Chapter 4
CLOVER
Tuesday started with a text from Cat Daddy at seven forty-three in the morning while I was still in the phase of existing where I was technically awake but had not yet committed to it.
Cat Daddy: Vito Catleone here. I have completed my review of Tig O'Bittlesworth's professional and romantic references.
They are acceptable. Please find enclosed my Instasnap for your consideration.
Further correspondence may be directed to my assistant, the Dread Pirate Poptarts, at this number. Good day.
The handle that followed was @VitoRides.
I stared at this for a moment. Tig stepped on my face. I relocated him to the other pillow, sat up, and opened the account.
Forty-seven thousand followers.
I scrolled for twenty minutes and was late to work.
The content was...I didn't have a word for what the content was. There was Vito in his helmet and leather jacket, sitting upright on the motorcycle with perfect badass cat posture. There was Vito in rain gear, which was a small yellow jacket, looking extremely prepared for precipitation.
There was a video of Vito spotting a pigeon from the bike after they'd parked. What happened to Vito's face when he spotted that pigeon, the ultra-adorable cat chittering as he eye-stalked his prey was what did it for me.
And then there was the hot dog video.
Someone had dropped a hot dog on the sidewalk.
Vito, in his harness, jumped down and conducted a full forensic investigation of this hot dog from a distance of approximately four centimeters, including a very thorough sniff analysis complete with that hilarious open-mouthed stinky face.
He did not touch it. He did not look away from it.
Then he hissed at it and jumped back up on the bike.
I saved the account, texted the video to my mom, and went to work.
My mom texted back before I'd made it to the elevator.
Mom: So cute!! You know who loves cats? Warner. Such a nice young man. Any chance you’re ready to give him a second chance?
I had not mentioned Warner. I had sent a cat and his disdain for street hot dogs. My mother had a homing instinct, and the home was always Warner.
At lunch I texted Cat Daddy back.
Me: Vito's references check out. Tig's formal response is attached.
I sent a video of Tig sitting inside my empty cereal bowl looking directly at the camera with the look of a creature who had won something and wanted documentation.
Me: Also the pigeon video. I have watched it four times. His commitment is extraordinary.
Cat Daddy: He takes the pigeon situation very seriously. It's personal at this point.
Me: What did the pigeon do?
Cat Daddy: We don't talk about what the pigeon did. #PigeonPooTrauma
Me: The hot dog video though. He was clearly deeply offended.
Cat Daddy: He's not going to just eat a sidewalk hot dog.
Me: He's not going to eat it but he's going to JUDGE it.
Cat Daddy: Extensively. Listen, is a hot dog that's been on the sidewalk still a hot dog.
Me: Is a hot dog ever a hot dog? Hot dogs are sandwiches.
Cat Daddy: I'm going to need you to say that again.
Me: Hot. Dog = Sandwich. The bun is bread. The dog is filling. It meets the structural definition.
Cat Daddy: The bun is a single continuous piece of bread hinged at the bottom. That's not a sandwich. That's an enclosure.
Me: An enclosure. Like mystery meat prison?
Cat Daddy: Like a taco. You don't call a taco a sandwich.
Me: I might.
Cat Daddy: Cheerleader. No.
Me: It's a valid classification.
Cat Daddy: It is not a valid anything. A sandwich requires two distinct bread units. The hot dog bun is one unit. This is not complicated.
Me: So a sub is not a sandwich.
Cat Daddy: ...
Me: The sub roll is also a single continuous piece of bread hinged at the top. By your logic, Subway is not a sandwich restaurant.
Cat Daddy: I need a minute.
Me: Take your time.
Cat Daddy: This is the worst thing anyone has ever said to me.
Me: You're welcome.
Cat Daddy: Vito would like you to know he finds this conversation distressing.
Me: Tig says the hot dog is a sandwich and also a taco and also its own category and the whole taxonomy needs to be reconsidered from the ground up.
Cat Daddy: Tig is an agent of chaos and I mean that with respect.
Me: He takes it as a compliment.
I put my phone away and went back to my presentation for my recruitment plan and did not think about the fact that I was smiling at my desk.
The work part of Tuesday was good. I laid the full content plan out for Gabrielle — the launch video using the biggest stars on the football team, including Isak Kingman, the audition timeline — and she leaned forward over her desk with the expression that said she’d been waiting for exactly this and said yes, all of it, let's move before I'd finished my last sentence.
