Meow Squad delivers food-truck food to people in office towers and residential high-rises throughout Manhattan. The stuff gets ordered and paid for through an app. We’re a well-oiled network of food dispersal—people in cat costumes whose job it is to wait in line and bring food to drivers like Rollins, who assemble the carts and bring them us runner cats, and us runner cats who do the deliveries.
Our high-style carts are more tall than wide, all the better to fit into crowded elevators. They’re made of brushed stainless steel with the orange Meow Squad logo on the sides and hot and cold insulation compartments. We’re adding new buildings and new cats all the time.
Rollins lifts my cart out of the back and onto the pavement, turning the handle to me with a nervous smile.
Rollins is a sweet, na?ve farm boy who grew up in the rural hinterlands of some western state, and then came to the city as part of a really religious production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
He thinks tattoos and facial piercings are Satanic and says nerdy things like, We give 110 percent of ourselves in every rehearsal! We’re all kind of shocked he’s lasted this long in the city.
We go through our carts, checking our condiments and chips stash.
“This is going to be great,” I say to nobody in particular, trying to exude personal power. “I’m the ultimate delivery cat. And the ending meow? I’ve got something better.”
That gets Sienna’s attention. We delivery cats are supposed to say meow after each delivery. It’s a fire-able offense not to say it. Most of us say it to the tune of thank you. It sounds least dorky that way.
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
I mimic putting down a meal, then I put my hands on my hips and strike a pose, focused on channeling personal power. “Meowwwwww!” I say, all style and moxie.
My co-workers just look stunned.
Rollins barks out a laugh.
Okay, I’m officially ridiculous. I can’t even meet his eyes. What a dork I am. When I turn back to him, he has this odd look on his face. Have I finally put poor, wholesome, wide-eyed Rollins over the edge? Is he wondering how he can switch with another driver? Or just go back West?
“Cat got your tongue?” I say. Because if he has something to say, I just want it out there.
“It’s just that…” Long pause.
“What?” I press.
He starts to say five different things and then stops himself each time, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. Then he says, simply, “You’re gonna kill with tips out there.”
I blink. “You think?”
He nods. “Queen of the cats. You know you are.”
I grin. I just want to hug him.
In fact, Rollins turns out to be right. My first two towers have been on my route forever, but when I appear as a fabulous alpha cat, people sit up and take notice. They smile. They engage with me more. They give me compliments and say things like, New ears? New boots?
I play up the queen thing, strutting around and having fun. When they ask me about the change, I say things like, I’ve decorated my outfit because I’m the most wonderful delivery cat ever, or, I’ve declared myself queen of the delivery cats.
My tips go through the roof.
I’m stunned. The more I work it, the higher the tips.
I’m back out at noon getting the cart for Maximillion Plaza.
I’m checking the order on my Meow Pad, which is an iPad that they decided they needed an embarrassing name for, and enter the cart number to check the roster. And there it is. An order for a roast beef and swiss croissant sandwich. Twenty-fifth floor. No office number.
His.
There’s always been a strange, sizzling line of knowledge between us like that. Not sizzling hot, but sizzling painful. A sizzle that stings and leaves a terrible scar.
My heart pounds. It’s fear, but something more—a kind of dark exhilaration. I’m going in there. I’m gonna do this.
I make my way to the building, steeling myself. The other deliveries were easy audiences, but Max zeroes in on your weak points. He sees through your bullshit. Queen of the cats is pure bullshit—bullshit that he invented. Will he know?
I keep going back to what Kelsey said, though—her sister never remembers what she wrote even a year ago. Max is running a men’s lifestyle empire now; surely the things he put in a book nearly a decade ago have faded into the dust heap of time. Also, his system was for men. He’ll never recognize it coming from a woman…right?
Can I actually bring him to his knees with his own system? People rarely see their own weak spots, even if they wrote a book on those weak spots for others.
And my sisters are counting on me. It’s this most of all that gives me the rush of courage that propels me through the gleaming steel-and-glass doors of Maximillion Plaza; this that gets me across the high-ceilinged lobby.
It’s dizzyingly lux inside, an assault of white marble and exposed pipes and polished metal beams with an ultra-mod lighting scheme, like somebody threw a basket of enchanted glowing orbs toward the ceiling, and they froze midflight in an arrangement that’s entirely random, yet utterly perfect.
Naturally.
What you also can’t miss are the mammoth photographs of Max on the towering walls. Black-and-white on-brand photos.
I recognize some of the shots from magazine and billboard campaigns for his eveningwear line, his sportswear line, his exclusive wristwatch line.
There’s Max leaning in a darkened doorway, all merciless charm in a tux that looks lived-in and maybe even fought in and now clings wantonly to his muscular chest and shoulders.
There’s Max leaning on a railing looking thoughtfully out over some Mediterranean cliffs wearing a Maximillion brand watch on his very muscular forearm, shot with some type of photographic trickery that makes you really, really want to touch his skin.