You Again

by Peggy Nicholson

  Her ears pricked as a hand turned the doorknob from the other side. She leapt down to crouch by the doorjamb, a runner bouncing on her racing chocks. The door opened six inches, then paused.

  Out in the stairwell, she heard the reverberation of footsteps, then a familiar voice, garbled by echoes.

  “A black cat?” asked whoever stood directly beyond the door. “Uh, no. Sorry.”

  The door swung open and an intern stepped forth, chuckling to himself and shaking his head. When his eyes lit on Jessica, his chuckling stopped. “Hey!”

  She shot past his legs out into the stairwell, then paused, legs braced.

  Floors below, she could hear Sam’s footsteps pounding toward the basement. She chose the stairs leading up just as the door opened behind her. “Hey, cat, come back here! Kitty, kitty?”

  Ha! She skittered across the landing above, then halted just out of sight. Far below, a good two floors down, she estimated, she could still hear Sam’s footfalls. He was traveling fast.

  “Hey, mister?” called the intern, leaning over the stair rail.

  The sound of women’s laughter floated up, drowning out his voice.

  “Mister!” The young man listened a moment, then muttered under his breath, “Whatever.” The door closed behind him.

  Jessica let out her breath. Good. That was her ace in the hole. No one who worked in a hospital ever had enough time. They might be amused by Sam’s plight, but they wouldn’t go out of their way to help him. She turned and padded downward, noting the floor numbers painted on the wall. She was now on floor seven. Four to go.

  Hours later, Jessica crouched in the third-floor corridor of the professional building. A door opened and she peered around the corner, her nose only inches off the floor. A woman exited from Jessica’s own office, closed the door, then set off in the other direction, toward the walkway that passed over the street and into RI Gen. Wait a minute, she thought, watching the woman go. That was Mrs. Cavazos, one of her patients; she had a mysterious, recurrent case of heartburn, which wasn’t reflux, wasn’t an ulcer. She’d had an exam scheduled for…today, Jessica realized, and grimaced. Time sure flies, when…Mac or one of her other partners must have worked Mrs. Cavazos in somehow. She sighed. Truth be known, she didn’t miss her practice at all, but oh, at the moment, she’d like to be a doctor—cool, collected, always knowing the answer, or at least pretending to. Walking upright. With my own office and my own computer. And my own two hands to type with.

  She’d hoped to slip into her office, the one place she was guaranteed both a computer and the privacy to use it. Unlike Sam’s folding laptop, her full-size computer’s keyboard would be accessible. All she’d have to do was drag off the dustcover, push the toggle on the back of her PC, and she could start typing. She didn’t even have to worry about using unfamiliar software, an issue to be considered, if she stole time on any computer but her own.

  Once she’d typed out her message to Sam, she’d print it. Folding it to cat-carrying size, might prove a problem, but surely not an insurmountable one.

  Meanwhile, the first issue was how to reach her office. She’d made it as far as the patients’ waiting room twice— on the heels of incoming patients—only to be spotted by Caroline, and firmly ejected. Luckily Caroline was too busy tending the switchboard to do more than pitch her out into the hall with a pat and an admonition to go home, silly cat.

  If only Mac would come out our back door. He always seemed to hover in the doorway with half-a-dozen last-minute instructions for Caroline or the nurses. By now it was close to quitting time. He should be leaving any minute, if he hadn’t ducked out already for a very cold round of golf. Let him pause in the doorway, and she’d slip past him if it killed her.

  A door clicked, and she again edged her nose around the corner. This time the door to Raye Talbot’s office was opening.

  Yikes. The hair on her spine lifted, her tail bristled. She’d been wondering all afternoon what she’d do, faced with Raye. It was one thing to swear to bring the woman down, quite another to confront her.

  Raye’s bleached-blond receptionist, twenty if she was a day, teetered into view on her too-high heels—imitations of Raye’s, Jessica realized. But without the psychiatrist’s lethal grace, the effect was almost laughable. What was her name—oh, yeah, Tiffany—hoisted the strap of her overstuffed purse to her shoulder and hiked determinedly toward Jessica’s corner.

