Page 26 of The Magic We Made

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Come with me.”

That’s when she starts walking through her house toward what I know to be the laundry room because our floor plans are identical.

Well, not exactly identical. I see right away that Francesca has built-in bookshelves on either side of her fireplace, filled to overflowing with books of every description, from current mass-market paperbacks to thick psychology textbooks, whereas I have built-ins filled with sound equipment for the sweet flat-screen I hung over the fireplace.

And Francesca has opted to put a stain on the wood accentsthroughout the house, matching it to the stain on the hardwood floors, and allowing the true grain of the wood to stand out against the white walls, whereas I had mine painted black, and all of the walls dark gray, because Guy says the focal point of any home should be the windows and the trees and sky outside them.

Still, most of the rest of Francesca’s house looks exactly the same as mine, aside from the furnishings—she seems to have gone for a lived-in, professorial vibe, which includes not only books, but threadbare Persian carpets, spider plants bursting from clay pots, and a lot of blue vintage Danish glass that probably cast a reflection when the sun is shining through the windows.

“Nice place,” I can’t help murmuring as Francesca steers me past the sliding glass doors overlooking the back deck and lake, and toward the main bedroom—the door to which is sadly closed. The laundry room is just across the hall from the main bedroom, andthisdoor she throws open, revealing a disappointing lack of used lingerie. “It looks weirdly familiar.”

She gives the barest flicker of a smile at my lame joke.

“Thanks,” she says. “You can put her in here.”

She points into the laundry room, which is peaceful and calm like the rest of the house... except for the sheets of rain drumming against the roof and every single windowpane, skylight, and door.

“Are you sure?” With each step I’ve taken deeper into Francesca’s house, the cat in my arms has sunk its claws deeper into my flesh. This cat is pissed and possibly not quite as domesticated as I initially thought.

“Oh, yes, it’s fine.”

Francesca doesn’t notice that I’m carrying a ticking time bomb. She’s too busy filling two blue bowls, one with tap water from the sink, the other with high-quality kibble from a newly opened bag of cat food, and placing them carefully back on the floor. Other than these bowls, a blue litter box on the floor of the shower, a circular, blue hooked rug, and a blue cat bed near the sink, the laundry room is all white—washer, dryer, floor, walls, shower tiles, even the shower curtain.

My laundry room has a shower in it, as well, for anyone coming in from the lake who wants to rinse off. But apparently Francesca doesn’t mind sacrificing this convenience for the comfort of the cat currently attempting to flay my skin.

“Okay,” I say, skeptically. “If you say so.”

Then I lean down and open my arms.

For a moment, the cat stays where she is, partly because her claws are sunk too far into my skin for her to make a quick getaway, and partly because she’s confused about what’s happening.

Then she realizes I’m letting her go.

The cat explodes out of my arms. She lands on the blue hooked rug, where she freezes for a second or two before realizing the only way out of the room is through the open doorway in which Francesca and I are standing.

That’s when the cat turns and, her ears flattened against the back of her head, makes a beeline for the door... and us.

“Run!” Francesca yells again.

This time, I don’t hesitate. I turn and flee down the hall, not stopping until I hear the laundry room door slam closed behind me.

It’s not that I’m scared of cats. I’m not. I just have a healthy respect for teeth and claws.

“Phew.” Francesca is leaning her back against the closed door as if she expects the cat to come bursting through it like the alien out of that guy’s stomach. There is no sound coming from the laundry room, but any cries the cat makes would probably be drowned out by the pounding of the rain anyway. “I’ll keep her in there for a while, at least until she calms down, and I can get her to the vet. I guess she’s a little more feral than I thought.”

“Yeah.”

I’m standing awkwardly in Francesca’s dining room, which in my place features a modern glass-topped table large enough to seat eight beneath a chandelier I found made of genuine deer antlers.

In Francesca’s dining room, there’s nothing but a small tasteful pendant lamp hanging over a round wooden table with mismatched chairs. The table is piled high with papers, books, magazines, a laptop, and a green leather Filofax open to the calendar for the day. The calendar has large fifty-minute chunks of the day crossed out in red pen, but no legible writing on it.

“Well, thank you for your help,” she’s saying as she comes away from the laundry room door. “I guess I’ll see you later.”

I’d been subtly checking my arms for blood, though none of the cat’s claws appear to have broken my skin. But now I look up.

“Wait.” I stare at her incredulously. “Are you kicking me out?”