She was going to reach out to the three former captains personally. She wanted the player meeting Wednesday. She wanted the content shoot Friday.
Four days.
My engineering brain liked a tight timeline. It liked focused things.
I went home, fed Tig, and found a text waiting.
Cat Daddy: Vito wants to know if Tig has ever seen the Cincinnati side of the river at night from a bridge. Because apparently that's on his recommended list for new residents.
Me: Tig has not left this apartment voluntarily since the tree incident and I think we both know why.
Cat Daddy: Fair. The offer stands for his owner though.
Me: Is that where you want to go on this questionable ride you wanna give me?
That sounded better in my head.
The three dots appeared, then disappeared.
Cat Daddy: Vito is asking. I'm just the assistant.
Me: Tell Vito I'll see him Friday.
Cat Daddy: The Catfather is pleased.
Me: And his assistant?
There was a pause between replies. Longer than the others.
Cat Daddy: Also pleased. Completely.
Me: Hmm.
Cat Daddy: Go to sleep Cheerleader.
Me: Goodnight Cat Daddy.
I put the phone on my nightstand instead of face down on the cushion.
I woke up Wednesday morning with my phone face up on the nightstand and the kind of opening a smart woman would not lean into.
Of course I leaned into it.
But first, work.
My first recruitment strategy was to make some videos for the Tigers’ and the Tigerettes’ social media platforms. Since Gabi had been head of marketing for the last few years, she had the teams trained for the department to pop into practices to make on the spot videos.
I spent most of the day with Dev, the film production lead, storyboarding the videos, and coordinating everything we’d need. I couldn’t take up too much of the players' time, because it was summer camp and they were supposed to be practicing their football skills, not their dance skills.
Dev and I got the whole shoot coordinated so it wouldn’t take up more than about a half hour of their time.
Now I needed players and cheerleaders to be in it. That was going to be the harder part of the plan.
I’d review the team roster, and the list of last year’s cheerleaders who’d expressed interest in trying out for this year’s squad at home. With some Chinese food and cat treats.
Tig would likely die of desperation if I didn’t come home soon with at least one fresh bag of his favorite freeze-tried chicken lollipops.
After a round of snuggles and letting him smell my dinner twice just to make sure he was sure it wasn’t something he wanted to eat, I padded into my second bedroom turned home office.
The football roster was up on my second monitor and the production deck was open on my first, and the part of me that had spent four years on an award winning cheer team and a lifetime as Brick Freeman’s daughter knew exactly which player needed to anchor the launch video.
He was going to be a pain in my ass, I just knew it.
I clicked through the offensive depth chart anyway, because hope is a renewable resource and engineers don’t accept the first solution.
I already had picked out Fox Daws who had a face the camera loved more than the sport did. Literal movie-star jawline and sparkling white smile. He would take direction like the professional actor he was.
He was also a killer wide receiver, so that didn’t hurt.
After reviewing a lot of last year’s FlipFlop videos, I also picked out cutie patootie Blake Rutherford. He was a six foot six built like a brick shit house lineman with dimples to die for and sexy locs with a fade.
If I ever even thought about dating a football player again, he would be high on my list. Mmm-mm.
There were a few other guys, like our kicker from Scotland with his sexy accent, the cornerback with a big social media following as the Islander in Ohio memes, and franchise legend center, Mo Brown.
But what the launch video for a body-diverse cheer team rebuild needed was the franchise face and I knew it.
That meant a quarterback. There were exactly two quarterbacks on the active roster and one of them was a third-string backup who had been signed in May and would be a truly bizarro marketing decision on my part.
Which left Isak Kingman.
I stared at his roster line for approximately four seconds longer than was professional. Then I typed his name into the production deck hit save.
“He’s good-looking, sure” I said to my second monitor. “But definitely not my type. So what’s the problem? Nothing. No problem. Stop staring at his name.”
The monitor said nothing back. Which was its job.
Tig, on the floor next to my desk because he had decided my home office was a sufficiently boring space to occupy once his belly was full of treats, made a small chirping sound that I chose to interpret as agreement.
“Thank you,” I said. “Useful contribution.”
