“That was irony, honey,” Patsy said. She wiped her plate with a piece of toast, finished her coffee, and burped.
“Very nice,” said Pru.
Patsy laughed. “Prudy Prudy,” she said. She stretched her arms above her head. “I better get some sleep. I’m exhausted.” She stumbled off to the bedroom before Pru could even mention the zoo.
She knew she should feel happy for Patsy, but she didn’t like it, this guy popping up all of a sudden, making claims on her sister and, now, on Annali. Whom he’d never even met! What was the idea, one date, and now a road trip to their family vacation home? And this from Patsy, who never liked anybody, ever?
She went out and got the Sunday New York Times and leafed through it while Patsy slept. She didn’t really like the Times, but she wanted to look at the pictures of the people who were getting married. What was their secret? What did they all know that she didn’t? She thought of that party game where you went through the whole evening trying to figure out who your “partner” was. She couldn’t really remember how it worked, but everyone was paired up at the beginning of the party, and you were supposed to ask questions about all the guests until you found your mate. One time, at a party, Rudy and she had started to play, but Rudy got a tension migraine and they left early.
She examined the photos of brides and grooms closely, to see if there were any clues to be found. How had they known each other? Was it something in the eyes? The forehead? Did everyone already know what it was they were looking for, a shape of earlobe, a smell? What was it? In the pictures, the brides-to-be had had their teeth whitened and their hair done, while the guys looked as if they pretty much wore whatever they’d had on that day. Most of them matched, more or less, in terms of personal attractiveness. If there was an imbalance—her friend Kate referred to it as “couple inequity”—it was the woman who was more attractive than the man, never the other way around.
Otherwise, they all looked different. She had no idea what had attracted them to each other, or how they’d known their partner was someone they could live with for the rest of their lives, and not someone it would be depressing to wake up with a year later. She suspected that nobody ever knew, not really. Still, Patsy had seemed so certain. So certain that it almost bored her to talk about it. Pru wanted to know what that felt like, that surety. She had never “just known.” Never. Not once. It always felt the same—the fizz of attraction, a few fun weeks, then a long, miserableslowing, like a train pulling inexorably into the station at the end of the line, way past the time it should have arrived.
She read the book reviews and the fashion section. She picked up her biography of Churchill, saw that she had only fifty pages left, and put it down again. She would take her sister to the airport, see her to the gate, and watch her plane fly off. Then she would come back to her neat, clean, empty apartment. And then what? The rest of Sunday stretched before her like an endless, dry desert.
WHEN SHE GOT HOME FROM THE AIRPORT, MC KAY WAS sitting on her front steps. Just seeing him sitting there made her happy, and she hurried to meet him. He had a formal and almost stiff way about him sometimes, back erect, hands on knees. Oxo was lying at McKay’s feet, panting. Oxo always panted, in her heavy fur coat. Just lying still, she panted.
“Did you get my message?” McKay said, as Pru bounded up the steps.
“No. What’s going on?”
“Tomorrow is the last day in the shelter for Rudy’s cat. I asked the kid at the counter to let me know, and he just called.”
“McKay, I’m in no shape to take care of a cat. I can barely take care of myself.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said McKay. “I don’t know anyone who’s better at taking care of herself than you. I already told him we were coming. I’ll pick you up in the morning, at nine. Unless you have other plans, of course.”
“What other plans would I have?”
“Well, exactly.”
“McKay,” she said, “I don’t want a cat.”
“But this cat needs a home. And you need something to love.”
She opened the door to her apartment. It felt even emptier without Patsy and her things. She put her keys in the silver bowl she kept near the door. It was so quiet she could hear the electric buzz coming from the clock in the stove. Whenever you opened McKay’s front door, a dog came running to you. Cats didn’t really do that, did they? Cats came over to you in their own time and rubbed up against your leg, purring. Well, maybe that was better, actually. She didn’t really feel comfortable with how quickly a dog fell in love with you.
She started to get ready for bed, and then realized it wasn’t even time for dinner yet. Maybe McKay was right. Maybe she and the cat were meant to find each other. She had to admit, she’d felt for the poor thing, in that miserable cage. Dumped by Rudy, when he’d gotten sick of it. Maybe the cat, too, had lost its job and had gotten too needy.
She made a sudden, uncharacteristic decision: She’d save the cat. She’d give it a good, loving home. How hard could it be? Plus, the scheme held the appeal of trumping Rudy. Rescuing his cat would show the world who was the real decent human being in all of this.
Six
When the kid in the cutoff shorts brought out the carrier cage holding Rudy’s cat, Pru faltered.
The kid was struggling with the cage. Its apparent weight, coupled with the fact that the cat inside
