The bear in question zoomed past the glass, a furry torpedo.
“I want to say something,” Fiona said. Behind and above the girls, it felt as if they could have a completely private conversation. “I have never liked Charlie.”
Yale burst out laughing at the absurdity of it. Everyone loved Charlie. Everyone told him, constantly, how much they loved Charlie.
She said, “He was really good to Nico, and he does all this great work, and he’s, you know, he’s important. I think he’s one of these people where—he’s just so there, and people respond to that. But I never feel like he’s listening to me. He’s always just waiting to talk again.”
A month ago, Yale would have had to pretend to be deeply hurt by this, even as he recognized the truth. But now he was able to nod. “How do you know that when other people don’t?”
“Maybe they do know. Maybe it’s how everyone feels. He reminds me of one of those girls in junior high, the ones who are so popular just because everyone’s scared of them.”
“You’re saying he’s an eighth-grade girl.”
“I’m saying he’s a bully. I mean—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say that. But listen, I never liked the way he treated you. He was always asking weird questions about where I’d seen you, who you were with. It seemed a little controlling.”
“That’s fair.”
“I thought about it, and I wonder if that’s why I told him you were with Teddy, at the memorial. Like, it felt good to finally throw something in his face. But I don’t know. I was drunk. I don’t mean—”
“It’s okay.” He didn’t want to hear it. He couldn’t handle being mad at her.
“I hate that he’s wearing Nico’s scarf. I saw him out with it, he was way down the street, and there was this second where I—”
“You saw Nico.”
“Yeah. And if it had been you, someone I wanted to see, that would’ve been different. I want to get it back.”
Thor swam straight up to the glass, pressed his nose and one huge, scraggly paw flat against it, just inches from Brooke and Ashley’s faces. The girls squealed, and Fiona stopped Ashley from beating the glass with her little fist.
“He’s such a ham,” Fiona said. “You’re right, Brooke, that’s definitely Thor.”
“The other one is his wife!” Brooke said.
Yale said, “I didn’t know polar bears could get married. It’s good to hear you say that, about Charlie. I was feeling like the only person in the world who could see through him.”
“Yale.” She turned and put her hands on his biceps, gave him a mock-serious stare that maybe was actually serious after all. “You deserve someone who adores you. Charlie only ever wants an audience.”
“But,” Yale said. “But. What if that’s the last boyfriend I ever get?”
“No way. You’ll outlive Thor here. You’ll outlive the elephants. Don’t elephants live forever? Turtles. You’ll outlive the turtles.”
“Cockatoos live for sixty years!” Brooke chimed in.
“Hey,” Fiona said, “were you eavesdropping?” Although what had they said, really, that a kid would understand?
Yale said, “I won’t be getting a cockatoo.”
“You’ll feel better after the test. I tell you what, after you get your results, I’ll take you out and buy you a goldfish. One of the big ones that lives for decades and you eventually have to buy it a swimming pool.”
Yale said, “You’re the one who has Roscoe, right?”
Fiona didn’t say anything, just stared at Thor through the glass. She looked strangely frozen.
“Your brother’s cat. Roscoe.”
She jerked her head to stare at him, lips parted.
He said, “What.”
“Holy crap. Holy crap.”
“I mean, Terrence had him, and then—”
“Holy crap.”
“Wouldn’t his family—”
“No. They haven’t set foot. They haven’t— Oh my God. Yale.”
“But the landlord, right? Wouldn’t they have moved his stuff out?”
“People don’t just run in there and get their hands all over someone’s stuff. They wait and get it, like, fumigated. And they might not even know he’s gone. Who even told them he was dead? I didn’t. Teddy was the one who went in there to get his suit, for the—”
The girls were looking up at them now, ignoring the polar bears. Fiona unwound her scarf like it was strangling her.
It was Monday the third. Terrence had died on January 17. More than two weeks. Yale might not have remembered it so precisely if he hadn’t been staring so much at his calendar lately.
Yale said, “Well, let’s—shit, can we go up there? We can go right now. Let’s go.”
They ran back through the zoo, past the animals, past the yellow placards that told their scientific names, the girls crying that they hadn’t even seen the gorillas yet.
Fiona had a key to Terrence’s apartment, but it was back at her place. She had to drop the girls off anyway—their mother was home and knew what Fiona had been going through and wouldn’t mind sparing her for an hour or two. Yale waited on the street while Fiona ran the girls inside. By the time she was back with her keys, he’d flagged down a cab.
“I’ll go in first,” Yale said on the way. “You should wait in the hall.”
“Nope, no, no, no. We’re going in together.” She asked the cabbie if he could rush. He gestured at the red light and muttered in Polish.
Yale admitted to himself, as they finally got out, as they mounted the front steps, as they climbed to the second floor, that this was a welcome distraction. It had been so long since he’d had a clear course of action, an easy decision with an obvious answer. They were going to go up there and find the cat. Or better yet, they wouldn’t find the cat.
Fiona puffed out her cheeks and stuck the key in Terrence’s lock. She stopped suddenly and knocked, put her ear to the wood. Yale held his breath, hoping she’d hear new tenants, a cleaning crew, frantic meowing. But she shook her head, turned the key.
The living room smelled horrible. Yale couldn’t remember if it was the same horrible—medicine, vomit, cat litter, sweat—as two weeks ago, or if it was something new. Terrence’s furniture was still all in place. A neatly folded sheet still lay on the couch where Yale had left it two weeks ago.