Vintage Veronica (9 page)

I guess he sees my look, because he says, “It’s not such a bad place. There’s all this giant kitchen equipment and junked cars and stuff.”

“Do you … collect stuff?” I ask cautiously, meaning the pajamas.

“Nah,” he says. “I’m not really into stuff.”

“What about your lizard collection?”

He thinks for a minute. “I mean, I guess you could say that. But I don’t really think of them like that. They’re not
things
. They’re pets, you know? Don’t you have any pets?”

“Uh, no,” I say. I want to tell him more, but all I venture is, “I had a cat once. It died.”

“Maybe you should think about taking care of one of my snakes,” he says cheerfully. “I’d help you get set up with the cage and the pinkies and stuff.”

“Pinkies?”

“Newborn baby mice. Snakes love them.”

“Mice Krispies?” I ask.

“Mice whuh?”

“Krispies? Like Rice Krispies?” Nothing. “Forget it, it’s a joke,” I say. “No snakes for me. No offense, it’s just my mom would kill me. Plus, I’m not big on slimy things.”

“They’re not slimy,” he says.

“Slimy, scaly, whatever,” I say. “It just creeps me out, okay?”

“They’re not scaly either.”

“Yeah, okay. Whatever you say, Lizard Boy.” So help me God, it just slips out. For a second I dare to believe that he didn’t hear me.

“What did you just call me?”

The Nail’s eyes are still the color of dirty water, but now I see them flicker like the water has a current to it.

“Nothing,” I mumble. I’m tempted to apologize, something I’m not usually a big fan of but which seems like probably the right thing to do at a time like this. I mean, he’s a freaking cripple, right? I should be nice. But just then I see a woven basket sitting there in the hall, with something pink hanging out of the top. It is the pajama sleeve, almost waving at me. It’s like a cape in front of a bull.

“What I should call you,” I say, my voice wavering a bit, “what I really should call you is Thief. What the hell makes you think you can go taking other people’s stuff?!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I think you know, don’t you?” I go to the hall, grab
the pajama top, and storm back into the kitchen, waving it at him for my finale. “
Especially
when you asked ‘Can I have this?’ and the answer was NO!!”

“I can explain,” says The Nail quietly.

“Don’t bother,” I say. “I don’t want to even know what you and Claire have been up to. I just want you to know that your klepto days are over. AND that I’ll be taking this with me.” I ball up the pajama top and am about to stuff it in my bag when The Nail suddenly grabs hold.

“No,” he says quietly, holding on tight.

“What the hell is your problem?” I yell, and begin to pull.

“You don’t understand,” The Nail begins mumbling, pulling back. Or maybe what he is saying is,
You wouldn’t understand
. I can’t tell, because I am too busy yelling all kinds of crazy shit at him. It feels very, very important that I win this struggle.

I should know, after all those seventy-five-cent Fridays at the store, what is going to happen next. But I’m so wrapped up in the moment, bracing my Chucks to get the best angle, watching The Nail’s face turn red as he tries to twist and wrench the pajamas from me, that the sound the fabric makes when it finally gives comes as a complete and total surprise to me. What’s worse, it rips on a seam and I fall backward, holding everything but one sleeve. The fall hurts, and I struggle to retain my outraged demeanor, but somehow the ridiculousness of the situation dawns on me. I mean, here I am, sitting on The Nail’s kitchen floor, my butt soaked with lemonade, clutching a torn piece of fabric.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” asks The Nail. He looks
horrified at the sight of me on the floor. I remember the glass and hope that The Nail really did find all of it. I reach behind myself to adjust my layers of polka skirt and I’m relieved to not find blood on my hand.

“I think so,” I say. He reaches to try to help me up, but years of being a big girl have taught me not to let people do this. I carefully get myself to my feet.

“I’m sorry,” says The Nail. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have taken them.”

“Damned right,” I say. “I could lose my job over something like this!” Which probably isn’t true, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know that.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

“Good,” I say. “You should be. If I ever catch you taking stuff again, I’ll totally bust you. You got it? I mean, I don’t care how much money Claire is giving you …”

The Nail looks confused, and his chin begins to quiver.

“I was just trying to help Violet,” he says.

“Violet?” I ask. The Nail nods and leaves the room. I blot the seat of my skirt with one of his dish towels while he’s gone. It occurs to me that I should probably just get the hell out of his apartment before he comes back. Clearly, he’s about to produce his dead grandma, or worse.

But unfortunately my curiosity is piqued.

Just then, The Nail returns. He seems quicker and more surefooted here in his own space. He has something curled up in the front of his T-shirt, and at first I mistake it for a kitten. Then I realize that it is the lizard I saw before. The animal seems very comfortable resting in his embrace, and I notice
for the first time how beautiful its markings are. Most of its skin is black and it has tiny black nails on its toes, but all over its back and head are dots and dashes in shades of orange ranging from pale peach to deep sunset. It opens its eyes and blinks, and The Nail strokes its head.

