Sure, Mettleson. Poetry. But the review pleased him. He was finishing his eggs and ham when his attention was caught by a girl just coming into the tea shop. She started in but suddenly she turned back, returning to the sidewalk and standing at the curb with her back to the window. The one glimpse he had of her was striking: a tangle of brown hair framing a cleanly sculptured face, gorgeous eyes fringed by thick, dark lashes. Now she stood looking up the street as if she were waiting for someone. Watching her, he began to see a painting—the girl’s figure framed by the red awning, the white letters of the awning making abstract shapes against her hair, and these patterns blending into the blue building across the street. The whole scene was contorted by light warping across the glass. He made a sketch on his napkin, a quick memory-jogging study.
He had finished, memorizing the colors while eating the last of his biscuit, when the girl turned to look in, and he raised his hand in greeting—then wondered why he had done that. She looked startled and turned away, and he dropped his hand, feeling foolish. Why had he waved? He didn’t know her. He had never seen her before. His aftervision was filled with her startled gaze before she spun around and headed up the street.
But, strangely, his shock of recognition remained.
He grabbed the check and dug in his pocket for change.
He searched the streets for her, wanting to talk to her, wanting to find out if he did know her. Wanting, suddenly and intensely, to paint this girl. Unable to shake the powerful, curious feeling that he knew her. Puzzled, and annoyed because he couldn’t remember, he looked into shops and down side streets, and even walked up into the wooded residential area around the library and looked in through the long library windows, but she wasn’t in there.
He went home at last, totally frustrated. He wanted to paint her beside the tea shop window. He could still see her dark-fringed green eyes. He dropped his sketch on the work table and unfolded it, but he didn’t need it; the painting was surprisingly clear in his mind. Excited, he set up a fresh canvas, changed his shirt, and got to work.
Melissa had evaded Braden by ducking into the dress shop and browsing among the racks at the back. She wasn’t sure why she was hiding. Braden couldn’t know her. She wasn’t sure, either, why she had turned to look back into the restaurant. She had just wanted to look at him; she hadn’t thought he would be watching her, had thought she wouldn’t be noticed. She had frozen, terrified, at his look of recognition.
But how could he recognize her?
She remained behind the dress racks until she saw him go past the window. She had avoided the sharp-faced saleswoman. Now the woman stood beyond the rack looking her over, taking in her long dress and unruly hair. “May I help you?”
“Help me?”
“May I show you something, my dear? Would you like to try on a dress?”
She felt confused, disoriented.
“Are you all right, my dear?”
“I—yes, I’m fine. A dress—the yellow dress in the window.”
But then in the fitting room the saleswoman stared at her, shocked because she wore no undergarments. Cringing under the woman’s disapproving gaze she dressed again quickly and left the shop.
She wouldn’t go in there again. And she didn’t want the suggested panties and bra and slip—she felt constricted thinking about them. Distraught and afraid Braden might still be searching, she headed for the edge of the village away from the shops. There on a deserted street the black dog found her again, and he had been joined by two big hounds. She turned to see them coming toward her fast, noses down, sniffing her trail. Before she could run, they circled her.
They lunged and drew back, baiting her. She was stricken not simply with her own fear, but with a child’s total panic: this had happened when she was small. She had been chased and surrounded by dogs. She stood facing them, edging toward an oak tree in the yard of the nearest house.
When the black dog lunged, she kicked it. He snapped at her, and when she kicked again he jumped on her, knocking her against the tree. She twisted as she hit it, and climbed. The rough bark tore the skin inside her legs and scraped her arm, then she was up the tree clinging with all fours, holding tight with sharp claws.
The cat clung in the tree, spitting, her claws digging into the branch as below her the dogs leaped at the trunk, barking and snarling.
The little cat remained in the tree until late afternoon, backing along the branch each time the dogs leaped. She was only cat now, she remembered nothing else. Long after the dogs tired of the game and wandered off, she remained clinging in the branches. Only as darkness fell did hunger drive her down again, and instinct point her toward the garden. Hardly visible in the darkness except for her white markings, she fled between houses through the darkening woods, evading other cats, running in panic from dogs, streaking across streets in front of headlights. Twice she was nearly hit. When she crossed the lane to the garden, running, she almost collided with the black tom. He hissed and cuffed her and bit her. She dodged away and made for the veranda and safety.
Chapter 33
At dusk Braden made himself a drink and stood studying the painting of the girl in the tea shop window. He had captured her look, captured the intriguing sense of otherness he had glimpsed in that brief moment. The work filled him with excitement—this was right, this was what he wanted to do. He hadn’t felt like this about a painting in a while. This was the beginning of a new series, one he had been waiting to do and not known it: a series of reflections all of this girl, her face caught in shattered light as if she had just stepped into this world from another dimension.
