Secret Sister (16 page)

Chapter 15

Friday, July 29, Noon       

Cathy Watches Her House

I closed my compact and ducked low in the front seat of the rental car when a beat-up Volkswagen Beetle with a ‘For Sale’ sign stuck in the back window pulled into the driveway at my house. Zoë got out of the car and headed for the front door without looking across the street and seeing me. She had the cat carrier and her backpack with her. I could see Pitty’s face smashed up against the door of the carrier, and heard her plaintive yowling.

The Beetle drove off, a young man I had never seen before at the wheel. His head was shaved and he wore a button-down shirt and tie. Maybe a boyfriend? I had to wonder, feeling a rush of hope. Zoë had never had a real boyfriend, and this might be a sign she was warming up to people her age.

I sighed and continued waiting for Nick to show. I had to see him, just for a few minutes. I had not heard from Seth yet, but even if he persuaded Nick to come in, I still needed to get my husband to look at me with something other than the contempt he had on his face at Simone’s.

My excuse for coming to the house was going to be that I wanted to give him the turquoise earring. I hoped he still had the other one. I loved those earrings. They were my most favorite items of jewelry, next to my wedding band, which I also hoped he still had.

I wanted it back, and prayed he hadn’t chucked it into the Pacific Ocean, or something crazy like that.

Zoë stood at the front door struggling with a key. She must have had to bring the cat to the vet.
What’s wrong with Pittypat?
I tried not to fret. Zoë disappeared inside and I glanced at the watch I’d bought myself earlier today.

Feeling spooked about wearing Roxanne’s things, I’d spent an hour this morning buying underwear, clothes, a purse and a couple of outfits. At least now I wore stuff that didn’t have someone else’s history imprinted on them, clothes that looked like me,
Cathy
, even if the body inside them looked like anything but me.

I tightened the leather watchstrap and glanced again at the time. Twelve thirty-six. Bradley mentioned Zoë told him Nick was going to be off today. Where was he? Could he be inside?

If he was inside the house, where was our car? I’d been sitting here for over an hour, calling, but no one had answered. Of course, Nick didn’t always answer the house phone, I knew from experience. Maybe he was sick.

As my pulse rate climbed, I pawed through the stuff in my purse and pulled out the cell again. I punched in the number to our house and waited. Twice. Three times. Four times. The call went to the answering machine, which still featured my voice, cheerfully instructing callers to leave a message at the tone.

Why didn’t Zoë pick up? I glanced at the house again. Nick probably shut off the ringer and Zoë didn’t know someone was calling. I couldn’t contain a nervous chuckle. That crazy husband of mine; we’d fought about his aversion to phones a million times.
Soon as I’m gone, he reverts to his old ways.

I wasn’t known for being patient, as Seth had told me to be. Not only impatient, but right now I actually felt akin to a stalker, so urgent was my need to spend a few moments in Nick’s physical presence. I only wanted to see him again, and will him to look me in the eye.

And hope he wouldn’t think I was trying to con him, the way I would think if Michael Cimino was pitching this tale to me.

I pinched the skin on the top of my hand and struggled to relax. I closed my eyes and felt myself drifting off.

“Hey!” someone yelled outside, and then rapped on the window. My eyes flew open and my heart thudded in my chest. Zoë stood next to the car, arms crossed, a scowl on her face.

I hit the button on the window, which of course did not respond because the car was off. “Hi!” I motioned for her to move back so I could open the door.

Zoë took a couple of steps back and I joined her. In the heat, the scent of honeysuckle from the walkway by my house wafted to us.

“Hey, Zoë. How are you?” I was unable to suppress a grin.

“What are you doing here, Roxanne?” Her eyes looked anxious.

I stopped smiling. “I, I wanted to try and catch up with Nick. I have an earring he asked me about at Simone’s the other night that I wanted to give back. And maybe talk a little. I didn’t get the chance to say anything I really wanted to him. Or to you the other day at school.”

“Are you saying you remember stuff now? Like where Nick lives?”

“Yes, I do. I remember a lot of things. I remember it was your eighteenth birthday the other night, and my showing up probably ruined it. I’m sorry. And Happy Birthday, Zoë.” I thought of the poster hidden in my bedroom closet and hoped Nick remembered to give it to her. I squeezed her arm.

