Chapter 10
Zoey
Zoey set her forearms on the Smoothie Maven counter and rested her head against them.
Today had moved at breakneck pace. The shop had sold out of its mushroom smoothies within the first hour, and she’d spent the rest of the day apologetically offering alternatives like the ABC CBD and the Skincare Pear.
‘I flew in from L.A.?’ complained a blonde woman in a capacious straw hat when Zoey explained this.
Zoey did not doubt the woman’s claims: her skin was the colour of overcooked pancakes and her lips had a puffiness that nearly required an EpiPen.
‘This stuff had better be as good as the Japanese Milk Bread I waited overnight to try? Well, paid someone to wait overnight to try? Like I did with my Taylor Swift tickets?’
‘My mushroom guy is going to restock us tonight,’ promised Zoey. My very hot, very PNW lumberjack mushroom guy. Whom I kissed last night! Kissed! ‘You’re welcome to wait overnight if you really want, but honestly ten minutes before opening should do it.’
The blonde woman scoffed, then stomped off down the street to take selfies outside the vegan cheese shop.
‘Oh come on. We have a photogenic garden wall, and our ugly vegetable display is right there!’ muttered Zoey, going over to heft a particularly hideous rutabaga. ‘It’s perfect for selfies!’
‘We should start taking bigger orders,’ said Terriffany, as Zoey flipped over the door sign to ‘closed’.
Terriffany was running models in some sort of fancy data-visualisation program on her iPad.
‘I think we’re close to having a viral moment.
Especially since …’ she ran a quick reverse-image search ‘… that blonde lady has three million followers. She’s a trend spotter. ’
‘Like from that William Gibson dystopian novel?’
‘Sure, sort of.’ Terriffany grimaced, trying to figure out a way to translate between Teen and Old Person. ‘But if my growth projections are correct, you should probably start looking at seed funding.’
‘But mushrooms use spores, not seeds.’
Terriffany cocked her head, trying to figure out whether Zoey was being obtuse, or simply was obtuse.
‘Seed funding. Like money. For growth.’
Zoey sipped her coffee. Last night had been a late one, and a smoothie wasn’t going to hack it. ‘I know. But I’m not sure I want the shop to grow. Businesses expand, and then they become shit. Or go bankrupt because they’re beholden to investors with dollar signs in their eyes.’
Besides, growth meant spending more of her life at the shop, which, as much as she wanted to support Maeve and her legacy, she wasn’t sure she wanted.
The Smoothie Maven had treated her well, but it wasn’t her dream by any means – although her dream was to kick back in a home library with a research paper in her lap, a Pendleton blankie over her legs and a grazing plate beside her.
Which was probably less viable than running a smoothie shop.
But Terriffany was not interested in this logic. She held up a handful of chia seeds. ‘Everything wants to grow. Businesses. Ant colonies. Viral outbreaks. Can I at least use it for my Unicorn Studies project?’
Zoey had been dismayed to learn that Unicorn Studies did not involve the study of mythological beasts. Rather, it was all about trying to identify and replicate the success factors of eight-figure tech companies.
‘You should’ve enrolled in forest school,’ said Zoey. ‘Think of all the fun you’d be having identifying coprolites and grafting trees or whatever. But sure. Why not.’
Terriffany tapped away on her tablet. ‘I also ran a word-frequency histogram for brains, and I’m not seeing anything particularly unusual. But I’ve got an alert set up in case it trends.’
Oh right. Zoey had forgotten all about that. She’d sent Terriffany a text after the weird slam-poetry events. Although that had been when the chocolate martini was peaking.
‘Zoooo-ey!’ Ainsley, who historically paid ‘closed’ signs no mind, came bopping into the shop, her sparkly Vans squeaking over the tiles.
Her sequined sardine-patterned tote bag clacked with art supplies.
‘It’s happening. Romero is officially running for Cat Mayor of Laurelhurst. I got the confirmation today. ’
Zoey raised an eyebrow. ‘This is a lot more formal than I was expecting.’
‘There was so much paperwork. I also had to fudge his address, and the question about Romero’s whereabouts since, well …’ Ainsley gestured around.
‘He’ll show up.’ Zoey tried to sound confident. Even though this was the longest Romero had gone without leaping through their front window in search of treats. ‘He’s probably just getting better snacks at another house.’
And they’d spotted him during their latest Romero-finding expedition, right?
Or at least, Zoey wanted to assume the yowly, wide-eyed black cat they’d come across was Romero.
Even if that cat had been more, well, feral than Romero usually was.
Romero had never been the snuggliest of visitors, but he wasn’t a habitual hisser and scratcher.
Maybe they’d been chasing a lookalike instead.
