by Clea Simon
‘Mrup?’ With a thud that belied her small size, the cat landed on the foot of the bed. Dulcie looked up, grateful for the interruption.
‘Did the storm wake you, too, Esmé?’ She paused to listen. The first real thunder of the season boomed on, and Dulcie saw a flash of lightning illuminating the sky.
Outside, the wind was dying down. ‘I think it’s over,’ she said to Esmé.
‘Mrup.’ The tuxedo cat seemed to agree and began to knead the blanket on Chris’s side of the bed.
‘Want to come up here?’ Dulcie patted the pillow. Now that the storm had moved on, the breeze coming in was chilly. Dulcie tucked her feet up under her, which was easier than getting up to close the window. ‘Esmé?’ Her boyfriend wouldn’t be home till near dawn, and on a night like this, she could use the company.
The cat ignored her, to continue working the soft mound of blanket into something that was conceivably somehow softer and more appropriate for her plump body. Then she collapsed rather gracelessly, with only the black back of her head turned toward Dulcie.
‘Well, thanks for showing up.’ Dulcie leaned back on her own pillow. At times like this, she couldn’t help thinking of Mr Grey. Even as a living cat, the large grey had been more responsive. For months after he had died, she had slept with one arm outstretched, trained by all the nights when he had come to sleep in the crook of her arm. And since his mortal demise, he had rarely appeared without commenting. True, Dulcie often found his comments confusing. A ghost cat could be even more enigmatic and insular than a living feline. But at least he responded to her and didn’t turn his back on her like . . . like . . . this kitten did. It was like the flip side of living with Chris. He loved her, she knew he did, and she loved him. Only, it was hard to wake up from a nightmare and not have him here. Hard to only have this cat.
‘Now, now, Dulcie.’
She was imagining it, she knew that. Her spectral friend was not in this room with her. He would certainly not appear to mediate between her and Esmé, or between herself and Chris. Especially not – she turned on to her side – when he had most recently preferred talking to Chris than to her. Facing away from her boyfriend’s pillow wasn’t the revenge she had wanted though, and instead she flipped back, punching her own pillow a bit aggressively to fluff it up. Somehow, the room had grown warm again.
‘Now, now.’
She knew that she was acting out of a fit of pique, and she knew what Mr Grey would say to that. She could almost feel the prick of claws ever so slightly unsheathed, the edge in his usually warm tone: there was a lesson here. Something for her to take away about sharing, about growing. About love. But sometimes she didn’t want a lesson. She shifted again, the bed somehow simultaneously too big and too hard to be comfortable. Sometimes she just wanted to be held.
At her feet, the kitten stirred and looked up. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered as those green eyes blinked and the white part of the nose once more sank down in sleep. ‘I know. I should be happy you’re here.’
The little cat did look very peaceful. And if she kept her distance, really, whose fault was that? More often than not, their interactions took the form of Dulcie disciplining the young cat. She should be grateful Esmé slept with her at all. Dulcie shifted, kicking at the cover. It had become a warm night again. Humid. And lonely.
‘Come here, kitten.’ Dulcie reached down to the kitten, lifting her to the top of the bed. ‘We can have some good times together, can’t we? You can be comfy here, can’t you?’
For a moment, she regretted the move. The little cat had been disturbed and now stood, stretching and looking around, as if it were she who had been awakened by a dream.
‘Please?’ Dulcie began stroking the smooth black back as the cat sat and then settled into a Sphinx pose. ‘Esmé?’ She tried for even strokes, aiming to relax the cat and ease her toward sleep. The effect was hypnotic for her too, the soft warm body slowly beginning to vibrate and to purr. Dulcie had an image of the sea, calmed, the night-colored swells heaving slowly and gently as a ship moved onward. Moving toward where, she wasn’t sure, and for a few seconds she remembered the fear, the dread. The voyage had happened, though. The ship had met its fate, for good or ill, and now the night was still.
