Authors: Audrey Claire
Chapter Eight
Margot stood in her apartment with the window open and the ceiling fan going on the highest setting. She had found an old-fashioned hand fan among her things and made use of it fanning herself.
“I don’t think I can make it without an air conditioner,” she whispered.
“Who are you talking to?”
She started and looked at the cat sitting in the windowsill at her apartment now. “You know it’s not so odd that I should be talking to myself rather than to you.”
The cat licked himself, and she frowned. When someone knocked on the door, she went to answer. Kenny stood on the other side. A tiny curly head peeked out from behind his leg, and big brown eyes stared at her. Margot stared back.
“I’m going to the store. Do you want to add on?” he asked.
“Is that your little sister?” she asked rather than answer his question.
“Yeah, that’s Dottie. She’s shy.” He held a slip of paper in his hand and checked a list. “If you add on, you have to give me ten percent equal to what you spend.”
“Ten percent? Is this your job?”
“Just a way to make candy money for me and Dottie.”
Margot looked at the tot again. “Does she have teeth for candy?”
“Of course she’s got teeth! She’s three.”
“I was only kidding.” Margot turned into her apartment to get her purse, and Kenny followed and shut the door.
“Kitty,” Dottie shouted and ran to drop to her knees in front of the cat.
“Be careful. He’s probably dirty,” Margot said. “And he’s violent.”
Alarm registered in Kenny’s eyes. He snatched his little sister away, and she whined, stretching her arms out toward the cat. The creature yowled in protest as if he understood Margot’s insult. Margot ignored him while she counted her money. What sort of items would be sold at the store Kenny went to, and would it embarrass her to ask? She chewed her lip, thinking about it.
“If he’s not yours, why do you still have him?” Kenny said, struggling with his sister, who was biting and kicking to try to get free.
“I don’t have him. He’s a cat burglar.”
Kenny snorted.
An idea occurred to her. “Do you mind if I have a look at the list for the others?”
He gazed at her quizzically and then handed it over.
Mom – laundry detergent
Ms. Nancy – flour
Jimmy – Twizzlers
Mr./Mrs. Armitage –
recycled
paper bags
Mr. Mercer – pretzels
Ms. Margot -
“What about Zabrina?” Margot asked.
“Yeah, right.” He laughed. “She would never let me touch her stuff.”
“Why?”
He grinned and started to answer, but Dottie piped up first. “Kenny’s got cooties. Kenny’s got cooties!”
Her older brother shrugged. “That about covers it. Ms. Zabrina is a germ-o-phobe. She’s terrified we all have the plague, so she doesn’t touch us, and she doesn’t let us touch her stuff. I’m surprised she lets Jimmy into her apartment.”
Margot noted the name Jimmy on the list. “Jimmy?”
“Her boyfriend.”
Another bang on Margot’s door brought her head up from the list. She had more visitors her first day in this apartment than she had at the mansion in the last year. “Who could that be?”
Margot opened the door to a man in a sleeveless undershirt. Her hand came up to cover her eyes, but she froze. Maybe that was another weird action. Obviously, or he wouldn’t be out in the hall dressed this way. Margot had seen plenty of people undressed on the television, but real life was very different. She concluded she had lived too sheltered over the years.
“Hey, Kenny still here?” the man in desperate need of clothing and a shave said.
“Hey?” Margot repeated. “Is that how you speak to your mother, young man?”
He scoffed. “No, I call her old lady right after she curses at me, but I guess you’re more the sensitive type.” He stuck his hand out. “Jimmy Barber. Nice to meet you, Ms. Margot.”
She smiled and relaxed then took the hand. “Nice to meet you, Jimmy, and please call me Margot. Come in.”
Jimmy strode into the apartment, and as he passed by, she drew in a whiff of his shampoo like he had just stepped from a shower. Did Zabrina make him wash at this time of day, or had he done it of his own volition?
“You don’t have permission to keep him here,” Jimmy growled, pointing at the cat. “He’s gotta go.”
“Who are you, the cat police?” Kenny shot back. Margot noticed he had released his sister, but watched over her while she stroked the feline who seemed like his patience was wearing thin with being touched. “You’re not the Super.”