Portland had no shortage of roaming kitties.
‘I’m putting good cat-finding energy out there.’ Ainsley pulled out some poster board and some paint markers. ‘How do we feel about Ro-mayor-O as a campaign name?’
Zoey chuckled. All right, so that was pretty clever.
‘It’s brilliant,’ she said. ‘And yet I’ll never understand what it is to be inside your brain.’
‘Come to the joining side, babe. It’s great. We have community.’ Ainsley said it in a teasing woo-woo voice, the way she and Joaquin had the other day when enticing her to agree to a temporary tattoo. Zoey rolled her eyes.
Frankly, she felt that living in a sharehouse was her concession to this particular socially mandated requirement.
‘I have one of these, don’t I?’ Zoey waved the temporary tattoo at Ainsley. ‘I did my bit.’
‘Bah. It’s got like a few flecks left. You should get a replacement. Or a real one.’
‘Flecks count!’ protested Zoey, jabbing at her wrist. There was definitely still a faint outline of the temporary tattoo.
‘C’mon, Zoey. Show some civic pride.’
‘Fine.’ Zoey dropped her cleaning cloth and folded her arms. ‘What platform is Romero running on, exactly?’
Ainsley gave Zoey a withering look. ‘Cat Nip, obviously. Two words.’
‘And is he pro or against it?’
Ainsley grinned evilly. ‘He takes a Schrodinger’s position on it. Okay, so one thing …’
Ah, here it came. Here was the bit that was going to involve a ridiculous favour.
‘We’re going to need Nick’s truck.’
Zoey shook her head. ‘No way. I’ve already asked for a truck favour. I’m all out.’
Ainsley helped herself to one of the carob cookies by the counter, grimacing with every bite. (She still managed to eat the whole thing.)
‘He’s not a genie, Zoey. It’s not like you get three lifetime favours and that’s it.’
Zoey certainly hoped not. Because these would not be the favours she’d be calling in. Hers would be more of the … Oh gosh, brain, behave.
‘Besides.’ Ainsley wiped crumbs from her mouth. ‘Hauling stuff for friends and loved ones is part of the truck-owner’s creed. It’s the way of the road.’
Zoey’s cheeks had gone full tomato. They were redder than the Bloody Murder smoothie they’d offered over Halloween. ‘Friends and loved ones might be overstating it.’
Terriffany glanced up from her iPad. ‘Overstating things is the key to success. You just have to believe it.’
Of course this was the position Terriffany would take. ‘Are you sure your school isn’t secretly called “The Academy of Psychopaths”?’
‘Successful CEOs have many overlapping traits with psychopaths,’ said Terriffany blithely.
‘Anyway, I’ve already called him,’ said Ainsley, who was now munching on a raw vegan protein bar.
Zoey groaned. ‘You have not.’
And how, exactly? Zoey had kept her phone on her person all day. There was no way Ainsley could have reprised her ‘could I see your phone?’ trick from the other evening.
Ainsley grinned wickedly around a giant bite of protein bar.
‘You left his business card out on the kitchen counter. If it’s not under lock and key, it’s fair game.
And even then … I know a locksmith. In the biblical sense.
And she owes me. Anyway, Nick will be here in about half an hour.
That should give you enough time to get cleaned up. ’
Cleaned up?
A quick glance at the mirror revealed a sweaty forehead, cheeks dusted with chlorophyll grime and hair matted with errant carrot guts.
Zoey had never moved so fast in her life.
‘Terriffany, can you finish the closing tasks? And don’t let that influencer back in, no matter how many celebrity names she drops.’
Terriffany glanced up from the Forbes article she was reading. ‘I think we probably have different ideas about what constitutes a celebrity.’
‘Yeah, well, being on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list is correlated with being in prison for fraud,’ called Zoey as she hurried out the back door of the smoothie shop, Ainsley at her heels. In perfect shin-kicking proximity. But she’d resist the urge. ‘I can’t believe you called Nick.’
Ainsley shrugged in a way that conveyed not a whit of apology. ‘Whatever it takes to get you to admit that this one’s the one.’
Zoey sighed as she followed Ainsley out through the back patio and up the street, averting her eyes as she caught a glimpse of the dumpsters where she’d spotted Nestor the other night. Today only a crow met her gaze.
She rushed to catch up with Ainsley, who was stooping to pet a barrage of fluffy dogs – the hypoallergenic type whose breeds all ended in -oodle – being walked by a small woman in an Eighties leotard on a loud video call.
As they turned the corner onto their own street, Zoey could’ve sworn she heard a clatter, followed by a cavoodle yip. She turned, the back of her neck prickling.
‘Did someone just yell “brains”?’ she asked.