Dulcie lowered her own head to the pillow as Esmé’s eyes closed, and soon only her fingertips were moving, brushing against the few white guard-hairs that stood out against Esmé’s dark back. Soon the fingers were still, leaning slightly against the black fur that heaved softly up and down. Dulcie’s own breath barely moved that fur, and neither of them noticed when a shadow landed noiselessly beside them, curling up on the empty pillow to watch until the morning light.
NINETEEN
Despite the late night interruptions, Dulcie slept soundly, only coming awake to hear the ringing of her phone on the nightstand. Sitting up, she found herself once more alone. Chris – she checked the bedside clock – wouldn’t be home for another hour yet. And Esmé had removed herself to the window sill, where she peered out at the world like a voyager hoping to spot a distant shore.
‘What?’ The phone was still ringing, and Dulcie reached for it. Unless – she roused herself – maybe she should let it go to voicemail. No; she checked the number. Tris’s home line, not the cops – and not some strange restricted caller. So maybe something had happened to her friend’s cell. Dulcie flicked the phone on, trying to remember the last time her buddy had called from the apartment she and Jerry shared.
‘So, what happened?’ She propped herself up on the pillow and waited. Finally, she’d get to hear whatever it was her friend had meant to tell her yesterday – as well as an explanation for why she’d failed to show. Trista could spin a tale out, but that would be OK if she at least had a good explanation. ‘Don’t tell me you got lost.’
‘What do you mean, what happened?’ Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t the voice on the other end. Male, and decidedly worried. ‘Dulcie, do you know something?’
‘Jerry!’ Dulcie sat up and tucked the sheet around her. ‘I thought you were going to be Trista.’
‘I was hoping she was with you.’ A thud interrupted her. Esmé had jumped to the ground. Jerry kept on talking. ‘She’s not?’
‘No, but it’s early, right?’ Dulcie reached for her clock. ‘I was just getting up.’
‘I’m sorry. I know it’s early. It’s just – Trista didn’t come home last night.’
Dulcie took a deep breath. That did sound serious, but not necessarily in the way Jerry meant. Trista and Jerry had had problems earlier in the spring, and Trista had gone on a few dates with different men. She loved them both, but if her friends were going through another rough romantic patch, she didn’t want to get in the middle of it. Still, there was a note in Jerry’s voice that she didn’t recognize. Nerves, or—
‘I’m really scared. She didn’t call. Do you know where she is? What –’ he swallowed, loudly enough for her to hear – ‘happened?’
Dulcie shook her head, then remembered that he couldn’t see her. ‘You didn’t, I don’t know, have a fight or anything?’
‘No, nothing like that.’ The prevailing note in his voice was sadness now, and she felt bad for asking. ‘We’ve been good, Dulcie. That’s why I’m nervous. And, well, it sounds like she stood you up?’
‘Not exactly.’ Dulcie tucked her knees up and tried to reconstruct the events of the previous day. ‘I saw her at the department meeting yesterday, in the morning. That was, well, that was crazy. There’s a lot going on.’ She paused. Did Jerry know about the police visit? She cast about for a polite way to bring it up.
‘Did she tell you anything about our Roland Galveston?’ she said, finally settling on a safe middle ground. ‘He’s this guy in our department.’
She heard Jerry sigh and realized what this must sound like to him. ‘He was – they are friends, Jerry. Just friends.’ She hoped she was telling the truth. ‘But something is going on. He’s gone missing, and he might be involved with, well, with
something else that has gone missing – a rare book from the Widener special collections.’
The disappearance of the Dunster Codex might not be general news yet, but Dulcie didn’t want to explain. Besides, Jerry didn’t care about the Dunster Codex. He cared about Trista. ‘We had a big meeting about it, yesterday morning. Everyone in the department. But even before then, Trista had wanted to talk. We were going to get coffee after the meeting, but she said she had to do something first. And then she never showed up.’
‘I know you two were going for coffee. She texted me, like, around eleven.’ Dulcie relaxed a little. At least her two friends had been communicating. ‘She had this crazy day planned and was telling me she might not make it home for dinner. So I didn’t worry. Not at first. I even went out to the computer lab for a while around midnight. By the time I got home, it was almost four. There was this huge thunderstorm happening, but the bedroom door was closed, so I figured she’d managed to sleep through it, and I went to sleep on the sofa.’
