The Cry of the Owl by Patricia Highsmith

admit—just a little scared as she glanced at him. Now he was smiling and he looked happy. He handed her a glass, and they went back to the living room. She noticed he had a record player now, and there was a rack of L.P.s under it.
    “You look as if you’re really installed here. Did you sign a lease?” she asked, and instantly hated herself for the banality of it. She drank three large gulps of her Scotch.
    “Yes, for a year. A hundred and twenty-five a month, heat included. Not bad, do you think?” He looked at her with smiling eyes. He was sitting on a hassock by the fire.
    “Not too much room,” she said critically, looking up at the sharp inverted V of the ceiling.
    “I don’t need any more. I’m glad you came by. It’s a little lonely out here. Not like living in an apartment building.”
    He didn’t look lonely at all, she thought. Then she thought of the divorce. “I’m sorry I said anything about your divorce. I only knew through Greg.”
    His smile went away, then came back. “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad about the divorce. The nice thing is I’m sure Nickie’s happier, too, so it’s all for the best. How’s Greg? Have you seen him?”
    “I told you,” Jenny said, “I haven’t seen him since that Sunday we went skiing.”
    “Oh.” He put another log on.
    Jenny looked at his shelves of books beside the fireplace. Most of them had new jackets. There was lots of history and biography. He took her glass from her hand.
    “Like another? Or not?”
    “Yes, please, I would.”
    The drinks went quickly to her head, making her relaxed and sad. She might, she thought, say or do something wrong that would make Robert dislike her and never want to see her again. She could see Robert beginning to look worried because she was quieter and quieter, and then he proposed she stay for dinner, because he had a steak big enough for two that he could cook over the fire, and she said she would stay. Then she found her dull, practical mind wondering if the steak were already thawed or not, and the next thing she knew, Robert was wrapping potatoes in foil, kneeling in front of the fire, and the steak was lying on a grill ready to be put on, and it was obviously thawed.
    “Can I make a salad? I’m very good at salads.” She stood up unsteadily and felt her silly smile spreading lopsided all over her face, and she felt she was looking and acting like sixteen, and hated herself for it.
    But in the kitchen she forgot her self-consciousness as she mixed a dressing in Robert’s dark wooden salad bowl. He had garlic and onion and herbs of all kinds. He had tied around her a denim apronlike a carpenter’s apron, and she remembered the quick touch of his hands at her waist. Her salad was elaborate, and by the time she was finished, the steak and potatoes were done, and Robert had set the table at one side of the living room, though she had meant to do that. There was also a bottle of red wine on the table with a French label.
    During the dinner, Robert talked about his work and said there was a possibility that he might go to Philadelphia, where Langley Aeronautics’ main plant was. Robert was working on a combination of two parts of something that went into a helicopter engine, and those were the drawings of it on his writing table. He showed her one and Jenny tried to understand it, but she saw it double. Probably because she said so little about it, he showed her a portfolio of insect drawings—the only one she’d ever heard of was the praying mantis, which looked terrifying in Robert’s drawing. Robert said the drawings were for a book, and he was about to mail them all to New York. Then she was mortified, because Robert gave up talking about his work and asked her if she had been to the concert of Mozart and Stravinsky at the Langley Auditorium, and Jenny said she hadn’t, though she did not say that Greg had invited her to go. She had attacked her steak with gusto at first, but suddenly she could not eat