Chapter 2
On Wednesday evening Jaime drove over to Oscar's house. She felt a little nervous – it's not like Oscar knew she was coming over – but she was just feeding his cat after all. She rounded the corner to his street, and found the house number. Certainly this was not what she had pictured when she wondered where Oscar lived. It was a stunning red brick Georgian Colonial with a wrought iron fence surrounding at least an acre of lightly wooded property. The grounds were immaculately landscaped and the curved half-moon driveway was lined with rose bushes. Jaime drove up the driveway and parked right in front of the house.
She fumbled briefly with the key, and then opened the door, stepping into a grand foyer. The marble floor appeared to have been recently polished, and the brass chandelier gleamed in the early evening sun like it was made of pure gold. The twin staircases rose gracefully in a sweeping semi-circle to the second floor walkway overlooking the back half of the house. She slowly walked into the house like she was walking into a dream. It was enormous – she couldn't figure out why Oscar would live in a house like this all alone. It seemed so lonely – just him and Kitty.
Her shoes clicking noisily on the hardwood floors as she walked into the cavernous living room. It was elegantly, but simply, furnished in rich, earthy tones. There was a grand piano in the corner, with picture frames adorning the top. Jaime walked over to study the pictures. There was a black and white photo of a lovely young woman, about Jaime's age, sitting on a vine covered swing. She had a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. Next to that picture, she saw two larger color pictures of an adorable boy and a girl, they both looked to be about two. The girl had a distinctive birthmark on her cheek that looked just like a rose. Jaime assumed they must be his niece and nephew, though she didn't remember him mentioning a sibling other than Sam. She slid her hand along the piano, feeling the slick wood surface beneath her fingertips.
Jaime looked around the other rooms to see if she could find Kitty. They were all tasteful but simple and unadorned. She found Kitty's food and dumped it in her dish, filled the water bowl and changed the litter. She had been calling Kitty since she came in, but the cat was still missing. She remembered what Rudy had said about her getting stuck in the shower, so she went upstairs to find her. There were at least 10 doors lining the hall, each of them shut. Jaime didn't know which one to open, so she started with the first one she came to. It was completely empty. No cat in there. The next one appeared to be a guest bedroom. She checked the bathroom, but no cat there either. Then she opened the door to a study. It was paneled in mahogany from ceiling to floor, with a large desk by the window and several leather chairs surrounding the desk. Jaime could see several neat stacks of papers lined up on the desk, and an opened briefcase sitting on one of the chairs. Sunlight filtered in through the wooden blinds at the windows, casting light on another set of pictures.
It was the same children in the pictures downstairs, but they were a little younger, and the woman was holding them in her lap. Then Jaime saw another picture which made her head swim and her knees buckle. She thought she might throw up. Collapsing into the large chair behind the desk, she took the picture in her trembling hands to get a better look. It was the woman – in her wedding dress – and Oscar was standing next to her in a tuxedo, their arms wrapped around each other in a lover's embrace. Oh my God – Oscar is married? She couldn't believe it. She never heard him mention that he had a wife. He must be divorced – she had seen him with other women at parties. But why was her picture still on his desk? And the kids? They had to be his niece and nephew, or something like that. He would certainly have mentioned that he had children.
Jaime's mind was racing to figure out the enigma that was Oscar Goldman, as she continued her search for the missing cat. If she had been startled in the last room she entered, it was nothing compared to the shock that greeted her through the next door. It looked like she had walked into a princess's room. There was a white four poster bed with a pink canopy and a pink bedspread. There were innumerable dolls and stuffed animals neatly arranged against the headboard. A little bookshelf was in the corner of the room with the name 'Rose' hand painted on the wooden rail at the top. The room looked as if it hadn't been occupied in sometime. It wasn't dusty, but it seemed more like a display than the room of a little girl.
Jaime noticed a door adjoining the room. It led into a similarly sized room, only this one was clearly a boy's room. She felt as if she had stepped into the wild west. Everywhere she looked there were horses or cowboys. There was a bookshelf in this room as well, an exact copy of the one in the little girl's room. This one had 'Sam' written on the rail. Jaime saw a picture on the dresser. It was the woman, the boy, the girl, and Oscar holding a small calico kitten. They were all smiling, the children sitting happily in the laps of the adults. Jaime couldn't help but smile at the happy picture, yet she felt a pang of jealousy, of longing. She envied the woman in the picture. She wanted to be the one sitting happily in Oscar's lap. Something was missing though. She couldn't figure out the children. Trying mightily to push the sense of foreboding from her thoughts, she gazed around the room, trying to forge, if not a happy explanation, at least a benign one, for what she had seen.
The knot in her stomach was growing larger by the minute, then she heard a plaintive "Meow". She followed the sound to yet another room. She hadn't noticed that the door was slightly ajar. It was Oscar's bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it was neat and clean. A big brass bed was in the middle of the room, tastefully decorated in a simple, manly style. She peeked into the bathroom. Just as Rudy had predicted, the wayward cat was stuck in the shower stall. As Jaime opened the door, she jumped into her arms, purring. Poor thing. You're probably scared half to death. She carried the cat downstairs, showing Kitty her dinner, which she greedily consumed.
Jaime looked around the house once more, feeling like an intruder into this silent, lonely world. A twinge of guilt shot through her for having discovered so much about Oscar without his consent. She couldn't get her mind off of the images she had seen as she locked up the house and left for her hotel, where she drifted off into a restless sleep.