Her head turned and looked at me. “The one you wrote about?”
“Yes.”
“He was here? About what you wrote?”
I licked my lips. I tasted Josh. “Sort of.”
“What a terrible day.”
“What’s wrong, Grace?”
“I lost Ginger,” she said. She shut her eyes and started to weep again.
“Ginger…?”
Her eyes shot open. “My cat. Okay, Amelia? I lost my fucking cat!”
She ran down the hall to her bedroom.
I rubbed my forehead, trying to figure out what just happened. I came home to find Josh talking with Miss Laura. I blinked my eyes and Josh was pinning me against a table, kissing me, making everything feel okay. I blinked again and Grace was home, crying.
I thought it was something serious.
It was something about a cat.
I moved into the kitchen and filled the silver tea kettle with water.
Pulling a card out of my mother’s playbook, I made two cups of tea. Except this tea wasn’t going to taste dirty and the milk wasn’t going to be expired.
I kept looking over my shoulder, wondering where Josh had gone.
He came to tell me his story. Or some of his story.
What I’ve always wanted to know about him. Nothing to do with Bel and all that stuff. Just me and Josh. Just me figuring out about the boy who used to save me and what kind of man he was now.
Except now he was gone again. And I was carrying two cups of tea down the hallway.
I opened Grace’s door to find her sitting on the corner of her bed, staring down at the floor.
“Hey,” I said. “Brought you some tea.”
“Tea?”
“My mother used to make tea when I was upset. Well, when she was upset. I don’t know if it actually does anything or not.”
Grace grinned. “You’re a good person. I’m sorry I chased away your friend.”
“You didn’t,” I said. Lie. “We were just talking.” Lie.
“Ginger is gone.”
“You went to get a cat?” I asked, trying to sound sympathetic.
“I finally did it, Amelia. Thinking about what we talked about. I figured why not. Get the cat and figure out the rest later.”
I thought about what the apartment would have been like with a cat. And a litter box. The smells. Bad enough the apartment building itself had its own smell.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I went there and saw her. She was perfect. Beautiful. I know, I sound crazy. I mean, look at me. I coach people in life. Through their worst times. Through their best times. And I’m basically a crazy cat person.”
“Not at all,” I said.
“I left,” she said. “I left to go for a walk and think about it. Then I got tied up on a phone call with a client. This woman who put herself through night school and has been fighting hard at her job to climb the corporate ladder. She was terrified of an interview. I talked her through it and got her ready. But when I went back to the shelter, Ginger was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Someone came and got her. She had already been promised to someone. I didn’t know that. There was no way I was getting her, even if I didn’t go for that walk.”
“Oh, Grace,” I said. “I’m so sorry. That was such a big decision for you to make.”