by Dima Zales
“She must’ve snuck into your room and borrowed your M9 knife,” Felix says preemptively. “Remember, she didn’t just say, ‘Bring any knife.’ She specifically asked you for that one.”
I take a larger sip.
“Is he right?” Ariel already looks disappointed—a major reason why the methodology of effects must always remain a secret.
I point at the water in my mouth and shrug.
“If it’s not how you did it, how about you let one of us pat your pockets?” Felix says, his cheeks reddening—probably at the thought of him patting me down.
Ariel scratches her head. “You really went through all that trouble just for a trick?”
I take another, smaller—and hopefully noncommittal—swig of water and resist chastising her for using the “t” word again.
“I think you’d better go clubbing with me this Friday,” Ariel says, chuckling. “You desperately need to get laid.”
A loud snort tries to escape my mouth but only causes most of the remaining water to spray out, though some gets painfully into my nose.
I begin coughing and laughing at my own reaction, but also at the beet-red expression on Felix’s face. I didn’t think it possible, but he’s about fifty shades redder than before. My theory is that he just thought about helping me with the “getting laid” problem—though if he did, I don’t know why his blood flooded in the wrong direction.
When I feel semi-normal, I give Ariel a narrow-eyed stare that tries to say, “There’s teasing, and there’s talking about my nonexistent sex-life in front of Felix. Not cool.”
She just looks at me, eyebrows wagging, and I know she wants to reply, “You’re just cranky because you haven’t gotten any in two years.”
And it’s true. The last time I had sex was with my college ex-boyfriend, and it seems so long ago that I sometimes worry things might atrophy down there. Clearly, sharing this factoid with Ariel was a big mistake, and not only because getting laid is so easy for her that she can’t relate to my troubles. I bet all she needs to do is crook her index finger at any guy, no matter how hot.
Seeing no dignified way out of this situation, I reach into my pocket and take out my phone. “Oh no,” I say, demonstratively looking at the screen. “Someone from work is desperate to reach me.”
Unfortunately, I’m telling the truth. Staring me in the face is a text from Nero Gorin himself—and he almost never contacts me at home directly, letting his assistants do the dirty work.
Call me NOW, the text says.
“So, did she switch out that TV prediction too?” Ariel asks the still-blushing Felix, her words reaching me as though from a distance.
I ignore her, my heartbeat speeding up as I look over the record number of missed calls and texts. Something big must be going on at the office, and I’m probably in a lot of trouble.
Dimly, I register Felix saying, “She didn’t touch the envelope. Kacie opened it,” as I frantically read the first text.
Mr. Gorin is going to present at One Alpha Conference Monday morning. He needs you to get him up to date on RANR.
“Did she ask you to hack into The New York Times to get the headline?” Ariel asks as I scan the other messages.
“She mailed that prediction weeks ago,” Felix says, but I tune him out, my mind not on my magic for once.
Gorin’s assistants wanted me to come into the office on Sunday to bring Nero up to speed on a stock I was researching. It’s for his 8:00 a.m. presentation at the Alpha One Conference, a gathering of hundreds of the most important hedge fund honchos. After they couldn’t reach me on Sunday, they wanted me to come in at 6:00 a.m. this morning. Then 6:30—an impossible task as it’s already 6:37 on my phone, and my commute is half an hour.
I’m late for my regular start time, much less for making it into the office early.
“Then how did you do that, Sasha?” Ariel asks as I slip the phone into my pocket and rush to grab my bag and keys.
“Very well, hopefully,” I say automatically, using my rehearsed response. Mentally, I’m plotting the fastest route to the office and trying to come up with excuses for missing all the earlier correspondence.
“I’m so sorry, guys, but I seriously have to run to work,” I say as I open the front door. “See you later.”
What I don’t say is they might see me sooner than they think—if Nero fires me over the phone in the next few minutes. And as much as I’d like to one day leave this job, that day is not here yet.
