Missing Scenes Competition: Oh Susannah!

This is my first entry in the Missing Scenes Competition, which at present is only in the works, but will eventually be on the Wasteflake Site. The rules are to write a scene based on an existing novel, using the characters and implying the situations in the novel. The scene must not exist in the novel, but must be events that are implied in the book, and may have occurred during the action of the novel, or before or after the action of the novel. The scene must include one or more characters in the novel. Additional characters who did not appear in the novel must be a minority; writing yourself in is frowned upon. As soon as Wasteflake gets our act together again, you too can submit a link to your entry, or if you don't have a blog or website, add your story to the Wasteflake wiki.

So, based on Kate Wilhelm's 1980 book Oh, Susannah!, here's my first entry:

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On the fourteenth floor of an office building overlooking Central Park, a woman sits at a desk working on the galleys of a manuscript. One pencil is shoved into the untidy knot of her grey hair; with another she taps out a calypso beat on the desktop. She rests her chin in her hand, and peers microscopically at the blue printed words on the shiny fibrous paper in front of her. One expensively decorous shoe dangles off the end of her right toe; the other is lost beneath the desk.

The phone rings, and she snakes out one arm to answer it, dropping the pencil and marking her place with her finger.

"Berryman and Associates, this is Sylvia." she says into the receiver.

"Oh, hi Gavin, yes the galleys came this afternoon. I'm reading them now.... Well, I think he's in the middle of something, but let me check."

She punches a button on the phone, putting the caller on hold, and leans over behind her in what she has come to think of as the Rosemary Woods stretch, blindly finding an intercom button and pressing it down. She listens intently.

In another room, no corresponding buzz is made on the similar intercom, because the receiving button is being held in place with Roget's thesaurus for just such an occasion. Sylvia can hear a soft snore through the connection.

"Sorry Gavin, he's pretty busy right now, I'll have him call you back in about, oh 20 minutes or so. Okay, talk to you then."

As Sylvia hangs up the phone she catches the eye of the other occupant of her office; an orange cat, perched regally in the sunshine on a broad windowsill of the penthouse. The cat's ancient Egyptian demeanor is spoiled, somewhat, by the brown ruff of fur standing out awkwardly from its neck and the ninety degree crook in its tail. The cat stares at Sylvia, then jumps from the window sill and walks toward the door. The cat seats himself about two feet from the doorway and closely examines first the doorknob and then the faint light from the hall which glimmers beneath the door.

The phone rings again as Sylvia slews around in her chair and pushes the intercom open. "Mike, they're here!"