She flinched. “I’ll give Nick the earring. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to talk to him right now.” She held out her hand.

I dug into the pocket of my jeans and then hesitated. “Can I talk to you for a few minutes? Inside?”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Nick. And the accident.”

She blinked. To my ears, my tone sounded way too much like the pushy, ‘big sister’ attitude I always took with her. I told myself not to scare the wits out of the kid, but I couldn’t play it cool. I was in front of my house, and I ached to go inside. “Please. I’ll leave before Nick gets home, if you think that’s best.”

“I don’t know when he’s getting home,” she replied. “I don’t even know where he is.”

“What?”

Zoë chewed her bottom lip and glanced around the tree-lined street. “He was gone this morning, early. I didn’t go to work because I was worried about the cat, so I took it to the vet. He was supposed to be home. He said he was taking off to work in the yard. But he’s not answering his cell.”

“Has your mom talked to him?” Panic hummed through my veins. “Did you call work and make sure he didn’t go in?”

“Yeah, I called work. He’s not there. And my mom hasn’t heard from him.”

We both knew this wasn’t like Nick. Since our marriage, he was very responsible about letting me know where he was and when he’d be home. “He didn’t leave his cell home, did he?”

“I checked his room. It’s not there.”

“You didn’t worry that he wasn’t home when you got up this morning?” My voice rose.

“No.”

“And you don’t know when he left?”

“No.” Zoë’s eyes teared up. “And I need to talk to him about the cat. The vet said she’s real sick.” Her voice broke.

I pulled the child to me. “Hey, don’t cry. What’s wrong with Pittypat?”

“She’s got some kind of growth on her hip. It might be a tumor.”

“God, what’s Dr. Erlich going to do about it? Can they operate?”

“I don’t know. He said I have to talk to Nick because the x-rays and stuff would cost about five hundred bucks. I told him I would pay it, but he said I’d better clear it with Nick. Erlich said Pitty is so old, she might not even make it if they operated on her.”

Now I felt like crying. “I’m sure when you tell Nick, he’ll pay whatever it takes, Zoë. He’ll probably want to get a second opinion, though. Preferably from a vet who is more up to date on things than Dr. Erlich. I think he went to vet school in the 1940s. Come on, don’t worry. Pitty’s a tough old cat, she’ll come out of this.”

Zoë took a rattling breath and started back across the street. “Come on in, if you want. I need to check the phone messages, anyway. Maybe Nick called.”

I grabbed my purse out of the car and followed Zoë. She held the front door of my house open for me, as if I was a guest, and I stepped inside. For several moments, I stood silently and looked around at my home. It felt like years—and yet, only minutes—since I’d stood here.

It was almost too dear and familiar to bear. As I exhaled, my eyes stung with tears, but I blinked them away and took inventory of the living room.

The nice, big comfy sofa covered in the blue and tan batik print Nick hadn’t liked at first but had finally agreed to use. My desk, the only furniture I owned that was my mom’s. Next to it, Nick’s stereo cabinet, full of his music, heavy on Stevie Ray Vaughan and Seventies and Eighties rock and roll. Most he bought when he worked as a disc jockey, his favorite of all his jobs.

The faded oriental carpet we’d bought at a garage sale in Alta Dena covered the wood floor and looked freshly vacuumed. On the wall above the fireplace were movie posters Nick had framed for me from some of my favorite movies:
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
,
Ryan’s Daughter
, and
Double Indemnity
, the one with Stanwyck and MacMurray.

I pictured the poster from
Casablanca
in the powder room, and the set of lobby cards from the Steve McQueen version of
The Thomas Crown Affair
in our bedroom. I loved old movies. After my mom died, I spent every Saturday at the dollar movie theatre that showed stuff from thirty years ago. With two screens, I snuck from one theatre to the next, losing myself in the triumphs and tragedies that seemed so much more bearable than my own.

I inhaled the scents of the cinnamon potpourri in the hallway, the lemon trees outside the open windows, the rose bushes we planted along the side of the house last summer. If happy was a scent, it would smell like this.

“You okay, Roxanne?” Zoë shut the door and walked a few paces into the room, her arms hugging herself as she studied me.

