“I believe you,” I said.
“You don’t remember that commercial?”
“I don’t watch a lot of TV,” I said.
“But you’ve seen people with BullyKinged cures setting the whole scene up with the little baseball bats, right? I mean, you’ve probably done it yourself, even.”
“I don’t see a lot of people.”
“Well all I’m trying to say to you is: trust. And by ‘trust,’ what I’m trying to say is: trust me. Turn sharply to the right and walk a little ways if you know what’s good for you.”
“Walk?”
“To the right.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re standing on the left side of history here. Metaphorically. Do you know that word? What it means, I mean?”
“What word?” said Lotta, my side of the counter now. She’d unbunned her hair and changed out of her pantsuit, into a cottony, daisy-patterned summer dress. “I wonder if I know it. Could the word be lunch? Hint-hint, wink-wink. Who I’m hinting at while winking is you, Sir Magnetus.”
“Hey, Lotta,” I said. “I just came by to pay you back from yesterday. My dad returned early from his trip to Michiana, so I’ve got all the money I need.”
“And you came just in time! I’m starving my ample ass off here. You’re gonna come out to lunch with me, okay? My treat. But you’ll pay—we’ll use the dough I lent you. It’ll be our treat. Don’t say no. You cannot say no.”
I didn’t see how I could.
“Lunch then,” I said.
“Later days, homie,” Lotta told Chad-Kyle.
“Wait,” said Chad-Kyle, “you’re not coming back?”
“It’s Saturday,” she said. “I’m a half-day Hogg.”
“I thought that was tomorrow,” Chad-Kyle said.
“Tomorrow I’m off. So are you. Tomorrow being Sunday. Us working at a bank and all.”
“I really wanted to show you something. It’ll just take a couple minutes to set up.”
“So next time. I’m starved. So’s Belt. We’re starved and we’re going to lunch.”
“No, wait,” said Chad-Kyle. “I promise it’s worth it. Tell her it’s worth it.”
I pretended not to realize he was speaking to me.
“Dude,” he said to me. “That’s pretty fucked-up.”
“Leave Belt alone. I wouldn’t wait for the second coming,” said Lotta. “I just eye-dropped that spoil you sold me this morning. It’s coming on fast. The munchies are flexing. And that’s at least the millionth time I’ve talked about food in the last twenty seconds, which, if you want to know the truth, is making me more than a little self-conscious, bigger girl that I am. So don’t have a tantrum. Show your thing to Gus. Or your uncle. He’ll be back after lunch.” To the side of her mouth, she pressed the side of her hand, and stage-whispered to me, “Boss’s nephew,” then grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the parking lot.
Gus tipped a make-believe hat as we passed him.
* * *
Lotta’s Beetle smelled tropical and mildly toxic. Pineapple. Coconut. Undertones of ethanol and action-figure plastic. Notes, on the exhale, of freshly popped bubblewrap. “Sorry about the bouquet,” she said. “I just had this baby detailed. I asked the guy to mist it with new-car fragrance, but I guess they ran out, so they misted colada. Kinda made me mad, you wanna know the truth, but these little guys here, they like it so much, I might be converted. Converted to colada!” Impersonating someone for comedic effect (Jerry Seinfeld, I think, perhaps Tony the Tiger), Lotta, while exclaiming, had finger-stabbed the air just under her chin, in the wake of which gesture the meat of her upper arm flapped around wildly.
I pushed a few laugh sounds out of my nose—my lips were pressed tight—and looked away from the arm, toward the quartet of cures (those “little guys here” to which she’d referred). They’d crawled out from somewhere under her neckline to perch on her shoulder, side by side, and each one, indeed, with its snout raised high, was sniffing at the air demonstratively.
“Ready?” Lotta said to them, and bowed toward the steering wheel. One at a time, they leapt off her shoulder, into the dash-mounted Plexiglas nest. As the last of them sat the nest’s cabin-facing bench, Lotta said, “Now,” and, in tandem, they gripped the roller-coasteresque harness bar and pulled it lapward until its lock clicked.
“How did you teach them to do that?” I said. I wasn’t half as impressed as I was trying to sound—I’d witnessed cures cooperate as often as the next guy—but wanted to make up for having watched Lotta’s arm flap.
“It was nothing,” she said. “So easy. They’re smarties. Don’t you love the nest, though? It’s why I bought the car. Which is dumb, I know. It should have been for the mileage, or the legroom or something. But a built-in nest! That’s what really sold me. I couldn’t resist—hey, you know, there’s space for five on that bench if they squeeze. Yours can join them if you want.”
“Same hobunk as yesterday,” I said, and raised my arm, as if showing her the sleeve would corroborate the lie.
“A grapey?” she said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s my word for purple hobunks. Grapies,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. “Yeah. Yes. It’s a grapey.”
“Pinks I call pitayas. That’s the unEnglish word for dragonfruits. Pitayas. And the meat of them’s pink. Anyway, yes: keep that little terrorist sleeved, please. And close the door already. And buckle that belt. Or should I say, ‘Buckle that belt, Magnet!’ Ha!”
“So here’s the thing about that—”
“Oh please, I mean, oh no, please don’t,” said Lotta.
I thought she’d made a joke in the vein of “belt, Magnet,” and I made a couple laugh sounds I instantly regretted.
She stuck her bottom lip out, lowered her eyes. “I was so surprised to see you, then so psyched to eat with you. Don’t you want to hang out? Don’t you want to do lunch?” she said.
I assured her I wanted to, but suggested it might be better if we walked.
“Walk?” Lotta said. She spitlessly raspberried. “Walk what for?”
“I don’t know if you should drive. If it’s safe to—”