I still need it to pay the lion’s share of our obscene rent.
Chapter Seven
As I repeatedly stab the elevator down button, I debate if I should call Nero now or face his wrath when I get to the office.
The elevator doors glide apart, postponing my decision.
There’s no cell reception in the metal box.
I have one foot inside the elevator when my phone dings with an incoming text.
I check the message instantly.
To my relief, the text is from Darian.
Amazing job last night, it says.
Thanks, I speedily text back. I’d love to come back if Kacie would have me.
“Sasha,” a familiar breezy voice says from behind me. “I’m so glad I caught you. I need your help with the direst emergency.”
It’s Rose, an older lady I first befriended by helping her recover her lost cat—a sneaky creature that ended up on one of the yachts at the marina down in Battery Park.
Damn Darian and his text. Another second, and Rose would’ve missed me. But now that I hear the worry in her voice, I can’t just leave, so I turn around.
As usual, Rose’s makeup is as heavy as it is skillfully applied, her hair expertly colored and her jewelry impeccably chosen to disguise both her age (which I’d estimate as eighty-plus) and her frailty. I’m not fooled by this veneer of vitality, though. Rose has good days and bad; sometimes, she seems as active as a young girl, and other days, she has trouble walking. Judging by her walking stick, this is not one of the good days. In fact, though she usually plasters a mysterious smile on her face, today she looks so troubled that wrinkles show up on her forehead—and I could’ve sworn she had Botoxed it into submission long ago.
She grabs at the wall, as if to steady herself, and I rush to her, worried. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Luci,” she says, almost crying. “She’s dying.”
Of course, it’s the damned cat again. She causes Rose nothing but trouble, which is why I mentally renamed the thing Lucifur. Well, because of that, and because she almost ate Fluffster when they met in the hallway on that fateful day. The only reason my little friend survived is because I ran out of the apartment just in time. Before I spooked that evil monster, the look on her face said, “Right there is a noble feast worthy of our majesty.”
Lucifur is a Persian with a misleadingly cute appearance. Her bright green eyes and angelic face are similar to the ones that adorn the Fancy Feast line of cat food. According to her papers (and yes, this cat has papers), her color classification is Chinchilla/Shaded—which must be why she thought Fluffster was destined to be her prey.
“Where is she?” I ask grudgingly. “What has she done now?”
“She’s there.” Rose lets me lead her into her apartment, and as I enter, I notice that the usual Chanel perfume aroma of the place is spoiled by a faint undertone of feline stomach acid. “She had diarrhea Sunday evening and has been vomiting all night,” Rose says. “She was vocalizing previously, but now she’s catatonic.”
In the middle of the living room, the cat lies curled into a tight little ball.
“Luci,” Rose calls out, but the mound of fur doesn’t reply.
“Hey you,” I say soothingly as I examine the little creature.
The cat doesn’t reply.
I know there’s no way she could be pretending to be sick, but just in case, I try a gambit that would settle it once and for all, saying, “We have to take her to the vet.”
Lucifur must
not be faking because the word “vet” would usually send her into a psychotic frenzy. I learned this the hard way when I helped Rose put the beast into her special carrier for her annual checkup. We now never utter the v-word under any circumstances, just like we never say, “It’s time for your bath.”
Her last bath is how I got the scars I covered up with the Queen of Hearts tattoo.
Kneeling carefully, I put my hand on the cat’s back. Though her fur isn’t as heavenly soft as that of a real chinchilla, it might be the softest that a cat’s genes are capable of producing. The poor thing is damp and feverish, and this close up, I can hear very faint meow-like sobbing that makes pity claw at my heart.
“When did this start?” I whisper.
“Last night as I was watching you on TV—which was amazing, I meant to tell you. Things got worse later in the night.” Rose seems to be on the verge of crying again. “Can you take her to Dr. Katz, please?”
I’m so bummed out by the cat’s condition that both Rose’s praise and the humor of the vet’s name just fly by. I’m as worried about Rose as I am about the cat; if something happens to Lucifur, I’m not sure Rose would be able to handle it.
