Page 73 of Betting on the Brainiac

Oliver disappears and I head back to the kittens, knowing he’ll come find me. I pick up Little Stripe, giving him the tiniest nose-to-nose boop. “Twenty million dollars is nice, but you’re the real reason I’m doing this. Maybe doing this? Probably. You, your mama, Big Stripey, Tuxie, and Smudge.” He flails a tiny paw, his claws out, but I don’t take it personally. Turns out they can’t retract their claws for a while after they’re born. He—my gut says it’s a he even though there has been no palpation—yawns and curls his tiny tongue, and I sigh.

“What’s this about doing it for the cats?” Oliver says from the office doorway.

“If we’re going to be technical about this, I have more than one condition. Ready?” When he nods, I say, “Sit down and take a kitten like a man, and then I’ll know you mean it.”

As soon as Oliver has Smudge wobbling in the space framed by his crisscross legs, he looks up. “I’m ready.”

“First, we should both live at 1598 Lynn Street.” That’s the Grove address.

“I’m pretty sure you don’t mean I should be roommate number five,” he says. “Wait, don’t tell me. You want us to move in with Mrs. Lipsky and Ahab? He might eat the kittens. Do parrots eat kittens?”

“Gosh, I hadn’t considered that. Guess I’ll have to cross moving in with Mrs. Lipsky off my list. Which leaves us the witch.”

“Which what?”

“No, the witch. Specifically, the scholar of witchcraft who is not herself a witch but who I consulted about an appropriate ritual to help Ruby move on.”

Oliver looks down at the all-gray Smudge. “Won’t she need a black cat?”

“She’s allergic. But keep up. Stella’s not a witch and doesn’t need a cat, but she lives in the Grove, and sheismoving and renting her condo out. She hasn’t listed it yet, but I saw the packing boxes when I went to ask her about the ritual.”

“I’m listening, but it’s spooky every time you say ‘ritual.’ Because of stuff like ritual murder.”

“Wow, Oliver, way to make it dark. I was thinking more like morning ritual. A nice face washing, tooth brushing, taking a walk and perking up your soul kind of thing, but for getting over a boyfriend. But sure, ritual murder.”

“You said witch. This is on you.”

“Anyway, Stella said sometimes witchcraft is the function of our brains and subconsciouses trying to do the psychologicalwork of emotional healing and re-centering their locus of control.”

“That makes sense,” Oliver says, as if he’s considered it thoroughly and agrees. And he probably has.

His mind is both quick and open, and he’s always making connections between things most people don’t stop to consider. His brain works like mine that way. It’s probably one of the things I like most about him. Ava’s brain does this too, but it’s almost exclusively connected to deeply nerdy things. Like we’ll see an old payphone and that will make her think of Doctor Who, which will then make her think of mitochondria in her lab, and then she’s chuckling at a joke the rest of us don’t get. Imightget it if I watchedDoctor Who. But from what I can tell, there isn’t enough kissing and waltzing in ballgowns, so I don’t.

“Anyway, Stella said a good breakup ritual is to have Ruby do the Marie Kondo method on Niles.”

“The organizing thing? Is Ruby supposed to fold him into thirds and put him in a drawer?”

“No, more like choose objects to represent important points in their relationship—good and bad—and thank each one for what it taught her, then donate or trash it. We’ll see how Ruby does this weekend, and if we need to, we’ll have her KonMari him.”

“I want to talk about all of this more—and also find out how long Ruby is allowed to take to get over Niles—but we should probably get back to the marriage thing first.”

“Oh, right. Getting married.” I lift up Little Stripey enough to boop his nose to Smudge’s nose. Smudge responds by falling on his back like a European footballer. Like,sodramatic.

“Anyway, my point is that I’m confident Stella will rent to you as soon as I show her your background sheet, and it’ll save her the trouble of vetting other renters. She hasn’t told anyone else she’s moving because she knows we’d all make a big fuss, so Ican bribe her with promising to keep it quiet if she lets you rent her place.”

“Or else you’re going to let everyone throw her a goodbye party? Brutal blackmail.”

“Bribe,” I correct him. “It’s blackmail when it’s people I don’t like.”

“Noted. You bribe Stella, and I lease her place for a year. We both have to move anyway, and I like that this is an easier move for you, so I’m in.”

“That’s the thing,” I tell him, breaking into a huge grin. “We’d both live at 1598 *Lynn, but I wouldn’t have to move!”

It takes him about half a second to process this and give me the credit I deserve. “That’s genius.” Something between regret and relief flickers over his face before it settles into an appreciative smile.

“Have you not figured out by now that I’m the loophole queen?”

“I did bring a ton of legal paperwork enabled by your loophole skills. Do you think renting a unit in the same building will be enough to satisfy your parents?”

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