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“That’s not true, I was always nice to you, at least when you weren’t being stubborn and moody.”
“Which is like, never.”
“Is that why you called the Buddhist Center and blackmailed me into meeting you? Because you’re angry?”
“Yes, I’m angry, but that’s not why. M told me you were in trouble, so I thought I might be able to help.”
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out between you and Minty Fresh.”
Lily cringed at the sound of M’s full name. “What could I do? You guys and the whole death-dealing thing . . . And he knows so much, and I don’t know anything, and he was always giving me stuff and forgiving me when I was a bitch—acting like he respected my opinion.”
“Maybe he does respect your opinion.”
“That’s what I’m saying. How do you win a relationship like that?”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to win a relationship, Lily.”
“What do you know? You’re hiding in a cat box.”
“This isn’t a cat box.”
There was a commotion from the back room, a door opening at the second-floor landing, then footfalls on the stairs.
“Is voices. Hello,” said Mrs. Korjev. The stout Russian grandmother came down the backroom stairs, followed by Sophie Asher. Sophie, her dark hair in pigtails with clips that resembled gummy bears, was dressed in layers of pastels that would have looked perfectly fine on taffy or ice cream. The soles of her pink sneakers lit up with every step.
Lily leaned over the bar so they could see her. “Hey.”
“Lily!” Sophie scampered into the abandoned restaurant and jumped into Lily arms. “We miss you and your pizza.”
“I miss you, too, kiddo.”
“Lily, the goggies are lost. We’re going to put up posters.”
Sophie ran back to Mrs. Korjev, who handed her a letter-size printed sheet from a stack she was carrying. Sophie plopped the poster on the bar in front of Lily, then climbed onto the bar stool next to her. “See?” Sophie said. “There’s a reward.”
Mrs. Korjev pulled a staple gun from her shopping bag and held it. “Is reward for Mr. Chin at butcher shop, too, if he give Vladlena trouble about boning chicken again. Is lost-dog-poster staple on his front-head.”
“Forehead,” Sophie corrected the Cossack matron.
“If shoe fit,” said Mrs. Korjev.
“So you’re doing your shopping, too,” Lily said. “Multitasking.”
“Chinatown have best vegetables, even for white devils,” Sophie said, with only a slight Cantonese accent, a remnant of Mrs. Ling’s shopping tutelage. “Auntie Jane used to take me to Whole Foods on her day off, but she says she has to take too much vitamin X to keep from killing everyone there, so now we get our veggies in Chinatown.”
“Let’s see here.” Lily pulled the poster over. At the top there was a picture, printed in black and white, of Sophie perhaps a year or two younger, with the hellhounds. Sophie was in the tub, her head above a sea of bubbles, crowned with shampoo horns. Alvin and Mohammed flanked the claw-foot tub like guardians at the entrance to a bubbly tomb, making them look completely unreal to scale, which is kind of how they looked in real life.
“We blacked out my eyes with this square for my privacy,” said Sophie.
“Good idea,” said Lily. “You didn’t have any other pictures of them?”
“Nope,” Sophie said.
The poster read:
LOST
2 Irish Hellhounds.
