“Someone was cutting their lawn by lowering the mower down the hill with a rope. Claude was walking by at the base of the hill when...” She gulped—visibly, audibly. “When the rope came loose.”
“My God.” In his surprise, Landford squeezed his doughnut, slopping a bit of raspberry jelly on his silk tie.
“That’ll never come out,” Peg said, dabbing his tie with a napkin. “Claude’s hurt real bad. Zuzie told us what happened and then shut herself in her office. She’s still in there.”
He exhaled slowly. He didn’t know Zuzie very well, but as office relations went, he was her best friend in the company. “I guess I’d better go say something to her.”
The two women nodded in synchronized sympathy.
As he walked to Zuzie’s office, he heard the bee-buzz of employee whispers. Here and there he caught a few words: terrible...what about his hands?...I heard...tried to push it off and...
He knocked on Zuzie’s door. “Zu? It’s Zack.” he smiled at that. Zu and Zack: sounded like a comedy team.
“Oh! Oh, Isaac.” Her warm voice cracked. “Yes, come in, please.”
He opened the door to what he called Cat Land: Zuzie had dozens of cat statuettes scattered on shelves on each wall. Cats of jade, glass, silver... wooden tabbies, chintzy plastic Siamese kittens...even a china collector’s figurine of Felix the Cat.
Zuzie had mentioned that she had twenty-seven cats at home, and that she liked to read to them. And cook gourmet meals for them. And sew little costumes for their special kitty parties. As she put it, “Pets are good for you.”
Zuzie stared up at him with puffy, reddened eyes. She was clutching a cat figurine he had never seen before. It was about eight inches tall and carved, very badly, out of dark red stone.
“You shouldn’t have come to work,” Landford said. “I mean, the bank would understand if...” His words trailed off. Zuzie wasn’t paying attention. She simply moaned and ran her fingers over the stone cat.
He moved a little closer. “Do you want me to drive you home, Zuzie? I’d be happy to. Really, no problem. You should get some rest.”
“Rest?” She glared up at him. “We have three pianos in the house. How can I rest, seeing those pianos, knowing he will never—”
“Claude’s going to be okay, right?”
“He’ll live. But it won’t be much of a life.” Zuzie set down the stone cat.
Landford got his first clear view of the red cat’s face, and it was—horrible. Huge round eyes, topped with heavy brows. A mouthful of jagged teeth, surrounding a thick tongue that protruded in a viciously comic expression.
“What hospital is Claude at?”
Zuzie turned away from him to stare out the office window. “He’s not in a hospital. He’s with friends.”
“Friends? Just how badly is he hurt?”
He waited for her to reply—to even turn back toward him—but after a minute, he decided that perhaps she needed to be alone. Alone with her cats.
But still... Friends? He hoped at least one of these friends knew something about medicine.
* * * *
Months passed, and Zuzie never mentioned Claude’s condition again. When coworkers asked about him, she just walked away.
Zuzie already had been considered the office eccentric, and that title was shifting into ‘office weirdo’ territory. Even so, when Landford decided to throw a dinner party, he invited her, figuring she simply wouldn’t show up.
On the day of the party, he returned home from work to find his wife Nicole drowning newborn kittens in a bucket of water. This was the third litter in the past two years she had finished off.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he said. “We can just give them away. And besides, did you have to do that today?”
Nicole nodded toward Pickles, their tabby, who was watching from behind a rose bush. “I didn’t want Pickles to get used to them. That would be just too sad, separating a mother from her babies.” She prodded the kittens with a yellow pencil. Then she picked up the shovel by her side and began digging a hole by her favorite lilac bush.
Landford returned to the living room. There the caterer, Mrs. Green, was waiting for him.
“What your wife is doing is just awful.” The plump, iron-haired woman brushed some sugar off of her sleeves. “She’s a very nice lady, but she has some very disturbing ideas about God’s good creatures. Poor blessed angels. I hope their tiny angel souls can forgive her.”
“Nicole never had pets when she was little,” Landford said, hoping a little white lie might smooth things over. “She doesn’t really know much about animals. Not as much as you, Mrs. Green.” That, at least, was probably true: the old woman had a menagerie of stray dogs and cats.
Mrs. Green smiled. “Dinner will be ready by seven. I’ll start setting out the hors d’oeuvres.”
Nicole entered the living room. Landford noticed she had a smear of mud under her right eye, and he wiped it off. Mrs. Green stared at Nicole.
The Hendersons from next door showed up shortly after six, followed by the Finlays and the Dietrichs. Nicole had put on her best green dress and she looked fabulous. Landford wondered for the millionth time how such a beautiful woman had fallen for him. He wasn’t the handsomest guy in the world—he always thought he looked like Winnie the Pooh—but he knew that, unlikely as it seemed, some women actually liked teddy bear guys.
Marla and Peg showed up together. Landford didn’t understand why they hung around together. Their conversation usually ended with Marla shooting down the younger woman’s silly comments.
The guests were a standard middle-class mix, and that was fine with Landford. Middle class was just fine for a teddy bear guy. They had invited ten people: he had complained that might be too many, but Nicole reminded him that Zuzie and Claude would be definite no-shows. Every now and then, one of the guests sat down at their piano and pounded out a snippet of tune—usually Chopsticks.
“So. Is everybody here?” Marla asked Landford.
“Everyone except Zuzie and Claude.”
“Do you think they’ll show up?” Peg said, eyes wide. “God, has anyone seen Claude since the accident?”
“Of course not,” Marla said. “I heard he was mangled. People like that don’t walk around in broad daylight, let alone go to dinner parties. Really, Peg.”
Landford sampled Mrs. Green’s cheese puffs and eggrolls—commonplace but delicious. Good, solid teddy bear food.
At about six-fifty, the doorbell rang. Wine glass in hand, Landford answered the door.
The middle-aged man standing at the threshold was tall, pale and obese, and dressed in a filthy sweat-suit. His feet were bare, and his hands—
