Page 20 of Rat Park
“You get enough to eat?” Cat asked him one day as they parked in front of his apartment.
“I exercise.” Dominic had taken to doing it every night to ward off the emptiness and silence of the demons in his apartment.
“I didn’t say you didn’t look strong, but you’re skinny.”
“I’m trying to watch my figure,” Dominic said sarcastically.
“Come over Monday night. You like chilli?”
“Go where?”
“My house.”
Dominic looked at her like she was crazy. “Don’t you have a family? A kid?”
“So?”
Dominic continued staring. Why the hell would she let him near her family?
“See you there,” Cat said even though Dominic hadn’t accepted the invitation.
Dominic opened his mouth to protest and then stopped, sighing instead. “All right,” he said, knowing an unwinnable battle when he saw one.
“Great.” Cat smiled.
Dominic found himself smiling back.
**********
Dominic used some of the little bit of money he had saved up to buy the cheapest wine he could get his hands on and took it with him to dinner on Monday, feeling more nervous than he had when he was younger and delivering baggies of crack.
“You’re just in time, come in. Oh, is that for me?” Cat said when she opened the front door. Dominic nodded, handing the bottle over. “Thanks.”
Dominic nodded again, stepping into the house as she beckoned him in. It smelt like food and home, or so Dominic guessed. He couldn’t remember what a home was supposed to smell like, a colourless memory from those few weeks he stayed with his foster carers.
“This is my husband, Esteban,” Cat introduced as they walked into the kitchen. A short, stocky man with the same Chilean complexion as Cat turned away from the stove to smile at Dominic.
“Hello, there. Dominic, right?” Esteban said, wiping his hands on a cloth before extending one of them towards Dominic.
Dominic shook it. “Yeah. Hello. Thanks for having me.” He knew Esteban owned a local bodega that was doing well, and it seemed his talents extended to cooking.
“Our pleasure. I hope you like chilli.”
“Yeah. Smells good.”
“It’ll taste even better,” Esteban said, and Dominic smiled in reply.
Cat opened one of the cupboards, pulling some plates out. “Food’s almost done. Help me set the table and I’ll finish the salad,” Cat told Dominic, who nodded, grateful to have something to do.
Dominic placed the plates and glasses on a small, worn table, making sure he put the cutlery in the right order. He’d Googled it before arriving just to make sure he knew what he was doing.
“All right, all done,” Cat said, placing a large bowl filled with salad on the table. “I’ll call Flor down.”
“Okay,” Dominic said. He was helping Esteban place the hot chilli on the table as Cat appeared with a gangly teenage boy in tow. Dominic knew the kid was sixteen, and he looked the part. He had his parents’ light-brown skin, but his nose and cheeks were smattered with dark freckles, his eyes big and brown underneath his mop of dark, curly hair.
“Hey,” the kid greeted as he saw Dominic, obviously not surprised by his presence.
“Hey. Flor, right?”