I have to run to work if there’s any chance of salvaging my job, but I can’t abandon Rose in this situation. The cat has to get to the vet, of that I’m certain, and I can’t ask Felix or Ariel to go in my stead because they have their own Monday morning responsibilities. It would be unfair to get them in trouble. Besides, Rose doesn’t know either one of them enough to trust them with her baby. That only leaves Rose herself, but she must be unable to go; otherwise, she’d be there already.
“I can’t locate my door key,” Rose says, as though reading my mind. It’s clear she’ll use any excuse, no matter how lame, rather than admit that she’s not feeling well.
“It’s not a problem, Rose.” I grab the cat carrier. “I’ll take her right now.”
The cat meows piteously as I gently place her into the cage-like contraption and carry her out of the apartment, with Rose trailing worriedly next to me.
“Thank you so much, Sasha,” she says when I enter the elevator. “Call me as soon as you know what’s going on.”
“I will,” I say and press the parking lot button.
Though I usually cab it to work, I decide to take my Vespa to avoid traffic and get the cat to the vet before it’s too late. The ride might be slightly more rocky, but I’m an excellent driver—one of the best in the city, in my not-so-humble opinion.
I stick my phone into a special holder attached to the wheel and secure the cat carrier in the back. Poor Luci is looking even more miserable.
“Almost there,” I croon. “Please don’t die on me.”
I make sure my helmet-compatible Bluetooth headset is paired with my phone, put on the helmet, and start the Vespa.
Breaking the speed limit, I zoom through the garage parking lot and fly out onto the street.
The Oculus—the famous downtown four-billion-dollar train station—looms a few blocks away to my right. From this angle, it looks like a dinosaur carcass, though from the windows of our apartment, it resembles the winged dove it was intended to be.
I dodge a killer yellow cab and a couple of suicidal pedestrians as I make a right turn. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an uncanny ability to anticipate traffic behavior and adjust accordingly. Like some of my other, similar abilities, I imagine this is just a well-honed skill that began to feel instinctual—a bit like what Malcolm Gladwell describes in Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. Hopefully, my traffic Spidey sense will keep me and the cat safe.
Letting a stream of pushy pedestrians pass, I contemplate the swiftest route to the vet, who’s located on Canal Street, just as you enter Chinatown. When the flow of people subsides, I resume moving.
Ignoring everything I’ve read about using phones while driving, I prepare to ask the phone’s AI to call Nero.
Before I get a chance to say anything, though, my phone lights up with an incoming video call.
The caller ID shows it to be Makenzie Ballard, or as I know her, Mom. It takes me an extra moment to realize that’s who it is, because I’m still not used to her maiden name outside of the credit card security questions. Mom started talking about changing her last name from Dad’s—Urban—back to her family name as soon as my parents divorced, but it took over a decade for her to get around to doing it legally.
Five minutes after her official name change came through, though, Mom started hounding me to do the same, and she refuses to understand that I’m keeping the old last name because of inertia and laziness, not as some subtle way to favor Dad. I could tell her that I haven’t spoken with him in forever now, that I ignore his attempts to reconnect, but for some reason, I haven’t said anything—partly because I don’t want her to delude herself into thinking that I do it for her.
I let the call go to voicemail and pray that Mom butt-dialed me by accident.
No such luck.
The phone rings again, the caller ID displaying Mom’s name.
If I don’t pick up before I call Nero, Mom will call again, over and over and over. My phone will make an annoying beep each time, and I’ll probably crash when I reach to decline her call for the hundredth time. It might be easier to just pick up and dismiss whatever she wants, so I accept the video call.
Keeping my eyes on the road, I view the screen with my peripheral vision—a skill I practice for mentalism, so I can always sneak a peek at something. Mom is wearing her brown pair of horn-rimmed glasses today, her discreetly colored blond-gray hair neatly tucked behind her ears. As usual, she gives off an aristocratic vibe, which makes sense. Her family came from very old money—something she never lets anyone forget despite the fact that the money ran out years before she met and married my dad—who had new money.
