by Lisa Rusczyk
PARKER
Cleo was silent. Parker watched her with anticipation, but she stayed quiet, staring down at the floor. Parker looked down and saw the gray kitten. It was in a ball at her feet, nothing showing but its head, back and a tail. The tail was curling up on its body like a sleeping, furry snake. Parker had no connection with pets, certainly not with cats, but just then, when he wanted to ask Cleo leading questions, the gray looked up at him. The cat’s eyes were not wide and pointed, as most cats he had seen, but lazy, eyelids drooping like it knew everything that was to come, and wallowed in it. It surprised Parker, this feeling expressed in an animal, and it unnerved him.
Then Cleo was staring straight at him. She seemed different, like in the two seconds he had been looking away she had plucked her eyebrows. Her eyes were so bright and wide that he felt something like when he looked at Kathy. Parker was not one to fret over physical attraction, and he was intrigued that a woman in his house looked at him that way. It was a look of desire. He focused, and realized that Cleo was seeing something else, not him.
He glanced at the cat again, and now its eyes were wide, as though saying, “Offer her a drink.”
He said, “I have some wine in the pantry.” He hesitated, then, “Would you like some?”
She still had that expression, and she was looking more in his direction than at him. This set him more at ease.
She said, “What kind?”
“Missy liked wine. I have pretty much any kind of red you can think of. Pick one you want, too.”
Cleo’s blue eyes focused deep into his, and he thought that she was back from whatever journey she had been on. She said, “I like all red wines. Surprise me.”
Parker got up from his chair, feeling slightly dizzy and thinking to himself…He wanted more from this woman, he just had to give her something in return. He almost didn’t like the feeling; he was being manipulative, and he looked at the cat again before opening the pantry. The cat was still in a ball at Cleo’s feet, but its eyes were closed. He saw its skinny ribs rising up and down.
He got a bottle of Merlot out of the pantry. Missy very much liked Merlot over all the other red wines. She said it was “stronger, more in touch.” Missy always talked more after some Merlot, so that is what he chose. He had the things she had told him ingrained in him, almost as though they had actually happened to him. Like the time she first kissed a boy at fifteen, and how she thought it was like kissing a worm, or the time she told him she loved the way he touched her spine in the morning. They were almost his memories, but he thought she never quite realized the impact her stories had on him.
He took the small glass from Italy out of the sink and washed it. The sound of the water was pleasant to him. He also took a wine glass out of a cabinet. It was one he had taken from a friend in college, a woman named Arlene. Yes, a girlfriend, but he didn’t think about that for more than a second. It was blue, and had carved flowers on the side.
He poured some wine into both glasses, and set them on the table, side to side. He gestured at them.
Cleo reached for the one from Italy. She started sipping, then closed her eyes midway through her sip. She held the glass away from her. She licked her lips and said, “Ah, this is nice. Very nice. For this, I must thank you, reporter.”
He sipped out of the goblet, nodded at her.
She said, “Shall I continue?”
“Please do.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN