Pop is trying to calm Kate down. She’s facing him, grabbing each sleeve of his coat. “What am I going to do? What can I do? I don’t want his money. I don’t want anything from anyone. I just want to be let alone!”
“Take it easy, Kate, take it easy. You don’t have to let anyone into your apartment. About the inheritance, well, I’ll have to look into that.” Over his shoulder Pop signals to me to go home and get Mom.
I go home and explain the situation to Mom, and she comes back with me. One photographer and a couple of reporters are still hanging around, and the guy snaps a picture of me and Mom at the door. Mom scoots on up. Bad as I feel, I still get a charge out of getting my picture taken for a paper.
“Hey, kid,” one of the reporters shoves in front of me, “about this Miss Carmichael. Does she act pretty strange, like talking to herself on the street and stuff?”
I see the story he’s trying to build up. While it’s true in a way, if you really know Kate it’s not. Anyway, I’m against it. I say, “Nah. She’s all right. She’s just sort of scared of people, and she likes cats.”
There have been up to a dozen on a busy day, but again I play it down. “She’s got a mother cat with kittens. Sometimes a stray or two. Don’t get sucked in by all that jazz these dumb kids around here’ll give you.”
“She gets all that money, you think she’ll buy a big house, set up a home for stray cats?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. She doesn’t want the money anyway. She just wants to be let alone.”
“Doesn’t want the money!” the photographer chips in. “Boy, she must be _really_ nuts! I’m going back to the office.”
The reporter says he’s going to wait and talk to my pop, and I go on upstairs to see what’s doing.
Kate is sitting on the sofa, sniffing and wiping her eyes and muttering, but looking calmer. Mom is making tea. Pop is looking out the window, scratching his head.
Kate gulps and draws a big breath. “Tell them I don’t want his old money. Tell them to give it to someone else. Tell them to leave me alone. I just want my own place and my cats. They can’t make me move, can they? I’ve lived here thirty years. I couldn’t go anyplace else.”
She gulps and sniffs some more, and Mom brings her a cup of tea. The stray kittens jump up to see if it’s anything good and nuzzle into her lap. Kate takes a sip of tea and asks Pop again, “They can’t make me move, can they?” This seems to be what worries her most.