*
Shira Lepstein waited outside the Little Italy apartment with her cousin Uri. It was late. She was tense. She really wanted to go home. Back to Israel, where she’d lived since her parents had moved there twenty years ago. But this was important. Family was always important. The Malka-Lepsteins protected each other. Without question. Without complaint.
Still . . . Shira was ready to go home! All this because her boneheaded cousin insisted on hanging with MacKilligans. She’d always thought Tock had better sense. Because those three girls attracted trouble the way shit attracted flies. Only the shit didn’t start anything. The MacKilligans always started something. More than any other badger Shira had ever known or learned about through history. While all honey badgers were accused of being shit-starters, their shit-starting usually had a point.
Rodrigo Borgia, who eventually became Pope Alexander VI, wanted the power of the Church. Livia Drusilla poisoned her way to the role of wife and empress, and eventually mother of the emperor when her husband, Augustus, died so she could have the power of Rome’s all-powerful throne. But the MacKilligan sisters? What did they want? What were they hoping to gain when they started their nonsense?
Shira had no idea.
Her grandmother bolted out the front door to the building, desperately swatting at her clothes, face, and hair.
“Check me! Check me!”
“Check you for what?”
“Everything! Lice! Roaches! Anything disgusting!”
“It was that bad?” Uri asked while Shira was forced to look over her grandmother to make sure nothing had crawled out of that old lion’s apartment.
“I don’t even know what to say about what I saw. No one should live like that. No one.”
“You’re fine, Savta,” Shira told her grandmother.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Nothing has attached itself to you.”
“Good. Then let’s go. We have to talk to the MacKilligans.”
Because of course they did.
Shira rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone. She texted her husband that she was still working and she didn’t know when she’d be back. Then she wondered again why her cousin insisted on hanging around those badgers!
*
“Where did you find more brownies?” Tock asked, pulling one out as soon as Shay took the top off the plastic container. “I thought the wolves ate them all.”
“Charlie put some aside for Dani. But she’d had so many already, I was worried she would just throw them up. So I put these in my room.”
“Did you piss around the bedroom door to mark your territory and protect the brownies?”
“This compound is filled with predators that would love more brownies, so I did think about doing just that. But in the end, I just let it go, hoping my general cat funk would do the trick. We can’t afford to be tossed out of here yet.”
“True,” Tock said around a mouthful of dark chocolate brownie with walnuts. She pointed at the brownie she was devouring. “This was for Dani?”
“I think Charlie is trying to turn her into a dark chocolate lover, but she’s still too young for that. Thankfully, she also has regular brownies in here. For the kid . . . and me.”
Shay had also brought cold milk and she poured them both glasses. They ate in silence, finishing off the brownies. Tock would have felt bad for Dani, but she had no doubt that Charlie would happily make the kid more of her favorite sweets. She seemed to like having a kid around who wasn’t Max or Stevie. Taking care of her two sisters from such a young age had been a lot for her.
When Shay put his empty glass down on the table, he said, “You know they’re going to make our lives hell tomorrow.”
“Today,” she amended, showing him her watch so he could see the time.
“Yeah. You okay with that?”
A little confused, Tock asked, “Okay with what?”
“You know . . . the teasing about . . . us.”
“I don’t let other people dictate my life. Even my grandmother, which is one of the things she hates about me. Will it be a problem for you?”
“Not at all,” he said quickly, his eyes locked on her face. “But my brothers . . . they can be a lot.”
Tock couldn’t help but snort. “We spent several hours today reminding Max that Streep is gay.”
“Reminding her? She forgot? Or never knew?”
“Of course she knew. We all knew. We have always known. Streep’s parents have always known. The cheerleaders in our school always knew, which was why they were mean to her, and why we stuck wolf spiders in their lockers and milk snakes in their beds. Yet still . . . Max remembers none of it. So, I have no worries about your brothers because no one can be as annoying and insane as Max.”
“That is a good point.”
“I know.”
Shay suddenly looked off and, for several seconds, didn’t speak.
“What?” she pushed when his silence went on and on.
“I feel like I should tell you . . . I think I definitely like like you now.”
“Oh, my God! Are we still doing this?”
“I thought I should warn you.”
“Why?”
“I’m a cat. We don’t like anyone. So when we do like someone, it’s not something we just get over.”
“Meaning you’re a level-five clinger?”
“I’m not a clinger,” he quickly replied. “Unless I’m hanging from a tree. Then it’s kind of fun,” he explained, a big grin on his face. “You just dig your front claws into the wood and let your legs dangle. Total blast.”
When she only gazed at him silently, he cleared his throat and continued. “Anyway, I just want to give you a heads-up—”
“For when you start stalking me?”
“I won’t ever stalk you! If you want to break up, just say you want to break up!”
“Break up? When did we start dating?”
“Fine! Fine!” He tossed up his hands. “Just leave me, then.”
“Leave you?”
“Alone. Despondent. Broken.” He looked off, let out a sigh. “A bitter, unhappy cat that will never recover from the hurt.”
“Will your foster family have to lure you out from under a couch before they can put you up for adoption, too?”
“Maybe.”
*
Shay loved to hear Tock laugh. Too bad she didn’t realize he was being kind of serious. Cats didn’t get attached easily. Whether it was the big ones that were nearly extinct because full-human men with small penises couldn’t stop hunting them into oblivion or the small ones that pissed all over someone’s yard to annoy the family dog—cats got attached. That’s why people sometimes woke up in the morning and found a cat they didn’t have the day before living in their house and expecting to be fed. That person had been chosen and the cat wouldn’t change its mind just because the person felt they weren’t “pet people.” The cat didn’t care.