Chapter 9
Twelve years ago
Noah finished mowing the front lawn of his parents’ house, and then turned to do Olive’s grandma’s as well. Olive sat on the grass beneath a tree, pretending to read. He knew she was pretending because she hadn’t turned a page in the half hour he’d been watching her. Worse, he could feel her sadness, and it slayed him. “What’s wrong?”
She lifted a shoulder.
“Olive.”
“You don’t want to hear it.”
“I do,” he said.
“You don’t.”
Snatching her book, he held it behind his back.
“Hey!”
“Is it someone from school? Cindy again?”
“Give me back my book.”
“So that’s a yes.”
He crouched at her side, studying her thankfully bruise-free face. Her untamed hair flew around her face. He knew she hated it, but he loved the wild chaos. “Why didn’t you tell me you need help?”
“Because I don’t!”
He stared at her, willing her to talk. It always worked. Always. Olive had never met a silence she liked.
She sighed. “I need a boyfriend.”
“What?”
“See, I told you that you didn’t want to hear it.”
Her ears were red and so were her cheeks. “I don’t want to go off to college still a . . . virgin.”
She closed her eyes. “But I’m not exactly seen as datable.”
Shit, maybe he should just bash his head in with her book, it might be less painful. “Oli, you’re . . .”
Don’t say it, just don’t. It’ll open a door you won’t be able to resist stepping through . . . “one hundred percent datable.”
She snorted, and the sound broke his heart. She didn’t believe it. “You are.”
“Okay.”
He tried to hold his tongue, and failed. Spectacularly. “What if people thought we were going out?”
Her head came up and she stared at him.
“Then, after a week or two you could tell everyone you dumped me,”
he said. “Guys will be lining up for you after that.”
He’d have to resist killing them all, but that would be tomorrow’s problem.
She was wide-eyed. “You’d do that for me?”
He’d do anything for her. “Consider it done. As of this moment, we’re a . . . we.”
“A pretend we,”
she said softly. “Right?”
“Right. A pretend we.”
Present day
After leaving Noah in the kitchen, Olive headed out, stopping short on the porch.
Holmes lay on his back on his bed, legs in the air, tongue lolling, grinning upside down at Pepper. The kitten, barely the size of one of the dog’s massive paws, was pretending to be vicious, growling and pouncing on Holmes.
Heart melted, she got behind the wheel of her rental car, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes for a beat. If old man Holmes could drag himself out of the depths of despair and find a way to open his heart up again, certainly she could.
And maybe if she kept telling herself that, she might learn to believe it—
She nearly jumped out of her skin when her back passenger door opened and Katie leaned in to install a booster seat and then buckled Joey in before hopping into the front seat. “Hey.”
Olive stared at her. “What are you doing?”
“Coming with you.”
“To the zoo!”
Joey yelled, his legs bouncing in excitement.
“But . . . Joe,”
Olive said.
Katie smiled. “I sneaked in early. The nurses promised me if he wakes up, I’ll be the first to know. The zoo will be fun, and we could all use some of that, right, Joey?”
Joey roared. “To the lions!”
At the zoo’s front gate, they were given free passes and told a Janie Smithson would meet them at the petting zoo in a few minutes.
“Can I feed them?”
Joey asked when they got to the petting zoo, pointing to a little hut where you could buy pellets. “Please!?”
“Um . . .”
Katie said, probably because she hated to get dirty.
We’ll do better. That had been Olive’s promise to Katie. And maybe she hadn’t pictured this particular scenario when she’d made that vow, but it certainly fell under the purview. She didn’t have to glance down at herself to be reminded that she was wearing one of her favorite outfits, because it didn’t matter. A promise was a promise. “I’ve got you,” she said.
Katie looked hugely relieved. “Thank you. And when we get into the meeting, I’ve got you. I’ll be your assistant, whatever you need. I know you’re only doing this as a favor to my mom. Just like I know you two are keeping a secret from me.”
Olive’s heart skipped a beat. “What? I . . .”
Katie rolled her eyes. “Your voice just went up two octaves and only dogs can hear you now. Don’t panic. When you’re finally ready, you’ll tell me. I’m guessing it’s related to why you rarely come home, which makes no sense. My brother doesn’t blame you for what happened to him. It’s time for you to let go of the guilt and forgive yourself.”
“Some things are unforgivable.”
“Yeah, maybe if you’re a murderer,”
Katie said. “Which you’re not.”
She found a smile at that. “How do you know?”
“Because you can’t even kill a spider.”