“No,” Jimmy snapped, “but I know Coley would never have let pets stay, and I’m the next to get the position.
I
say get him out of here.”
“She could pay a pet fee,” Kenny suggested.
“They have fleas and germs.”
“You have more than I do!”
Margot snorted and then coughed to cover it up. Jimmy looked at her hard. “Do you think this is funny, Margot? Zabrina would lose it if she knew an animal was in the building.”
“So it’s about Zabrina?” she dared challenge him. “I thought you were the next Super.”
He colored. “Don’t mess with me. The Super can evict people.”
Kenny jumped to his feet and faced Jimmy, his hands balled into fists at his sides. “Who gives you the right to threaten her? You’re not the next Super, and you don’t even officially live here. Everybody knows the lease in that apartment is in Ms. Zabrina’s name.”
Jimmy bared his teeth. “Listen, kid, stay out of grown folks business.”
“I’m not a kid. I’m fourteen, and you don’t have any say.”
“Who else is going to do it?” Jimmy taunted him. “That crazy Nancy? Mercer? He can’t see to keep from falling down the stairs. How’s he going to be the Super? No one else is fit. Your mom works too much, and the Armitages are too busy getting high off their plants.”
Margot’s mouth dropped open. “S-someone grows illegal substances in the building?”
“No,” Kenny said. “The Armitages are naturalists. They grow everything they eat. Yeah, they’re weird, but they’re okay.”
“You’re probably a customer,” Jimmy said.
“Keep it up,” Kenny warned, “and you’re going to the store for yourself.”
“I probably have to go anyway. I need cigs, and they’re not going to give it to baby like you.”
“Oh, yeah?” Kenny stepped into Jimmy’s face.
“Yeah,” Jimmy said.
A slow grin spread over Kenny’s face. “Wait until I tell Ms. Zabrina you’re smoking again.”
That let the air out of Jimmy’s balloon. He turned conciliatory. “Aw, come on, Kenny. You know I was just funnin’ you.”
Kenny shook his head. “I’m not a snitch. What do you want on the list?”
Margot had watched this exchange in silence. She had seen Lou bluster many times and knew another blusterer when she saw one in Jimmy. On the other hand, she would never have believed Lou to do what he did to her. Jimmy probably had the same capacity or worse since she didn’t know him at all.
“Thanks, kid. You’re all right. Let me see it.”
Kenny handed over the sheet, and Jimmy stuck his tongue between his teeth as he scratched down what he wanted. Margot took a seat in her favorite armchair, and the cat strode across the room to jump into her lap. She froze for a moment and then began to relax as the animal curled into a ball and shut its eyes.
Dottie scooted over, but Margot caught her small hand poised above the cat’s head. “How about just watching for a little while rather than touch. I think he’s sleepy.”
“Aw.” Dottie’s lower lip poked out, and Margot thought she might cry. Then she perked up, eyes brightening. “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. He’s not mine.”
“Everybody gots a name.” Dottie said this as if Margot personally forbade the cat from having one. She decided not to argue her position. “Maybe it’s Sam.
The cat sat up and yowled.
Kenny laughed from across the room. “I don’t think that’s it, Dottie.”
“Junior?” she offered, peering closely into the cat’s face. “Kenny?”
Her brother laughed again. “You’re just using all the names of boys you know. His name is not Kenny.”
His sister glared at him over her shoulder. “You can’t have Kenny all to yourself. That’s selfish, like Mom says.”
“Yeah,
Kenny
.” Jimmy ribbed him. Margot found herself smiling. The only people she had had around her were the servants. The servants never argued, at least not in her hearing. They did whatever she asked and almost never talked back. Even if they did, they were respectful. These people argued and fought, and well, disrespected her.
“What’s your name?” Dottie kept asking the cat, and the pointed ears twitched in annoyance.
He turned and looked directly at Margot.
“You don’t think I’m telling her my name, do you?”
Margot had learned to stop jumping in surprise when she heard the voice. She hadn’t quite accepted that she had taken a dive off the cliff of sanity, but she was a hair less afraid. Unless of course, she had a brain tumor. Might need to make an appointment with the doctor. Did she still have insurance?
