10. tallulah
TALLULAH
ABDUCTION IS WORSE THAN STARVATION
I huddled under my umbrella, walking in the cold summer night, rain pouring, matching my mood. Meals at the Olympic Village meant a dozen interns scattered across separate tables, glowering at each other. Anything sounded better than that, so I’d started eating in downtown Toronto.
Alone. The only one alone at every table.
Before college, I’d kind of always been alone. Being an only child, and at school, and the constant traveling with my parents, hidden away while they were in the spotlight. Solitude had never been a problem for me before, but I’d never felt alone like this.
I stalled outside of a closed sneaker store, rain pelting the windows with a lit-up poster of the Toronto Blades.
There were more than twenty players on that team, but the focus of the poster was on Nick.
My eyes drifted to his picture, the biggest one, grinning down at me, his dark hair tousled, his intense eyes crinkled for a cocky grin.
With a sharp left turn, I hurried down the sidewalk.
I’d been trying not to think about Nick. I threw myself into my paper, but it felt like every book I cracked open was sent to torment me.
‘Knick knack’ and ‘nick of time’ and so many others that leaped off the page.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Him and those abs and the rasp of his voice and the way he felt pressed against me.
Our make out at the party didn’t mean anything to him, it was just a potential hookup, but it’d been a long time since I’d felt…
wanted. Wanted by someone I wanted. Wanted by someone who I knew would give me a night I’d never forget.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about what Nick told me. What Fridge had said.
I’d wanted to call Fridge immediately—to demand to know what he was telling people behind my back. To ask if he seriously thought there was a future for us. There was no way that was ever happening.
Yet as the days passed, my courage waned. I’d never been good at confrontations.
My stomach was a pit of anxiety pondering it.
I couldn’t live like this.
“Just do it,” I whispered.
I crossed the street into the park that led to the Olympic Village, clutching my phone. Maybe if I forced myself to do it, I could get an answer out of Fridge.
I clicked his contact and fought every instinct to end the call.
Fridge’s voice flew through, pleasant and warm. “Hey, Tallulah.”
I stared at the dark trees of the park, at the darkness itself. Even the fairy lights were blotted out by the rain. This was my opportunity to push what I needed to push, but the words died on my tongue.
My shoulders slumped. “Hey.”
“What are you up to?”
“Just grabbed Thai food,” I said quietly. How pathetic. I couldn’t even do it over the phone a thousand miles away. “I wanted to ask…about the concert?”
While I wandered along the path, deserted because of bad weather, Fridge told me about the concert. The three of them had a blast—of course they did—and my parents invited Fridge to stay at our house the weekend before school started, a weekend I was guaranteed to be there.
I muttered under my breath, but Fridge didn’t hear me.
“How’s the internship?”
“Good.” I hesitated. “Well, my paper on the Toronto library system is going great, but everybody at the internship hates me now.”
“Why do they hate you?”
“A big part of my research project is the history of the Toronto library and how it connects with the city. I scheduled some interviews with researchers and past politicians.” I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my voice. “Everybody’s mad because Andrew loves it.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s too late for anyone else to book the same stuff I did. They hate me.”
“That’s good.”
“I don’t want anybody to hate me—” I rubbed my arm, holding myself close. “And Andrew revealed he could track who downloaded the reading list. He spent thirty minutes berating people and talking about how I was the only one who did it. He’s singling me out.”
“He’s using you as an example,” Fridge pointed out, amused. “What were you expecting? It’s a competitive internship. You’re putting in the work, yeah, the other students are going to hate you. You’ll have to get used to it.”
“I don’t like it—”
“So you thought you’d be, what? Having sleepovers?” Fridge’s laugh was low. “Ah, Tallulah.”
Nick’s word came back to me, belittling. Fridge wasn’t being mean, and I knew he was proud of me for doing well, but his laugh still hurt.
“I think it’s coming from the top-down,” I sighed. “Everybody’s scared to death of Tomasini.”
“He’s an intense guy.”