“Yes, fine.” I sat by my desk, my knees shaking. “Go ahead into the kitchen and check the messages. I’ll wait here, if that’s okay.”

Zoë looked like she was worried I might steal something. “I’ll be right back.”

Alone in the room, I ran my hand over the top of my beloved desk, an antique, walnut burl secretary, glossy with wax. It held framed pictures of Nick and me, taken over the years, now on display inside the glass doors above the writing surface. I picked up a framed print of us from high school, our arms wrapped around each other and huge grins on our faces. The summer we’d become lovers, right after junior year.

“Yeow.” A gravelly voice from the floor announced the very pissed-off presence of the cat. I tapped the door of the cat carrier. “Hey, Miss Pitty, what’s going on? You want to get out of there?”

The cat let out a yowl that would have been right at home in a horror movie. She butted her head against the door and purred. My eyes filled again. I missed that furry body against me. I undid the broken lock Nick had jury-rigged with a piece of bungee cord, and freed my old buddy.

Pitty rubbed my legs and yammered away. I picked her up and squeezed her gently, my tears falling on her fur. She licked my hand. “Hey there, baby, did you go to the vet? Did you bite the old bastard like usual?”

We snuggled and I felt gently along her flanks and found the swollen area over her right leg.

Pitty struggled but settled in my lap. She smelled a bit, as if she’d wet in her cage, but I was so overcome with the fuzzy, warm reality of my cat, my house and my amazement at being alive and restored to
my life,
that I didn’t care. I cooed and cuddled and kissed her again.

I looked up and found Zoë staring at me. She stood frozen in the doorway, her skin paler than usual and her dark eyes full of anger.

“I can’t believe Pitty let you pick her up. She doesn’t let anyone pick her up, except Cathy.” Zoë walked slowly into the room.

“Oh, she lets me hug her now and then.” My voice was tight. “Did Nick leave a message?”

“How’d you know it was my eighteenth birthday on Wednesday?” Zoë asked.

“I remember when your birthday is. I told you I got some of my memory back. I’ve known you since you were a little kid, remember?”

“And you
remembered
I was eighteen this year?”

“Cathy told me.”

“And she told you the vet’s name? Why? You don’t have any pets. Cathy said you hate cats.”

I blinked. “I don’t hate cats. Especially your cat.” Pitty jumped down and I brushed off my jeans. “Did you hear from Nick? Did you try calling his cell or texting him?”

“He’s still not answering. And I thought you were allergic to animals, Roxanne.” Zoë’s eyes moved over my face like a laser. She focused on my hair, which I’d pulled back into a braid. “Since when do you wear your hair like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like Cathy does,” Zoë replied forcefully. “Why are you wearing your hair like Cathy? And what’s with your clothes? I’ve never seen you wear jeans and smocked peasant blouses. That one looks exactly like a blouse hanging in Cathy’s closet!” Zoë moved away from me. “What the hell are you, some kind of freak? Are you trying
to remind people of Cathy? Are you trying to torture Nick?”

Her accusations stunned me. She was right, and so wrong, all at once. “Look Zoë, I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Nick or you or anyone.”

“Yeah, right,” she said. “‘
I wish I were you, Lupeyloo.’
Isn’t that what this little routine is all about? You were always jealous of Cathy, and the fact she had so many people who loved her. But this impersonation shit is sick.”

“What?” I was desperate to calm her down, but I couldn’t just whack her with the truth. “Now, wait. I need you to listen to me—”

“I think I’ve listened enough,” Zoë interrupted. “I’ve heard all about that ‘Secret Sister’ pact you and Cathy had when you were kids. But this is mean, Roxanne. Evil! Cathy’s gone. You can’t replace her. You’re nothing like her at all.”

The ironic misdirection of my sister-in-law’s reasoning knocked me mute. Before any logical explanation came to my mind, the doorbell rang, followed immediately by two loud knocks. Zoë continued to glare at me as she crossed the foyer.

She opened the door and I heard the rumble of a male voice.

“Yes, this is Nick Chance’s residence,” she said.

The man spoke again but I couldn’t make out the words.

“What? What hospital?” Zoë demanded.