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Epilogue

 

ººYawn.  What’s that noise?ºº

ººLaughter.  She’s home.ºº

ººFinally.  Alone? Or with Bat-Bruce?ºº

ººNo Bat-Bruce. Another one.  Twofoot with two shoes.ºº

ººThey all have two shoes.ºº

ººThis one has two different shoes.ºº

ººOh, this I’ve got to see.ºº

 

“Oh god” Selina was laughing, “if I was still doing Cat-Tales, that would’ve been good for a third act.”

“You could never capture ‘Aunt Maud,’” Harvey countered, mimicking her in a nasal falsetto, “Eddie?  Video?   Ha- Ha- Harley?”

“And what did Eddie say? ‘You see, the beauty of the unanswered question, so few people truly appreciate it.’”

 

ººLook at that: two different shoes, two different socks.  This guy’s a calico.ºº

ººSomething’s awfully funny.ºº

 

Harvey wiped a tear from his eye. 

“And what was that nonsense she spouted back!  ‘A meditation on uncertainty, taking a familiar image like the question mark, forcing us to grapple with the abstract ideas it represents…’”

“That, she got from me, actually,” Selina giggled.

“You came up with that crock of shit!” Harvey was delighted, “Man, we would have loved to see that.”

“I’m just glad now that Eddie didn’t hear me say it, considering how he took it from Maud:  ‘It takes an extraordinary woman to understand the full meaning of the question mark.’ Jesus!”

“Yeah, that was scary.  He really teared up; I think he’s in love.”

“Poor Jervis,” Selina cackled, and Harvey nodded and echoed, “Poor Jervis.”

When the laughter subsided, there was a strained silence.  Then Selina spoke.

“Anyway, thanks for the lift.  Bruce remembered an…”

“…an early meeting, I remember those.  C’mon, Lina, I’m not stupid.  He’d just been thrown out of Ed Nigma’s hideout in the company of Catwoman, Two-Face, Mad Hatter and Roxy Rocket, leaving god knows what going on between Riddler and ‘Aunt Maud.’  If he wanted to go home after that, it’s not necessary to invent a morning meeting excuse.”

“It was still nice of you.”

Harvey said nothing and the strained silence returned.  Selina spoke tentatively:

“You didn’t flip for it, I noticed.”

Harvey bristled, then admitted:  “No.  We figured… we owed you… after….”

She smiled gently. 

“We’re okay then?”

She was heartbroken when, instead of answering the question at once, the coin came out. 

 

ººTOY!    SHINY!   GIMME!ºº

 

“ARGH! What the Fa-HEY! DAMNIT!  That cat took our coin! That cat’s a thief!”

Selina cackled merrily on the sofa.

“Well, duh, what do you expect?  Harvey, sit down.  You’re not going to catch her.”

“SHE TOOK OUR COIN!  THAT FUCKING FURBALL TOOK OUR COIN!”

“Sit down, I’ll get it later.  I know where she’ll hide it.  But first,” Selina stood, “you’ve got to deal with me, without the coin.  Harvey.  Look at me.  Are we okay?”

Harvey looked in the direction Nutmeg had disappeared to with his coin, then back at Selina.  “I dunno,” he mumbled, then weakly croaked “We guess?”

Selina sighed sadly.  Not much of an answer, but it would have to do.

 

ººYou still sulking?ºº

ººShe took the round shiny away.ºº

ººNever mind. Twofoot-calico is gone, and look what I got.  Nip-nip.ºº

ººFrom Bat-Bruce?ºº

ººY-EPºº

ººIn boots?ºº

ººYep.ºº

ººAnd you’re not whining about your terrace and your planter and your flower pot?ºº

ººNip-nip.ºº

ººYou are so easy.ºº

 

“Viva la difference night,” Batman remarked, entering from the terrace with a twitch-smile, and gesturing with his cape.

“Thought you were so clever, didn’t you, ‘helping’ with the coffee like that,” Selina answered with a real smile.  This was their first chance to talk freely since before the Iceberg.

“I was sorry to miss your treatise on the question mark.”

Selina sighed, she was laughed out from the reminiscence with Harvey.

“I thought Roxy’s was the most nauseating performance,” she said instead of making another joke.  “One more ‘forgive me please forgive me,’ I thought she’d start singing a country western song.”

“C’mon, Kitten, what was she supposed to say, that she was swept off her feet by Penguin’s charms?  Or maybe the truth: that she got drunk on jello shots?”

“My God, it is a country western song.”

He sat back on her sofa, as he used to when the relationship first started to change and he began stopping in after patrol.  Then he removed his cowl, as he never would in those early days, and laid it on Whiskers’s pillow.

“I’m afraid there is no option that doesn’t lead back to: she has all the good judgment of a stuntwoman bimbo that turned to crime for cheap thrills.”

“A-hem,” Selina picked the cowl off the pillow and handed it back to him,  “She was not the only one to get sloshed at that party.”

“Will you never stop bringing that up?” he asked, pulling her into his lap.

“Make me,” she purred her answer.

 

 

ººYawn.  Are they still at it?  I want to go to bed.ºº

ººNothing stopping you.ºº

ººLook at that!  Look what they’re doing!  I’ll never get those indentations out of the pillow.ºº

©2002

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