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“What’s wrong with his car?” Sam drives a hearse, which apparently are gas guzzlers, so to be environmentally responsible, he’s converted it to run on grease. The inside of it always smells pleasantly of fried food.
“Not sure,” she says.
I guess I don’t have a lot of choices. I bite the inside of my cheek and grate out the words. “That would be great, then. You’re a real pal, Daneca.”
I hang up the phone before I can be more obnoxious, my mind occupied with imagining how I can possibly pay the debt I am going to owe them. If all friendships are negotiations of power, I need some new leverage.
* * *
Grandad is furious when I get home. He starts yelling at me when I walk through the door. Stupid crap about taking the car without permission and how this is my house and I should be the one taking care of it. He has a lot to say about how old and infirm he is, which just makes me laugh, and me laughing makes him yell louder.
“Just shut up!” I shout, and walk up to my room.
He doesn’t say a thing.
* * *
Let’s go with the cat being Lila. Just for another minute, even if you think I’ve lost it. Just to try and figure some things out.
Someone made her that way.
And that someone is working with my brothers.
And that someone must be a transformation worker, which makes him (or her) one of the most powerful workers in America.
Which means I’m screwed. I can’t fight that.
The Magritte poster taped above me shows the back of a well-groomed nineteenth-century man looking into the mirror on his mantle, but the reflection in the mirror is the well-groomed back of his head. When I bought it, I liked that you could never see the man’s face, but now when I look at it, I wonder if he has one.
* * *
My phone rings at around ten that night. It’s Sam, and when I pick it up, I can hear he’s drunk.
“Come out,” he says, manic and slurring. “I’m at a party.”
“I’m tired,” I say. I have been staring at the same cracked patch of plaster for hours. I don’t feel like getting up.
“Come on,” he says. “I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you.”
I roll onto my side. “What do you mean?”
“These guys love me now that I’m their bookie.” He laughs. “Gavin Perry just offered me a beer! You did this for me, man, and I’m not going to forget it. Tomorrow we’re going to get back your cat, and then—”
“Okay. Where are you?” It’s kind of funny that he thinks he owes me anything when he’s been doing stuff for me left and right. I push myself off the bed.
After all, there’s no point in staying here. All I’m doing is thinking of Lila as a cat, stuck in a cage and crying until her throat is raw, or wearing my own memories thin with scrutinizing.
He gives me an address. It’s Zoe Papadopoulos’s place. I’ve been there before. Her parents travel for their jobs, meaning that she hosts a lot of parties.
Grandad is asleep in front of the television. On the news I see Governor Patton, who has been a big proponent of Proposition 2, the thing that’s supposed to force everybody to get tested to ascertain who’s a worker and who’s not. Patton is going on and on about how he believes that workers should come forward in support of his proposition so that they can let the world know that they are the good, law-abiding citizens they claim to be. He says no one ever needs to know what’s on the paper, except the individual. At this time he has no plans to propose any legislation that gives the government access to those private medical records. Right.
Grandad snores.
I pick up the keys and go.
Zoe’s house is in one of the new developments in Neshanic Station, on a stretch of several acres with woods attached. It’s huge, and when I get there, the driveway is clogged with cars. The massive double doors are flung wide open, and there’s a girl I don’t know laughing hysterically on the front porch, leaning against a fat Corinthian column with a bottle of red wine in her hand.
“What are you celebrating?” I ask her.
