to amaze me how quickly cat skin healed—after all these years I still marveled that no sutures were needed on a cat neuter. Bobby had flinched as I’d explained once, “You just anesthetize, shave, scrub, cut the scrotum, remove one testicle, tie the vas deferens on itself, then repeat with the second testicle. Done. No sutures. No fuss, no muss. Healing quickly within twenty-four hours.”
I pondered what I’d like to do with a scalpel and a certain scrotum right now.
Bobby didn’t call or e-mail. I checked at every opportunity.
I ignored another message from Olive. I could tell she still didn’t know. I loved that Davy could keep a secret sacred, just as he could be counted on to do when we were kids, but I hated Bobby for leaving the telling up to me. Was he just going to disappear?
Mimi left a message, too, in her too-loud, bossy voice, “My wayward son isn’t answering my messages, so I’m asking you: how many people are coming to this boy’s birthday? I need to start my shopping.” Oh, my God, Bobby’s birthday. “Maybe he doesn’t deserve a birthday dinner, if the son of a bitch is too busy to talk to his own mother. You tell him I said that, all right, doll?”
He hadn’t told his mother. Or his sister. The big coward. Couldn’t he at least leave them messages like he had for our daughter? At first the fact that he hadn’t told anyone had made me hope that he might still return. But now that Zayna factored into the equation, I fumed when I imagined he was simply too . . . busy to think of informing his family. Picturing Bobby and Zayna in bed together made me break slides at the clinic. Made me look at an X-ray and forget if I was looking at canine or feline bones. Made me miss an exit on the way home.
We’d been planning a birthday dinner at the farm. His mother was going to make her “gravy” and all his childhood favorites. I knew the relatives had already been given their assignments—Aunt Frannie would bring the roasted peppers, Aunt Louisa would bring the baked ziti, Uncle Tony would make his stuffed mushrooms, cousin Michael would make veal marsala, and on and on. My side of the family was never given food assignments—we brought the wine—except for Big David, who made the cake. Bobby would not be allowed to prepare a thing.
I let Mimi leave her voice mail as I watched the orange cat move about the office, trying out his new rabbitlike gait.
“FUCK THAT BASTARD’S BIRTHDAY,” OLIVE DECLARED when I found her sitting between Max and the goat on my porch.
Olive had been informed of the news by Cecile, a Tanti Baci hostess. Since Bobby hadn’t returned Olive’s calls, she’d stopped by the restaurant, to show Bobby her ring and pick up some take-out lasagna. As she was sitting at the bar waiting for the order—and for Bobby to emerge from the kitchen—Cecile had given her the scoop. Olive abandoned the lasagna and rushed to the farm.
She hugged me while Muriel nibbled my calf. “That bastard. I’ll kill the son of a bitch. And that little whore! What is she, twelve?”
“Twenty-two,” I said. As I unlocked the front door, Muriel pushed past my legs and tried to barge inside. I grabbed her leather collar, instructing Olive, “Go. Get inside. Quick.”
We headed into Bobby’s kitchen, where I felt like an intruder. I pulled a Chianti I knew Olive liked from our rack. She opened a cupboard for the wineglasses. Gabby was at a movie with Tyler, so I was relieved not to be home alone. Distraction kept me sane.
I apologized for not having told her myself, then, at her request, recited the story yet again. I told her how Zayna had dropped by her apartment. “I just assumed she had a massage, but I think . . . I think she may have been coming over to tell you, or ask advice or something.”
“Advice? My advice would be to keep her slutty self away from my very married brother.”
The thing was, I’d never thought of Zayna as slutty. I’d thought of her as funny and bold, vibrant and striking enough to actually make it as an actress with her penny-red hair and sharp, feline features. Mostly I’d thought of her as far too smart to ever fall for this man-in-crisis bullshit. Oh, I was an idiot. But forget about Zayna for the moment.