I scrolled the rest of the offensive roster, picked four more players for B-roll based on a sensible mix of name recognition and acting natural on camera, and sent the list to Dev, Gabrielle and Coach Roper with the details.
Then I closed my laptop and leaned back in the desk chair to stare at the ceiling for a while.
I picked up my phone.
I was not going to text Cat Daddy. I was not…
A text from Cat Daddy pinged into my notifications.
Cat Daddy: Vito would like to know if Tig has ever ridden on a bike or anything similar. Asking for a friend.
Me: Tig requests it be known that he prefers stationary objects, ideally with snacks in them.
Cat Daddy: Understood. Phase one of the desensitization plan will involve a parked bike, full safety gear, and a chicken-flavored bribery situation.
I laughed out loud at my phone. Tig opened one eye, decided I was not the kind of laughing that involved snuggles or snacks, and closed it again.
I put the phone face down this time.
Productivity. Was. A. Choice.
I called Zahra Smith the next morning.
I had spent two days putting it off. Not because I was scared. Because I was being strategic. There was a difference. I was an engineer. I made plans. The plan involved waiting until I had something concrete to bring her, something that would prove I had actually heard her on Monday.
That was the version I was telling myself.
She picked up on the third ring.
“Hello?”
She had a different voice on the phone. Lower. The voice she used when she was in her own world and the Tigers facility was not it.
“Zahra, hi. It’s Clover Freeman.”
“I know.”
“Right.” I exhaled. “I’m working on recruitment for the squad rebuild and I want to hold workshops in places where dancers don’t usually expect a League team to show up. I don’t know this city yet. You do. I’d like your help building the list.”
There was a long pause on her end. Long enough that I started counting the small dings in my office ceiling.
“You want to know where the dancers come from,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Come see.”
“Come see what?”
“Studio Loretta. Tomorrow morning, eight AM. I have a class at nine, so don’t be late and don’t expect tea.” She paused for a moment and a text popped up on my phone. “That’s the address.”
“I’ll be there.”
I stared at my phone for a second and didn’t know what kind of face to make at the screen. Somehow it felt like that was a phone call I had won and lost simultaneously.
Studio Loretta was on a side street in Avondale, above a coffee shop with hand-painted lettering and a chalkboard sign that read - Chess Night Thursdays! Bring your sharpest game.
I climbed the narrow staircase next to the café entrance at seven fifty-three.
The door at the top opened into a long, beautiful, just a little bit beat-up dance studio. Mirrors down one wall, a barre, hardwood floors that had been refinished maybe twice and were due again. A speaker in each corner. A folding-chair row along the back wall for parents who had not yet left.
I studied the photos along the wall opposite the mirror, little black girls in dance costumes just like I used to wear, kids in groups mid-performance, a smiling older woman with her arm around a younger Zahra holding a trophy.
The important action was in the middle of the room.
A clump of young girls, mixed ages from maybe around six-years old to pre-teens were in the middle of the floor doing pliés.
Mismatched everything. One in a Disney leotard, one in athletic shorts and a Tigers T-shirt knotted at the waist, one in fuzzy socks she was going to regret, a tiny one in a Hello Kitty unitard who was off-counter and recovering and off-counter again, smiling each time like she was getting paid by the recovery.
A couple other past squad members who I recognized from the roster and social media, were leading the warm-up.
I hoped both ladies would be at tryouts in a few weeks.
Zahra was at the front, in sweats and a sleeveless top, a stainless water bottle on the floor next to her, calling the count.
She did not turn around.
“Grab a seat, Clover.”
I sat in a folding chair against the back wall. For twenty minutes I watched a class I had no part in.
Zahra’s voice ranthe room. She called corrections without raising it.
She used the kids’ names the way an engineer uses tolerances, with precision and without sentiment.
When the Hello Kitty kid landed a wobble-free retiré, Zahra said, “Yes, Aaliyah, that’s the one.
” Aaliyah grinned at her reflection like she’d been handed the Heisman.
And somewhere around minute twelve, my brain kicked in.
The Tigers Dance Squad’s lead captain runs a Black-girl dance studio.
She was my way in to the community I wanted so much to be represented on our team. And if I was quietly honest with myself, the community I wanted very much to be a part of.
And she’d invited me here.
After a lot of years of taking tests, I knew one when I saw it.