Watching it lap milk from a saucer, Mary wondered if it could become the station cat. Clement Foy, the chief announcer, would have to give his permission. She had done Clem a favor by working tonight, allowing him to play a gig at The Cedars with his dance-band. They could set up a litterbox in the newsroom. Plates of food and milk could be left in a corner. The cat would probably enjoy being fussed over by the staff.
“Were you abandoned?” Mary asked as the kitten finished feeding and began to explore the apartment, looking for a hiding place. Observing its brave helplessness, Mary experienced a protective urge. Be careful, she warned herself. You just finished with a lame duck up north. A clear image of Tim Melton’s handsome, drunken face surfaced in her mind. He was one reason she had left the radio station in Pitfall and moved down here to CBAY. But not the only reason. Her aim was eventually to land a job at one of the big stations in Montreal. Baytown was a step closer.
Mary woke early. The kitten was on the bed. Playing with it and then feeding it was more than satisfying. Her emotional deadline for getting rid of it, she figured, was probably sundown of that day.
Shopping at the market on Front Street, she found herself picking up tins of special food for kittens. And a litter tray and a sack of litter. Interesting implements hung on hooks — flea combs, brushes, flea collars, catnip toys. A trip to the vet for a round of shots would soon be on. Followed, eventually, by the neutering operation. Money going out, diversion of energy and concentration — Tim Melton all over again. Tim oozed charm so that most women wanted to grab him and hold him. But he did exactly as he wished — he was a lot like a cat.
Lining up at a checkout counter, Mary found herself looking at a familiar back. It was Jessie Hay, her landlady, who had a job at the local high school. She was with a young man Mary had never seen before. Jessie turned and saw Mary. Her sharp eyes did an inventory of Mary’s shopping cart before she said, “This is my brother. Harry, meet Mary Lawrence, the girl upstairs.”
Harry Hay had the family freckles, but fewer of them than his sister. With her ginger hair locked in an excruciating perm, Jessie peered out from behind a screen of the tiny spots. Harry wore his like a spattering of mud on the face of a child. He was a head taller than his sister, with darker hair and eyes. His mood was solemn, mouth held slack.
Mary decided to air the situation. “I found a stray kitten last night. I don’t intend to keep it. Do you know anybody wants to give a kitten a home?”
Harry clasped his hands and turned to Jessie. “May I have it, Jess? Please?”
“A kitten needs looking after.”
“I’ll take care of it, you won’t have to do a thing. Please, Jess?” Sounding like a schoolboy, Harry seemed to grow in size. He loomed over his sister, who peered up at him with peevish amusement.
“You may as well, if she wants to give it to you.”
The Hays drove while Mary walked home, thanking Jessie for her offer of a lift. With all their starting and parking, she was at the house ahead of them. They were loading their groceries in through the kitchen door when Mary came down the back stairs carrying the kitten in her arms.
Harry received it with moans of solicitude, shouldering it against his cheek, murmuring as he bore the animal away, “Little Annabella — little Annabella.”
Mary said the obvious. “It’s the first I’ve seen your brother.”
“He’s been away.” Jessie grabbed the last plastic bag from the car and slammed the door.
“In school?”
“Sort of.”
That afternoon, Mary ran into Clement Foy in the record library. She was getting together the music for her program, Town Topics. Clem was searching out a few disks for his jazz program. “Thanks for covering for me last night,” the chief announcer said. Broad-shouldered, in an expensive but ancient suit, and slick-haired, Foy had a kind of silent-screen charm. Not at all bad, was Mary’s reaction on first meeting her boss. But he treated her as a valued colleague instead of as dating material. And wasn’t that worth a lot more than dinner and dancing?
“You almost got a kitten out of it.” She told him about her discovery.
“If you find a stray announcer out there,” Foy said, “send him to me. I don’t intend to go on handling the night shift.”
Mary did her show, fielding some interesting telephone calls, extending the feature on single-parenting, putting together yet another edition of the best magazine program CBAY had ever produced. After work, she wandered home, picking up some tonic water to dilute the remains of her long-standing bottle of gin.
She was watching the news on one of the U.S. channels from across Lake Ontario when she heard footsteps on the stairs. She got up and opened the door. It was Harry Hay with Annabella clinging to his Viyella shirt. “Look how she’s grown,” he crowed.
Mary couldn’t detect any change in size, although the animal was obviously thriving. “Come in. I was going to make myself a drink. Have one with me.”
Harry sipped his gin and hardly took his eyes off the kitten. He was the most soft-spoken, courteous young man Mary had ever run across. It was as if the gods had warned him he would die if he raised his voice. Yes, he told her, he had been away. In Southern California, spending a lot of Jessie’s hard-earned money. Los Angeles was a fine place, but to succeed there you needed more energy and talent than he could muster.
Mary asked him why he wanted to work in the United States, anyway — there was all that hassle with Immigration and work permits.
“Because they owe me. Because I volunteered for their Army.”
“You were in the American Army?”
“In Vietnam. I lost a lot of friends there.” He lowered a finger. Annabella savaged it with four sets of claws. “I still dream about the blood.”
Mary was doing some mental arithmetic. The Vietnam conflict had been over for years. “How old are you, Harry?” When he said he was twenty-four, she knew something was wrong. No way he could have been in that war. “You have dreams?”
“Recurring nightmares.” He produced his sheepish smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t describe them. I save all that stuff for my shrink.”
To change the subject, Mary asked if Jessie enjoyed her work at the high school.
“She hates it,” Harry said calmly. “When you’re a student, you can goof off. And you get summer vacations. The principal’s secretary is a permanent slave.”
Mary contracted cabin-fever around nine o’clock. It was a short walk down Front Street to the Coronet Hotel. The blind pianist was playing jazz in the back lounge, which prompted Mary to look around for Clem Foy. He wasn’t there, but Jessie Hay was by herself at the end of the bar, pouring a beer.
Mary slid onto the next stool and bought a round. They listened to an airy rendition of “Fools Rush In” that brought them to the brink of tears. Then the piano-man was gone behind the dog with the handle on its back, and they were left with nothing to talk about but life.
Mary led off with ten minutes on her adventures at the radio station. Jessie ate it up and responded with a point-by-point assessment of the high-school principal’s incompetence. By this time, Mary was finishing her second G&T, and the bartender seemed to be pouring doubles. During a lull in the conversation, the question just came rolling out.
“How dangerous is your brother?”
Jessie turned her head. She looked at the woman on the next stool for three full beats. “What’s that supposed to mean?”