BY MONDAY, I WAS BEGINNING TO THINK THAT MRS. THORNHILL, THE calligrapher, had skipped the country, taking Samantha’s envelopes with her. At her rates, the 50-percent down payment Samantha had made would certainly cover plane fare to Buenos Aires, and probably a few nights at a moderately priced hotel. I decided to go over and confront her in person. If she wasn’t there, I would wait
for her. I could make use of the time; I took my clipboard and my notes for another batch of the thoughtful, warm, personal invitations Mother wanted me to ghostwrite for her. I wasn’t sure how early to go—I wanted to catch Mrs. Thornhill before she could disappear for the day, but not wake her up. I finally decided on eight. If she hadn’t already missed her deadline I might have given her till nine. If I had to go a second time, I’d go at seven. Maybe six.
When I got there, I saw Mrs. Thornhill’s car parked in the driveway—somewhat carelessly—and heard a television blaring away. I’m in luck, I thought. She’s home. But as I walked to the front door, I noticed half a dozen copies of the Daily Press scattered on the lawn and a Jehovah’s Witness flyer stuck behind the screen door. Perhaps she wasn’t home after all. Perhaps she left the TV on at top volume to discourage burglars. If so, her neighbors would be ready to strangle her when she got back.
I rang the bell several times, and since the television kept me from hearing whether it worked, knocked a few times for good measure. At last some impulse inspired me to turn the knob. The door was unlocked.
Had something happened to Mrs. Thornhill? I had laughed at Dad’s melodramatic suggestion when he made it, but what if he was right? Could that be why she hadn’t answered any of my calls this week? Was I about to walk in and discover a horrible, bloody corpse?
Nonsense, I thought. But still, I braced myself before carefully reaching to push the door open—
And hurriedly jumped aside to avoid a tidal wave of cats. They swarmed out of the door and scattered to the four winds. About a dozen of them, I thought, although it seemed like more. I waited until they were out of sight … waited a little longer while one extremely fat cat waddled slowly out, hissed at me, and disappeared into the bushes. Then, very cautiously, I entered the front hall.
There were still cats left indoors, and the place reeked of cat urine and fish. Two or three cats wound themselves sinuously around my ankles, and several others scattered from my advance. There were sedate cats sitting at the top of the stairs, and half a dozen playful kittens scampering up and down.
I peered to the right into a dining room that was more or less empty of cats, but filled with debris. Empty catfood cans strewed both the floor and the mahogany dining room table, which they shared with a number of Royal Doulton plates holding crumbs of catfood. I went back though the hall into the living room and found Mrs. Thornhill. She was on the couch, unconscious, with a gin bottle in her hand, and half a dozen cats draped companionably over various portions of her body, some sleeping and others washing whichever parts of her or themselves were handy.
Oh, please, let her have finished the envelopes before she started drinking. Or at least let her have left them in a safe place. Somewhere the cats couldn’t get to them.
A prayer destined to remain unfulfilled. Scattered among the cats, cans, bottles, and plates in the living room were a number of cream-colored envelopes. I began gathering them up.
Most of them were in the living room, though a few had migrated into the kitchen, or upstairs into the bedroom. She had gotten as far as the S’s, unfortunately. The lettering on the A’s was absolutely gorgeous. B through D were a little less precise, but still had a kind of aristocratic dash about them. By E she was definitely going downhill, and I could only guess what names some of her late scribbles were intended to represent. Unfortunately, the envelopes that had been completed first had also been lying around longer at the mercy of the cats. I couldn’t find a one that hadn’t been chewed on, slept on, peed on or blotched with fishy-smelling grease stains. The blank envelopes were a dead loss; several of the cats had used the carton as a litterbox. I made sure I collected all forty-seven pages of Samantha’s guest list. Thank goodness I had numbered the
pages. I thought I still had a copy somewhere, but with my luck Natalie and Eric would have used it as kindling.
Having gathered up all the envelopes and list pages and deposited them, as appropriate, either in my car or in the overflowing trash can, I turned to consider Mrs. Thornhill. However exasperated I was with her, I couldn’t leave her here unconscious. What should I do?
I called Mother.
“Mother, I’m over here at Mrs. Thornhill’s.”
“That’s nice, dear. How is she?”
“She’s passed out on the sofa, dead drunk and covered with cats.”
After a short pause, I heard Mother’s patient sigh.
“Oh, dear. Not again. We were all so hoping she was doing better this time,” Mother said, infinitely sorrowful. Great. Why hadn’t someone bothered to mention that our calligrapher was a dipsomaniac cat freak? I should have known better than to hire one of Mrs. Fenniman’s cronies.
“Do you have any idea who I should call?” I asked. “I can’t just leave her there. Does she have family, or should I find one of the neighbors?”
“Oh, dear, I don’t think the neighbors. Such intolerant people.” I felt a sudden surge of solidarity with Mrs. Thornhill’s longsuffering neighbors. “I’ll call her son and his wife. You look after her till they get there.”
And so I spent the rest of the day baby-sitting Mrs. Thornhill. I realized I hadn’t asked Mother where the son lived—in—state, I hoped—but when I tried to call her back the line was busy. For several hours. Presumably the grapevine was disseminating and analyzing Mrs. Thornhill’s fall from grace. I checked periodically to make sure she was all right, but the last thing I wanted to do was wake her.
I called Be-Stitched to let Michael know I would miss the afternoon’s
fittings. I browbeat the printer into promising that he’d find some new envelopes for me in twenty-four hours. I tuned into the Weather Channel, saw a long-range forecast for July and began calling caterers to discuss making menus mayonnaise-free and otherwise heat-proof. I made every other call on my to-do list. I opened a can of cat food for any cat who wandered in and meowed at me. I finally got fed up with the mess and spent the last few hours cleaning. I hauled out a dozen trash bags full of cat food cans, bottles, newspapers, and other debris, changed ten litter boxes, and vacuumed—it didn’t seem to bother Mrs. Thornhill. Halfway through the dusting, a car screeched up outside and a frantic couple rushed in. I met them at the door, dustrag in hand.
“Mr. and Mrs. Thornhill?”
“Oh,” said the woman, “I thought you came on Tuesdays.”
“No,” I said, puzzled, “I’ve never been here before.”
“Aren’t you the new cleaning lady?”
I explained who I was and why I was there. They overwhelmed me with apologies and thanks. I went home and took a shower, followed by a long hot bath.
“Meg,” Mother said over dinner that evening, “you haven’t touched your salmon.”
I didn’t even try to explain.