  Jessica dropped to her belly and lay along the wall, her eyes closed to slits. The carpet was dark gray, the baseboard black. With any luck—

  “Well, hi, kittycat, what are you doing up here?” Tiffany loomed above her. “Is catterkins all right?”

  Catterkins would like very much to be left alone. Teeth gritted, Jessica submitted patiently to a pat. Ignore her and perhaps she’d go away.

  “Poor pussy-wuss, is um lost, puss?”

  Existentially, yes, physically, no. And thank you very much for your concern. Now buzz off, Tiffany.

  Instead, Tiffany scooped her up and hugged her till her ribs creaked. “Poor puss. Why don’t we go find Lost and Found, and see if some nice person is looking for you?” She turned back toward the hospital.

  “Put me down!” Jessica hissed, glaring up into Tiffany’s eyes. A throaty little moan wove out of her throat, then she hissed again. “Right…now.”

  “Oops.” Tiffany deposited her carefully on the carpet, then backed away. “Gee. Sorry about that.”

  Jessica shook her ruffled coat out, then glowered after Tiffany while the receptionist hesitated, then tottered off down the corridor toward the elevators. She punched the summons button and almost immediately the doors opened. Stepping aboard, Tiffany looked back, giggled, and waggled her fingers. “Bye, grouchy cat.”

  Jessica sniffed, then swung around as a step sounded from the cross-street walkway. A male step. Sam?

  She eased her nose around the corner and blinked. Jon Cooper. An apparition from another life. She was ashamed to admit it, but the resident’s existence had dropped right out of her mind this past week. Even from this distance she could see the slump of his shoulders, the raccoon rings under his eyes. Coming to visit me in my office? No, he’d have heard where she was, like everyone else.

  The young man paused outside Raye’s office, hand on the doorknob, and it hit Jessica like a blow to the stomach. Yes, the supply closet, Jon exploding out of it last week, then Raye sauntering out behind with a self-satisfied smirk. Oh, God, and I’m the one who suggested he see her in the first place! That kid loved his wife, was afraid of losing her, and I sent him to Raye. Raye, who had bragged that one of the symptoms of sociopathy was forcing others into unwanted sexual liaisons.

  It’s all my fault.

  Jon opened the door perhaps an inch, then froze, his head drooping, his other hand flattened against the door panel as if left hand fought with right.

  The absolute misery on his face was her fault, something else she’d have to rectify. Or else answer for.

  The resident sighed and his left hand fell away. He opened the door wider, but still couldn’t seem to find the will to pass through.

  Don’t do it! Jessica thought, pattering silently toward him. Don’t! And then it hit her. Beyond that door, in the receptionist’s office, was a computer. She’d seen it herself only a week ago.

  The door was closing behind him, dragged by his lax hand. She skidded around its swinging edge, slipped behind his heels, then under a couch—just as the door to the inner rooms opened.

  From her cover, Jessica could see a pair of slender ankles, polished black heels. A familiar voice purred, “You took your sweet time, sweet cakes.”

  Jon Cooper said nothing.

  The black heels rotated in a single graceful turn, then departed in long, measured strides toward Raye’s private office.

  Blue you could drown in, Jessica remembered, her hair standing on end. And a leather couch.

  Jon stood there, unmoving. Then, slowly, he let out his breath, and trudged aft
er.

  Jessica padded out from under the couch to watch him disappear down the darkened hall. Don’t go. But if she tried to stop him, there was no retreat from this room until someone let her out the door.

  Her eyes shifted to the glass panel that divided the receptionist’s office from the waiting room. Tiffany hadn’t closed it all the way. Between the wall and the slider there remained a gap, a passage just wide enough for a vengeful cat.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  BUT FIRST SHE’D BETTER make sure she’d not be interrupted. Steeling herself, Jessica padded down the darkened hall. The door to Raye’s office was closed. Jessica put her nose to the gap, then winced—musk and cinnamon. Raye’s perfume—what had she called it—Adventuress? Figures. In the original sense of that word, an adventuress was a woman with no visible means of support, out for all she could seize from the world.

  “I’m thinking of killing myself,” Jon Cooper said abruptly beyond the door.

