“I think I want to get a cat.”
Ellis made the comment to Michaela out of the blue. No prompting. No rhyme or reason.
Or was that actually true?
No. No, it wasn’t. Because the fact was, she knew exactly how her brain had gotten to that sentence. She’d had Cherry Davis in the back of her mind all day. All. Day. Which in and of itself was a new thing. Ellis didn’t get hung up on people, especially people she’d just met. But Cherry Davis had staying power, apparently, and she’d made herself a little campsite in Ellis’s head. Pitched a tent. Built a fire. Sat down to roast some marshmallows. And it reminded Ellis of the one word she’d been trying to avoid for quite some time now. The one she tried her best to tuck into a box and store away on a high, high shelf.
Lonely.
It wasn’t something she enjoyed dealing with, her loneliness. She didn’t have time for it. She had jobs, and she had Michaela, and that was more than enough to take up her days. Since their father died, she’d taken up the sole responsibility of her sister’s care. And yes, his life insurance would help keep Mikey in Hearts and Hands. But Ellis was the last one left, the last member of the family to take care of Michaela and speak for her—andtoher—and that meant she had to focus. Her own needs came a distant second.
All that being said, “I could use the company, you know?” She was polishing Michaela’s toes with a deep ruby color called I’m Not Really a Waitress, which made Ellis chuckle with its nail-on-the-head accuracy. “There’s a shelter just outside of town that Kitty mentioned. And I’ve seen their ads online. I may pop over there this weekend.” She shrugged. It didn’t matter that Michaela couldn’t see it. She’d learned that early on, to just be herself, act like herself, make the same gestures or faces that she normally would, even though Michaela’s open eyes didn’t seem to see anything. And sometimes, that meant just thinking out loud. It was safe to do that here, in this room, since it was just the two of them, and the likelihood of Michaela sharing whatever Ellis told her was, well, unlikely wasn’t a strong enough word. Even though in her own head, she often played Michaela’s role and decided what she might say.
“I think a cat’s better than a dog, considering how often you’re not home.” Her friend Kendra Jackson came walking into the room, clean towels in her arms, and put them on a shelf in the small closet to the left of the bed. The beads at the ends of her Fulani braids made a fun clicking sound as she moved, and she walked right up to Ellis and hugged her. “Sorry. Heard you talking.”
“No worries. I thought the same thing. About the cat.” She watched Kendra for a beat. She’d worked at Hearts and Hands for years now, and when Ellis had moved Michaela in, they’d hit it off. Most of the employees there were a bit older, but Kendra was only a few years older than Ellis, and they’d built a solid friendship very quickly. Kendra was married to Evan, and for whatever reason, they’d elected themselves Ellis’s caretakers, having her over for dinner several times a month, texting to make sure she was eating, talking to her about her sister. Having no other family besides her sister, Ellis found herselfindescribably grateful for the two of them. They were like additional siblings, and Ellis could talk to Kendra about anything.
She cleared her throat and waited for Kendra to meet her gaze before continuing. “So…there’s this girl that comes into the diner.” She dipped the brush, held Michaela’s foot in her hand. “She’s got this beautiful auburn hair. Easy to pick her out of a crowd. I noticed her last week when I had to waitress, remember that?”
“I do,” Kendra said with a nod. “You said she was stupid attractive.”
Easy, slow strokes with the small brush as she smiled and nodded and went on to the next toe. “I don’t know what it was about her, K, but it was something because it’s like I’m pulled toward her.” She stopped painting and looked up into the empty air, searching for something that evenslightlyresembled a logical explanation. “Like there’s some invisible string that she tugs on when she’s in the diner.” She refocused on her sister’s toes, went back to polishing. “I introduced myself to her today.” A glance up at Kendra’s face. “Can you believe that? I have never in my life just introduced myself to some random girl. Not once.”
“No? Well, you get extra points for today then.” Kendra took a look at the whiteboard on Michaela’s wall that told her when various chores and services had been performed last.
“Know what else I did? I flirted with her.I fucking flirted, K. You’d have been so proud of me.” She shook her head with a huge grin as she recalled Cherry’s face, how she looked up at her with those big dark eyes, how she’d made her blush. “And she said I was cute.”
She finished polishing, then used a magazine to fan Michaela’s toenails dry. And the color reminded her of Cherry’s hair, which was ridiculous because they were two vastly different shades of red.
“You ask her out yet?”
“I knew you’d ask me that.” She laughed and shook her head. “I mean, maybe. Maybe I will. I don’t know. One step at a time, you know?” Ellis waved toward Michaela’s feet with a flourish. “Ta-da! What do you think?”
“Oh, that’s a good color on her. Looks nice with her skin tone.”
“It’s her favorite.” It wasn’t lost on Ellis that she spoke about Michaela’s likes and dislikes in the present tense when the truth was, using the past tense was probably more accurate. The redwasMichaela’s favorite. It had been. Once upon a time. ’Cause she didn’t really have a favorite anything now, did she?
Kendra heard it, too—Ellis could tell by the quick flash in her eyes—but she said nothing. “Have you eaten?” Kendra asked instead. “Why don’t you come to the dining room and eat with me and Evan tonight? He’s bringing sushi.”
“That sounds amazing.” And it did. “But I’ve got to get a story written tonight. I put it off, so I could come spend time with Mikey, but it’s due by midnight.”
For a moment, it looked like Kendra was going to argue with her, and Ellis knew from experience she wouldn’t win. She’d never won any kind of debate against Kendra. She was too good. But she surprised Ellis by nodding. “Okay. But promise me you’ll grab some dinner. You’re getting too skinny. Don’t make me fatten you up, as my mother would say.”
Ellis laughed. “Are you trying to scare me with cuisine? Horrify me by telling me you’re gonna make me eat your excellent cooking? Is that supposed to be a threat? ’Cause I gotta tell you, it’s not.”
Kendra laughed. “Yes, that was a threat!”
“You might wanna look up the wordthreat, ’cause I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
They laughed together for a moment and then Kendra looked at her. The way she always did. Like the big sister Ellis never had. “Seriously. You doing okay?” Her soft brown eyes held concern, and while Ellis didn’t always love the way Kendra could see through her, she was endlessly grateful for her presence in her life.
She nodded. “I am. Tired, but okay.” At Kendra’s head tilt, she added, “Promise.”
A second or two went by before Kendra nodded once, seemingly accepting the answer. “All right. Don’t make me worry about you.”
“Who are you kidding? You’ll worry about me anyway.”
“Truth.” Kendra was headed for the doorway, presumably to her next patient, when she turned back and smiled at Ellis. “You should totally ask that girl out. You’re too awesome not to be dating. You know?”