“Sasha.” Even with the headset, I can barely hear her with the clatter of the New York streets around me. “Why did it take you so long to pick up?”
“Can you see around me, Mom?” I stop at a red light. “I’m on my Vespa.”
She looks up at my helmeted head. “That explains the abominable noise.”
“Is this urgent?” I ask impatiently. “I can get a ticket for driving and talking on my phone.”
No cop would be able to tell that I’m on the phone, thanks to my headset, but Mom doesn’t need to know that.
“Do you remember my friend Zamantha, with a Z?” she says, unsurprisingly ignoring the not-so-subtle hint that I don’t want to talk right now. “Zam Durand?”
How can I forget? As I once wrote in my pre-teen diary, “Zam iz one of Mom’z mozt pretentiouz friendz.”
“I remember her,” I reply, wondering if Mom will at least acknowledge that last night’s TV performance happened, let alone give me some praise.
“Zam invited me to her Paris chateau,” she says, and even in my peripheral vision, I see her cheeks flush with an excitement that usually only appears when she buys expensive jewelry. “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind me going.”
Translation: “you wouldn’t mind me going” is Mom speak for “if you wouldn’t mind paying for my trip to France.” She’s not going to ask for money outright unless she’s really desperate, but we both know what this is about.
As soon as I graduated from Columbia and moved out of Mom’s Upper West Side townhouse, Dad finally stopped sending her checks. Though it might be a bit unreasonable, given how long they’d been divorced by that point, I’m still mad at him about that. As the owner of a booming tech company, he’s in a much better position to throw money at Mom than I am.
“Another vacation?” I ask cautiously. “Didn’t you just go to your yoga retreat?”
Translation: “Didn’t I just pay for your yoga retreat?”
“That was two months ago,” Mom says without blinking an eye. “I was dreadfully stressed out. Still am. Zam’s chateau is exactly what I need. Don’t you remember how peaceful it was? I took you there the year af
ter… you know…”
Nice. She just had to remind me that I indeed went to France with her and Dad the year after they adopted me.
She might as well have stimulated the guilt center of my brain with an electrical wire.
“How much is the ticket?” I ask, figuring I can skip putting money toward my “Quit Nero’s Fund” savings for a month.
“Twelve,” Mom says with distaste.
For someone who spends so much money, she sure doesn’t like to talk about it.
“Twelve what?” I nearly run over an old man who decided to jaywalk across Broadway. “Thousand American dollars?”
She looks at me with an unreadable expression and nods.
“Is it so much because you’re going last-minute, or first class?”
Dad had an expression about Mom that went, “When in doubt, pout.” And pout is exactly what she does, saying, “Well of course it’s for first class. You wouldn’t want me to fly with the—”
“I will send you a check for two thousand.” I put as much firmness as I can muster into my voice. “You should be able to get a business-class ticket for that. Alternatively, you can fly coach, like most of humanity.” I debate if I should tell her that this very conversation increases the chance that I will lose my job and she’ll lose her Sasha-shaped piggy bank, but I decide against provoking her into hysterics. Instead, I pleadingly say, “I’m not made of money, Mom.”
“Okay.” Mom still looks upset but accepts her defeat with grace. “Just please, don’t tell anyone I’m flying business class,” she adds in a hushed whisper.
“Deal.” I pause at a stop sign and wonder with whom I’d share such a vile rumor. Needing to end the conversation, I say, “I really have to get off the phone, Mom.”
“That’s fine, dear,” Mom says. “I’m going to have to call my travel agent and see what she can finagle.”
I sigh. Naturally, Mom doesn’t use Expedia, or Orbitz, or Priceline, or any one of a million budget traveling sites. She’d risk actually saving money if she used such plebeian modus operandi.
