Other People We Married Read Online Free PDF Page A

from branch to branch, its voice trilling upward toward unseen friends.
    “Since she was a kitten,” Claire said. “She was always very independent.”
    Vivian nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
    “Not in a stereotypical way, though,” Claire said. “She was practically a dog. Always next to me. But when she wanted space, she took it.” In the last week, Claire had often felt Rosemary’s body brush against her bare calves, only to realize that it was a chair leg or Matt’s socked foot, which she would immediately kick away.
    “Of course not.” Vivian held a stuffed cigar in both her hands, rolling it back and forth like a piece of Play-Doh. The cigar was Rosemary’s favorite, Claire assured her. It had been an early present from Matt: the only one, in fact. Claire had kept that information to herself. If Vivian was good, she thought, she’d figure it out.
    “And since the baby?” Vivian asked.
    She was good.
    The housekeeper was only there three days a week, and Claire didn’t like to leave Sebastian with her for more than an hour or two at a time. Sometimes she went to the makeup counters at Barney’s and Bloomingdale’s just to see what was new. She’d review the products to herself and the salesgirls. “Thisone is a little sticky, don’t you think?” she’d say, tapping a red stain across her lower lip. “This feels awfully thick. God, my pores are clogged already. Can’t you see that? Look, can’t you see my pores getting totally clogged?!” The salesgirls would take turns responding, humoring her. Claire always cried in the taxi on the way home. New York was good for that, providing transportation and anonymity simultaneously. Some of Claire’s friends from college had moved to Connecticut and New Jersey, and they were trapped. It was harder to drive and cry than to sit in the back behind a partition and just watch the streaky city go by.
    According to Vivian, Rosemary was a people-cat who had been driven from her family by a mixture of anger and envy. Often people didn’t understand how to ensure their pets’ happiness surrounding the arrival of a new addition. It was a common mistake. Just closing some doors in the middle of the night wasn’t enough. Vivian said that she would meditate and get back to Claire when she had more information. Vivian was patient and explained the process. Clearly, she’d had to do it before. “I can tune things in and out. It’s not like in the movies, where dead people talk and ghosts ride the subway. It’s just another frequency, like on an old-fashioned radio, only all the knobs are in my head,” she said. Claire got it. If Vivian sat still and kept her eyes closed, she might hear something new. She had to pay attention.
    Black cats were bad luck; everyone knew that. Matt had been wary of Rosemary from the start. She was skinny and mean to everyone but Claire, and sulked loudly in the middle ofthe night when she felt that her needs were not being taken seriously. Matt said that they should get rid of her as soon as Claire got pregnant. If the cat woke
them
up at three in the morning, why wouldn’t she wake the baby?
    “What about when he starts to crawl,” Matt said, “and starts getting kitty litter all over his hands and knees. Isn’t that unsanitary?” He didn’t seem to notice that they paid someone to clean the floors, cat or no. He floated the idea of a dog. Matt had always liked that idea: a boy and his dog. They could make it their Christmas card. Claire had been firm. They already had enough on their plates. It was a discussion for the future.
    Claire stopped going to the postnatal yoga classes. It was too tempting, the thought of ninety minutes with nowhere she had to be. At first, she used the time to hang flyers with a black-and-white picture of Rosemary and her telephone number, along with the promise of a cash reward. Then she started to run.
    There were paths through Prospect Park where she could have seen flowers and trees, but Claire