Stevie typed his number into her phone, widening her eyes a fraction of an inch at me.
“How did you figure that out?” I asked because I knew Stevie wouldn’t. She truly would have made the world’s worst detective. Murderers and bandits would have been wandering around free because asking a follow-up question might have made someone momentarily uncomfortable.
“No,” he said with a laugh. “I only know it because Paradise Cruises has been trying to buy my number for years. They’re trying to get all the numbers that spell out that phrase, with all potential area codes, and apparently, I’m one of the only holdouts. They call me constantly, trying to talk me into it. But so far, I’ve held out.”
“Because you care deeply about your number? Or because you hate Paradise Cruises?” I arched an eyebrow at him. I knew I was flirting, just a little bit. Obviously, there were bigger things to deal with here, but he was seriously cute, and my hair was not going to be holding these waves for much longer.
“No, I’m actually doing this for purely mercenary reasons. Hoping if I wait them out a little longer, they’ll up their offer. College isn’t going to pay for itself.”
I nodded, but my smile froze. For me and for Stevie, college was going to pay for itself, in that I’d always known I had a college fund waiting for me, and that I could go wherever I wanted (the caveat about no conservatories was new). Loans and grants and how people actually paid for college was not something I’d ever had to concern myself with.
Hearing this guy say it, so matter-of-factly, was making me feel ashamed of myself—and at the way I’d yelled at my parents about college just a few hours earlier.
“Sounds like a plan,” Stevie said, shaking me out of these thoughts. “And—what’s your name? I could save this as ‘I Cruise,’ but…”
“Let’s not do that,” he said, giving us a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “I’m Cary.”
“Like Grant?” I asked.
“Or Fukunaga,” he replied. “But I’m Cary Tasso.”
“I’m Kat,” I said with a smile. “And that’s Stevie.”
“Nice to meet you both,” he said as Stevie pressed a button on her phone. A second later his phone rang, a jazzy, upbeat guitar sound, and he looked down at it. “I assume you’re the 203 area code?”
Stevie nodded. “We’re in from Connecticut for the night.”
“Number saved,” he said, typing in his phone. “So I’ll let you know as soon as I hear something.” He started to put his phone in his pocket just as it rang again. I stared at it, hope flaring in my chest that it was his uncle, saying he was just around the corner and would be there any second, the answer to all our problems.
“Is that him?” I asked, crossing the fingers on one hand.
Cary looked at the screen, then shook his head, pressing the button to silence the phone. “Paradise Cruises,” he said. “They’ve started calling from creative area codes recently, trying to get me to answer. That one was Alaska.”
Brad must have decided he’d had enough of all this standing around and talking without getting any closer to a walk, and he lunged in the direction of the door. “I think he’s getting antsy,” I said, as though I’d had a lot of experience with Brad’s various moods. “So we can leave him with you, right? Since you guys already get along so well?”
“Normally I would totally take him,” he said, leaning down to stroke Brad’s fluff. “But I actually have to get ready for work—I won’t be back until late. And I don’t want to leave him in a strange apartment alone. But I’ve left a message with my uncle that there’s a lockout happening here, and I’ll leave him a note too.…” He held out the leash to us, and Stevie and I exchanged a look.
I knew she wasn’t going to reach for it, so I finally did, wondering as I did so what we were supposed to do now. How were we going to see the play—or then, after, go to a restaurant—if we had a dog with us?
“Okay,” I finally said, because what else was I supposed to say? “I guess we’ll just look after him until we can get him back in the apartment.” I really wasn’t sure what other choice we had—it wasn’t like we could just tie the dog to the doorknob of 5B and leave him there.
“Great. I’ll head out with you. Just give me a sec,” Cary said, and he disappeared back into the basement unit.
“Head out?” Stevie echoed, frowning. “Does he think we’re going to leave?”
“Maybe he doesn’t want us to hang around the lobby.”
“Should we risk leaving? What if his uncle comes back in the next few minutes?”
“But what if he doesn’t?”
“Also a good point.”
We stood there in silence for a minute, during which I started to feel distinctly panicky as all our options to solve this problem seemed to be disappearing. “Can you try Mallory again?”
“Yeah,” Stevie said, putting the phone on speaker. It went right to voice mail, without even ringing—which seemed to me to mean that Mallory’s phone had either died or was out of range, neither of which were helpful for us right now.
“Who else can we call?” I asked, closing my eyes and trying to think. “Ooh, maybe a locksmith?”
“I’m pretty sure you have to have ID proving you live in the place to get someone to unlock it. Otherwise, wouldn’t burglars just do that?”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” I racked my brain, trying to think about who else could get us back in. “Should we try and find Mallory’s roommate? What was her name? We know she works for the mayor, right?”
“Yeah, Flora,” Stevie said slowly. After a second, she shook her head. “What, we’re supposed to go to City Hall, somehow they’ll let us in, and she’s going to give her keys to two girls she’s never seen before?”
“Well, do you have an idea?” I snapped at her. I regretted it immediately. “I’m sorry. I’m being an asshole.”
“You’re not, and it’s okay,” Stevie said. “I wish I did have some kind of plan. I just…” She shrugged helplessly as she looked down at the dog, then around the lobby.
I was wondering if she was feeling what I was feeling—like she was waiting for someone to show up and tell us what to do. We spent most of our lives that way, after all, whether it was parents or teachers or Mr. Campbell literally telling us where to go, what to say, and how to say it, our every move onstage blocked out. “If it wasn’t for the dog,” she said, shaking her head, and I nodded. I felt the same way. If it wasn’t for the dog, we could just leave now, and trust that at some point tonight, we’d be able to get back into the apartment to get our stuff. We had enough cash to get around. But the Pomeranian was complicating things.
Like he knew we were talking about him, Brad looked up at us. He let out what could only be described as a disappointed whine before flopping down on the ground, head on his paws, looking longingly toward the door.
“What about Mateo?” I asked, getting an inspiration. “Would he have an extra set of keys?”