Her heart beat faster, and she laid a hand against it. Dottie nagged the cat. Jimmy and Kenny fell into another argument. She thought of the jumble of food in that bowl Nancy had given her. What was the proper etiquette for handling it? She couldn’t eat it of course, but should she give the bowl back? Consider it a gift? Maybe Kenny would know, but would he laugh if she asked?
“Shut up, Dottie,” Kenny growled after some time.
Margot looked up from her musings and didn’t see Jimmy. “Oh, he left?”
She struggled to her feet. The cat fell off her lap onto the floor. He landed on his feet. Oh dear, she had forgotten he was there.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said to him. He raised his chin and stalked toward the window. Dottie followed, pretending to be a cat.
“Yeah, he’s gone,” Kenny said, “still talking about you getting rid of the cat. Don’t worry about it. Nobody will ever make him Super. I don’t care how bad he wants the job.”
“Speaking of jobs, Kenny.” Margot twisted her hands together, feeling all of three years old and dependent on him. “I’ll probably need to find a job. You said your mom works two? Does…does she know about how I can get one?”
He eyed Margot, and she regretted the question. Maybe people didn’t ask about jobs. Certainly, they didn’t ask fourteen-year-old kids.
“Have you ever worked, Ms. Margot?”
Her face burned. “Of course,” she lied and felt guilty. “No.”
“Then you don’t know how to do anything.”
“I beg your pardon. I know how to do plenty.”
“Like what?”
She couldn’t think of an answer that might sound feasible. What had kids been doing when she was a teenager? She couldn’t recall. Her circle had been very small, and most of the kids in that day helped their parents with chores at home. Taking care of the family was a full time job without modern conveniences.
Kenny tapped his chin, eyes far away as he considered her predicament. “You could do odd jobs. I heard a lot of people keep doing little ones until they make enough to live off of. One thing doesn’t make all the money, but a lot of little bits do.”
“How is that different?” she asked. “I still don’t have any skills.”
She hated admitting it.
Kenny smiled. “That’s easy. You learn while you’re out there. With odd jobs, you don’t have to have experience.”
“Well, I don’t know what all I’ll have to do, but I’m willing to give it a try,” she promised.
“Good. Okay, I better get going before they start complaining.”
Kenny moved toward the door. He allowed Margot to add to the list and folded it and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he held out his hand to Dottie.
She ran to him and stuck her hand in his, looking back at the cat. “I know,” she shouted too loud for the small space.
“What do you know?” her brother asked, amused.
“His name.” She pointed at the cat. “Odds. His name is Odds.”
Chapter Nine
“Judy,” Margot called. “Judy, I need my coffee.” She yawned and reached for her eye mask, but her fingers slipped from the edge, and the mask popped against her face. She winced in pain. “Ouch. Judy! Where is that girl?”
At last Margot got the mask off and blinked to clear her vision. A box of a room met her gaze, faded, dull, boring, and shrunken with furniture too big for it. Reality came screaming back to her. Judy was gone. She wouldn’t get coffee unless she climbed out of bed and went to get it herself.
She sighed and tossed the mask onto the nightstand. With the amount of light coming into this room, there wouldn’t be a need for it. Pushing the covers back, she noticed the ridiculous cat perched at the end of her bed watching her.
“So Odds, is it?”
the cat said.
“She’s three,” Margot reminded him, irritably.
Odds raised a paw to lick and then washed his ear.
“And you’re crazy.”
“I’m not crazy!”
“I never said you were, dear.”
Margot shrieked. “Nancy! When did you… What are you doing here?”
Nancy grinned. “You left your front door unlocked. That’s probably not a good idea, honey. Can’t be too careful in this neighborhood.”
“Yeah, because the neighbors will check the nob to see if your door is locked.”
Margot waved a hand to shush the cat, then recalled she was the only one who could hear him. “I’m not used to being the one to lock up, but I’ll remember next time.”
A look of confusion came into Nancy’s expression. “Then who locked the door?”
“Um, my husband, Lou. He always locked it.” She supposed Lou
might
have locked the door, but she suspected he never had either. That was someone else’s job. Goodness, she had been too pampered.
