The Mask

because you know your sauce is going to turn out lumpy, and you simply can’t take the humiliation.”
    “That’s a base canard,” he said, falling easily into their game again. “I make the silkiest fettuccine Alfredo this side of Rome. Silkier than Sophia Loren’s thighs.”
    “All I know is, the last time you made it, the stuff was as lumpy as a bowl of oatmeal.”
    “I thought you said it was as lumpy as a mattress in a ten-dollar-a-night motel.”
    She lifted her head proudly. “I’m not just a one-simile woman, you know.”
    “How well I know.”
    “So are you going to make fettuccine—or will you take the coward’s way out and get killed by lightning?”
    “I’ll make you eat your words,” he said.
    Grinning, she said, “That’s easier than eating your lumpy fettuccine.”
    He laughed. “All right, all right. You win. I can latch the gate in the morning.”
    He returned to the stove, and she went back to the cutting board where she was mincing parsley and scallions for the salad dressing.
    He knew she was probably right about the intruder. Most likely, it had been Jasper, chasing a cat or looking for an Oreo handout. The thing he’d thought he had seen—the slightly twisted, moon-white face of a woman, lightning reflected in her eyes, her mouth curled into a snarl of hatred or rage—had surely been a trick of light and shadow. Still, the incident left him uneasy. He could not entirely regain the warm, cozy feeling he’d had just before he’d looked out the window.
     
    Grace Mitowski filled the yellow plastic bowl with Meow Mix and put it in the corner by the kitchen door.
    “Kitty-kitty-kitty.”
    Aristophanes didn’t respond.
    The kitchen wasn’t Ari’s favorite place in the house, for it was the only room in which he was not permitted to climb wherever he wished. He wasn’t actually much of a climber anyway. He lacked the spirit of adventure that many cats had, and he usually stayed on the floor. However, even though he had no burning desire to scamper up on the kitchen counters, he didn’t want anyone telling him he couldn’t do it.
    Like most cats, he resisted discipline and despised all rules. Nevertheless, as little as he liked the kitchen, he never failed to put in an appearance at mealtime. In fact, he was often waiting impatiently by his bowl when Grace came to fill it.
    She raised her voice. “Kitty-kitty-kitty.”
    There was no answering meow. Aristophanes did not, as expected, come running, his tail curled up slightly, eager for his dinner.
    “Ari-Ari-Ari! Soup’s on, you silly cat.”
    She put away the box of cat food and washed her hands at the sink.
    Thunk, thunk-thunk!
    The hammering sound—one hard blow followed by two equally hard blows struck close together—was so sudden and loud that Grace jerked in surprise and almost dropped the small towel on which she was drying her hands. The noise had come from the front of the house. She waited a moment, and there was only the sound of the wind and falling rain, and then— Thunk! Thunk!
    She hung the towel on the rack and stepped into the downstairs hallway.
    Thunk-thunk-thunk!
    She walked hesitantly down the hall to the front door and snapped on the porch light. The door had a peephole, and the fish-eye lens provided a wide view. She couldn’t see anyone; the porch appeared to be deserted.
    THUNK!
    That blow was delivered with such force that Grace thought the door had been torn from its hinges. There was a splintering sound as she jumped back, and she expected to see chunks of wood exploding into the hall. But the door still hung firmly in place, though it vibrated noisily in its frame; the deadbolt rattled against the lock plate.
    THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!
    “Stop that!” she shouted. “Who are you? Who’s there?”
    The pounding stopped, and she thought she heard adolescent laughter.
    She had been on the verge of either calling the police or going for the pistol she kept in her nightstand, but when she heard the laughter, she changed her mind. She could certainly handle a few kids without help. She wasn’t so old and weak and fragile that she needed to call the cops to deal with a bunch of ornery little pranksters.
    Cautiously, she drew aside the curtain on the long, narrow window beside the door. Tense, ready to step away quickly if someone made a threatening move toward the glass, she looked out. There was no one on the porch.
    She heard the laughter again. It was high-pitched, musical, girlish.
    Letting the curtain fall back into place, she turned to the