"Do you recall the character of Puck?"
I nodded.
"He's a hobgoblin."
I frowned. "Are you sure?"
An exasperated sigh. She tapped my laptop. "Look it up when you get home." She poured the tea. "Now, about Houdini and Conan Doyle. What do you know?"
We fell into a long, nicely distracting chat about spiritualism.
As I finished my third cup of tea, I said, "Before I go, I have a question for you."
"Ah." A smug smile. "I knew you would eventually."
"Not that kind of question. It's about Gabriel."
Her smile evaporated as she said, carefully, "Yes..."
I leaned forward and lowered my voice. "Is he seeing anyone? 'Cause I think he's totally hot."
"Can't even finish that one with a straight face, can you?"
I choked back my laughter. "Sorry. But the way you were looking at me, that's what you were expecting, and I hate to disappoint."
"Actually, no, it wasn't. I've just learned to dread any sentence that contains the phrase 'question about Gabriel.'"
"Well, don't worry. It's strictly business. Yesterday he suggested I do a media interview. I refused, because I wasn't ready. We got ambushed by a reporter and he helped me through it. I want to say thank you."
"I see."
"While I'm sure what he'd really like is a big check, my budget is limited these days. But he did me a favor, and I'd like to acknowledge it."
"That's very thoughtful of you. And I believe I know just the thing."
She warmed my tea with another half cup and gave me her suggestion.
When I returned to my apartment, I had a visitor waiting at my door. The black cat.
"Sorry, but unless you like toast with peanut butter, there's nothing in there."
It just waited, the tip of its tail flicking, gaze fixed on my door. I opened it. The cat zoomed inside.
As I set up my new laptop, I heard a squeak. Then a crunch. The cat trotted over to me, dead mouse hanging from its mouth.
"Oh, so it wasn't about me at all. Your dinner squeezed under my door."
I walked back to the entry hall and opened the door. The cat didn't follow. I returned to see it crouching in the middle of my kitchen floor, ripping into the mouse, tiny bones crunching.
"Lovely. You'll let me know when you want to leave?"
The cat continued to ignore its host as it chowed down. I shook my head and started working.
Olivia and Eden
Rose watched the cat cleaning itself in the girl's apartment window. She'd seen it around before, sneaking and slinking and killing, as cats were wont to do. So the girl had taken it in? Surprising. She didn't seem the type. No more than Rose herself. Maybe the girl was lonely. She'd noticed that earlier, when she'd offer more tea and the girl would hesitate before sheepishly accepting. Staving off the return to her empty apartment. Rose knew what that was like.
The girl. She shouldn't call her that. She had a name. Two, in fact, which was the problem. Olivia was too haughty. Pretentious. It suited the daughter of the man who owned the Mills & Jones department stores. And it suited the coolly beautiful girl Rose had seen in society page photographs. But it did not suit the young woman who'd been in her house an hour ago. Cool, yes. Self-possessed, yes. But not haughty, not pretentious enough to be an Olivia. An Olivia was all surface, an empty shell of sophistication. With this girl, the shell was a veneer. One that was slowly beginning to crack.