His Cat Stole My Underwear, and He Kept Every Pair novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Finders Keepers
The neighbor can only say "They're clean," so Teddy takes the red pair, tells him to keep the rest, and hangs another pair out on purpose.
"They're clean," said Dr. Aldahl.
It was the first thing he said, and then his mouth closed again.
Teddy waited.
Rain ticked on the balcony behind him, and Admiral began to wash one paw.
"I can see that," Teddy said. "They're also ironed."
"Pressed."
"Why are they pressed?"
Dr. Aldahl looked at the marker in his hand.
"Wrinkles hold bacteria," he said.
"They do not."
"Some of them do."
Teddy looked down at the basket.
Thirty folded squares of his own life looked back up at him with dates on their foreheads.
"And the labels?"
"Inventory."
"Of what?"
The man in the doorway opened his mouth.
Teddy watched it happen.
Something rose in that big, serious face, a whole sentence with a run-up.
Dr. Aldahl's jaw worked around it twice.
His hand tightened on the tape.
Then it went back down, wherever it came from, and what came out was, "The cat."
"The cat," Teddy agreed.
"He sorts."
"He sorts."
"I'm sorry."
"For the cat?"
"For the cat."
That was the longest the man had ever talked to him, and it was about a thief with a bad ear.
Teddy should have been furious.
He had been furious for a month, in the shower, at the rack, in the mirror, at a ghost.
But the man in the hallway stood very straight with a marker in his fist.
He was looking at the wall above Teddy's left shoulder, with the care you give a wall when you cannot look at the person in front of it.
Teddy knew that look.
He had worn it himself at his cousin's wedding, when a boy from the catering staff had handed him a canapé.
Something warm and ridiculous turned over under Teddy's ribs.
"Dr. Aldahl," he said.
"Magnus," said the man, very fast, and then looked as if he regretted it.
"Magnus. Why didn't you knock on my door?"
A very long pause.
"I tried," said Magnus.
"When?"
"Several times."
"I'm home all the time."
"I stood there."
"For how long?"
"Long enough to hear you singing."
Teddy had been singing the whole month, mostly to the pothos.
Teddy could have died of embarrassment, but Magnus stood there looking so grave about it that he nearly laughed instead.
"Okay," Teddy said. "Okay."
He looked at the basket again.
Then at the red briefs against his chest, which were the only dry pair he could see.
"I'm taking these," he said. "These I'm taking."
"Yes."
"The rest you can have."
Magnus's head came up so fast he nearly lost the marker.
"I beg your pardon?"
"The rest of them. Keep them. I don't know."
Teddy waved the red briefs vaguely.
"They look happy in there. They've never been folded in my life, I'd feel bad taking them back."
"Mr. Dunleavy."
"It's Teddy. You know my name?"
"It's on the mailbox," said Magnus.
"Teddy. And you know what? Admiral clearly has a system. He puts them in the basket. You do the labels. Don't let me ruin it."
Magnus stared at him as if Teddy had handed him a live grenade with a bow on it.
Then he said, so quietly that Teddy almost missed it, "That isn't normal."
"No," Teddy said. "It really isn't."
He turned toward the balcony with one hand on his towel.
He meant to climb back over a railing with all the dignity the law allowed.
At the door he looked back.
Admiral had curled up on the lid of the basket, tucked in tight.
Magnus stood in the middle of his tidy room with the tape still in his hand, watching Teddy go.
For one second he looked less like a surgeon than like a boy left on a porch.
"Good night, Magnus," Teddy said.
"Good night."
He swung one leg over the iron and went home.
He didn't sleep.
He lay in bed at one in the morning and laughed into his pillow until his stomach hurt.
Then he stopped laughing and lay there with the red briefs on his chest, smiling at the ceiling.
At dawn the doorbell did not ring.
Instead something small and square hit the mat.
He opened the door in his boxers and found a yellow sticky note stuck to it.
The neat block letters were ones he now knew very well.
YOUR BALCONY GATE DOES NOT LATCH. I WILL BRING A CLIP. M. ALDAHL, 2B.
Teddy read it twice.
Then he went out to the balcony in the gray light.
He looked at the rack, and the gate, and the cat's tiny muddy paw prints on the rail.
Then he took a pair out of his drawer, the green ones with the little lobsters, and clipped them to the rack in plain sight.
He left the little gate wide open.
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