The reflections formed a montage: the shattered light striking across the tea shop window, shards of reflected color and light weaving around and through the girl’s figure. She was turned away; he had caught her profile against the red awning and the blue building. The work was alive—it had the old, sure resonance. He was caught up totally, wildly eager, seeing other paintings…
He’d have to find her. He wanted the series to be of her. The planes of her face belonged to reflections, were uniquely made for reflections—in mirrors, in windows. He could see her in the shattered light of a dozen settings, the long sweep of her mouth, the hint of a secret smile, the look he couldn’t define. He’d find her—he’d have to find her.
He had reached to turn off the bright studio lights, meaning to go into the village and look for her, when he realized the cat should have been winding around his feet demanding food. He remembered he hadn’t seen her all day.
He opened the door and stood calling her, embarrassed to be shouting “kitty, kitty” across the garden. When she didn’t come, he went up the hill carrying his drink, looking for her.
She didn’t appear. She should be starving—he didn’t think he’d fed her this morning, couldn’t remember letting her out, then remembered looking for her when he got up. He began to worry about her, and to wonder if she was hurt. He got a flashlight out of the station wagon and looked for her along the lane, thinking how fast people drove in that lane, remembering that Morian’s tiger cat had been run over there. Not finding her, he walked down the lane to the highway and up the highway, shining his light along the shoulder and into the bushes. He walked back on the other side, searching the marsh. The jagged grass caught his light, and once he saw the gleam of eyes, but it was a raccoon.
When he didn’t find the calico, fear for her shook him. That annoyed him; he had never in his life worried about an animal. Abruptly, he turned back to the studio. She was probably in the woods hunting.
He made another drink and stood looking at the painting, too excited about it to leave it alone. He began to worry that the girl might not live in the village, that she had been passing through, maybe was already gone. If she lived here, why hadn’t he seen her before? He grabbed a jacket and swung out the door to look for her, nearly stepping on the cat where she was pressed against the sill.
“Whoa. That’s no damned place to sit in the dark!” Then
he saw how frightened she was, crouching and shivering. She stared up at him wild eyed and sped past him into the room, huddling beside the easel, looking back, her pink mouth open in a silent cry. He knelt, afraid she would scratch in her panic, and he took her up against his shoulder, stroking her tense little body.
He petted her for a long time. Slowly she eased against him, relaxing. What the hell had frightened her? He looked out through the windows at the dark garden, wondering if Tom Hollingsworth really had tried to kill the yellow cat. If Tom was so violent with his own cat, how might he react to the pretty little calico?
When the calico had stopped shivering and lay warm against him, he carried her into the kitchen, opened a can of tuna, and watched her tie into it. Whoever said cats ate delicately hadn’t seen this one; she acted as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks, gulping and smacking. When she finished the tuna he gave her some milk. He watched her clean the bowl, then picked her up again. She belched, then lay limp against his shoulder purring. She was soon half asleep, drifting in some inscrutable feline dream. He stood in the hall holding her and looking at the painting. He had to find this girl. If the cat hadn’t interrupted him he might already have found her somewhere in the village.
Two cats crouched in the garden watching the studio where the calico had disappeared. The black tom was filled with hate of her and wanted her gone from the garden. The white female felt no hatred as long as the calico stayed off her porch. She was a heavy, old cat, sway-backed from the weight of her pendulous, kitten-bearing belly. She sat with her belly protruding like a Buddha, bored by the black cat’s anger. She grew more interested when the yellow tom appeared from the shadows. The black cat, conditioned by other confrontations, lowered his head and crept away.
The golden tom stood on the path staring after the retreating black, then went boldly down the garden to the terrace that ran the length of the studio. He took shelter under the bushes at the end, sniffing the calico’s scent and watching the house for a glimpse of her. She interested him in a way he didn’t understand: not as a female ready to go into heat, not in any ordinary way, but in a manner that both baffled and intrigued him.
Braden fried three hamburgers for dinner, two for himself and one for the cat, his mind on the girl and how the hell he was going to find her. He ate standing in the hall studying the painting, imagining the new series, ignited in the way a good series always stirred him. As if the series already existed somewhere, as if he had not to invent it but only to discover the individual paintings. Twice he put his hamburger down, once to let the cat out, and then to phone Bob for lunch the next day. Bob might know the girl. And he thought, if they had lunch, he could run Anne’s problem by Bob and get that off his conscience.
He described the girl to Bob, but Bob didn’t know her. He waited, holding the phone while Bob asked Leslie if she knew her, but Leslie didn’t. Braden let the cat in, then made half a dozen more phone calls, but no one knew the girl. He went to bed late and tried to read, but couldn’t keep his mind on the book.
He slept restlessly. He dreamed that he lay close to someone, he could feel her rough-textured dress against his skin; once he thought he touched her hair, tangled across his cheek.
