Darned if You Do Read Free Page A

the blankets back and sat up. The red numbers on her bedside clock were flashing 7:12, 7:12, 7:12. That wasn’t the right time, of course; the flashing indicated a break in the power source and the clock had made a random guess at the time.
    Wait a minute.
    She sat still and listened. Now she heard the tiny whir of the refrigerator in the kitchen, and the faint gush of the furnace pouring heated air into the bedroom.
    The power was back on. Must’ve been a glitch, not a line down.
Whew!
She checked her watch again and adjusted the bedside clock to the correct hour, then lay back down.
    But still Connor didn’t return.
    What was he up to? Maybe he really had gone outdoors. There had been a terrible storm earlier—she remembered waking briefly during the night as it raged outside. Maybe he had gone out to see if there had been any damage.
    With an exasperated sigh—as much at herself for being foolish as at him for his too-strong sense of responsibility—she climbed out of bed. Sophie, the fat senior cat, voiced her displeasure with a high-pitched mew, but Thai, the young Siamese, said, “Yow!” in his deep voice and jumped down to come eagerly with her to the window. He stood up on his hind legs, forepaws on the sill, looking out just as if there were something to see.
    But there wasn’t. There wasn’t a single light on out there. The big condo across the street was barely discernible as a darker blackness against the dark sky. Even the streetlights were out.
    So why did their apartment have power?
    She went into the living room and snapped on the lights, then went to the window in the dining nook. The little parking lot behind the building was very dimly lit by a single lamp over the back door, but the steep slope it faced was a featureless blackness. At the top of the slope were, she knew, several houses and a gas station. But had she not known that, she would never have guessed, because nothing of them could be seen. The lights were out all over the neighborhood—maybe all over town.
    High overhead a half moon swam in fast-moving clouds, disappearing behind them even as Betsy watched, making the darkness complete.
    How weird that her building had power but nobody else did.
    And where was Connor?
    Sophie came to stand beside Betsy’s left ankle. So long as she was up, Sophie seemed to be asking, how about some breakfast?
    Betsy looked down at the big, fluffy animal with an exasperated sigh. Sophie, who was morbidly obese, had been found in a starving condition by Betsy’s sister years ago and nursed back to health. But the cat retained a conviction that privation might suddenly reappear, and was in permanent preparation for that occasion. She spent her days down in the needlework shop curled picturesquely on a cushioned chair, cadging treats from the customers. Despite Betsy’s efforts—which included a needlepoint sign hung on the back of the chair— NO THANKS, I’M ON A DIET —customers loved to slip the cat the occasional corner of a sandwich or half a potato chip or the tail end of a cookie. Betsy’s veterinarian said that, despite the animal’s weight, which varied from nineteen to twenty-three pounds, Sophie was healthy for a cat her age, which was probably close to fourteen years. So each morning and evening, Betsy fed her a little scoop of the healthiest dry cat food she could buy and let the chips fall where they may, including into Sophie’s fat paws.
    â€œNo,” she told the cat now, “because we’re not really up, and you get fed when we get up.”
    â€œMeeeeeow!” argued Sophie. Her thin, high, plaintive cry sounded ridiculous coming from a cat her size.
    â€œOw-rah!” agreed Thai. His cry sounded eerily like that of a human baby.
    â€œNo,” said Betsy firmly. She did not care to establish a precedent that any time a human in the house got out of bed, the cats got fed.
    She heard the door to the