,” he says. “I came early and I told them about your cat and had them make up a special mystery for us.” He is worried that she will think he is trying too hard. Because if he were truly casually dating, as he told himself he was, he would not have come early to convince the barman to make a special mystery out of Roisin’s cat. Pretending to be casual was a costume Daniel wore both for himself and for Roisin. And now it is stripped away.

But Roisin smiles and laughs and inside she is dizzy — dizzy with his blue hair, dizzy with his pink lips, dizzy with the idea that he would plan all this for her. Magic is real, she thinks, when a real boy makes magic happen. She can see the sweetness in him, and instead of being repulsed, she is attracted. All sorts of boring and sentimental futures begin vibrating in the bar. I can see them camping, oh god, and they have forgotten the ground tarp and the rain is getting in and they are freezing cold but they are so in love they don’t even care. In my real body, on the roof of her father’s shed, I can feel the willow tree begin buzzing with sympathy for Daniel and Roisin, and I sense the whole cosmic chord progression shift.

When it is time to go, Daniel waits with her on the street for her cab, and it is quiet compared to the bar and they are alone, or think they are alone. The streetlamps are lit, and Roisin thinks maybe she will play the good girl and not try for a kiss, but Daniel does not want to fail again: he let Roisin go once before without getting her number and miraculously she has come back to him. He can’t afford to overthink it: he reaches for her waist, pulls her closer, and kisses her.

Roisin is picky about the way she is touched, almost as picky as I am, but his hand on her waist, the heat of his skin, every way he touches her is perfect.

Dread and displeasure fill my body. In the “mystery” at the bar, the black cat had gone missing — obviously a veiled threat! I feel the first pulses of a hairball coming on. This blue-haired flower pirate who smells like a church is stealing my Roisin!

The moment the kiss is over, her car pulls up and then she is getting in, it all happens too fast. She is gobsmacked by that kiss — her jaw is actually hanging open, and she covers her mouth with her hand. She knows she should play it cool, but she texts Daniel right away: Thank you for such a nice evening. Honestly, you were so lovely to talk to, made me feel so comfortable and gave super lush kisses.

Should she say that about the kisses? Is that weird? I, growling from the footwell, try to tell her that it is very weird, that she is being grotesque, but she doesn’t care, she presses send, she needs to mention the kiss or she will die.

He texts back immediately: as were you x you seem like the kind of person I could just chat til the cows come home which is usually a good sign haha.

Does he sound crazed? Does he sound stupid? He’s never used the phrase “til the cows come home” in his life, but can’t stop himself from hitting send.

For the next few weeks, Roisin and Daniel roll in these text messages like they are tall grass, the hahahas, and the tbhs, the emojis, my god the emojis, the sparkling stars and the hearts and the alien spaceships. When Roisin is talking to Daniel she feels like she could eat the stars, pop the planets into her mouth like candy, and it is joyous, but the joy also makes her scared. What if she is making all this up? What if Daniel doesn’t feel the same way about her? What if he is just being nice? In fact, she already knows he is very nice, so what if that is all this is: just Daniel being nice, and she is manufacturing all of it in her mind the way that in moments the fake speakeasy had felt like a real speakeasy?

(Humans, I must say, get so touchingly confused by their own hormones. When in reality, they know only a sliver of that divine madness. They see cats in heat, they know how bad it can get, and yet they still think: Am I acting crazy right now? Yes, sweetie, you’re acting crazy, and that’s the whole POINT.)

They go on dates. They sleep together for the first time. Roisin wants to call him love, but makes herself delete it. She knows it is too early to be feeling what she thinks she is feeling. She calls him sweetness instead, then he calls her love, and she feels so happy, she has never been so happy in her entire life.

You know what happens next. You may not have read this particular fairy tale before, but you know exactly what happens next. No matter how reassuring Daniel is, no matter how many hahahas he sends, Roisin is slowly being driven crazy by worrying she might be crazy. She needs to take her craziness to Daniel and just let it all out, pink and wet as mouse entrails on a doormat. Even if that ends it, even if she bursts the bubble of the magic.

When it comes, the day that Roisin will ruin everything, I am sitting on the roof of the shed in a patch of perfect sun.

They went on their first date in November. It is now only December and they know they will not see each other over the holidays. Daniel agrees to video chat her.

“I just need to know,” she says, and I pass through the pixels that make up her face, causing them to freeze for just a moment. “Like if we’re — if we’re just casual, or if —”

“I was going to wait,” Daniel says, “I had sort of planned it for New Year’s Eve, but I was going to ask you to be my partner.”

“Oh,” she says, vibrating with both elation and panic. “Oh no, have I ruined it? Oh, have I ruined it?” She has, she has ruined it, she knows it. And now he will take it back because she has been crazy and brought her mouse entrails and left them on his doormat.

But Daniel only laughs. “Of course not,” he says. “I was going to kiss you at midnight and ask you.”

“Oh, but will you still?” she asks.

The patch of sun touches every hair on my body. All the cats in the world breathe in and then out. A flea, somewhere, bites a dog.

“I will,” Daniel promises. “Of course I will.”

Roisin is close to tears she is so happy. Somehow she has ruined everything and nothing is ruined. Somehow the magic is — sturdy. Sturdier than either of them.

I mean, I could have told them that.

Rufi Thorpe is the author of four novels, most recently “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” winner of the Clark Fiction Prize, and a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the Mark Twain Prize. It is now an Emmy-nominated series on Apple TV. “The Knockout Queen” was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award and a Book of the Month pick, and her first novel “The Girls from Corona del Mar” was long-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the First Novel Prize. Her work has been translated into 18 languages. She received her MFA from the University of Virginia and now teaches at The Book Incubator, an online MFA alternative program. She lives in California with her husband and two sons.