The Orange Cat on Cable Line

Maya's summer job installing cable wasn't exactly how sixteen-year-olds were supposed to spend July. While her friends were posting beach photos and running through mall parking lots, she was climbing ladders and drilling through strangers' walls.

"You're doing what?" Lena had asked when Maya told the friend group at lunch.

"Installing cable. It's actually pretty lit—"

"You're literally an old man," Kai joked, and everyone laughed. Maya had laughed too, but something twisted in her stomach.

The third house on her route was this peeling orange place with a dead lawn. Maya had the coaxial cable hooked over her shoulder like some ridiculous neon snake when she saw it—a cat, not quite orange but close enough, balanced impossibly on the telephone wire above.

"No way," she whispered.

The cat was RUNNING along the cable like it was a sidewalk, like gravity was just a suggestion. Maya's heart kicked up. She wasn't supposed to climb poles with live wires—that was definitely against company policy—but suddenly she was scrambling up, her sneakers finding footholds in the wood, the cable swaying as the cat darted toward the transformer.

"Hey, hey little—"

The cat stopped. It turned its head, almost smiled at her, and then—it jumped. Not down, but across, clearing impossible distance to land on the roof of the orange house. A woman in the window below looked up, spotted Maya hanging halfway up a telephone pole, spotted the cat on her roof.

Maya expected yelling. Instead, the woman threw her head back and laughed.

"First time?" she called up.

"First time chasing a cat," Maya admitted, breathless.

"Tuna works better than climbing poles. Come down, I've got lemonade."

Later, Maya sent a photo to the group chat: her work boots, the orange house, the cat sleeping on her shoulder like it owned her.

"Wait," Lena texted back. "This is actually iconic."

"Unreal," Kai added. "You're basically a Disney princess now."

Maya smiled at her phone. Sometimes the most embarrassing stuff was actually the stuff that made you—who knew?