Page 35 of Old Flames

“He looked like Kit, but with an extra toe.”

“I think Kit is perfect as he is.”

“There he goes!”

The orange cat raced down the stone path, rounded a corner, and vanished. To Jules, these cats, famous only for their additional digits, were overrated. The guide had praised them for their personable demeanor. Accustomed to the endless parade of visitors, they didn’t mind the tourists who photographed them or the kids who pet them. But from Babe Ruth to the countless nameless ones, none had wanted anything to do with them. Some seemed spooked, others downright hostile. “I think they hate us,” she said.

“Nah.”

“Or maybe they’re a bunch of prima donnas,” Jules said.

“If that’s your attitude, they’ll hate us for sure.”

“If you’ve got nothing else, I’ll be going.”

“Am I keeping you from someone special?” Vicky teased.

Jules paused, measured her words. “He’s good company. It’s not that deep.”

“I hope it’s that deep, or even deeper,” Vicky said. “You two look good together.”

Feeling the weight of a stare, Jules looked up and a green-eyed cat was peering down at her from the branch of a tree. She shuddered and moved out of its line of vision.

“Well, you and Matty look good, too.”

“Yeah, but what future do we have?”

“Since when do you care about that?”

“Gotta start sometime.” Vicky fidgeted with the claw clip that kept her thick hair off her shoulders. “If I tell you something, promise you won’t laugh?”

“Not to your face. Later, certainly.”

Vicky pushed past the snark. “Abuela Maria made me promise at a young age that I wouldn’t marry for love alone.”

“Really? How young are we talking about?”

“Thirteen,” Vicky replied. “She also made me promise to wear sunscreen, but that had more to do with colorism than anything else.”

Jules struggled to understand how Maria’s marriage principle applied to this bizarro scenario. “What’s love got to do with you and Matty?” she asked, laughing outright. “Don’t tell me you’re in love with him. Seriously, don’t you dare.”

Jules’s first impression of Matty still held. He was easygoing. He balanced Vicky out well. Even so, she couldn’t have fallen in love with him in two tequila-soaked days. Jules’s laughter curdled in her throat. A black cat, hiding in the hedges, opened wide eyes at her and bared his teeth, issuing a silent don’t fuck with me warning.

Jules went still. They don’t hate us, she realized. They hate me.

What had she done to piss off Hemingway’s cats? Had the famous author’s spirit somehow picked up that she considered his work overrated and his legacy overblown? Earlier, their guide showed them a framed photograph of a young Ernest in a hospital bed in Italy. His injuries were severe. Doctors gave him only a slight chance to ever walk again, but he defied those odds. Once on his feet, the pretty nurse he’d fallen in love with essentially told him to kick rocks. The author wrote their story and killed off her character in A Farewell to Arms. That was a level of pettiness Jules could get behind. She could do without all the hunting, boating, boxing, womanizing, and warmongering.

“The more time I spend with Matty, the more I like him,” Vicky admitted. “Do you know how rare that is? As far back as I can remember, I’ve dated assholes, all attitude and ego, big net worth but nothing to give. Do you think any of those guys cared about my career? None of them saw me as an artist. Some were embarrassed to tell their friends what I did for a living. But last night, Matty and I stayed up talking—just talking. He said my lecture had moved him and made him realize how his best stories were retellings of his childhood fears. I felt heard for once.”

If anything, this trip revealed how deeply Vicky yearned for the respect of her peers, whereas Jules never gave it a thought. She didn’t worry about reviews, either, beyond their impact on sales. The one person she’d wanted to impress was gone. Her mother would never get the chance to hold her books or read the dedication. For my Ruby, my jewel . . .

If she hadn’t been determined to play it cool, she and Leo might have had a similar conversation. Earlier, when he professed to love her books, she could’ve asked what he thought of the world she’d built and the characters she’d created. Now it was too late. The moment had passed.

“What’s the issue, then?” Jules asked. “You’re obviously into each other. What more do you need?”

“You heard Daphne,” Vicky said. “The man is fundamentally incapable of figuring out life.”

“Careful!” Jules chastised her. “That’s the father of your future children and my future godchildren you’re talking about.”