He woke to a room gray with rain. The cat was sleeping soundly. It was raining hard when he left the house to meet Bob, sloshing out to his car under a battered corduroy cap, having no idea where to find an umbrella. He had left the cat inside; she seemed to have no intention of going out in the wet. The rain was a torrent when he pulled into the parking lot at the Dock. He made a run for the door and found Bob already at a table, perfectly dry, his umbrella dripping where he had leaned it against the window. Through the glass, sky and bay were joined in one dark curtain, the rain so heavy they could see only the first two boats tied to the quay.
“Working?” Bob said, nodding across the room to the waiter.
“Matter of fact, yes—the girl I mentioned.” He explained about the sketch, and that he wanted to paint her again.
“She’s no one I remember. Leslie will keep an eye out—nearly everyone passes through the library sooner or later.” He looked at Braden intently. “This is important.”
“Yes, a series—something very different. Something I want very much to do. Something…I haven’t felt like this about the work in a long time.” He could see Bob’s look of relief in his returned enthusiasm and improved mental health, and was annoyed.
When they had ordered, he tried to describe Anne’s situation, but now Anne’s fear seemed silly. “You could drop by,” he said. “I think she’s gotten herself over the edge. She’s called me twice since the night she came down, and she’s talked to Morian, talked to Olive—she’s talked herself into believing that Tom isn’t Tom, that the boy isn’t her child.”
Bob shook his head. “If Anne doesn’t want to see me, Brade, I can’t intrude. Has Morian seen Tom? What does she think?”
“That’s strange, too. When I asked her about it, she clammed up. I don’t know what she thinks. She’s talked with Tom, she just doesn’t say anything.”
“That’s not like Morian, not to express an opinion.” Bob paused, then, “Anne may be upset about some other things right now. Maybe that, plus Tom’s illness, has gotten to her.”
Braden waited.
“Two of my clients do business with Anne’s company. A new brokerage firm is trying to elbow them out, giving them trouble, putting the screws to several small Bay area firms.”
“Anne’s not the kind to get upset over something like that.”
“They have already taken over two small real estate firms and fired the key personnel. This could mean her job. Have you seen Tom?”
“He’s pale, irritable, lost a lot of weight.”
The waiter came with their order. Braden on impulse asked for some fish or seafood scraps for the cat, receiving Bob’s amazed stare. When the bag was brought, he realized he’d have to pick through other people’s germs to remove shell and bone before the cat got it, and was sorry he’d asked.
Bob looked immensely amused. “When did you get a cat? I thought you hated cats.”
“I don’t hate cats. It’s Morian’s cat. I’m keeping it.”
“The black one? The tiger cat was killed, I remember.” Bob was big on cats—he and Leslie had several. “Where’s Morian, some kind of vacation? I thought…”
“She’s at home,” Braden said patiently. “I’m just keeping the cat for a while. It’s the stray, the one she—we—chased that night at Sam’s, the one the gardener had in a bag.”
Bob’s expression was one of delighted superiority. Why were cat people so superior? Braden dropped the bag beside his chair and managed to ignore it, but as they rose to leave, Bob picked it up, handing it to him. “Have you named it yet?”
“What?”
“Have you named your cat?”
“It’s Morian’s cat. It’s not my cat.”
Bob buttoned his raincoat and picked up his umbrella. “I guess I can drop around, talk to Anne, see Tom. But I can’t do anything, can’t offer help unless she asks me.” Then they were out the door, Braden running through the rain for his Chevy wagon, Bob sauntering beneath the black umbrella to his green MG. He waved as he spun out of the parking lot.
By the time Braden reached the house, the rain-damp paper bag was beginning to split. He wiped some juice off the seat, and carried the mess across the garden in both hands, cursing. He took it dripping through the studio to the kitchen and dropped it in the kitchen sink. The cat came yawning out of the bedroom sniffing the fish, winding around his ankles, her green eyes caressing him. He stood at the sink separating out bones and shells from potato skins—what the hell made the waiter think cats liked potato skins?
When he put the mess before her she set to with greed, holding a piece of lobster down with her paw and tearing at it. Finished, she gave him another loving look, followed him into the studio, and curled up by the easel so he had to step around her as he worked. When Chapman arr
ived around five, she jumped into Braden’s lap and went to sleep.
He sat petting the cat, prepared for Chapman’s long run-through of the mailing list, which was a lot of nonsense. But Rye always did this, as well as enumerate the kinds of liquor for the opening, champagne punch or whatever. He wanted to shout at Rye to do anything, just let him get back to work. But Christ, it made Rye happy. He had put The Girl in the Window in the bedroom before Rye got there to avoid making the rest of the work look dull.
That night the cat slept curled against his shoulder with her head on the pillow. And even though she smelled faintly of fish, he didn’t push her away.
Melissa woke at dawn. Rain drenched the windows, cascading against the glass. She was unable to move her legs, her dress was tangled around her knees. She jerked awake, alarmed, and rolled away from Braden and swung off the bed.
This was too unnerving, to go to sleep as cat and wake as a girl lying next to him. Someday he was going to wake before she did. He was going to find her there. Her common sense told her to go away from here, to leave this garden and go away.
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