Katie reached for her hand. “Sometimes the person who won’t let go is the one person who needs to.”
Olive raised a brow. “Is that why you maneuvered me and your brother into both staying at your place?”
“Duh.”
Olive narrowed her eyes. “More words.”
“Look, two of the most important people in my life have avoided each other for years. Which, BTW, doesn’t just affect you guys, it affects the whole family. Christmas, Easter, everything.”
“Hey, we do fine.”
“Yeah,”
Katie said drolly. “If fine is barely making eye contact. I miss you, is that so weird? FaceTime isn’t the same as having you here.”
She thought they’d done remarkably well with FaceTime, having movie nights in a blanket fort, Katie taking her along into Joey’s first day of preschool . . . but yeah, okay, she could admit it wasn’t the same as being there in person.
“I worry about you,”
Katie said softly.
“Well, I’m okay, so you can stop.”
“Never,”
Katie said. “We have each other’s backs, always. Misfits unite, remember?”
She took Olive’s hand. “I want you back in my life. You’ve left me no choice but to use the absolute worst thing that’s ever happened to me to get you here.”
“So you don’t need me here? It was a ploy?”
Katie’s gaze softened. “I always need you.”
Olive smiled at her. “Good to know.”
“Mommy! I want to feed the babies!”
Olive turned to Joey. “Let’s do it.”
She bought him some feed, which came in little paper trays like the ones fast-food stores used to serve French fries—and what she wouldn’t give to be at a fast-food joint getting fries instead of pellets right now . . .
Joey ran around like a madman, chasing the baby goats, piglets, and lambs to his heart’s content. As for Olive, a baby cow locked eyes with her, then nuzzled her in the stomach, snorting, searching her for food.
“Um, yeah,”
Olive said. “I don’t have any.”
The baby gave a forlorn mooooo and nuzzled her again.
“She thinks you’re her mama,”
Katie said from the other side of the fence.
“Ha-ha.”
The baby cow continued to nudge her with that wet, goopy nose and lots of green boogers that would probably give her nightmares for a week. “No, but really, I don’t have anything—”
Another baby cow joined them and promptly started sucking on the hem of Olive’s dress, pulling it between her teeth and gently tugging.
And then not so gently.
“She likes you!”
Joey said. “Maybe we can get one for our house!”
Olive didn’t look down, not wanting to see what was happening. Instead, she took a small handful of feed from Joey’s paper tray and held it out.
The calf snorted up the food with such enthusiasm that Olive staggered backward. Her boots didn’t have any traction in the mud spots and for a moment, she was like a cat on slippery linoleum in an old-timey cartoon . . .
And then she was on her ass in the mud.
She looked up in time to see Katie bent over with uncontrollable laughter. It was a rare sight, but she couldn’t even enjoy it because the calf was still snuffling all around, looking for food.
Then Katie whistled and Olive looked up. Next to her stood a woman holding a snake that had wrapped itself around her hands and arms.
Janie, the zoo lady, she presumed.
“Oh my God,”
the woman said when Olive and Joey left the pen. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“Just my dignity.”
Katie was still chuckling and trying to get a hold of herself when she made the introductions.
Janie smiled at Olive. “I see you met Betsy, our newest calf. She’s the sweetest.”
Not exactly the word Olive would’ve chosen.
“Why don’t you all follow me,”
Janie said. “We have a sink behind the feed hut where you can wash up.”
Five minutes later, Olive’s hands were clean again. The same could not be said of her outfit.
“And how rude of me not to introduce you to Sally,”
Janie said of the snake around her neck.
“Janie told me she’s a Sierra garter snake,”
Katie said. “Or more officially, a Thamnophis couchii. She’s young. She’ll grow to be anywhere from one and a half to four feet long. They’ve got narrow heads, only slightly wider than their necks, narrow snouts, small eyes, and keeled dorsals.”
Janie smiled. “Nice memory.”
“They also come in different colors,”
Katie went on. “Olive green, dark brown, and black, and their backs and tops consist of dark blotches.”
Janie seemed surprised. “Wow. Really nice memory.”
Olive bit back a smile, because she knew Katie wasn’t done and wouldn’t be until she finished reciting everything she’d learned.
“They’re active during the day and live in the water,”
Katie said. “They feed on fish, amphibians, frogs, and salamanders.”
Janie laughed. “I feel like I should offer you a job. Would you all like to go to my office now? Some of my staff will be at our meeting, so we can discuss—”
“They also eat the larvae of those fish and amphibians,”
Katie added.
