Chapter 13 Playlist Weird Flex But Ok
WHEN I CALL KAT back the next afternoon, it goes straight to voicemail. I get a text almost immediately:
Kat: Getting some sun, call you later!
It comes with a selfie of her spread out in a lounge chair next to someone’s gorgeous backyard pool. Two other girls are in the shot—one in the pool and one beside her, waving at the camera.
“You can’t talk on the phone while you’re lying by the pool?” I mutter to myself. I reply that Margarine had a health scare but that she’s home safe and sound now, hoping maybe that will be enough for Kat to call.
She just sends two crying-face emojis and promises we’ll talk tonight.
I find my mom in the kitchen kneading bread, and I grab a blueberry muffin that’s no longer warm, since she probably made them when she got up several hours ago. I pop it into the microwave, pour a glass of OJ, and settle at the kitchen table. Norah Jones serenades us softly in the background.
“Have you talked to Kat lately?” Mom asks.
I’ve just shoveled a bite of muffin into my mouth, so it takes me a minute to reply. “Not since Thursday.”
Her brows rise. “Really?”
I shrug, acting like it doesn’t bother me. “She’s busy with tennis.”
“Has she met some new friends?” she asks. I can tell she’s trying to handle me carefully by the way her tone is slow and even.
“I guess so.”
She stops kneading and wipes her hands on a dish towel. She comes to stand behind me and wraps her arms around my shoulders. “I know this is hard, honey.”
Do you? I don’t say it out loud, because I know she’s trying to help, but does she really know how it feels for the one person she could count on and be her whole self around to leave—and worse, to barely look back?
“Don’t want to talk about it?” she guesses. I’m usually comfortable talking to my parents, and they both give good advice. But I don’t want to start my day off like this, so I shake my head.
Mom kisses my hair and says, “Okay,” then goes back to her bread.
After I finish eating, I take Margarine on a short walk.
The vet said she’d need to build back up to our usual distance but that the exercise was important.
I pause halfway so she can rest before heading home, and I settle in the sand and lean back on my hands.
Margarine plops down beside me, panting, head swiveling to keep track of everything going on around us.
I tip my face to the sun, letting the warm rays seep into my skin.
A happy sigh escapes me, and I relish the temporary joy I always feel sitting by the water.
When we finally make our way home, I see a little girl with a Hello Kitty shirt and remember the stray cats I saw behind the grocery store on Friday.
With Margarine’s emergency vet visit and then my work shift, I completely forgot about them, and I decide to stop by the grocery store to see if they’re still there.
Mom says she doesn’t need the car—she has a full day of baking planned—and that I can take hers, so that’s what I do.
It’s a little after two in the afternoon when I pull into the lot, and I park along the side of the building to stay out of the customer spots.
It takes me twenty minutes to get to the back door that leads to the alley, because I get waylaid by Martin, Gia, and new photos of Sandy’s grandkids.
Finally I step through the door. The picnic tables are empty, as usual, and the scent of doughnuts lingers from the shop next door.
I turn and head toward the alcove, unsure if I’m hoping the cats are still here (so I can make sure they’re fed) or not (maybe someone took them in and they’re cuddled up in a soft, fluffy bed somewhere).
As it turns out, I get a little bit of both. I prop my hands on my waist and grin when I realize what I’m looking at.
The cats are still here, but they’re also in a soft, fluffy bed.
Sort of. Someone has fashioned a shelter of sorts out of a cardboard box and layered the bottom with old T-shirts.
Both cats are curled up inside the box, looking as content as can be.
The two plastic containers I brought out two days ago are still there, full of water and cat food.
“Well, look at you two,” I say, approaching. I go slow, cognizant of the anxious gray one who seemed wary of humans. As I crouch down, the black cat emerges and immediately nudges my outstretched hand with her head, greedy for attention. I laugh and give her what she’s looking for.
“Who made all this for you?” I ask, taking a closer look at the rumpled cotton. Now that the black cat vacated her spot, I see words on one of the shirts: PHOENIX SUNS.
“I think they like it, don’t you?”
I jump at the voice behind me, which sends the cat diving back into the box.
I stand and spin around to find Gregory standing a few feet away.
He’s wearing jeans, another gray T-shirt, and a Triton vest. His hands are in his pockets, and without a backward hat covering it, his brown hair is visible in its usual disarray.
“You made this?”
“Yup. I was bringing some boxes out here at the end of my shift yesterday and saw these guys—”
“They’re girls, actually,” I say, interrupting.
