Rebecca Schwartz 05 - Other People's Skeletons

to be mad.”
    “Yes, but she’s volatile. That’s what’s scary about her. Remind me to ask Chris if she could possibly know her.”
    “At least we finally met someone who says she slept with him.”
    “Oh, Sarah does, too. I wonder if she’s got a baby.” But Sarah had neither baby, dog, nor hamster. She had cats— a round, unmoving calico who could have been the model for T.S. Eliot’s Gumby cat, a lithe, quick gray shadow with a whiplike tail, and a pathetic black kitten who reminded me a lot of my first impression of Hilary. I wondered if he had as dark a side as she did.
    We’d come unannounced, catching Sarah in the middle of broiling a steak, but she turned it off, said she’d eat later, she was glad to see us, and would we like a drink. Following Rob’s rule of thumb, I asked for white wine, he had a gin and tonic, and Sarah went for bourbon and water.
    She told us about the cats, one especially. Their names were Melanie, Scarlett, and Jason, the little black one named for Sarah’s lost love. She had found him trying to cross the street on Thursday, the day she heard the news of Jason’s death, and she had brought him home, feeling superstitious somehow: “I mean, I know he can’t really be Jason, even if you believe in reincarnation— there wouldn’t have been enough time. But it was like he was sent, because Jason wasn’t there anymore, to comfort me or something, I don’t know. Does that make sense?”
    It didn’t, but we pretended.
    “I couldn’t just leave him there, out in the cold.” I didn’t remind her it was August. “He’s such a sweet’ums, aren’t you, puss-pot?” The kitten turned tail and ran— right for me. It leapt into my lap, lay down delightedly, and started to purr. Well, I’d wanted more kittens in my life.
    “The only thing is, Melanie hates him. I think she might kill him. He really likes you, though. You wouldn’t be able to—”
    “I have fish.” But I was beginning to question the wisdom of choosing pets you could only look at over those that lay in your lap and purred. “Sarah, you were saying the other night that you and Jason had been lovers.”
    Tears welled in her eyes. “Uh-huh.”
    “We were hoping you could tell us a little about what he was like. We’re having trouble finding people who were really close to him.”
    “We were so close it was almost scary.” She took a long pull of the bourbon.
    “But I thought you didn’t know his family. His sister, I mean.”
    “It wasn’t that kind of close. It was something spiritual, something you couldn’t really name. Just a way of feeling that made all the rest of that stuff unimportant.”
    “Oh.” I tried to remember what she’d said before. “I thought you said you two weren’t dating anymore.”
    “We weren’t. I wasn’t… I don’t think I was enough , you know, enough of anything for Jason. I wasn’t smart enough, I wasn’t pretty enough. I’m just grateful I could be close to him for a little while.” She drained her glass and went to make herself another drink.
    Rob rolled his eyes at me, but I tried not to look at him. I was feeling far too sorry for Sarah to play games behind her back.
    “How did you two meet?” I called out the question while she rattled ice cubes.
    She came back, her step light, smiling at the memory— and no doubt at the zing of bourbon in her bloodstream. “It was so romantic. It was the most romantic thing you can imagine. I work over at Books ’n’ Stuff, you know? It’s a great, great job. I get to meet all these really famous people, like wonderful authors, but usually they’re all from out of town. They come in and sign their books and leave. I used to dream that I’d meet somebody who wouldn’t even care that we don’t live in the same town, he’d just take me away with him. And then this local publisher collected a bunch of essays and things from newspapers, and two of Jason’s articles were included. It was such a little book we didn’t even have a signing. I mean how would we, anyway?— there were a million authors.
    “So one day this really cute guy came in, and he was real shy and everything. He found the book and brought it up to me, real shy. He found a page with one of his articles on it, and he said, ‘Could I show you something? This is me.’ He sort of turned red about that time and he said, ‘Would you like me to sign your stock or anything?’ I just thought he was adorable.”
    She got up to get