“Cool!”
Joey said. “Are they poisonous?”
“No,”
Janie and Katie said at the same time.
Katie glanced at Olive, biting her lower lip like she always did when trying to figure out if she’d overstepped the socially accepted boundaries to a situation. Olive smiled at her, and Katie smiled back, looking relieved.
“Can we get one, Mommy?”
Katie’s smile dropped away. “Uh . . .”
“It’s almost my birthday, you know!”
A nearly inaudible sound came from Katie’s throat. Facts, she loved. Snakes, not so much.
Janie looked at Olive like maybe she needed help navigating the group.
“Your office would be great,”
Olive said.
Sally came with them. Which was how Olive found herself sitting at a round conference table with some of Janie’s staff while covered in mud and a bunch of other questionable things she didn’t want to think about. Oh, and Sally, right at home on the table, making her way from staff member to staff member.
“She’s looking for treats,”
Janie said when Sally slithered her way to Olive.
Olive lifted her hands. “Sorry, ma’am, I’ve got nothing for you.”
This didn’t stop the snake as she slithered up Olive’s arm. She froze, a little surprised to find Sally cool to the touch, and smooth.
Across the table from her, Katie’s eyes were wide. “Are you okay?”
she whispered.
“Pending,”
she whispered back.
“Sally, come on back,”
Janie said indulgently, then spoke to Olive. “Most zoos in the country are struggling financially, and we’re no exception. Attendance is down. As you know, we need a campaign to get people interested in visiting us, but also to raise awareness and funds to continue our animal rescue efforts. We’re at a loss on how to do that. When Amy told me about you, Olive, and what you do for a living and how good you are at it, I knew we had to hire you.”
Olive hadn’t blushed in years, but she felt her face heat with pleasure. But that might have been just an impending stroke thanks to Sally, who hadn’t gone back to Janie, but instead was making her way toward Olive’s neck.
Thankfully, the guy sitting next to her gently coaxed the snake into his arms, allowing Olive to take a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since Amy brought it up. One thing we could do is create a spring event. With the snow in our rearview, people will be looking for something fun to do. How about a fundraiser dinner?”
“I guess we could rent out a ballroom in one of the Tahoe hotels,”
Janie said. “And hope we take in enough money to recoup the costs?”
“What about holding it right here at the zoo?”
Olive asked.
Janie blinked. “Huh. I never thought about that. We’ve never done anything like that before.”
“Which is what makes it so perfect,”
Olive said. “If it’s at night, and you close the zoo to the general public, that would make the tickets a hot item. You’ve got so many wonderful animals here to see.”
“Not as many as most zoos, since we’re so small.”
“It would still be a huge attraction. You have roaches on hand for a food source, yes?”
Janie nodded, looking confused.
Olive looked around the table. “Has anyone here ever been heartbroken?”
Several hands went up, including Janie’s. “My ratfink boyfriend just dumped me for a friend of mine, so yes.”
“What a roach,”
Olive said, and smiled. “You should name a roach after this ex and feed it to Sally.”
Everyone, including Janie, grinned at the thought.
“A lot of fundraisers focus their marketing on a couples’ night out at a dressy event,”
Olive said. “Instead, we could put the focus on singles, people who want to meet other animal lovers with a shared interest.”
Janie gaped at her. “That’s brilliant. But how do we get people’s attention? How to get the media to report on it? Because that’s been our problem in the past, getting the word out to make the event worthwhile.”
“We offer an additional ticket—at an extra cost, of course—to our singles who want to name a cockroach after an ex. An ex-partner, an ex-friend, an ex-coworker, it doesn’t matter. They name their cockroach, and then . . . we feed them to your snakes, or Komodo dragons, or whatever else you have here who eats roaches. We put that in the press release, and trust me, the word will get out.”
Janie was practically bouncing up and down in her seat. “Oh my God. It’s perfect. Amy told me you were brilliant, and she wasn’t kidding.”
High praise, coming from Amy. Also, surprising, but she pushed that aside for now. “This kind of fundraising doesn’t have to end with the dinner either.”
Janie smiled. “You mean like add it as an option to our entrance fee? For people who want a little extra fun to their day? Yes.”
“Definitely that,”
Olive said. “But I was thinking even bigger. If we leave it on the zoo’s website, people from all over the country could continue to purchase the option online, and they could get a video of the feeding.”
“Gruesome,”
Janie said. “I love it.”
She stood up and offered Olive a handshake. “You’re amazing. And you’re hired.”