Chapter 45: How Could You Do That?
That evening, Tristan got back earlier than usual while Kate was watching TV in the living room.
The fat cat was leaning against her, and when it heard the sound, it jumped down from the couch and ran to meet him with its fat body shaking.
Laura also walked out of the kitchen to ask if he had already had dinner or if he needed dessert.
Tristan declined.
He walked to the couch and sat down. On the TV screen, there was an endless prairie, and a flock of baboons was moving around. He smiled and asked, “You liked this program?”
Kate didn’t look at him but just nodded.
Tristan didn’t mind her ignoring him or perhaps had gotten used to her way. He loosened his tie and lay back on the couch. Then he found the person beside him was sitting in a strange position, with her back up straight and her hands on the lap, like a student who was punished by a teacher.
He suddenly became curious about what kind of environment she grew up in.
Laura brought a pot of tea and teacups. She poured a cup for Tristan, and then she was dismissed to get some rest.
So the living room was left to two people, a cat and a flock of baboons.
The cat was trying to jump up on the couch but failed a couple of times. Kate reached her hands out to help it, and Tristan disapproved. “You should let it try by itself. You see how fat it is now.”
“It was what you did to make it how fat it was now,” Kate protested inside.Nôvel/Dr(a)ma.Org - Content owner.
The cat sniffed between the two people and finally made up its mind and rested its big head on Lucy’s lap.
Looking at the cat’s bottom facing him and the complacent long tail swaying in front of him, Tristan was a little jealous.
“Ha. It seems you are liked by animals.”
“Indeed, I am.”
Kate squinted at Tristan and scanned him. He was drinking tea and seemed not to realize the deeper meaning of her words.
Tristan swallowed the tea and ignored her implication.
As if the cat heard what they said, it turned its head to him and started to scratch him on the crotch.
“Stop it, Lucy.”
Tristan pulled away from its claws. The cat had become active lately, which was quite annoying.
His eyes happened to meet Kate’s surprised or shocked eyes. He reacted and explained naturally, “Its name is Lucy. Do you know the Lucy of Peanuts? Charlie Brown, Snoopy?”
Kate nodded, but she didn’t know what relation the cat had with that cartoon character.
Lucy squinted and licked her claws. Either she didn’t know her cartoon counterpart, or she didn’t think that it deserved to have the same name as her.
But Tristan sank into meditation because of what he said. When he brought her home, she had said it reminded her of Lucy of Peanuts. He didn’t see any resemblance between the two, but he said then why not just called it Lucy.
The memory was buried for a long time and what was sweet only brought him a bitter feeling when recalled of it. Lucy and the person are sitting beside him now, what a coincidence!
Kate didn’t know what Tristan was thinking. She was focusing on the TV, but then the scene shocked her: A male baboon walked to the back of a female baboon and started the activity of creating their offspring in public…She turned off the TV immediately.
It was the third day she had been here. Except for the first night when he had performed that morbid examination of her body, Tristan didn’t do anything too much. He only sometimes put his hand on her waist. She didn’t want the baboons to give him any ideas.
She stole a look at Tristan and found him tilting his head, rubbing his temples with his fingers, and seeming not to detect her action. It was lucky.
After a while, Kate asked, “Where is the phone?”
He looked over and pretended not to understand her. “Which phone?”
Kate bit her lips. “My cell phone.”
“Oh, I threw that away.”
How could he throw away something of significance to her?
“Where did you throw it?”
“You could try looking for it in the sea. Maybe you can find it.”
Kate could not hold her temper back and raised her voice.
“How could you do that?”
Kate regretted that she put her SIM card in the phone and hadn’t kept it hidden. It was Jimmy’s phone. Even if she could not return it to him, she still wanted to keep it. But Tristan threw it away!
Kate couldn’t make sense of this person, and she was no match for him in a fight. She could only avoid seeing him, so she stood up.
“Wait a minute. Come with me to the study room.” Tristan stood up and walked upstairs ahead of her.