Chapter 28
Zoey
The Smoothie Maven was in somewhat of a state when Zoey and Nick returned, with Romero looking furious in Alice’s travel crate. While the hordes of zombies had largely subsided, the clean-up from the combined Zombie Shuffle and zombie invasion was an ongoing thing.
‘I thought Portlanders would be better about handling their trash,’ said Zoey, as she picked up wads of green slime and errant socks.
‘It’s unconscionable,’ agreed one of the power-walker moms who regularly strutted up and down the street in Gore-Tex, complaining about minor social and environmental infractions. ‘I’m going to take it up with the Belmont Street Committee.’
‘Is there a Belmont Street Committee?’ whispered Nick.
‘I think it exists in theory, but mostly involves sitting around and eating vegan cheese platters. A bit like the Baby-Sitters Club. Because, really, who’d let a bunch of kids babysit their kids?’
‘Depends how much you like your kids,’ said Nick, with a grin.
‘Evil,’ said Zoey, with an even bigger grin.
‘Wait, is that Romero, the newly anointed Cat Mayor of Laurelhurst?’
It was Nolan, the owner of the zine shop next door.
He was loading up his bicycle panniers with the day’s deliveries.
He pulled out the Laurelhurst Gazette, a parody zine that covered the local area, and which featured a grainy photo of Romero covered in smoothie gunk and hissing furiously. Cat Nip This! read the headline.
‘Wait, he won?’ Zoey’s eyes widened.
‘In a landslide,’ said Nolan. ‘Although the ferret put up a good fight.’
‘They always do,’ said Nick amiably.
Zoey squeezed his muscular arm, first from excitement and then again for the pure tactile pleasure of it. Damn, what an arm. ‘Nick, we’re the part-owners of a cat mayor! Ainsley is going to love this.’
‘She absolutely is,’ said Nick. ‘Oh, thanks for the punk-rock zine, by the way. The crossword is a great zombie diagnostic tool.’
‘Glad you liked it,’ said Nolan, climbing on his bike. ‘It definitely puts the old noggin to the test.’
Zoey unlocked the front door to The Smoothie Maven, turning on the lights as Nick swung Romero’s cage inside, perching it by the windows. As he did, Reba and Gracie emerged from the retro arcade next door, waving frantically.
‘Oh, it’s morning,’ said Reba, with a yawn. ‘That place is like a casino. No clocks, keeps you there all night spending all of your quarters.’
‘Wow, but Reba is a pro at Tetris,’ marvelled Gracie. ‘My shutter doesn’t move fast enough to capture the magic.’
‘I’ve got that zen in me,’ said Reba. ‘Also, Tetris helps manage PTSD after a traumatic event, and the things I’ve seen on the road …’
‘Not to mention the zombies,’ offered Zoey.
‘Oh, I’ve seen much worse than zombies. But sure, zombies too.’ Reba shrugged. ‘Well, I think we got most of the stragglers. Now it’s just another day of slinging smoothies in the smoothie shop.’
Something twisted inside Zoey at the thought. She wasn’t sure she could bear another day of hearing the Vitamix rev or fiddling with pomegranate seeds or trying to field questions about the antioxidant properties of some super-seed she was pretty sure only existed in comic books.
A different future was opening up for her instead. Going back to school. Working with Nick. Counting the stars in the wide-open sky. Riding along in an old truck with Alice’s head in her lap.
Surely Maeve would forgive her. She’d done her part in carrying on The Smoothie Maven’s legacy.
‘I’m putting the shop on the market,’ said Zoey, with certainty.
‘On the market?’ echoed Nick.
‘On the market, huh?’ Reba tugged a dangly beaded earring thoughtfully.
‘Maybe Voodoo Doughnuts will go for it,’ said Zoey, with a shrug. ‘Zombies and voodoo seem like a good pairing. And we both have the vegan thing going on.’
‘Ugh, don’t remind me,’ said Reba. She sipped the Irish coffee she’d carried over. ‘You know, I just might have a buyer for you. You’re plumbed for a coffee shop, aren’t you?’
Zoey nodded.
‘And given the whole zombie thing, you don’t mind if the new owner has a morally grey past?’
‘Don’t all small-business owners?’ asked Zoey. She’d weighed out some difficult decisions in the past, like whether raccoons counted as pests or friends, or whether it was all right to use equipment she’d found out on the kerb.
‘Anyway, they’re a lovely couple,’ said Reba. ‘He’s a grumpy Australian; she’s a theatre type. They have a coffee shop in Brooklyn, but I could see them expanding out here. Sometimes you just want worse weather, you know?’
‘The rain is good for creative types,’ mused Zoey. ‘It sends you into a depressive spiral so that you can create your best work.’
‘Makes for great lighting, too,’ said Gracie, from behind her camera lens.
(She was snapping photos of Laurelhurst’s newly minted cat mayor.) ‘You don’t need to do the Vaseline lens thing when everything has a foggy mist to it.