“Oh, that makes sense,” Nancy said. “My John has been gone so long, I forgot what it was to have a man around. But John Junior is a wonderful man who takes right after his father. I’ll introduce you to him the next time he’s here.”
“Was there a reason for you to stop by so early in the morning, Nancy?” Margot checked the bedside clock. Eight twenty.
“Why, yes.” She raised a wide mug with steam rising from it. “My famous hazelnut coffee. I thought I’d bring you some to get you going this morning seeing as we talked about you not getting to the grocery store.”
Margot blinked away a tear. “For me?”
“For you.” Nancy presented the mug with a flourish, and Margot accepted it with gratitude. She never imagined someone would still bring her coffee in bed.
“Delicious,” Margot declared, and Nancy beamed.
“I can bring you a cup every morning, and we can have a cozy little chat.”
Temptation washed over Margot.
“Giving up taking care of yourself already?”
Margot fluffed the covers, chasing the cat away. “That’s very generous of you, Nancy, but I have to say no. For one, I would have to leave the door unlocked. You already said that’s dangerous.”
“You could give me a spare key.”
Margot blinked at her. She looked closer at Nancy and noticed while she still wore a housedress, this one was different, purple with large white flowers at the bosom and near the hemline. The oversized pockets at the front bulged with something inside them.
“What have you got?” Margot asked suspiciously.
Two spots of pink tinged Nancy’s cheeks. She stuck her hand in one of the pockets. “Oh, this? I’m sure you don’t mind. I thought I would borrow these coasters. I’m having the tenants over this afternoon, you see, and—”
“Borrow?”
Margot said low and tight. “Borrow my Van Gogh Red Poppies and Daisies coasters?”
“Well, they’re not real,” Nancy teased.
Margot set her coffee down, threw the covers aside, and stood to push her feet into fluffy slippers. Nancy’s gaze lit up upon noticing them, but Margot marched over to her and snatched the coasters away.
Marched
might have been too generous a word because in truth her old bones pained her in the morning. More like, she hobbled over to Nancy and all but fell into the woman.
The coasters spilled onto the carpet, and Margot knelt to gather them as quickly as she could. “You have no right to come into my home and take my things, Nancy.”
Nancy joined her on the carpet to help. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you would mind.”
Margot looked up at her. “You don’t know me well enough to know if I would mind.”
“Well, I see.” Nancy struggled to her feet and clasped her hands before her. She raised her chin. “I was going to invite you to meet all of the new neighbors in a little party thrown in your favor.”
“I suppose I’m uninvited now?” Margot surmised.
Nancy looked at her. “It’s
your
party. Otherwise, we’re just gathering. If you don’t want to come, you don’t have to. Good day.”
Margot knelt on the floor until her knee started screaming in pain, and she held onto a footstool to rise. Dropping onto the stool with the coasters in her lap, she ran a thumb over the smooth surface of one.
“What’s the big deal? They look cheap,”
Odds said rudely.
She compressed her lips.
“Are you ignoring me now? You already ran her off. If you do that with me, you won’t have any friends.”
“Oh shoo! You’re not my friend. I don’t know you, and you can’t just decide to move in with me. I can’t afford you.”
“You named me.”
“I didn’t name you. Dottie did. Go live with her family.”
“That little girl?”
Dottie could have sworn the cat shuddered.
“She would rub my fur all off in one hour. Why are you so grumpy?”
Margot stood. “I’m not talking to you. Cats don’t talk.”
Meow.
“Very funny.” She stomped into the bathroom and slammed the door in his face.
Margot realized she had brought the coasters with her into the facilities and stacked them on the back of the toilet. She never used them anyway, not since she first received them as a gift from Lou.
To her husband, the coasters were a gag gift, and they had laughed over it back when things were better between them. She shook her head. Why had she treasured them so? In truth, she realized she placed too much emphasis on the things Lou had given her. Meanwhile, he had taken everything else. How dare he, and here she was like a sentimental old fool cherishing some stupid paper coasters.
She gathered the coasters in both hands and raised them over the toilet bowl. Luckily, common sense stopped her, and she hesitated. “The trash.”
She yanked the bathroom door open and toddled down the hall to the kitchen. Scanning the area, she looked for a trashcan. One sat in the corner, but she didn’t recognize it. Well, it would do. She extended her hands over the bin.