“He has his biography as required reading, it’s ridiculous—” I stopped myself, glancing out from underneath the umbrella. A sound pierced through the heavy rain. “What is that?”
“What’s what?”
“It’s…meowing?”
I quickly walked through the park, leaving the well-lit path for the clusters of trees towering above me, the meowing getting louder.
A pair of golden eyes gazed down from maybe fifteen feet above me.
My mouth fell open. “There’s a cat in a tree!” I came closer, trying to discern it from the darkness. “What’s it doing up there?”
“Probably went after a bird,” Fridge suggested.
“What do I do?”
“Do you see a collar?”
“Um…it’s hard with the rain. I don’t think so?”
“Leave it. It’s feral.”
“Leave it?” I repeated, shocked. “It’s stuck in a tree!”
“When it’s hungry, it’ll come down.”
“How can you say that?! It’s so small—what if it falls off a branch and hits the ground?”
“It’s raining, Tallulah,” Fridge chided me. “It’s dark, you’re alone. This isn’t your problem.”
Maybe Fridge was right, he usually was. I hesitated, eyes locked on the specks of gold fifteen feet above me. Now that the cat heard me, it was crying. If it was able to come down, wouldn’t it have tried?
How big were the predatory birds in Canada? Shit, they were huge. Was I leaving the cat to become some hawk’s snack in the morning?
“I have to go,” I said curtly.
“Wait, Tallulah—”
I ended the call.
The local fire department was less-than-enthusiastic to hear from me. They were a downtown station in one of the biggest cities in North America, they had no interest in fetching cats out of tall trees. After a few snide comments, they hung up the phone.
I couldn’t think of what else to do.
Andrew was so stressed from the Olympics and Tomasini himself, I couldn’t call him, and no one in my internship liked me or each other. I didn’t know anybody who could help.
“No…” I whispered. “You know somebody.”
I gulped, pressing the contact. It was nine o’clock, surely Nick was out partying or at some girl’s apartment. Would he be available? Or even in the same city?
My stomach churned with anxiety as the phone continued to ring. This was a huge mistake.
A groggy voice took over the line. “Uhhh, hello?”
I blinked, surprised. “Were you asleep?”
“Tallulah?” I could hear the blankets shuffle. “Yeah, I was asleep.”
“It’s, like, nine—?” I shook my head. “Nick, I need help.”
I took a deep breath in preparation to explain, but before I could, Nick interrupted me. “Where are you?”
The explanation dissolved on my tongue. Nick didn’t even question what I needed, his aid was instantaneous. That was unexpectedly…sweet. My cheeks were warm.
“I—I’m at Moon Park and there’s a cat in a tree.”
“There’s a what?”
Fifteen minutes later, a very rumpled, soaked Nick arrived. He didn’t have an umbrella, he must’ve left the house too quickly to grab one. His hoodie and sweatpants clung to him from the rain.
The party had been so awkward, but I was so relieved to see him. For the last fifteen minutes, the cat had been crying above me. It was horrible to listen to.
“Shit, you weren’t kidding,” he muttered. “Do we shake the tree?”
I shook my head, shivering. “I’m going to climb it.”
“You’re going to what?”
“The cat’s been crying—”
“Tallulah—”
“Do you hear that?” I pointed towards the golden pair of eyes, moaning pitifully. “I can’t leave the cat up there!”
“Tallulah, give me a second,” Nick said incredulously. He hunkered down with me under the umbrella. “You can’t climb that tree—”
“Nick, what if—if—”
He stared at me incredulously. “Are you crying?”
“What if a hawk or an eagle eats it in the morning?”
“So we can’t put a trampoline under it and shake the tree?”
“No.”
I handed him my umbrella, moving past him, but Nick grabbed me by my shoulder, easily forcing me back. His hand was warmer than I expected. Goosebumps rose across my skin.
“I’ll go,” he said finally. “I’ll get the cat.”
“Nick—”
“No offense, Tallulah, but I’m way stronger than you. How much do you bench? A book?” Nick sighed, gazing up at the cat. “You couldn’t have picked nicer weather to do this?”
