Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Heathcliff, I can see you."
Wren could not, in fact, see the cat. But she knew the hiding spots: under the poetry shelf, behind the radiator in the back, and—his most recent innovation—wedged between the two art book stacks.
He was in the art books. She could tell by the suspicious lack of sound.
"Dr. Hartley is going to give you a treat," she tried, in the voice she reserved for difficult customers and very small children. "He has those little fish ones you like."
Silence. The disdainful silence of a twelve-pound cat who had heard the sound of the carrier being lifted from the shelf and made his position on the matter abundantly clear.
Bea, from behind the till, did not look up from the display she was rearranging. "You could try the salmon."
"This is not a hostage negotiation."
"Isn't it?"
Wren crouched beside the art books. Sure enough, two gray paws were visible in the gap, tucked with dignity. She reached in. The paws disappeared. From somewhere deep in the stack came a sound like a very small, very offended foghorn.
"Right." She sat back on her heels. "We're doing this the practical way."
The practical way involved Bea holding the carrier open while Wren dislodged Heathcliff from his fortress using a combination of patient coaxing, a feather toy she found behind the poetry shelf, and eventually the salmon treat.
Heathcliff expressed his views through every stage of the process.
He was not a cat who suffered indignity quietly.
By the time the carrier was latched, both Wren and Bea were out of breath, and Heathcliff had achieved the acoustical output of a much larger animal.
"He sounds like he's being murdered," Bea said.
"He's being dramatic."
From inside the carrier; "MERROWWW!"
The walk to Oliver's practice took eight minutes on a normal day.
Today it took twenty, owing to the fact that Wren had to stop twice to smile apologetically at people who turned to look.
The first was Mrs. Finch from the bakery, who pressed a hand to her chest. The second was a cluster of tourists with a map who all looked at the carrier simultaneously, then at Wren, then back at the carrier, as though deciding whether this was an emergency.
"He's fine," Wren told them pleasantly. "He just…objects. To travel."
"MERROWWW!"
Wren kept her spine very straight and her chin at a sensible angle and did not allow herself to think about what she must look like, striding down the cobblestones of the main street in her rust-orange cardigan and her good boots while a gray tabby provided running commentary on her competence as a cat owner.
"Oh, is that Heathcliff?" the girl at the desk in Oliver's waiting room crooned.
Wren set the carrier on the counter and straightened her blouse. "It is."
"He's very vocal today."
"He has opinions."
Oliver appeared in the doorway to the examination room, his coat very white and his expression entirely serene. He was the kind of tall that took up space without demanding attention. "Wren." He held the door open. "And Heathcliff. I could hear you from the hall."
"He feels strongly about the carrier."
Oliver tilted the carrier gently and made a small clicking sound with his tongue. The effect was immediate and, frankly, unfair: Heathcliff's yowling dropped two registers and became a contemplative murmur. Oliver smiled at the mesh front. "Hello, old man."
From inside the carrier came a sound that was almost—almost—civil.
The examination table was cool and stainless.
Heathcliff bore the indignity of it with his usual theatrical resignation, draped as though posing for a Dutch master.
Oliver worked with the quiet efficiency of someone who had done this many thousands of times—ears, eyes, the slight pressure along his jaw—and Heathcliff submitted with an expression that suggested he was doing Oliver a favor.
"New stock in this week?" Oliver asked, lifting Heathcliff's lip to check his gums. The cat did not even flinch .
"The Hilary Mantel set came in. The boxed one.
" Wren leaned against the counter, watching his hands.
They were careful hands. Attentive. She found herself looking for—something.
Some flicker of awareness. Some quality that matched the quality of the letters.
"The Tudor covers this time. Very beautiful. "
"Ah." Oliver made a note. "I've been meaning to get back to Wolf Hall."
The letters referenced Wolf Hall. The fifth letter, she was fairly certain — something about the way Cromwell observed and waited, about the power of watching without being seen. She had found it beautiful. Devastating, even.