  Raye’s voice held a low amusement. “You could do that.”

  “If I do that, bitch, I’ll take you with me.” He spoke thickly, with an effort, as if he’d memorized the words long ago and now could barely recall them.

  “That, you might find a bit harder.” There was a rustle of clothing, then her voice, a laughing groan. “Speaking of hard…Jon, Jon, Jon, what’s not to like here? You love it when I do this—”

  His gasp was a single, extended hiss, an escape of scalding steam—perhaps scalding shame?

  “And this—”

  “I hate it!” His voice cracked like a boy’s. “I hate you. And I’m not giving you any…more…prescription blanks, whatever you say. They’re going to catch me, Raye.”

  Sickened, Jessica had half turned away from the door. She swung back. So that’s it! That’s what she’s up to.

  “I told you, if you don’t want to give me your own, steal ’em from the other doctors, a few here, a few there. They’ll never miss them.”

  “I won’t do that. I can’t!”

  “Then you’ve got a problem, don’t you, beautiful boy?”

  “Don’t!”

  She chuckled. “Beautiful boy…Does the little wifey know how beautiful you are? Or that you’re a movie star? Shall we show her our tape?”

  “Do that and you’re dead. I swear it!”

  “Then maybe we better go on as we are? I keep your secret saaafe, and you bring me what I neeed. But right now I need…”

  Jessica scuttled back down the hall, shivering down to her toenails. I have to tell someone about this—I have to tell Sam. He’ll know what to do. How to save Jon.

  The door leading from the hall to the receptionist’s cubbyhole was closed. She loped into the waiting room, then flung herself at the ledge below the glass slider. Stepped through the gap and down onto a desk. Followed the L-shaped counter around to the side where the computer sat waiting with darkened screen.

  “Oh, no!” It was an IBM clone, and all her life she’d used Macintosh computers, with their different software. A computer is a computer, she told herself, sniffing the back side for a toggle switch. Punch a few buttons, and it’ll all come clear.

  Brave words, soon belied. It took her five minutes by the clock on the wall to turn the malevolent thing on, another ten to get past the screen-saver pattern and into the main menu.

  And it wasn’t just lack of knowledge that handicapped her. Her six-toed paws spanned precisely two and a half keys of the keyboard. Even when she knew which command to type, she was quite as likely to punch three keys at once. Usually this resulted in a bemused inquiry from the computer and the condescending suggestion that she try again. Occasionally her mishits sent her off in unintended directions—opening files or menus she hadn’t known existed, much less had chosen. Each of these had then to be closed before she could proceed. All I want is the lousy word-processing program! She could have wept with frustration.

  And then, suddenly, the screen blinked, came clear, and she was in. Yes! Yes, oh, thank you, yes!

  At long last, after days of yearning to communicate, her way was clear—and she hadn’t planned what to say. Where to start. She flicked her ears toward the back rooms and shivered. How much time do I have?

  Not half enough to tell her whole story. No time at all for the social amenities, such as “Dear Sam.” Quite possibly only minutes. And then I still have to figure out how to print it. Raising her right paw, she angled it inward so the inner toes would hit before the outer and pecked out i’ m t r as—damn—p po—blast!—e d

  She paused, then turned her head. Had she heard something?

  But the sound didn’t come again. “i’m trapped—” she read. i n sd—what the heck, don’t go back—e. She stopped and shook out her paw; she was getting a royal cramp. “I’m trapped insde—” a…Her paw hovered over the C—and down the hall a door opened.

  Transformed from sleek cat to fuzzy airbag in two seconds flat, she stared wildly at the screen. Erase, erase, how do I—There! She scrolled down, highlighting her message, then stomped the delete key. All that effort for nothing and still the blank screen glowed. It lit up the unlit room like a beacon, proclaiming, She’s here, she’s here. An intruder’s right here! Raye would see it as soon as she stepped into the waiting room.

  “My wife knows something’s wrong.” Jon’s words carried through the door that led to the hall. “I can’t go from you to her.”

  “Well, I should think not!” Raye laughed.

