The Big Meow

Well enough for the moment, Rhiow said, flicking an ear at the sound of the front door opening again for someone to leave or some new guest to arrive. I can hardly believe they’re still turning up here. How long do these things usually go on?

Pretty late sometimes, the Silent Man said. You’d be surprised, sometimes they —

He stopped. She could feel a shock of surprise go through him. On the pad, the Silent Man’s hand froze in place; his eyes went to the doorway to the front hall, to the sound of a woman’s voice speaking, footsteps —

Rhiow go up, turned toward the doorway. There was a woman standing there: dark blonde hair, a high broad forehead, dark down-slanting eyes – handsome enough for a queen-ehhif, Rhiow thought, but by no means up to the standard of the beauties who otherwise were everywhere at this gathering. The woman wasn’t dressed for a party, but in a relatively dark and conservative waist-level jacket and below-the-knee skirt and a dark hat with a veil, like someone who’s just gotten off a train in an old movie. The Silent Man was looking at her like someone who sees coming toward him something he’s dreaded for a long time.

Next to him, Walter Winchell looked from the Silent Man to the blonde woman, and back to the Silent Man again. “Damon – “ he said.

The Silent Man shook his head as the woman began walking toward to them. Then he stood up to greet her, as Winchell did. Helen, for the moment, stood her ground, and it obscurely reassured Rhiow to see her new agent do the same. But the other studio people standing around each edged backward a little, as if both anxious to dissociate themselves from something that was about to happen, and unwilling to miss seeing it.

“Well,” the woman said, and looked at them all: and looked Helen up and down.

Helen merely nodded to the woman courteously, but said nothing.

“Patrice,” said Winchell.

The woman looked at him. “Walter,” she said, and turned her eyes away to Runyon again.

“I called the house to try to reach you, Damon,” Patrice said. “And stopped by afterwards. You were out. But I managed to catch up with you eventually.” She glanced around. “Surprising to see you out and about – especially since all I’ve heard from you and the doctors lately is how sick you’ve been.”

The Silent Man made no move to reach for his pad. He simply stood there and looked her in the eye.

She came closer to him, looked up at him. Patrice was about a head shorter than he; when she looked up to meet his eyes, her face twitched a little, almost as if her neck hurt her from having done this a thousand times before. “I just had to see for myself,” Patrice said, “how you were.”

Runyon opened his mouth. “Been better,” he said, in a nearly inaudible whisper. To Rhiow’s ears, the pain in the two words was incredible, and it had nothing to do with the merely mechanical agony the Silent Man was suffering from the ruin now present where his vocal cords had been.

Patrice looked from him to Helen Walks Softly: a still look, chilly and assessing, and one which Helen did not try to avoid. “Yes,” Patrice said, “I’d say you have.”

Out in the rest of the room, a circle of relative quiet was gradually spreading away from them as if the two words that Runyon had managed to utter were working some kind of dire sympathetic wizardry of their own on the place. Heads were turning toward the frozen little tableau: Patrice, the Silent Man, Helen, and the agent and the studio people standing like embarrassed statues behind them. For a couple of breaths there was no movement, no words were spoken.

Then Patrice said, “I just wanted you to know that I’ve been down here from Reno the last few days to fetch the last of my things that were in storage. I’ve also sent for my boxes from the New York apartment and the Florida house. Everything’s on its way to Reno now. So don’t worry about getting in touch with me again when you get back to New York. There’ll be no need.”

The Silent Man’s mouth moved. Patrice, his lips said: but this time there wasn’t even a breath of sound. Somewhere across the room, ice tinkled in a glass: out in the front hallway, heels clacked across the tile, went quiet.

“Damon,” Patrice said, “I’ve been putting it off, but it’s time. I can’t just keep putting off living my own life any more. It looks like you’re finally letting go of me, which is good. I won’t ever forget you. How could I? But it’s all over. I just thought I had to say it to you at last before I left.”

He simply looked down at her, his face frozen, the brittle bright light of the room’s crystal chandeliers glinting off his glasses.

“The car’s waiting,” she said. “I should go. Goodbye.”