Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury by Sam Weller, Mort Castle (Ed) Page A
Authors: Sam Weller, Mort Castle (Ed)
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tail straight up in the air, as she stood on the front porch, petting him. I was inside watching through the storm door, and when I opened it to step outside, he saw his chance; he shot the gap, and presto, he was inside.
“Hey,” I said, but it was too late.
He’d already curled up on the window seat, smack-dab in the middle of the ramie-covered cushions Vonnie had purchased from IKEA earlier that morning. In an instant, he was asleep. Vonnie and I could see him through the front windows, and I could tell from the way she looked at him there’d be nothing I could say to convince her that a bit-eared, gimpy, smart-mouthed stray was nothing but bad news.
“Oh, my.” I heard her intake of breath. She touched me on the arm, and it was one of the few times in more than a year—yes, it had been that long—that we’d touched at all. “Lex,” she said to me. “Sweetie, he looks so peaceful there.”
I knew then that this scruffy-assed junkyard cat, soon to be named Prince Henry Boo-Boo Ca-Choo, had taken his last fall and landed in the gravy.
He’d been looking for us, Vonnie would say that night as he made himself comfy on our bed, stretched out longways between us, his claws pricking my back. He was home.
B ut I was telling you about my couch. I bought it one night when I’d been drinking at the Rusty Bucket, drinking more than I should have because it was easier to do that than to go home to Vonnie. What was our problem? I don’t imagine there’s any way to say it was this or that; it was more a combination of things, one of them being time and what it can do to romance. We’d been together since we were eighteen, and somewhere along the line the thrill went away, and then we were left with the people we really were—I mean the people we were deep down inside—and maybe what we were finding out was that we didn’t really like those people. They just didn’t match up. That’s the best I’ve been able to do, at least in the time I’ve had to think about it. People fall out of love. I didn’t mean for that to be the case with Vonnie and me, nor I imagine did she, but that’s what happened, and maybe—just maybe—the start of the end was when I ducked into the discount furniture store that evening all because that couch, which I could see through the display window, caught my eye.
I walked in, and the salesgirl, a pretty girl with her eyes just a little too close together, asked if she could help me find something.
Lord, the questions people ask, not having any idea what they can mean to a person. This girl was a pleasant sort who smiled a lot and had dimples in her cheeks, and she was so eager to help me find exactly what I needed, I almost told her the truth. I almost said, Please, help me find my way .
Instead, I said I’d spotted that couch. “That one.” I pointed to a harvest-gold couch with a high back, and a plaid pattern formed from brown and green lines, and kick-pleat skirting around the bottom. “The one with the kick-pleat skirting,” I said, and the girl’s smile got even wider.
“You know your material, I can see that.” She gave me a wink of one of her too-close-together eyes. “I’ll have to be on my toes with you.”
The store was nearly empty that near to closing. Somewhere toward the back, a radio was playing, some old big-band tune from the forties, a time, if the movies I’d seen were any evidence, when men and women believed in love. I took a glance behind me out the plate-glass display window, and I saw that in the little bit of time that had passed since I’d stepped into the store, the dusk had faded to full dark. It could happen like that. In fact it did every night. In the wink of an eye.
“ ‘Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,’ ” I said, and the girl gave me a puzzled look. “The song,” I said, and then I sang along. I was wild again and beguiled, etc.
And I was too loud for the mostly empty store—I was singing too loud and I was too
“Hey,” I said, but it was too late.
He’d already curled up on the window seat, smack-dab in the middle of the ramie-covered cushions Vonnie had purchased from IKEA earlier that morning. In an instant, he was asleep. Vonnie and I could see him through the front windows, and I could tell from the way she looked at him there’d be nothing I could say to convince her that a bit-eared, gimpy, smart-mouthed stray was nothing but bad news.
“Oh, my.” I heard her intake of breath. She touched me on the arm, and it was one of the few times in more than a year—yes, it had been that long—that we’d touched at all. “Lex,” she said to me. “Sweetie, he looks so peaceful there.”
I knew then that this scruffy-assed junkyard cat, soon to be named Prince Henry Boo-Boo Ca-Choo, had taken his last fall and landed in the gravy.
He’d been looking for us, Vonnie would say that night as he made himself comfy on our bed, stretched out longways between us, his claws pricking my back. He was home.
B ut I was telling you about my couch. I bought it one night when I’d been drinking at the Rusty Bucket, drinking more than I should have because it was easier to do that than to go home to Vonnie. What was our problem? I don’t imagine there’s any way to say it was this or that; it was more a combination of things, one of them being time and what it can do to romance. We’d been together since we were eighteen, and somewhere along the line the thrill went away, and then we were left with the people we really were—I mean the people we were deep down inside—and maybe what we were finding out was that we didn’t really like those people. They just didn’t match up. That’s the best I’ve been able to do, at least in the time I’ve had to think about it. People fall out of love. I didn’t mean for that to be the case with Vonnie and me, nor I imagine did she, but that’s what happened, and maybe—just maybe—the start of the end was when I ducked into the discount furniture store that evening all because that couch, which I could see through the display window, caught my eye.
I walked in, and the salesgirl, a pretty girl with her eyes just a little too close together, asked if she could help me find something.
Lord, the questions people ask, not having any idea what they can mean to a person. This girl was a pleasant sort who smiled a lot and had dimples in her cheeks, and she was so eager to help me find exactly what I needed, I almost told her the truth. I almost said, Please, help me find my way .
Instead, I said I’d spotted that couch. “That one.” I pointed to a harvest-gold couch with a high back, and a plaid pattern formed from brown and green lines, and kick-pleat skirting around the bottom. “The one with the kick-pleat skirting,” I said, and the girl’s smile got even wider.
“You know your material, I can see that.” She gave me a wink of one of her too-close-together eyes. “I’ll have to be on my toes with you.”
The store was nearly empty that near to closing. Somewhere toward the back, a radio was playing, some old big-band tune from the forties, a time, if the movies I’d seen were any evidence, when men and women believed in love. I took a glance behind me out the plate-glass display window, and I saw that in the little bit of time that had passed since I’d stepped into the store, the dusk had faded to full dark. It could happen like that. In fact it did every night. In the wink of an eye.
“ ‘Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered,’ ” I said, and the girl gave me a puzzled look. “The song,” I said, and then I sang along. I was wild again and beguiled, etc.
And I was too loud for the mostly empty store—I was singing too loud and I was too
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