Once again, Nick was trying to make me feel better. It was just like his ruined shirt at the party. I managed a weak, hiccup-y laugh, and he threw me a tired grin.
Nick took a moment at the base of the tree before grabbing a branch from above, hauling himself up, sneakers thumping against the wood.
“Have you done this before?” I called.
“Regularly? No! This isn’t part of my hockey drills!”
He shuffled across the branches, and I couldn’t keep in the surprised gasps. He was so big and tall, some of the branches didn’t look like they could hold his weight. My heart pounded. My fingers crossed, hoping he wouldn’t fall, and mentally cursing myself for even thinking that—
“Tallulah!” he barked. “Those nervous-as-shit sounds aren’t encouraging! You’re making me nervous!”
“I’m sorry!”
He sighed. “Stop apologizing all the time!”
“I’m s—” I froze, paralyzed, searching for something to say. “I didn’t mean to—I—I don’t know what to say!”
Nick managed to reach the branch closest to the golden eyes and the cat’s crying stopped, probably frightened that this man had found its not-so-secret hiding place.
Nick’s shout broke the tense silence. “The cat’s covered in crap, Tallulah!”
“What?”
“It’s fucking filthy! Caked in mud!” Nick fumbled for it and the golden eyes lurched backwards. “The cat won’t come near me—ah, fuck it!”
The cat howled when Nick grabbed it. I thought the cat would’ve calmed down but apparently being abducted by a stranger was worse than starving up a tree. Nick took long steps down, making his way closer and closer to the ground.
“Tallulah, I’m sorry.” Nick cursed, struggling to stay upright. “I can’t hold on to the cat!”
“You can’t?”
“It’s fighting me! I’m only a couple of feet up, I’ll drop it, you catch!”
I panicked, throwing away the umbrella. “What if I drop the cat?!”
“Tallulah, if I don’t drop this cat—we’re both getting dropped! And the cat can take the head injury a lot better than I can!”
“Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I held out my hands, pulse racing.
Fear welled up inside as Nick shuffled down. The cat was wild in his arms. This wasn’t going to work—oh my god, what if the rescue mission was for nothing?
In seconds, the cat fell through the air and I grappled for it. It flew towards me, a whirl of dark fur. I caught it, yanking it to my chest. Relief overwhelmed me.
Nick leaped to the ground. He stumbled for a second and I reached for him, steadying him. We were both breathing hard, staring at each other—about as drenched as the cat was.
My eyes darted to the cat, to its golden eyes.
“It’s a kitten,” I realized.
“What’d you think it was?” Nick panted. “A goat?”
There was no collar, no identification, and something about its matted fur told me this hadn’t been someone’s prized pet. It was a wild animal. Oh my god, I made Nick climb up a tree for another problem in my life.
Whatever. I didn’t care about the potential consequences. I was so grateful the rescue mission was a success.
Nick raked a hand through his damp hair, shaking off the droplets. “What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I—I think I need to clean it up?”
“How are you going to sneak a cat into the Olympic Village?”
He had a point. There was a poster of Tomasini’s rules in our meeting room.
One of the highlighted ones exemplified the ‘no animals’ rule.
If I managed to smuggle the cat inside, and that possibility was fragile already, the interns and I shared one bathroom.
Someone would catch me with the cat and rush to Andrew about it.
My eyes slid to the lit-up path, to the road where I’d heard Nick’s car.
He followed my eyesight and his eyes widened. “Woah, no, no, no.”
“I can’t have pets in the Olympic Village—”
“That doesn’t mean I’m bringing that rat to my house.”
“It’s a kitten. And it needs help!”
“Tallulah, I’m renting a Thunderbolt. Do you know how much that car cost me?” He pinched the bridge of his nose, fumbling for a solution. “We’ll put the cat in a trash bag, and get a taxi, and a hotel room, or—uh—I don’t know. We’ll figure something out.”
“Nick—”
“There’s no way that rat is riding in my car!”