Page 37 of Fireworks Flame
I spot a voicemail from the office and listen to it as Phoebe and Simone mine Deiss for details. To my surprise, it’s Marian Hammersmith following up on her suggestion that we meet over lunch. I hang up quickly, as if she might come through the phone and physically drag me away from this adventure and back into work. Grabbing the debit card, I dial the help number on the back.
Beside me, Deiss is giving Phoebe and Simone nothing, not even a line about gentlemen never telling. Instead he squints at them like they’re speaking Greek and successfully snags the rest of my naartjie. In between pressing prompt after prompt designed to get me to settle for a robot’s help, I manage to snatch the last two slices back.
“I just want to know which girl it was,” Phoebe says as I finally manage to convey my issue to a real human.
Deiss leans back in the chair and crosses his arms over his chest. The sun beams through the clouds, making his eyes glint in a way that doesn’t match the dark smudges of sleeplessnessunder them. When he finally speaks, it’s in a lazy drawl. “How do you know I was with someone? Maybe I wanted to spend my last night in Africa alone, communing with the hippos.”
I shake my head as the representative puts me on hold.
“No,” I say to Phoebe. “There would’ve been crocs out there, too. He’s got a fear of biters.”
Phoebe beams at me and turns to him. “Well? It clearly wasn’t that.”
Deiss shoots me a look, but his mouth twitches with amusement.
“It’s not my fault you wanted to talk about phobias,” I say, volleying his look right back at him. “If you didn’t want anyone to know, you shouldn’t have admitted to it.”
His head tilts, and a slow smile stretches across his face. His eyes hold mine, reminding me his fears aren’t the only thing he’s admitted to. Rather than seeming to fear it as another secret I won’t keep, he looks entertained by the knowledge it’s something I’ll forever have to hold in. His confidence in my restraint is disconcerting. He’s right—I couldn’t out him even if I wanted to. I’ve spent too many years trying to overcome my past to destroy someone’s effort to do the same. Somehow, Deiss has figured me out in a way that I haven’t managed with him.
The representative comes back on the line, and I wave Deiss away as if he’s speaking aloud instead of beaming messages at me through his piercing blue eyes. I must not be prepared for real words because the ones I hear through the phone make no sense at all. Blankly, I repeat after him. But rather than coming out like a statement, big fat question marks make my words go high at the end: “You didn’t put a block on the card? The account is empty?”
CHAPTER 12
The trip home is a nightmare. It’s hours upon hours of being trapped—in a car, on a plane—unable to do anything whatsoever to rectify whatever is happening with my finances. It’s not just my checking account that’s empty; my savings is, too. Everything has disappeared. I have an appointment at the bank the morning after I get back to figure out how to restore the funds, but until then, I’m flat broke.
In the meantime, all I have to my name is the wrinkled hundred-dollar bill that Mac pressed into my palm “in case you need to buy extra water for the flight.” He laughed off my effort to refuse the offer, reminding me that looks like his pay way more than is fair. Even if I had my credit card with me, it would be worthless. The bank has issued a new one with different numbers, which should arrive at my home within the next forty-eight hours. It’s part of the security alert they’ve attached to my name, in case I’ve been a victim of identity theft.
My friends have a plethora of theories, and I get to hear allof them, whether I want to or not. Simone, of course, thinks it’s all a big mistake and that the bank will take care of it. Phoebe suspects a shopkeeper or cashier copied down the numbers when I used my card to pay for something. Mac believes it’s a prank. By whom, he hasn’t determined. But he feels confident that I’ll get home and someone will be there, doubled over in laughter at the scare they’ve given me. In his version, we’ll all end up chortling with them.
When I open the door to my condo, that is not what happens. Although thereissomeone inside waiting for me. It’s Elena, sitting on the floor with her legs crossed beneath her. Rather than laughing when she sees me, she begins to cry. Likely because she’s managed to lose my couch. Or possibly because she’s also misplaced my lamp, TV, dining room table, and everything else I own.
“What the hell?” Phoebe pushes past me and stops inside, her head twisting as she surveys the empty space. “Where’s your stuff?”
I stand in the doorway, too overwhelmed to take another step forward. My home is like a swirling black hole, but the Alhambra Cream paint-color version of white rather than black. It’s a relief that Phoebe is still standing instead of being sucked into its abyss. Behind me, Deiss clears his throat.
I whip around, eager to find something else to focus my rage on. Itold himhe and Phoebe didn’t need to drop me off. And I certainly didn’t ask them to come upstairs with me. Now he has the nerve to act impatient because I’ddaretake a minute to collect my thoughts in the midst of losingevery single thing I’ve ever owned? The accusation shrivels on my tongue the moment I see his expression. It’s soft, sorrowful even, and his eyes are filled with sympathy.
“Is there any chance you left it this way?” He squints, as if he’s genuinely hoping that’s the case.
I shake my head and turn on my heel, striding toward Elena in search of answers. I already know what happened, though. The details don’t matter. Only the root cause does: I broke the rules. All of them. I quit my job, went off budget, turned my back on my home, and ran away like a child to play with my friends. Did I really believe there wouldn’t be consequences?
Elena scrambles up to meet me, wrapping her arms around me like a soggy blanket. I stiffen. If she expects me to be the girl who drank alcoholic milkshakes with her last week, she’ll be disappointed. That girl had a blender. And a framed certificate that proved her submissions were the most valued at Infinity Designs in 2019. And all the things she’d spent her hard-earned money on over the years to prove she could provide a home for herself.
But more important than the loss of my things is the absence of a disdainful cat, mewling in response to the loss of his hiding place.
“Where’s Cat Stevens?” My voice is sharp enough that Elena freezes for a moment before beginning to sob anew.
“I’ve lost him,” she cries. “Twice.”
I feel a sharp pang in my chest, but this news is just as inevitable as the rest of it was. I knew better than to get a cat. My mother and I had to get rid of Boots when I was nine because Paul Davenport (my mother’s boyfriend for long enough that I’d begun to tentatively and pathetically refer to him as Dad) went into a rage over her litter box. He claimed it reeked, despite the fact that I was diligent about cleaning daily. Despite Boots’s banishment and a three-day deep clean on the house, the damage was insurmountable. We’d become tainted byassociation, as smelly and pervasive as cat poo, and Paul-turned-Dad soon joined the list of men who’d deemed my mom and me lacking.
In truth, I never missed Paul nearly as much as I missed Boots. I visited her sometimes at the pound, before a more faithful family adopted her. Even after she disappeared, I kept going. Playing with the other cats. Nervously petting the dogs. The habit followed me to LA, which is where I found Cat Stevens. He was as haughty as I pretended to be and equally distrustful.
“What do you mean twice?” Phoebe’s eyes blaze like she’s ready to combust. Stretched up to her full height, she looks less like a willowy reed in the wind and more like a lightning rod. “What happened to all of Liv’s stuff?”
“I don’t know,” Elena wails, jerking her head back and forth between the two of us. “I think I messed up!”
“It’s going to be fine,” Deiss says, crossing the room to stand by me. “Just tell us exactly what happened.”