Wren glanced at Oliver's notepad. His handwriting was terrible. Not charmingly messy — genuinely, functionally terrible. The letters sprawled in different directions. Whatever he wrote was completely illegible.
People wrote differently when they were writing for someone else. More carefully. With intention.
She looked again. The letters didn't connect. There was no slant to speak of, just a kind of cheerful chaos moving left to right across the page.
"Well, you're looking excellent, old chap," Oliver said to Heathcliff. "Good weight, good coat. His teeth could do with a clean, but there's no urgency."
Oliver scratched behind Heathcliff's ears—slow and certain—and something extraordinary happened: Heathcliff's eyes closed. Not in the resentful half-shut of a cat enduring company, but fully, contentedly closed. His chin tilted up a fraction. He began, against all apparent principles, to purr.
"Traitor," Wren said.
Oliver laughed. It was a nice laugh; easy and genuine, without any particular significance.
The laugh of a man who found cats and their contradictions pleasantly amusing.
But was it the laugh of a man who had memorized her face through a bookshop window and written her sentences she'd reread six times?
He certainly didn't have trouble speaking to her like her secret admirer admitted.
Oliver asked more questions about the cat. Wren answered on autopilot, watching him, testing the air between them for anything that felt like this, specifically, is the man.
There was nothing. He was warm and competent, and genuinely kind. There was not a single atom of suppressed romantic tension in the room except in Wren's own chest, which was occupied with a different, thoroughly distracting problem she had filed under postpone indefinitely.
"He's in good shape," Oliver said, closing his notebook. He scratched Heathcliff's ears one final time. "Come back in six months."
Heathcliff opened his eyes, looked at Wren, and blinked slowly. The expression was insufferably superior. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of responding to it.
The walk back was quieter. Heathcliff had achieved some form of peace. Or he'd worn himself out. He settled into the carrier in a way that suggested benign exhaustion rather than ongoing outrage. Wren walked slowly, turning things over.
Inside the exam room, there had been no secret-admirer energy. None. She had watched Oliver for twenty-five minutes with the focused intensity of a woman reading footnotes, and she had found: a vet who was good at his job and has been reading Wolf Hall.
"Is he all right?"
Wren stopped.
Freddie Gallagher was folding the awning on his cart, his back to her at first, then turning with that economy of movement that she had noticed before.
His jacket was the slate-gray one, collar turned up.
He had a cloth in one hand and was looking at the carrier with an expression she couldn't immediately categorize.
"Heathcliff had his appointment today," Freddie added, as if this explained why he was asking.
Wren looked at the carrier. Then at Freddie. "He's fine. Clean bill of health."
"Good." Freddie nodded, his gaze lingering on Wren for a second too long. His lips parted, then closed, then he went back to folding the awning.
"You…" She tilted her head slightly. "How did you know he was going to Oliver's?"
"Oliver mentioned it when he stopped for coffee this morning. Said you were bringing the cat in." He didn't look at her, still occupied with the awning corners. "I'd wondered if he was all right."
Wren waited for more. There wasn't more.
"He was very dramatic about the carrier," she said finally.
"He usually is."
"I meant Heathcliff, not Oliver."
Freddie chuckled, and Wren was glad she was standing still. If she had been moving, she might have tripped over her feet at the sound. Freddie Gallagher's chuckle was deep and resonant. It moved through her body like a chill, only warm.
"Oliver is full of energy, but I wouldn't call him dramatic. At least not to his face."
Those were a lot of words. A lot of words that came from the mouth of Freddie Gallagher.
"Right," she said.
Freddie finished folding the awning and slid the pole into its groove with a soft click. He looked up at her, just briefly, and she got the full effect of the gray eyes—attentive, private, telling her nothing at all—before his gaze dropped to the carrier again.
"I hope he rests tonight," he said.
"Right."
Then he turned to lock the cart, and the conversation was over as completely as if a door had closed.
Wren walked the remaining forty steps to Pages nice laugh and soulful gray eyes.