Dulcie bit her lip. She would hate it if Chris came home and didn’t come up to bed. She hated it when he didn’t come home. Then again, when he didn’t come home, she knew he was at the computer lab. And, she reminded herself, different couples have different rules.
‘Maybe she got up early? Didn’t want to wake you?’ Dulcie heard the question in her own voice. Trista was not a morning person.
Jerry knew it too. ‘Trista? No way. Besides, she wouldn’t have. She always wakes me up. We have breakfast together.’ That detail made Dulcie smile, but it proved the last straw for Jerry. Dulcie heard him sob as he choked out the words: ‘She didn’t come home last night. And I haven’t heard from her. I can’t reach her. Dulcie, she’s disappeared.’
TWENTY
Dulcie did her best to calm Jerry down, but it was next to impossible to do over the phone. Yes, he knew Trista was defending her thesis next week. How could he not? But he’d called everywhere before trying Dulcie. She wasn’t holed up cramming. She was gone – and Jerry’s nerves were fraying. Dulcie was worried too, though she had a better sense of Trista’s ability to take care of herself.
With a few quick calculations, Dulcie mapped out her day. Classes had ended for the semester, so she had no ten o’clock appointment. She didn’t even have office hours, she thought with a twinge of guilt. She’d been thinking that today she’d finish reading that essay, maybe track down enough proof to start writing the next chapter. But friends came first. Besides, even though she’d dodged Chris’s questions, she wanted to talk to Trista about that ticket. It had gotten to the science library somehow, and that was most likely related to her friend. Not that she’d bring that up to Jerry; he sounded too upset. Her stomach rumbled, and she suggested meeting for breakfast, at least to plan what to do next.
‘I don’t know. Maybe I should stay here.’ She heard the edge in his voice and decided that was the last thing he needed. Food and caffeine wouldn’t solve his problems – not unless Trista walked in while he was refueling – but staying in their tiny walk-up wasn’t healthy for anyone. Besides, some things were better discussed in person.
‘No, you should get out. Get some air.’ She thought quickly. ‘Look, leave a note for her someplace obvious. You know she’s always losing her phone. And make sure your phone is on. We’ll figure this out.’
She sounded more optimistic than she felt, and she looked longingly back at the bed once she had gotten up. Chris would be home soon. She hadn’t been in the best mood last night, and his teasing hadn’t helped. In the light of morning, however, some of his questions had been valid. He’d be wiped out when he came home, ready for sleep. Still, she’d have liked to bounce all this by him. Even the cat had absented herself, and so she showered and dressed and tried to put her own concerns away.
‘Esmé, there you are!’ As she reached for her sweater, the round cat appeared, rubbing against the closet door. ‘You probably want some breakfast, too.’
The little cat sniffed delicately at the dish, but then sat down and looked at Dulcie.
‘What? Wrong flavor?’ Those green eyes could be a little unnerving, and Dulcie tried to make light of her unease. ‘You want some coffee?’
The cat stared at her without blinking.
‘OK, not that.’ She bit her lip. Lucy, she knew, would tell her to listen to Esmé. She’d say that the little creature was a messenger, or that she was carrying portents or something. As much as Dulcie tried to distance herself from her mother’s mishegas, right now she wondered if there might be something in it.
She sat on the kitchen floor and faced the small cat. ‘What is it, Esmé? Tell me, please.’
The cat blinked once.
‘Esmé, I know you can speak. I’ve heard you.’ She looked around. No sign of her boyfriend. ‘We both have. And the way you’re looking at me, well, I feel there’s something going on. Something besides a mouse.’ She shivered at the thought and tried to dismiss it. ‘Something important.’
If any of her friends could see her right now, they’d think she’d lost it. Any of them but Chris. Then again, Chris didn’t need to plead with the kitten. Chris, by his own account, was getting regular updates from Mr Grey.