It’s like built-in airbrushing. Plus you get that dewy glow from the humidity. ’
‘Well, if your Brooklyn people are interested, I’m happy to talk. Because no offence to successful smoothie shops, but fuck this place.’
‘Um, no, not fuck this place,’ said Terriffany, who’d just come in and was sloughing off her backpack. She stooped to pat Romero in his crate. ‘I really like The Smoothie Maven.’
Zoey blinked. ‘You do? But what about the Entrepreneurs’ College in the Mojave? Weren’t you applying for school there?’
Terriffany folded her arms – luckily, for Romero had been about to bite her, although not in a zombie-like way. In a regular grumpy cat way.
‘For unschool,’ she corrected. ‘But this place could be my startup. It’s profitable. And scalable. I’ve been talking about it with my mentor. And also … I think Maeve would like it if I took it over.’
Maeve’s photo rattled on the counter.
‘That was just me,’ said Reba. ‘I bumped the old girl. I think. Although it could be Reba’s Razor …’
‘I think we’ve had enough supernatural weirdness for a while,’ said Nick. ‘Don’t you?’
Reba’s eyes twinkled as she sipped her coffee. ‘Never.’
Bursting into a grin, Zoey wrapped Terriffany up in a hug. All right, so she wasn’t ordinarily a hugger, but this was different. ‘You’d be so good as the owner,’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you want to talk to my guy at the bank?’
Terriffany, who was less of a hugger than Zoey, extricated herself, dusting down her slacks like a scientist emerging from a biohazard zone. ‘No need. I made a good crypto play last month – I’ll cash it out tonight. My mentor’s lawyer can handle the paperwork.’
Oh, to be seventeen and brilliant, thought Zoey. When she’d been that age, all she’d had to her name was a battered Jane Austen omnibus and some grapefruit marmalade a weird neighbour had given her.
Just then, Zoey’s phone rang. Terriffany made a face when Zoey picked it up. (Terriffany only did asynchronous communication, and made a case for why as Zoey spoke.)
‘It’s the shelter,’ Zoey said, when she’d rung off. ‘Romero has his first piece of mayoral business.’
‘Well then,’ said Nick, looping his arm around her shoulder. ‘Shall we get this show on the road?’
Nick and Zoey pulled up to Second-Hand Tails on Sandy Boulevard, a cute green-and-white Art-Deco-looking building with charming animal murals in the windows. Ainsley had done their signage, and it had taken all of her willpower not to come home with an army of kittens.
‘Stay there, girl,’ Nick told Alice, who whined sadly. ‘I know you’d be fine, but the others might get a bit rowdy.’
‘Because you’re such a beautiful girl,’ whispered Zoey, as she hefted Romero in his crate. ‘They’re just jealous.’
Alice’s tail thumped, and Zoey patted her soft head. ‘Back in a minute. Promise.’
The shelter was rowdy with tiny mewling kittens climbing a cat tree in a special kitten room, and a trio of cavalier puppies tripping over their own long ears. Grumpy senior dogs thrust their white muzzles out at Zoey, who wished she could adopt every single one of them.
Nick’s farm did have room for a menagerie …
‘You’re thinking what I’m thinking, aren’t you?’ Nick held out the back of his hand for an elderly Lab to sniff.
Zoey did the same for a furious-looking Maine Coon, who regarded her with brutal indignation. ‘Alice wouldn’t mind some friends, right?’
‘She’s excellent at making friends.’
Zoey smiled. (The Maine Coon did not return the expression.) ‘I know. She’s basically the whole reason I ever gave you the time of day. Well, that and your astonishing good looks. And your mushrooms. Although I regret being swayed by the mushrooms.’
‘They did make life interesting there for a bit. And they helped take the edge off meeting my sisters,’ pointed out Nick.
Zoey waggled a finger at a fat yellow lizard called Banana. ‘Good to know I intimidated Larissa as much as she intimidated me.’
‘Enough that she went back and got a proper tattoo in the end,’ said Nick, with a grin. ‘She’s never been able to turn down a discount card. Not even on her lawyer’s salary.’
‘Is that so? I’ve got a whole bunch of vouchers from Fred Meyer, if she wants some cheap baby carrots and fifty cents off a Luna bar.’
‘You two are going to get along just fine.’
A shelter volunteer came up, dressed in a seasonal Resist Frog sweater – perhaps there were some Christmas-in-July festivities going on later. Or a protest. Or perhaps both. Pinned to the sweater was a nametag that read Dorian.
‘Nice sweater,’ said Nick, with a nod. ‘We stan an amphibious legend.’
‘Thanks. My nan made it,’ said Dorian, twirling to show off the back of the sweater, which read Fascists fuck off in knitted cursive. ‘I wear it every Thursday. Oh my goddess, are you Romero’s representatives?’
Nick and Zoey nodded.
‘Good timing. We just got done dealing with a furious Burmese.’ Dorian showed off some angry scratches on his arm.