“Oh,” he says, nodding. “I saw these girls and noticed the bowls. I figured that meant someone was keeping an eye on them, but they didn’t have a place to sleep.”
“You gave them your shirts?”
“They’re on loan,” he says. “I had those in my trunk.”
The black cat is curious again and steps back out. I sit down right where I am, crisscross applesauce. She climbs into my lap, and I smile up at Gregory. “I brought the food and water bowls out on Friday. After I worked on inventory.”
He walks toward me. “Ah. We’re going from friends to co-parenting, look at us.
” He continues past me, leaning down to peer into the box.
“This one’s shy.” He reaches into his pocket and drops a few treats on the ground.
They’re in a line, like a little trail, leading to where he eventually sits against the wall. He keeps two more treats in his hand.
“She wouldn’t come to me, either.”
“How did you know it’s a girl, then?”
I think back. “Actually, I don’t. I guess I just assumed.”
He shrugs. “Girl until proven otherwise.” He regards me steadily as he stretches his legs out straight and crosses his ankles.
I pull out my phone, trying not to jostle the cat curled up on my legs. “Think they like music?”
“Duh. All cats do.”
His response makes me grin. I scroll through my options with my thumb. “I have a playlist with a lot of Glass Animals…?”
“Perfect. Should we name our children?”
I look down at the feline curled up in my lap. “Fiona.”
“Wow, you had that ready to go. Big Shrek fan?”
I laugh and shake my head. “It was my grandma’s middle name. I always loved it.”
“Does that mean I get to name the antisocial one?”
“Have at it.”
He strokes his chin, looking up into the sky. He takes so long, I finally say, “Oh my God, it’s not like you’re naming your actual first child. Let’s go.”
“Waffles,” he blurts out.
“Waffles?” I sputter.
“I panicked,” he says, eyes wide. “It was too much pressure!”
I lean back on my hands, grinning. Fiona stays where she is, purring against my legs. “Waffles,” I say again. I tip my head back and forth, as if rolling the word around in my brain. “It kind of grows on you.”
“Let’s see if she comes to it,” he suggests. He leans forward a little and holds his hand out, the two treats an offering in his palm. “Waffles, come get a treat.”
Zero movement in the box.
“That’s okay,” he tells her, readjusting himself against the wall. “I’m good at waiting. We’ll get there.”
It’s the same thing he said to me last night.
Suddenly I’m thinking about the time we spent on the beach together and the way his body felt pressed up against mine.
I didn’t hate the way he smelled, or how he took it in stride when I nerded out about sharks and the importance of the marine food chain. It was… nice.
As if reading my mind, he says, “I can’t believe I got to see a horseshoe crab in the wild.”
“Cool, huh?”
“Definitely. Especially after I learned that they’re living fossils that have been around for millions of years.”
I tuck my lips between my teeth for a second, holding back a smile, then say, “Gregory, did you look up horseshoe crabs last night?”
He shrugs like he’s not embarrassed, but his ears turn pink. “Maybe.”
“That’s totally something I would do,” I assure him.
“Well, I know literally nothing about sea life.” He has balanced the treats on his knee and tucked both hands behind his head. “Before we moved here two weeks ago, I’d never seen the ocean.”
My mouth drops open. “Never?”
He shakes his head, only it’s more like rolling it back and forth against his hands. “Nope.”
“How come?”
“My parents worked a lot. We didn’t travel much. My dad liked to ski, so the few vacations we did take were usually to the mountains.”
I open my mouth, then close it. I blink.
Amusement passes over Gregory’s face. His hands drop back into his lap. “You look like you have questions.”
“I do,” I admit. I start with the easy one: “What do you think of it?”
“The ocean?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s pretty cool.”
“ ‘Pretty cool’? That’s it?” It’s like I’m defending my own mother.
He lets out a beleaguered sigh. “Listen… don’t hate me for this, but… it kind of weirds me out, okay?”
“What does? The ocean?”
“Yes! It’s like a ginormous death trap. Sharks, hurricanes, giant squids. Deep-sea trenches we can’t even explore because if a human went that far, they would explode from the pressure. How is that not terrifying?”
He has a point. The ocean deserves respect. But also… “This from the guy who lived in the desert? Like, you coexisted just fine with heat stroke, snakes, dust storms? Canyons you can just trip and fall into, never to be seen again? What about scorpions? Have you ever seen one?”
He laughs. “All the time. Take it from me, if you leave your shoes outside overnight, make sure you shake them out before you put them on.”