True-Life Adventure

face was very solemn. “About Spot.”
    “How do you know about Spot?”
    “You talked about him last night.”
    “Oh, shit.”
    “It was sweet, actually.”
    “I didn’t see him,” I said.
    “Oh.” She waited.
    “I didn’t look for him.”
    “I’ll do it,” she said. “You don’t have to come.”
    “No,” I said. I was confused and embarrassed. She seemed to have grasped the situation, and that confused me. I thought people thought I was tough and hard. But she didn’t. She knew how much I cared about a damned cat and I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone to know, including myself. It was embarrassing. So I didn’t say the right thing.
    “Paul,” she said very gently, “he might be okay.”
    “I didn’t mean no, you shouldn’t look. I meant I’ll go with you. It just didn’t come out right.”
    She stood up and kissed me on the forehead. “My car or yours?”
    “Mine, I think. Driving’ll give me something to do.” It did. At least it kept me from biting off my fingernails. But it failed to fill up the old brainpan. The shock was wearing off and I was starting to wonder about something. The something was how the hell a decently wired, unoccupied house with no glowing embers lurking in its crannies happened to catch fire on a quiet night in a quiet neighborhood like Glen Park. I had a feeling the answer was going to be spectacularly unreassuring.
    Sardis sucked in her breath when she saw the house, but she didn’t say anything. She couldn’t control her face, though. She looked so unhappy that this time I kissed her.
    I kissed her and then I shrugged and let my eyebrows go up. That was my usual mannerism when I was upset and trying not to show it.
    Sardis asked if she should go in alone and I shook my head. I didn’t want to go worth a damn, but I thought I should.
    We got out and marched up to the door and opened it. It felt the way it feels when you first get off the plane in Mexico in the winter— so hot it’s hard to breathe. Funny, I hadn’t even noticed the heat earlier that morning. Sardis gasped, maybe at the heat, maybe at the decor, which was early charcoal briquet. I felt sick again. Neither of us went in.
    “Spot?” said Sardis. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
    Her voice was a little weak, but she sounded almost normal. Here was an ordinary, beautiful, nice lady calling a cat just like any nice lady might, only she was standing in the doorway of a burnt-out shell of a house in which not even a cockroach could survive and the cat wasn’t going to come and it was my cat. Despair hit me like an avalanche.
    “He’s not there,” I said gruffly, sounding not nice at all. I started to step away from Sardis, but she stepped away instead.
    Maybe Sardis was shocked; maybe she even got teary: I didn’t know. Right then I didn’t give two sticks of gum for her or anybody else. What I had to do was protect my ass. Moments like that— when you feel shitty and another person can see it— can get you into the kind of trouble I didn’t want to be in. You might start feeling something for that person and that’s dangerous as hell.
    “I shouldn’t have brought you here,” I said. “Let’s get the hell away.” From the sound of my voice you’d have thought I was talking to somebody trying to mug me.
    I didn’t even look at Sardis. I just turned and walked toward the Toyota. Mrs. Civkulis, damn her, chose that moment to come out and express her sympathy. At least I assumed that was on her mind, and I didn’t need her goddamned sympathy.
    “Mr. Mcdonald,” she chirped. “Oh, Mr. Mcdonald.” She was walking fast and waving her hand at me. The sound of her goddam cheery voice made me want to puke.
    She caught up with me halfway down the walk and put her hands on me. Actually grabbed me by the arm. I shook her off and kept walking, not even looking in her direction. I got in the Toyota and hollered, “Sardis, come on, goddammit!”
    But Sardis didn’t. She went over and talked to Mrs. Civkulis, apologizing for me, no doubt. It made me mad as hell. So I started up the Toyota and drove away. I just left the bitch, that’s all. I figured she could find her own damn way home. I didn’t need her in my life and she could get the fuck out of it.
    I left the bitch, all right, but I didn’t have anywhere to go. That dawned on me after two or three blocks. I started feeling bad again. Another two or three blocks and I felt awful. Also guilty as hell and thoroughly ashamed of