‘He arrived in quite the state, although he’s doing a lot better now.
We thought rabies, maybe oleander poisoning.
He kept trying to chomp on other animals’ heads, and he was making the weirdest noises. Almost like he was trying to talk.’
‘Did it, um … sound like “braaains”?’ offered Zoey, doing her best zombie-cat impression.
‘Yes!’ Dorian looked surprised – perhaps even impressed – at Zoey’s cat-impersonation skills. ‘We called in the big-cat specialist from the Oregon Zoo, but even they had no idea. Anyway, he calmed down a lot after we gave him his neuter and ID tattoo.’
Zoey cocked her head. ‘His what?’
‘Ordinarily we do microchips, but, you know, budget stuff. And we have a tattoo-artist apprentice who volunteers. Inkstigators – that place on Hawthorne? – donated the ink. Anyway, since the tattoo, he’s been fine.
Although we’re probably going to get him assessed for behavioural …
quirks. Anyway, welcome, Mayor Romero. Do come say hi to our adoptable, freshly ID-tatted kitties.
We’ll pop your photo up on our socials, if you don’t mind. It’ll be great for adoption numbers.’
Mrow, said Romero.
‘He consents,’ said Zoey.
Dorian led Nick and Zoey over to a glass-walled room housing a variety of cats, half of whom were napping, and the other half of whom were harassing the ones who were napping. A voluminous Burmese clinging upside down to a cat tree meowed feistily at the sight of them.
Dorian grabbed him in a practised move, passing him to Zoey.
‘He’s looking pretty spiffy,’ said Zoey, stroking the fluffy cat. ‘No signs of residual, um, rabies or anything.’
‘Wait, is that Ro-mayor-O, of Cat Nip fame?’ Another vet tech came over, an enormous bunny rabbit cradled in his arms. If Zoey didn’t know better, she’d have assumed that this bunny had simply eaten all of the other bunnies in order to acquire such size.
‘I voted for him! I follow him on Instagram.’ The vet tech pulled up his phone, showing Zoey the account.
Zoey chuckled. ‘Ah, my friend Ainsley set that up. When she’s not writing signs she’s writing viral posts.’
‘She’ll get headhunted by Wieden+Kennedy if she’s not careful,’ said Dorian.
‘I somehow can’t imagine Ainsley working for anyone other than herself,’ said Zoey. And she couldn’t – Ainsley played better with others than Zoey did, but creatively she was a free spirit.
‘Here, can you hold this?’ Dorian passed Zoey a sign that said Endorsed by the Ro-mayor-O, snapping iPhone photos of Romero with the other cats and kittens.
As the phone shutter clicked, something in Zoey’s heart felt heavy.
After this, she’d be taking Romero back to the sharehouse.
And that felt somehow … wrong. Ainsley was gone.
Winslow was gone. Terriffany was gone. The smoothie shop was gone.
Returning to her Frog and Toad room felt like going backwards.
It felt closed and small and dark next to the joy of being on Nick’s farm.
‘So, I have a thought,’ she said to Nick, as Dorian zoomed in for a shot with a fuzzy kitten resembling the soot sprites in Spirited Away.
Nick was stroking a svelte Siamese who was yowling at the top of its lungs. ‘You know I love to hear your thoughts.’
‘So, obviously we’re going to want to put a pin in the zombie- mushrooms thing. But the rest of the business is going well, right?’
Nick nodded.
‘And I’m a quick study. I’ve been listening to All That the Rain Promises and More in audiobook format every morning when I’ve been opening the shop. And Jeff VanderMeer’s fiction on my walks, just to get a fictional perspective on mushroom stuff. So, I guess what I’m asking is …’
‘Zoey, would you like to move in with me?’ Nick asked, pre-empting her question. ‘And Alice, obviously.’
Zoey’s heart swelled so immensely she wondered whether the zombification had done some internal damage. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Zoey, I’d love to spend my evenings reading mycology books next to you on the big blue couch. I love that you have a favourite shovel. I love that you’re willing to fight zombies with me.’
‘Wait, what?’ said Dorian.
Zoey waved him off.
‘I love that you love Alice,’ continued Nick. ‘I love everything about you. Most of all, I love that everything you own could fit in the back of my truck so we can do this thing in one trip.’
Zoey grinned. ‘You’re lucky that I have a cat in my arms, otherwise I’d whack you right now.’
‘I don’t doubt you for a second. How about we go grab your stuff when we’re done with Romero’s photoshoot?’
Whatever prickliness was left in Zoey melted away. She was no longer a cactus. She was barely even a succulent. She was happy, fulfilled, whole.
‘Let me pop my room up on Craigslist and have Romero concede to Mean George,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s fair that he represent a district he no longer lives in.’
Nick raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s very generous of you. Zohran Mamdani would approve.’
‘What can I say? The people matter to me. And also the cats.’ Zoey adjusted her arm around the carrier, smiling at her healing Frog tattoo. ‘And the people who get matching tattoos with me.’