Selina had to be Catwoman. They were the same size and build. Their eyes were the same color. Their voice was the same and they shared many gestures and expressions. It was easier to believe that Selina and Catwoman were one and the same person than it was to believe there were two completely different people who had so much in common. Bonnie would keep Selina’s secret because secrets were mysterious and exciting and Selina was the most exciting, mysterious person Bonnie could imagine.
There were other reasons for keeping Selina’s secret—not the least of which was that neither Selina nor Catwoman had put in an appearance since the adventure in Eddie Lobb’s apartment. All weekend while she developed the film and made the prints, she had been distracted by day with the hope that a dark-haired woman in decrepit, thrift-shop clothes would knock on her door. By night, Bonnie listened for the sound of steel claws on the window glass.
Bonnie’s disappointment was a palpable weight in her stomach. She knew the world wasn’t a fairy tale. She regularly surrendered her illusions when the harsh light of reality revealed them to be fantasies. But she didn’t like doing it. She was prepared to accept that Selina would never show up again, just as she was already preparing herself to accept that Tim would hand her back the photos and his regrets that his old friend couldn’t do anything about Eddie Lobb. But they would be bitter pills to swallow, and she’d put it off as long as she could.
All day she waited for the director to appear with a big grin on his face, or for Selina to scowl into the security camera. The director left early, without saying a word. Everyone else left at five, and shortly after six Bonnie got ready to leave herself. Feeling as lonely and miserable as she’d felt since she’d waved good-bye to her parents, she gathered up her “Warriors”-emblazoned coffee thermos and ecologically correct reusable lunch sack and stowed them in a matching paper, refolded to expose the completed-in-ink crossword puzzle. The extra set of photographs—the set she’d hoped to give to Selina—had never gotten out of the bag.