Page 145 of The Virgin Romance Novelist Chronicles
“Yes, of course. They were like family to me.”
With cat-like reflexes, Gladys poked her head out from under the desk and looked around her office. Apparently satisfied, she ejected from the ground and ran to the closet across from her desk. I watched her dance on her toes as she waved for me to join her.
Frightened about what was about to happen, and also curious, I joined her at the closet.
“I need your help,” she whispered.
“With what?” I reciprocated the whisper, knowing full well no one was within earshot of us.
As if she were Indiana Jones revealing a treasure from his man-purse, she opened her closet door and revealed a cat carrier. It looked empty, which confused me, since all the cats were confiscated by animal control.
“What’s that?” I asked, looking closer into the cat carrier, just in time for Sir Licks-a-Lot himself to leap to the front of the cage, hissing and spitting his mini kitty venom, scaring the cuticles right off me. “Holy hell,” I screamed, turning in circles and waving my hands about.
“Shh, Rosie, they’ll hear you.”
My heart was pounding a mile a minute while Sir Licks-a-Lot was trying to entice me to come closer with his claw through the cage. Gladys had her lips against my ear, trying to soothe me by shushing loudly, as if I were a baby needing to be calmed. For some odd reason, it worked.
Steadying myself, I asked, “Who will hear me?”
“The owners.” Gladys looked around her office, looking completely paranoid. “I think they bugged the place. They weren’t happy about the amount of furballs in the vents. It’s going to cost them a lot of money to clean everything out. Serves them right, though; I heard they donate money to places like the soup kitchen.”
I thought about that for a second before I answered. “Um, what’s wrong with giving money to the soup kitchen? That’s actually really nice of them.”
“Really? Not when they charge five ninety-nine for a bucket of piss water they claim is chicken broth.”
“What?” I asked. “The soup kitchen doesn’t charge. Are you talking about Soup and Bowl, the restaurant five blocks down?”
“Have you been there? It’s disgusting. I refuse to support such an establishment.”
Many things came to the forefront of my mind, but I blocked them away because I didn’t want to get into a fight with my boss about the soup kitchen. It wasn’t worth it.
“I thought Animal Control took all of the cats.”
“They thought they did. I was able to stuff Sir Licks-a-Lot away before they could find him. I need to ask you a favor.”
And just like that, I knew.
I knew exactly what the next few words would be out of Gladys’s mouth. Dread and self-hatred filled my bones as I watched her old-lady eyes become full with tears and a slight ounce of hope.
Oh, crap.
“What kind of favor?” I reluctantly asked.
“I need you to take Sir Licks-a-Lot home with you. My landlord won’t allow cats in the building, so I can’t take him or else I would.”
“My landlord doesn’t either,” I answered with fake defeat and a lift of my hand, really trying to show my disappointment. Thank God for New York City living and strict apartment rules.
“Yes, he does,” Gladys returned, shaking me out of my moment of glory from my quick-thinking tongue. “I looked up your address this morning and called your landlord. I had to pay a hefty pet fee of five hundred dollars, but it’s all set with your landlord.”
Crap!
My mind started sifting through a Rolodex of excuses. I mentally tried them before I said them out loud because right now, I would say just about anything to avoid taking Satan’s feline to my apartment with me.
Excuse: He won’t match the ambiance of the apartment.
Nope—he would actually go perfectly.
Excuse: We go to bed at seven at night, so our sleep schedule probably won’t sync up.
