There was another silence and then he said, “An even more peculiar but better thing happened a few years ago. I went to a pet shop in Santa Monica, looking for a cat. They must’ve had twenty or thirty cats there, all kinds. I was looking around and the saleslady pointed to one cat and said, ‘This one really needs help.’
“I looked at the cat, and it looked like it had been put in a washing machine and tumbled. I said, ‘What happened?’ She said, ‘This cat belonged to someone who beat it, so it’s scared of everyone.’
“I looked into the cat’s eyes and then I said, ‘This is the one I’ll take home.’
“So I gathered the cat up and he was terrified and I took him home, put him down in the house, and he ran downstairs and wouldn’t come out of the basement.
“It took me more than a month of going down to the basement and leaving food and cream until finally I lured him out, step by step. And then he became my pal.
“That’s quite a difference in stories, isn’t it?”
“Gosh,” she said. “Yeah.”
The room was dark now and very quiet. The little kitten lay on the pillow between them, and both looked over to see how the cat was doing.
It was sound asleep.
They lay, studying the ceiling.
“I’ve got something to tell you,” she said after a while, “that I’ve put off saying, because it sounds like a special plea.”
“Special plea?” he said.
“Well,” she said, “at home, at this very moment, I have a piece of material I’ve cut and sewn into something for my little cat who died a week ago.”
“What kind of material is that?” he said.
“Well,” she said, “it’s a pair of cat’s pajamas.”
“Oh my God!” He exhaled. “You’ve won. This small beast here is yours.”
“Oh no!” she cried. “That’s not fair.”
“Anyone,” he said, “who makes a pair of pajamas to fit a cat deserves to be the winner of the contest. This guy is yours.”
“I can’t do that,” she said.
“It’s my pleasure,” he said.
They lay for a long while in silence. Finally she said, “You know, you’re not half so bad.”
“Half so bad as what?”
“As what I thought when I first met you.”
“What’s that sound?” he asked.
“I think I’m crying,” she said.
“Let’s sleep for a while,” he said at last.
The moon went down the ceiling.
THE SUN ROSE.
He lay on his side of the bed, smiling.
She lay on her side of the bed, smiling.