The Cat Who Chose the Fellowship Hall Paint

Our cat, Marigold, has opinions. Unlike most of the people I know, she does not feel any need to explain them.

She came up our porch steps nine Octobers ago, nineteen pounds of orange cat with one torn ear. She looked at Lyle, looked at me, and walked into the house as if she had been elected.

She disapproves of the weatherman on Channel 6, Lyle’s harmonica, and any casserole containing water chestnuts. When she disagrees with something on the kitchen table, she walks over to it, looks you in the eye, and pushes it off the edge.

She has done this to a salt shaker, two pairs of Lyle’s reading glasses, and a seed catalog in which he had circled “just a few” tomato plants. We have not bought tomato plants since.

So I should have known better than to host the Fellowship Hall Committee of Cedar Hollow Community Church at my kitchen table. But the church kitchen was being re-tiled, and Delphine Overby will not hold a meeting anywhere without a working percolator.

The question before us was paint. The fellowship hall walls were last painted in 1998, in a color the minutes describe as “Almond” and everyone else describes as “Old Bandage.”

Delphine, our chairwoman, wanted a yellow called Buttered Grits. It was so bright it hummed. She held the chip up to the window, and I believe a moth changed course.

Floyd Pettigrew wanted Almond again, because there were two gallons of it left in the storage closet. Floyd has been treasurer for twenty-two years and believes paint, like money, should be used up before anybody gets ideas.

Bernice Whitlow wanted Spring Lilac. She had read that lavender is calming, and she has sat through a great many of Floyd’s budget reports.

Tessa Ruiz, our newest member, is thirty-four and brought a tablet computer, which on our committee is like showing up in a jet pack. She showed us all the colors on her screen. Everyone agreed they looked different on the screen. Floyd said that’s how they get you.

As for me, I was prepared to support whatever got everybody out of my kitchen before the pie ran out.

Marigold watched all of this from the windowsill. When Floyd held up Almond, she yawned. When Delphine fanned out Buttered Grits, she squinted. When Bernice said the word “calming,” Marigold turned around and faced the yard.

An hour went by. Then most of another one. Delphine said yellow was cheerful. Floyd said cheerful was not in the budget. Bernice said the Lord made lilacs for a reason, and Floyd said the Lord also made Almond, it just took Him a little longer.

We were deadlocked, two to two, with Tessa abstaining on the grounds that she would like to still be invited to things.

That was when Marigold came down off the windowsill.

She stepped onto a chair, then onto the table, and walked slowly among the paint chips like a building inspector with a grudge. She stopped at Almond. She looked at Floyd. She pushed it off the edge.

“Well, I never,” said Floyd.

She moved on to Buttered Grits. Delphine put a hand to her collar. Over it went.

Spring Lilac lasted about as long as the other two. Bernice said, “Oh, honey,” in the tone she uses at funerals.

Then Marigold found a chip that had slid halfway out of Tessa’s sample book. It was a soft, warm off-white called Morning Oatmeal. Nobody had proposed it. Nobody had even noticed it.

Marigold lay down squarely on top of it, tucked her paws under, and closed her eyes.

The kitchen was very quiet. You could hear the percolator thinking.

“That’s kind of pretty,” Bernice said finally.

“What’s it cost?” said Floyd.

Tessa checked her tablet. “It’s on sale this month.”

Floyd sat back. You could see the sale working on him like a warm bath.

Delphine leaned in and studied the little edge of chip sticking out from under the cat. “It’s practically yellow,” she said, “if you squint.”

We voted. It was unanimous. It took four minutes, which is the fastest that committee has decided anything since the Carter administration.

“Let the minutes show,” Floyd said, “that the motion was made by the cat.”

“We do not record motions made by cats,” said Delphine.

“Then let the minutes show it was made by Tessa,” Floyd said, “and the cat is just sitting on it.”

Lyle wandered in about then for a slice of pie. He looked at the paint chips scattered across the linoleum, then at Marigold asleep in the middle of the table, then at the five of us.

“She’s been doing that to me for nine years,” he said. “You all just found out she’s usually right.”

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The painters finished in two weeks. On the first Sunday back, the fellowship hall looked like a warm biscuit, and people kept touching the walls on their way to the coffee.

Pastor Dale stood up during announcements and thanked the committee. He said he was especially grateful for how quickly we had reached a decision, since our last project, choosing coffee filters, had taken eleven months.

“How did you all come to agreement so fast?” he asked.

Delphine rose, folded her hands, and said, “We were led.”

I studied my bulletin very carefully.

On Tuesday the phone rang. It was the chairman of the trustees, wondering if the annual budget meeting might be held at our house this year. He mentioned that Floyd had suggested it.

Floyd arrived early that Thursday with a plate of sliced ham, which he set on the floor by the refrigerator “as a courtesy.” Marigold ate the ham. She ignored the opening prayer, the reading of last year’s minutes, and forty minutes of discussion about the parking lot.

Then she jumped up on the table, walked straight across the spreadsheet, and lay down on the line marked Miscellaneous. She would not move for the rest of the evening.

Floyd had to step out onto the porch for a minute. He has been asking somebody to look into Miscellaneous since 2011.