  “I mean I won’t, you bitch. But if she leaves me, I swear I’ll—”

  Bodies bumped up against the door, grappled, just as Jessica exited her file and returned to the main menu, with its own glowing screen. Now shut it down, but how—

  “I love it when you get rough,” Raye growled. “Makes me hot all over.”

  “Don’t!” Someone banged up against the door as if shoved. “I mean it, Raye, you take me seriously, or we’ll both end up dead. Is that what you want? I can’t take any more!” His voice wavered on the raw, ragged edge of tears.

  “Jon, Jon, let me show you something.” Raye’s voice was that of an adult, soothing a tearfully rebellious child. “Wait…wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Inside the cubicle, Jessica leapt to the floor to hit the surge control switch. Leaping back to the counter, she flattened her ears to lowest profile, then reared to peek over the inner ledge at her door to freedom. Let me out of here. Even the air in this place breathed filthy. But if Raye saw Jon to the door, then when—

  “You see this stone?” Raye crooned, returning. “It’s a souvenir. So’s this brass key. Lovely old thing, isn’t it?”

  Jessica went rigid. A brass key?

  “So what?” Jon muttered.

  “So this stone once sat on a man’s desk as a paperweight. And that man is…dead now. The woman whose bedroom key this was—” Raye laughed softly “—well, she may as well be.”

  Jessica’s heartbeat rocked her to her toes, thud after hammering thud. That’s what you think, Raye Talbot! Oh, that’s what you think…

  “My point is, you’re an amateur, Jon, and I’m a professional. So don’t threaten me. Or at least, you’d better smile when you do it.”

  She hooked her hand through his elbow and drew him toward the door, the picture of wifely affection. “You’re under a lot of strain, aren’t you, kiddo? Surgical rotation and all that. Could you use a little vacation?”

  “Not with you,” he said, head down.

  She laughed indulgently. “I didn’t mean that. I meant, suppose I leave you alone for a few weeks to pull yourself back together, make it up to the wifey? I have all the prescriptions I need for a while, and as far as getting my ashes hauled—” she cupped a palm to his face “—I’ve got other fish to fry this week, lover. So…take a little break.” She rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “I’ll call you when I want you.”

  Jon lunged away without a word. Switching off the last light, Raye leaned in the doorway to watch him go. The hand that was raised to
her breast fondled the stone.

  Jessica felt as if she were choking on her own heartbeat. I have to get out of here. I have to go now. The thought of being trapped in here, alone with Raye…She leapt lightly down to the floor—but not lightly enough.

  “What…?” Raye spun around. Chin lowered, she scanned the shadows, foot by careful foot. She grasped the doorknob with one hand and then, quite deliberately, drew the door inward.

  “No!” Jessica screamed, flying at her. “No-rroww!” As she shot through the closing gap, her fur slid along Raye’s nylon-clad calves.

  Raye shrieked—a wordless cry of fear and fury.

  Halfway down the corridor, racing for the passage back to RI Gen, Jessica glanced back over her shoulder—just as Raye threw her stone.

  The shape grew like an oncoming cannonball, smashed to the marble floor, then rebounded, sparks flying. Whizzing past so close it ruffled her fur, it crashed into a passage window. Glass tinkled. Skidding around the corner on two legs, Jessica shot into the back end of Med-1—

  —and smack into Sam’s shins. “Ooofff!” Shaking her head, she staggered around him and plastered herself to the backside of his legs. “God, I’m glad to see you! She’s coming, Sam! She’s coming.”

  He stooped, reached for her. She flowed into his embrace, wrapped her arms around his neck when he lifted her, burrowed her head beneath his chin and hid there, quaking. “Whew!” She would have broken into giggles, but apparently that was another thing cats were no good at—having hysterics. “Whew! Am I glad to see you!”

  “Who threw that?” Hugging her to his chest, Sam strode down the hall to its intersection with the passage, then looked left and right.

  There was no one in sight. Nothing to see but the window across the way with its spiderweb of shattered glass. And below it, lying on the marble, a smooth, black stone.

  “Weird. You’ve been driving somebody crazy besides me, cat?”

  “I was so close, Sam. I wrote you a letter. A little more time and I could’ve explained every—Oh, Sam!” She tried to squirm closer.