“Hi. I’m looking for Carla.”
“She’s not here right now. Who are you?”
“My name is Danny Clark.”
“Anna Lia’s husband?”
“Why, yes.”
“I’ve got her cats.” The woman tapped her foot. “Have you come for them?”
My god. The critters. He’d forgotten all about them.
“They’ve made a mess in the kitchen. Sissy won’t be happy.”
“Sissy?”
“It was so sad about Anna Lia.”
Danny remembered Carla mentioning — and avoiding questions about — an older sister. “You knew Anna Lia?”
The door opened wider. The woman wore a purple muumuu and tarnished silver bracelets. A rubber band held her hair in a knot. Her face was pudgy and worn, but not unattractive, Danny thought — open, with a vivid curiosity. “She used to come by sometimes, after school with Carla. I liked her. She always made me laugh.”
“What’s your name?”
“Betty.”
“How come I never met you, Betty? I’ve been to lots of parties here.”
“Oh, I hate Carla’s parties. It’s hard for me to think when there’s so many people around. I stay in my room.”
“I used to choose the music with Anna Lia. We’d bring our best salsa tapes over, and Carla would put them on.” He smiled at her. “We could’ve cut a rug, Betty, if you’d stepped out of your room.”
She frowned and moved behind the door.
“Of course you’re right, you’re right, parties are awfully noisy,” he said, hoping not to lose her. “Sometimes I’m not in the mood for them myself. Betty, do you think I could see Suzi and Robi? Are they okay?”
She tapped her foot some more, then shrugged and let him in. “They’re probably hiding,” she said. “Mostly that’s what they do. They like to hide.”
The house smelled of mustard and dishwashing soap, old magazines, Lemon Pledge. Danny recognized Carla’s fastidiousness — pillows stacked neatly on either end of the couch, curtains evenly drawn. She’d been just as orderly last week, in his apartment.
Yellow light streamed through ivy-covered windows in the living room. On the dining room table, a wad of blue construction paper. Betty punched it to the floor, a swift, petulant gesture. “I hate tulips, don’t you?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“I had this idea about flowers, but it didn’t work. Nobody was interested. I even called Hallmark.”
Danny nodded, searching for the cats.
“Now I have a new idea. Houston Bayou Water. Nicely bottled. Carbonated, maybe. Like 7-Up? I’ve written the local supermarkets, testing their interest.”
Danny couldn’t tell if she was joking. He started to tell her that the bayou was full of shoes and toasters, car parts, condoms. He saw a gray blur beneath a chair. “Robi?” he whispered. “Kitty kitty kitty?” Pink nose, whiskers, muzzy breath. Suzi crouched behind him. Anna Lia’s babies. They’d never been friendly to him.
He remembered the day he’d bought them for her, a chilly November morning in the Village over near Rice. A girl had set a basket full of kittens on a sidewalk outside a florist’s shop. Her cardboard sign said FREE. “Oh Danny,” Anna Lia gasped, picking up a tortie. “Danny, look.” He asked the girl where she’d got them. She replied that her mama cat had given birth last month, but her father wouldn’t let her keep them. Danny insisted on paying her ten bucks apiece for the pair that Anna Lia prized. “Maybe you can buy yourself some flowers,” he told the girl. Anna Lia was touched. Her eyes glistened, and her legs pressed, warm, against the backs of his knees.
Now Robi half-purred, half-growled at Danny’s hand. “Poor critter,” he muttered. “You don’t know what’s going on, do you? Well, join the club.”
“Libbie found them in a shelter,” Betty said. “Carla told me you weren’t in the mood to feed them, so I’ve been doing it.”
“That’s very kind of you. Thank you.”
“Mostly, though, they just like to hide.”
“I guess they had a pretty big scare.” Danny stood and brushed the wrinkles from his pants. “Are you okay, taking care of them a while longer? I’m not sure, yet, how to divvy up Anna Lia’s stuff …”
“I’m okay. I have to clean that mess in the kitchen before Sissy sees it.”
“Well, let me give you a hand.” He stepped into the room, an apple green rectangle with dark red floor tiles. Kitty litter, peppered with hard little shit-pellets, dusted the corner by the cat box. “Got a broom?” he asked Betty. She leaned against the stove. “A dustpan?”
“In the pantry over there.” She giggled.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’ve never seen a man do that.”
“Sweep a floor?”
“Edgar spills stuff all the time, but he won’t clean it up.”
“Carla’s boyfriend? That doesn’t surprise me.”
“I’ll bet she’s with him now.” Betty made a face. “He was making music in Galveston, but he came back today. He plays guitar.” She covered her ears.
“You don’t like him?” Danny emptied the mess into a waist-high garbage pail in the pantry.
She shook her head.
“Well, I only met him a couple times, but he seemed to me kind of a bum,” Danny said.
“A bum!” Betty brayed. “A bum! That’s right! Bum bum bum!”
Danny laughed with her. He liked the way she abandoned herself so fast to her moods. He put away the broom. “Okay. Tell Carla I came by, will you?”
“I will, if you’ll tell me you can’t stand tulips.”
“I can’t stand tulips.”
She smiled.
“See you at the funeral Tuesday?”
“Oh.” She plucked at the folds of her dress. “I don’t think so. I don’t leave the house, much.”
“I see,” Danny said. “All those people?”
“Exactly.”
“I understand. I’ve been feeling that way, too.” He brushed kitty litter from his hands. “Well. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime. Thanks for taking care of the cats, Betty. It’s a big help to me now.”
“You’re welcome.” She moved toward him, then away. “Can I ask you …
“What is it?”
“How do you … I mean, if you feel like I do …?” She spoke softly and with great effort.
“How do I make myself go out?”
“Yes.”
“I just … I don’t know, I remember there’s lots of good things too. Trees and flowers — sorry, not tulips, okay? Clouds and things.”
She licked her lips.
“It’s not so hard, really. You ought to try it. Want to go somewhere?”
“No. No.”
“Just around the block?”
“No. Thank you.”
“Okay. Let me know if you ever do, all right?”
“All right.”
“It’s the least I could do, after your help with the critters.”
When he pulled away in his car, she was still standing in the doorway.
He hadn’t eaten since yesterday, a Whopper and fries, and he wondered if he should go home and get something. No. The Continental Arms made him shudder. A young couple had rented Anna Lia’s apartment already. Yesterday evening, they’d parked a U-Haul at the bottom of the stairs, begun unloading chairs and lamps, a mattress and box springs, a brand-new couch.
Something else: he wasn’t ready for Smitts. Not yet. Practice, he thought. Steady your aim. He wouldn’t get caught a second time, off-guard.
He should check with Simtex soon. The week before Anna Lia died he’d scheduled another Austin run. Maybe you should go ahead, he thought. Skip the funeral. Cruise on out to Barton Springs, kick back, grab a chicken fried steak at Shady Grove.