Esmé turned toward the table, and Dulcie’s heart leaped. Was it Mr Grey? Her former pet might be both enigmatic and elusive, but he’d always come through when she needed him. Maybe Esmé needed him, too. Needed him to translate, at least. She turned toward the table, too. But all she saw was her bag, which she’d dropped there while reaching for her sweater, and some crumbs, highlighted in the morning light. No grey cat; not even the shadow of one.
She turned back to the little cat, just in time to see Esmé stand and walk over to the table. With one neat leap, she made it to the surface, where she sat in the middle of the pile of crumbs and began to wash.
‘Great.’ Dulcie hauled herself, a little more laboriously, to her feet. ‘Was that all to alert me to my lack of housekeeping skills?’
The cat didn’t comment, as she was now involved in washing her white belly fur, and so Dulcie reached for her bag. ‘Thanks a lot, Esmé.’
Feeling a little disappointed, and a little silly for letting herself get let down, she reached to pet the cat. Esmé looked up from her toilette, and for a moment, Dulcie felt it again. That piercing stare – the cat had to be trying to tell her something. She paused. At this rate, she was going to be late. Whatever it was would have to wait till later. Shouldering her bag and buttoning the first two buttons of the oversized sweater, Dulcie braced herself to meet Jerry and the day.
Chris’s apartment – Dulcie still thought of it that way – was on the fourth floor of an old brick building, and the carpet on the wide front stairway was permanently stained. But even though its color had changed from some industrial solid to a messy incoherent plaid over the years, it did serve to muffle the sound as Dulcie clattered down to the sidewalk. Still, the dull thud of her feet was enough to rouse someone, who ducked out of the building as she descended, and then stepped into the alley as Dulcie pushed open the glass front-door.
She looked up as she did to see that, sure enough, Esmé had abandoned her bath for a post at the kitchen window. She waved at the little cat, the white chin and neat bib clearly visible from the sidewalk, and told herself the cat nodded in response. The idea of someone looking out for her was cheering as she headed off to meet Jerry.
But as she turned toward the Square, the cat continued to stare at the sidewalk out front. She watched as a figure stepped out from the side of the building on to the sidewalk. She mewed, helpless, as the figure watched Dulcie walk away, her curls bouncing against the collar of her oatmeal-colored sweater.
‘I tried to warn her. I did my best.’ The words whispered through the empty apartment as the little cat watched her person disappear down the street. ‘I can’t just say anything out loud. Not and be her pet.’
‘I know, little one,’ another voice answered. ‘I know.’
TWENTY-ONE
/> Jerry looked half frantic by the time Dulcie saw him, huddled over a corner table at the Greenhouse. His phone in hand, the skinny redhead was staring at it as if the technology had somehow outwitted him. Disappointed him, she mentally revised her thoughts. It had, of course. Neither of them had heard from Trista. Then again, she thought, at least the police had not called her back. Which simply meant she could focus on helping her two friends.
‘Hey.’ She greeted her friend with a hug. Under his T-shirt, he felt like skin and bones. ‘No word?’
He shook his head, confirming what she already knew. The waitress appeared with a coffee pot, turned over her cup and filled it. That’s what she loved about the Greenhouse. Nobody here would try to make conversation before they’d given you coffee.
‘Jerry, did you order?’
He shook his head, and she bit her lip. He was always on the slim side, but worry was taking its toll. ‘I think you should eat. At least try to.’ She looked up at the waiting server. ‘Feta and spinach omelet, please. With hash browns.’
The waitress turned toward Jerry. Dulcie did, too, silently willing him to order. ‘I’ll take a bagel,’ he said, finally. She wasn’t optimistic about him eating it.
Dulcie sipped her coffee and considered her next move. She didn’t want to upset Jerry any more, but it was pretty clear he didn’t know what was going on. She didn’t either, really, but she knew about Trista’s visit from the police – and her friend’s conviction that she was wanted for murder. She was going to have to tell him about that, and about Suze’s take that Trista had blown the whole thing out of proportion. That she’d had a little breakdown – brain freeze – that would blow over. Maybe he’d have some insight; maybe he’d been worrying about Trista, too. At any rate, it would all be better in person than over the phone, and if she could get him to eat something first, that would be better still.