Footprints in the Butter by Denise Dietz Page A

scratch. She bought Wylie, or at least she bought his food and art supplies. He absolutely refused to leave that roach-infested rat trap he called an apartment, even thought Alice would have paid for a nicer place.” Ben strolled over to the coffee table and stared down at my plate. “You haven’t eaten a thing.”
    “I’m not hungry. Why don’t you nibble my share?”
    “I’d rather nibble your—”
    The phone rang again, this time cutting off Ben’s appetizing innuendo.
    “Let your machine get it,” he suggested, but I had already lifted the receiver.
    “There’s someone prowling around outside,” said Patty, “and I’m scared. Could you come over, Ing? Spend the night? Is Ben there? He is, isn’t he?”
    “Yes. Calm down. It’s probably a reporter who—”
    “No. They went away.”
    “Maybe it’s Kim O’Connor’s cat.”
    “A cat doesn’t shine a flashlight.”
    “Call the cops, Patty!”
    “I don’t want cops. I want you and Ben and Hitchcock.”
    “Okay, but it might take some time. We have to change clothes and hustle Hitchcock into the car, which is like trying to lasso a stampeding buffalo with a choke-collar. Meanwhile, call one of your neighbors.”
    “I haven’t met them. I don’t have their telephone numbers.”
    “Run next door. The O’Connors have security to spare. A dog named Tonto and—”
    “No!”
    Holding my hand across the mouthpiece, I said, “Ben, talk some sense into her. Patty says there’s a lurking prowler but she won’t contact the police or a neighbor.”
    He took the receiver from my outstretched hand. “Hi, beautiful,” he said calmly, as though stroking a schizophrenic Afghan hound. Then, of course, I could only hear his side of the conversation.
    “Yes, Ingrid told me…okay, lock the doors and don’t go outside…yes, we’ll come as fast as we can, but you’ve got to promise to call the police…look, if the reporters show up, I’ll bet your prowler hotfoots…no, that’s stupid.”
    “What’s stupid?” I reached for the receiver.
    Ben waved me away. “Leave the gun where it is, honey. Promise? And you’ll call the police? That’s my good girl. You’re welcome. Yes, we’ll hurry. Bye.”
    I felt my eyes widen. “She has a gun?”
    “Apparently Wylie’s absent friend keeps one handy. Let’s get dressed.”
    There was a crescendo of thunder, followed by lightning, or maybe it was the other way around. The whole house vibrated as I scurried into the bedroom, opened my bureau drawer, reached for a pair of jeans and said, “What’s the rush? The cops—”
    “She won’t call them. She promised she would, but she won’t. She’s afraid the reporters will hone in on the police radios and today’s circus will start all over again.”
    “Better a circus than another funeral!”
    “Ingrid, you don’t have to convince me.”
    Without warning, I felt hysteria build. Gun! Prowler! Patty all alone! Scared!
    “You call the cops, Ben,” I said, tugging my lucky orange sweatshirt on inside-out and backwards so that the washing instructions tag rested beneath my chin.
    “Right.” He reached for the bedroom extension, listened, replaced the receiver. “It’s dead.”
    “But it can’t be. We just talked to Patty.”
    “The lightning—”
    “Where’s my other knee-sock? Rats, my sneakers are missing! Who kicked them under the bed?”
    “Take it easy, babe.”
    Ben’s voice had regained that calm–the-schizophrenic-Afghan quality. Except considering the physical discrepancy between Patty and me, it was probably more like calm-the-schizophrenic-Yorkshire terrier.
    “Ingrid?” Ben buttoned his plaid flannel shirt.
    “Rats! My shoelace just snapped.”
    “Ingrid?”
    “What?”
    “Everybody knows an elephant charges with a credit card, but how do you make an elephant float?”
    I psyched out what he was doing. He was making a valiant attempt to calm my rising hysteria with a verbal nudge rather than a face slap. I resisted his