T. Boyle - Tooth and Claw

“I’ll press the blood out with a paper towel — here, look,” she said, dabbing at the meat in the bottom of the sink and then lifting it on the end of a fork. I took the fork from her and together we went to the bedroom door.

I don’t know if the cat scented the blood or whether it heard us at the door, but the instant I turned the knob it was there. I counted three, then jerked the door back just enough to get my arm and the dangle of meat into the room even as the cat exploded against the doorframe and the meat vanished. We pulled the door to — Daria’s face was flushed and she seemed to be giggling or gasping for air — and then we took turns watching the thing drag the steak back and forth across the rug as if it still needed killing. By the time it was done, there was blood everywhere, even on the ceiling.

AFTER DARIA LEFT for work I didn’t know what to do with myself. The cat was ominously silent and when I pressed my eye to the peephole I saw that it had dragged its cage into the far corner and was slumped behind it, apparently asleep. I flicked on the TV and sat through the usual idiocy, which was briefly enlivened by a nature show on the Serengeti that gave a cursory glimpse of a cat like mine— The serval lives in rocky kopjes where it keeps a wary eye on its enemies, the lion and hyena, feeding principally on small prey, rabbits, birds, even snakes and lizards , the narrator informed me in a hushed voice — and then I went to the sandwich shop and ordered the Number 7 special, no mayo, and took it down to the beach. It was a clear day, all the haze and particulate matter washed clean of the air by the previous day’s deluge, and I sat there with the sun on my face and watched the waves ride in on top of one another while I ate and considered the altered condition of my life. Daria’s face had gotten serious as she stood at the door, her T-shirt rumpled, her hair pulled back so tightly from her scalp I could make out each individual strand. “Take care of our cat now, okay?” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I get off.” I shrugged in a helpless, submissive way, the pain of her leaving as acute as anything I’d ever felt. “Sure,” I said, and then she reached for my shoulders and pulled me to her for a kiss — on the lips. “You’re sweet,” she said.

So I was sweet. No one had ever called me sweet before, not since childhood anyway, and I have to admit the designation thrilled me, bloomed inside me like the promise of things to come. I began to see her as a prime mover in my life, her naked legs stretched out on the couch, the hair falling across her shoulders at the kitchen table, her lips locked on mine. But as I sat there eating my ham-and-cheese wrap, a conflicting thought came to me: there had to be someone in her life already, a girl that beautiful, working in a bar, and I was deluding myself to think I had a chance with her. She had to have a boyfriend — she could even be engaged, for all I knew. I tried to focus on the previous night, on her hands and fingers — had she been wearing a ring? And if she had, then where was the fiancé, the boyfriend, whoever he was? I hated him already, and I didn’t know if he even existed.

The upshot of all this was that I found myself in the cool subterranean glow of Daggett’s at three-thirty in the afternoon, nursing a Jack-and-Coke like one of the regulars while Daria, the ring finger of her left hand as unencumbered as mine, went round clearing up after the lunch crowd and setting the tables for the dinner rush. Chris came on at five, and he called me by my name and refreshed my drink before he even glanced at the regulars, and for the next hour or so, during the lulls, we conversed about any number of things, beginning with the most obvious — the cat — but veering into sports, music, books and films, and I found myself expanding into a new place altogether. At one point, Daria stopped by to ask if the cat was settling in — Was he still pacing around neurotically or what? — and I could tell her with some assurance that he was asleep. “He’s probably nocturnal,” I said, “or something like that.” And then, with Chris looking on, I couldn’t help adding, “You’re still coming over, right? After work? To help me feed him, I mean.”

She looked to Chris, then let her gaze wander out over the room. “Oh, yeah,” she said, “yeah,” and there was a catch of hesitation in her voice, “I’ll be there.”

I let that hang a moment, but I was insecure and the alcohol was having its effect and I couldn’t leave it alone. “We can drive over together,” I said, “because I didn’t bring my car.”

SHE WAS LOOKING tired by the end of her shift, the bounce gone out of her step, her hair a shade duller under the drab lights, and even as I switched to coffee I noticed Chris slipping her a shot of something down at the end of the bar. I’d had a sandwich around six, and then, so as not to seem overanxious, I’d taken a walk, which brought me into another bar down the street, where I had a Jack-and-Coke and didn’t say a word to anyone, and then I’d returned at eight to drink coffee and watch her and hold her to her promise.

We didn’t say much on the way over to my place. It was only a five-minute drive, and there was a song on we both liked. Plus, it seemed to me that when you were comfortable with someone you could respect the silences. I’d gone to the cash machine earlier and in a hopeful mood stocked up on breakfast things — eggs, English muffins, a quart each of no-fat and two-percent milk, an expensive Chinese tea that came in individual foil packets — and I’d picked up two bottles of a local Chardonnay that was supposed to be really superior, or at least that was what the guy in the liquor department had told me, as well as a bag of corn chips and a jar of salsa. There were two new bathroom towels hanging on the rack beside the medicine cabinet and I’d given the whole place a good vacuuming and left the dishes to soak in a sink of scalding water and the last few molecules of dish soap left in the plastic container I’d brought with me from my aunt’s. The final touch was a pair of clean sheets and a light blanket folded suggestively over the arm of the couch.

Daria didn’t seem to notice — she went straight to the bedroom door and affixed her eye to the peephole. “I can’t see anything,” she said, leaning into the door in her shorts, the muscles of her calves flexing as she went up on her toes. “It’s too bad we didn’t think of a night light or something—”

I was watching her out of the corner of my eye — admiring her, amazed all over again at her presence — while working the corkscrew in the bottle. I asked her if she’d like a glass of wine. “Chardonnay,” I said. “It’s a local one, really superior.”

“I’d love a glass,” she said, turning away from the door and crossing the room to me. I didn’t have wineglasses, so we made do with the milky-looking water glasses my aunt had dug out of a box in her basement. “But I wonder if you could maybe slip your arm in the door and turn on the light in there,” she said. “I’m worried about him. And plus, we’ve got to feed him again, right?”

“Sure,” I said, “yeah, no problem,” but I was in no hurry. I refilled our glasses and broke out the corn chips and salsa, which she seemed happy enough to see. For a long while we stood at the kitchen counter, dipping chips and savoring the wine, and then she went to the refrigerator, extracted a slab of meat, and began patting it down with paper towels. I took her cue, donned the gauntlet, braced myself and jerked the bedroom door open just enough to get my hand in and flick on the light. The cat, which of course had sterling night vision, nearly tore the glove from my arm, and yet the suddenness of the light seemed to confuse it just long enough for me to salvage the situation. The door slammed on a puzzled yowl.