“Think that will do it?’
She paused and glared at the animal. “I told you to get out of here, cat.”
“Odds,”
he corrected, looking bored. As she thought of it, cats always looked bored. He might be just wondering where his food was.
“Well, Odds, this isn’t your business, so you go on. Go find your owner.”
Green eyes narrowed on her, and she could have sworn they had grown more serious than they were before.
“For now,
you
are my owner, and I can help you.”
“Into a straight jacket?”
“Is that what you want?”
She sighed and moved to the kitchen table to drop into a seat. All the fight had gone out of her for the moment, and she let the coasters slip from her fingers. She laid her head on her arms and moaned.
“Odds, what I want is for you to stop talking in my head,” she complained. “Or…”
“Or what?”
She sat up and looked at him. He followed wherever she went as if he were attached. Margot dared not say what she felt, but he seemed to wait for it. Well, with impatience and annoyance he waited. Of course, that part could be her imagination. All of it could, she decided.
“Or for it to be real,” she said, heat creeping into her cheeks. “That you’re really talking to me, and I’m not going batty in my old age. I had heard the first thing to go is your memory but my memory has been okay all this time. Maybe talking cats is my issue.”
If possible, the cat snorted in her head.
“How about, whether you’re crazy or whether I can really talk, you accept it.”
She chewed this idea over. “What do I get out of accepting a talking cat? It’s not like you do sideshows for money. Wait,
do
you do sideshows?”
He hissed at her, and she laughed.
“You are a very ignorant human.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Admit it, Margot. You have shut yourself away in that mansion because he left you a long time ago.”
Margot forced a laugh. “What are you talking about? Lou left me a couple weeks ago. He closed the accounts and sold the house.”
“Did he?”
“He did,” she insisted. “And if you say he left when he stopped bothering to take me with him on trips and when he moved into his own bedroom, then, I say that only proves you can’t talk. You weren’t there. I was. That makes you speaking a figment of my imagination.”
“So?”
“What do you mean so?” she demanded. “I’m living now. I waited a long time, and I’m going to learn how to do for myself, even if I get embarrassed sometimes.”
Toward the end of this declaration, the cat stood up and walked out of the room. Annoyed, Margot followed. He ended up at her front door, and she realized she hadn’t locked it behind Nancy.
Odds scratched at the panels, and Margot opened it. They walked down to the lobby where metal mailboxes lined the wall. She recalled the Super had mentioned having a key to her mailbox. When she opened it, she found nothing and sighed. No one knew she was here, and there was no one to inform either.
Meow.
She glanced down. Odds stood atop a newspaper. Margot bent over and brushed him aside, then picked it up. “What’s this?”
“This is where you’ll find the odd jobs.”
“Are you sure?” She turned back the way she came, studying the front page. Somehow the paper looked less official than the ones she had seen Lou reading in the past.
“I’ll help you.”
“Why should I believe you’ll help?”
Margot felt eyes on her, and she stopped walking and looked around. Several doors lined the first floor of the building, but all were closed. She supposed someone could be spying on her behind a peephole, but why would they?
Odds jogged ahead and bounded up the stairs on light paws. She sighed, wishing there was an elevator in the building. However, the apartment building with a doorman and an elevator, which she had wanted to rent, had been too much. The first month’s rent would have taken most of the money she had remaining.
Back in the small apartment she had settled on, she shut and locked the door then carried the newspaper to the bedroom to retrieve the coffee Nancy had brought. Guilt assailed her for being mean to Nancy. Then she figured if she didn’t drink the beverage, it would be ruder. She settled at the kitchen table while studying the paper and sipping the warm brew.
Odds leaped up to join her. They met each other’s gazes.
“I’m here to help you for now, Margot.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Are you an angel?”
Another angry hiss, and she laughed.
“Fine. I can use the help. I will accept that you’re a talking cat because I rather believe that than the alternative. We should keep it to ourselves though.”
Meow.
She reached for his paw and shook it gently, marveling at the softness of his fur. “Okay, first we find an odd job and then we solve the case.”
“What case?”
“The case of the dead Super!”
She thought the cat rolled its eyes.