Panther Eyes

A short write – stemming from a writer's forum in which you're given a trigger sentence or idea and then have half an hour to write a piece of fiction coming from it.
The trigger sentence for this one was something like: "Some fathers have wildcat eyes."


**


She’ll know him, she thinks, because he must have them too.
She fiddles with her compact and flips it open, peering in the mirror as if to remind herself of what she’s looking for.
These eyes came from him, she knows. They aren’t her mother’s deep pools of chocolate laughter.
No, these odd, slightly slanting green eyes with the tiny triangles of yellow dotting the pupils are something else altogether. Wildcat’s eyes, Mom used to call them. Panther eyes.
The rest could be Mom’s, she thinks – the too-curvy body, the long curly dark hair with a tendency to frizz in wet weather, the almost-tall-enough-to-be-average height.
She’s her mother, everyone says.
Since she can remember, she’s always been Little Louise to her family.
– I’m not Louise, I’m Emily, she used to correct them, gently, patiently, when her aunts and uncles and Granny would say that to her six-year-old self.
As she got older, she learned to just roll her eyes.
Just like Mom would when they told her she was being such an Emily.
They were peas in a pod, everyone always said.
It’s only the eyes that ever made Emily different.
Secretly, she kind of liked her own eyes better. But she was always a little sorry that they were her best feature, when they were the only thing she had inherited from That Bastard Who Left.
Not, of course, that Mom ever said “bastard.” She wouldn’t. Emily heard that word in a conversation Mom had with Auntie May when she was five, and she never forgot it.
Ever since, he’s always been, in her mind, That Bastard Who Left. Complete with capitals, since Emily likes to capitalize Words That Are Important.
That Bastard Who Left was surprised to hear from her.
This much Emily could deduce, despite the surprisingly pleasant e-mail she’d received back.
“I always hoped Louise would help you get in touch with me some day,” he’d written. “I’ve drawn a picture of you in my mind, and I’m sure you’re more beautiful even than that.”
She wanted to laugh. And cry.
But she didn’t do either. She just e-mailed him and set up this meeting in a short, to-the-point message.
– Wait in the lobby, he’d written back. I’ll be off at five and I’ll see you when I come off the elevator.
It’s early. Naturally.
She’s always early (another Little Louise trait). She’s skipped basketball practice – Jen and Nori told her she was crazy, that Coach would put her on the bench, but she didn’t really care.
This is something she had to do.
She’s been here an hour watching them come and go, all these important-looking people with suits and scowls and briefcases, thinking to herself that if this was what being a lawyer looks like, perhaps she needs to rethink her future plans.
She knows she’ll know him right away.
But she watches them all anyway, not even caring that she’s staring in a way Mom would have told her was rude.
What about him, in the black suit? Too young, probably, and too handsome. Besides, his teeth are too white and his tie is boring.
The one with the umbrella? Closer, she thinks, but still not right. Too soft-looking somehow. A little too fat.
The curly-haired guy? Almost possible, she thinks, but probably too jolly. Too bad, too, because she sort of likes the look of his face. There’s something in it that suggests he’d never tell you off for missing curfew, although he might be strict about homework.
Emily hasn’t decided what she’ll say. She has so much to tell him.
He doesn’t know anything.
That Mom doesn’t know she set up this meeting. That she’d just looked up the address in Mom’s book and gone ahead and got in touch. That she’ll never tell Mom because it would hurt her to think she somehow wasn’t enough for Emily. That Mom would always wonder why, after all this time, Emily needed to meet That Bastard Who Left.
Emily doesn’t know that, either. Except that something about turning sixteen made her realize that she wasn’t a child. And that she shouldn’t be saved like a child from whatever the truth was about That Bastard Who Left.
Then.
The elevator doors open and an anxious-looking man steps off, peering over at the row of seats and scanning them as if dozens of people are waiting there and not just one teenage girl.
He looks quite nice, Emily sees. Not too tall but not too short, with a nice solid pair of shoulders and only a little grey in his brown hair.
And though he wears wire-rimmed glasses that obscure them slightly, Emily can tell as he draws closer that he has green eyes with little yellow triangles in them – yellow triangles that are lighting up and nearly dancing at the sight of her.
“Emily,” he says
It isn’t a question, but Emily pauses.
Looks up at him, at the dancing triangles and the grey hair and the almost childishly eager smile.
And smiles pleasantly back in a distant sort of way, shaking her head.
“Sorry, no,” she hears herself say. “My name’s Nori.”
The smile fades and she sees the doubt come into his eyes.
– But … he starts. And stops.
– I thought…
– But you look like …
Emily continues to smile at him pleasantly, keeping one eye on the elevator door and glancing down at her watch to indicate that she is, in fact, still waiting for someone.
She shrugs slightly, left shoulder a little higher than the right.
His green panther’s eyes meet hers, and an expression she can’t quite name flits across his face. Then she sees him straighten his shoulders.
– So sorry about that, he says. I was waiting for a girl named Emily whom I’ve wanted to see for a very long time.
– Maybe she’s just running late, Emily suggests.
He assesses her with those wildcat eyes and nods.
– Probably, he agrees.
He glances at his watch and shrugs slightly in reply, left shoulder a little higher than the right.
– Well, guess I should get going, he says. Nice to almost meet you. Nori.
He extends his hand and Emily takes it, shaking it slowly with an answering smile.
– Nice to almost meet you too.
He walks away, and Emily knows he can’t hear her finish the sentence in her head.
– Dad.