“Things were amazing when Tom and I first met. The March of the Toreadors every night. And things stayed great. The books and talk shows tell you that married couples go from towering inferno to not so hot, and that that’s normal. But it didn’t happen with Tom and me.”
Jagged scallops were appearing along the napkin’s edge.
“Not until a couple of years ago.”
“Are you talking about sex?”
“I’m talking about a major, total downshift. Tom stopped smoldering and began focusing on anything that wasn’t me. I began settling for less and less of him. Last week it struck me. Our paths were barely crossing.”
“Nothing terrible had happened?”
“That’s just it.
Anne gathered the napkin scraps into a tiny mound.
“Life’s too short, Tempe. I don’t want my obituary to read, ‘Here lies a woman who sold houses.’”
“Isn’t it a bit soon to just pull the plug?”
With a sweep of the hand, Anne sent the scraps spiraling to the floor.
“I have aspired to be the perfect wife more than half my life. The result has been deep disappointment. Cut and run. That’s my new philosophy.”
“Have you considered counseling?”
“When hell and the golf courses freeze over.”
“You know Tom loves you.”
“Does he?”
“We meet very few people in this life who truly care.”
“Right you are, darling.” Anne drained her fourth chardonnay with a quick, jerky move, and set the glass onto the mutilated napkin. “And those are the folks who hurt us the most.”
“Annie.” I forced my friend’s eyes to mine. They were a deep, dusky green, the pupils shining with an alcohol buzz. “Are you sure?”
Anne curled the fingers of both hands and placed her forehead on her fists. A hesitation, then her face came back up.
“No.”
The unhappiness in her voice stopped my heart.
During dinner the wind had blustered up for a personal best, and the temperature had dropped in opposition. Negotiating the quarter mile home felt like mushing the Iditarod from Anchorage to Nome.
Gusts moaned up Ste-Catherine, manhandling our clothing and sandblasting our faces with ice and snow. Anne and I ran hunched like soldiers on a bunker charge.
Rounding the corner of my block, I noticed oddly drifted snow against the outer door of my building. Though cold teared my eyes, something about the white mound looked very wrong.
As I blinked my vision into focus, the drift expanded, changed shape, contracted again.
I stopped, frowned. Could it be?
An appendage snaked out, was drawn back.
What the hell was going on?
I dashed across the street and up the outer stairs.
“Birdie!”
My cat raised his chin slightly and rolled his eyes up. Seeing me, he shot forward without seeming to flex a limb. A small cloud puffed from my mouth as my chest caught his catapulted weight.
Birdie clawed upward, laid his chin on my shoulder, and pressed his belly to my jacket. His fur smelled wet. His body shivered from cold or fear.
“What’s he doing out here?” A gust snatched Anne’s question and whipped it up the street.
“I don’t know.”
“Can he let himself out?”
“Someone had to have opened a door.”
“You tight enough with anyone to give out a key?”
“No.”
“So who’s been inside?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, we better find out.”
