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That’s something worth making me forget.
10
SAM AND DANECA MEET me outside the coffeehouse. They’re sitting on the hood of his 1978 vintage Cadillac Superior side-loading hearse in the parking lot, and Sam looks awful, taking tons of tiny sips from his cup like he’s got the shakes. The car is perfectly polished; its waxed metallic black paint is marred only by the sticker reading POWERED BY 100% VEGETABLE OIL pasted just above the chrome bumper. Sam’s wearing a suit jacket over a white shirt with a tie, but the jacket is too short in the arms, as if maybe it’s been in the back of his closet for a long time.
Daneca looks strange out of uniform. Her jeans are worn along the bottom, above her thin flip-flops, but her white shirt is perfectly ironed.
“I see your car is out of the shop,” I say to Sam.
He looks confused. “My car’s—”
Daneca talks over him. “I thought I’d come along anyway, since I already said I would.”
I take a deep breath and wipe my damp palms against my pants. I’m too nervous to care that they lied. “I really appreciate you guys giving up your Saturday to help me,” I say, turning over a new leaf of gentlemanly behavior.
“So, what’s the deal with this cat?” Daneca asks.
“It’s a family friend,” I say, hoping they’ll laugh.
Sam looks up from his cup. I can see the shimmer of sweat on his face. He looks massively hungover. “I thought you said the cat was yours.”
“Well, it is. It was. It was mine.” I am confusing myself. I am forgetting the basics of lying. Keep it simple. The truth is complicated, which is why no one ever believes it over a halfway decent lie. “Here’s what I need you to do—I guess you didn’t get my text?”
“Am I not dressed rich enough?” Sam asks, leaning back so that we can appreciate the full glory of his suit. “Don’t be drinking the Haterade.”
“You look crazy,” I say, shaking my head. “Like a crazy valet. Or a waiter.”
He looks over at Daneca, and she bursts out laughing. “Is that why you’re dressed like that?”
Sam flops back on the car. “This is so not good for my ego.”
“Daneca can do it,” I say. “Daneca looks the part.”
“Humiliation on top of humiliation,” Sam groans. “Daneca looks rich because she is rich.”
“So are you,” she tells him, which makes him put his sunglasses over his eyes and groan again. Sam’s parents own a string of car dealerships, which makes it ironic that he both drives a hearse and opposes big oil.
“It won’t be hard,” I tell her, trying to push out of my head all the times I blew her off. “You’re going to be a nice well-to-do girl who was supposed to be taking care of her grandmother’s long-haired white cat. Its name is Coconut, but it has a longer show name that you don’t know. The cat also had a Swarovski crystal collar worth thousands.”
Sam sits up. “Your cat is a Persian? I love their little pushed-in faces. They always look so angry.”
“No,” I say as calmly as I can, even though I want to knock Sam in the head. “Not my cat. Her cat. Just let me finish.”
“But she doesn’t have a cat.” He holds up his hands at my look. “Fine.”
“First you go in looking for Coconut, but then you ask if they have any fluffy white cats. You’re desperate. Your grandmother is going to be home on Monday and she’s going to kill you. You’ll pay the person behind the desk five hundred bucks for any all-white fluffy cat—no questions asked.” They’re staring at me strangely. “There aren’t any monitors on the desk, I checked.”
“So then they give me the cat and I give them the money?” Daneca asks.
I shake my head. “No. They don’t have a fluffy white cat. Our cat is a shorthair.”
“Dude, I think your plan has a flaw,” Sam says slowly.
“Trust me,” I tell them, and smile my biggest, charmingest smile.
* * *
Daneca goes over to the Rumelt Animal Shelter and comes back, looking a little shaken.
