Oh, he likes that. He thinks we’re flirting, the dickwad. “Would I, now?”

“Yeah. Horses can smell fear.”

Something on his face falters for a second. Then: “What makes you think I’m scared?”

“City dicks always are.”

“How do you know I’m a city dick?”

“Well, we’re in a city. And you’re a dick, aren’t you?”

A flurry of confusion passes over his face. I can see he’s not sure if I’m just a violent flirter, the kind of girl who’d be hot, if a little angry, in bed, or if this has actually passed over into something else. But he arranges his face into the lazy wannabe rock-star slackery smile. “Who exactly have you been talking to, Cowgirl Cody?” His tone is light, but underneath it’s laced with something less pleasant.

I make my voice go all breathy, the way Tricia does so well. “Who have I been talking to, Ben McCallister?” I lean in close.

He leans in close too. Like he thinks we might kiss. Like most of the time, it really is this easy for him. “You know who I haven’t been talking to much?” My voice is pure breath.

“Who?” he says. He’s close enough that I can smell the beer.

“Meg Garcia. I haven’t talked to Meg Garcia in more than a month. How about you?”

I’ve heard the term recoiling before, but when I see Ben McCallister snap away from me, I understand what it means. Because he jumps back like a snake—recoiling—before it strikes.

“What the fuck?” he asks. The flirting portion of our evening has ended, and Ben’s voice is now truly a growl, a wholly different sound from the bullshit thing he sang with.

“Meg Garcia,” I repeat. It’s hard to look into his eyes now, but in the last month, I’ve become an expert at hard things. “Know her?”

“Who are you?” His eyes are burning with something, a kind of fury, and they make the irises icy. They don’t seem like contacts anymore.

“Or did you just screw her, and screw her over?”

There’s a tap on my shoulder. Stoner Richard is behind me. “I’ve got to be up in the morning,” he tells me.

“I’m done here.”

It’s getting on for midnight and I’ve had three hours’ sleep and have forgotten to eat another meal, and I’m shaky. I manage to walk to the front of the club before I stumble. Richard grabs my arm, and it’s then that I make the mistake of turning around to throw one last death-ray at the cocksure, shallow, pretty-boy poser, Ben McCallister.

I wish I hadn’t. Because when I look at Ben McCallister one last time, he has this expression on his face—it’s the particular contortion when fury meets guilt. And I know that look. I see it every day in the mirror.

6

That night, I crash on the velour couch in my clothes. I wake up Sunday morning with Pete and Repeat sleeping on my chest and face. Either I’ve claimed their couch, or they’ve claimed me. I sit up in time to see the last roommate, who’s been invisible all weekend, drop a cereal bowl in the sink and disappear out the back door.

“Bye, Harry,” Alice calls after him.

So that’s Harry. According to Meg, he mostly stayed in his room with his many computers and his jars of fermented kimchi.

Alice goes into the kitchen and returns with a cup of coffee for me, which she announces is free-range and fair-trade and shade-farmed in Malawi, and I nod along as if my coffee needs go beyond hot and caffeinated.

I sit on the couch, watching the cats take playful swipes at each other’s faces. One of Repeat’s ears gets stuck inside out. I flick it straight for him and he mewls. It’s the most helpless sound, and like it or not, there’s no way I can take these guys to a shelter, no-kill or otherwise.

After I drink my coffee, I take my phone out onto the porch, where someone has set up a bunch of empty beer bottles in bowling-pin formation. I call Tricia. It’s only ten thirty, but miraculously, she answers.

“How’s the big city?” she asks.

“Big,” I reply. “Look, how do you feel about me bringing home a pair of kittens?”

“How do you feel about living someplace else?”

“It would be temporary. Until I find them a good home.”

“Forget it, Cody. I raised you for eighteen years. I’m not taking on any more helpless creatures.”

There are many things I resent about that sentiment; not the least is the implication that I’m a helpless creature that she’s coddled for years. I’d say I raised myself, but that would be unfair to the Garcias. When I got strep throat, it was Sue who noticed the gook on my tonsils and took me to the pediatrician for antibiotics. When I got my period, it was Sue who bought me pads. Tricia had just waved to the tampons in the medicine cabinet “for when the time comes,” not seeming to understand how terrifying the thought of inserting anything supersize absorbency might be to a twelve-year-old. As for the fifty hours of driving practice I needed to get my driver’s license, Tricia logged all of three of them. Joe did the remaining forty-seven, spending countless Sunday afternoons in the car with me and Meg.

“I might be here a few more days,” I say. “Can you cover me at Ms. Mason’s on Monday? There’s forty bucks in it for you.”

“Sure.” Tricia jumps at the money. She doesn’t ask me why I’m delayed or when I’ll be home.

I call the Garcias next. It’s a little trickier with them because if I mention the kittens, they’ll offer to take them in, even though the way Samson is around cats, it would be a disaster. I tell Sue I need a day or two longer to tie up a few of Meg’s loose ends. She sounds relieved, doesn’t ask any more questions. Just tells me to take as much time as I need. I’m about to hang up. Then she says:

“And, Cody . . .”

I hate those And, Codys. It’s like a gun being cocked. Like they’re about to tell me they know everything. “Yeah?”

There’s a long pause on the phone. My heart starts to pound.

“Thank you,” is all Sue says.

x x x

Inside, I ask Alice about the best way to find homes for the kittens. Good homes. “You could put an ad on Craigslist, but I heard sometimes those animals wind up in research labs.”

“Not helpful.”

“Well, we could put up flyers. Everyone likes pictures of kittens.”

I sigh. “Fine. How should we do that?”

“Easiest to take a picture of the cats, maybe email it to yourself, add some text, and print them out. . . .” she begins. “It might be simpler to use Meg’s laptop; it has a built-in camera.”