“This is Violet,” he tells me. “She’s a juvenile blue-tongued skink. Of all my pets, she’s … well, I don’t like to say favorite. But she’s really, um, special.”

“Wow,” I say, unable to take my eyes off the lizard. She’s a pretty spectacular-looking creature. She almost looks like an elaborately beaded purse. “She’s … wow.”

“Yeah,” agrees The Nail. “But she’s got a rare bone condition, and I’m beginning to wonder if she’s going to make it.”

“Jesus,” I say.

“You can pet her if you want. Go ahead, she’s not slimy or anything.”

Against my better judgment, I tentatively touch her tail. It is muscular and cold, but he is right, not slimy. The Nail pets her head some more. I touch her again, on the back this time. The Nail smiles and exhales deeply.

“She likes you,” he says.

He totally gets to me when he says this.

“Spud,” I say.

“What?”

“The cat I used to have. His name was Spud. He was the same color as a potato, get it?” I haven’t thought about Spud in years. Under my bed, there’s a shoebox of photos that probably includes several of me grinning like an idiot, with Spud hanging compliantly from my arms.

“Kidney failure,” I add.

“That sucks,” says The Nail.

“Thanks.” I wipe my nose with the back of my wrist and stare at Violet.

“Look,” I finally say, “forget about the pajamas. I’ve got some pretty valuable vintage clothes of my own that you could sell. I’ll bring them in on Monday and you can take them to Claire. It ought to cover Violet’s medicine or whatever.”

He turns his red-rimmed eyes at me and gives me a confused look.

“Claire?” he says.

“Nice try,” I say. I give him a look to let him know that I know about Claire.

“I just wanted to make Violet a blanket out of them. She’s in a lot of pain, and I thought if I had something nice to wrap her in, she’d be able to rest and stay warm. They seemed really soft.”

I look at him and oh my God, he’s serious. He was seriously planning to make some kind of lizard sleeping bag out of the top he swiped. As if he’s reading my mind, The Nail adds, “She’s not that big. That’s why I only needed the top.”

I realize that I have two choices. I can walk out the door, break out into the light and the heat of the day, and run back to the store, gasping for breath, my feet slapping on the pavement all the way. Get myself yet another smoothie, round up Ginger and Zoe, and say,
Man oh man, Spy Girls. Have I got a story for you
.

Or I can stay right where I am.

The lizard Violet blinks her beady eyes again. Cautiously, I extend my hand and touch her head. She is cool and sleek, not the least bit slimy.

I close my eyes and pet her again. Her skin feels softer than vintage flannel.

hen I come in the next morning, there’s a snake on my desk. In a fish tank, that is. With a lid, gravel, a water dish, and a note:

It’s a little snake, maybe two feet long, mostly black with a slight sheen. We didn’t make any sort of arrangement about this. But since I ended up hanging out at The Nail’s house after my ambush attempt, I can’t say I am surprised. He talked a lot, giving me details about most of his pets, which
range from a bunch of tree frogs to an anaconda. There was a pretty interesting newt called an ambassador or something, and some kind of gecko with pale yellow skin like a plucked chicken. And he told me more about Violet, of course, who is clearly his favorite.

Plus, he cooked me dinner.

I don’t really remember the last time someone cooked anything for me. Unless you count nuking, which I don’t. And even that’s been a while.

I didn’t plan on staying for dinner. It just sort of happened. I hung out and we drifted back into the kitchen, and then he just sort of pulled out pots and pans and stuff while we were talking. He definitely moves quickest in his kitchen. It’s a small space, so he doesn’t have to cross any wide-open spaces. He seems to relax there, and his limp almost disappears. Before I really realized what he was doing with the pots and pans, there was a plate of pasta in front of me. With cheese sauce.

“Do you want grated Romano on top, or does that seem redundant?”

“Um, wow. No, yeah. Grated cheese sounds good.”

And it was good. I ate enthusiastically, for once not feeling self-conscious the way I usually do when there’s another person there. I even had seconds.

“Do you cook much?” I asked him between bites.

“Why, does it taste bad?”

“No! I just—”

He smiled secretively. “I taught myself to cook when I was little. Self-defense—no one in my family can cook. Cheese
sauce took a long time to master. I can’t tell you how many times I set off the smoke alarm before I read up and found out about making a roux.”

“Wow, you’re like a real cook.”

“Nah, I wish. Maybe someday. That’s why I started taking culinary classes through vo-tech.”

“My mom would kill me if she knew I ate this,” I admitted.

“Why? Are you lactose intolerant?”

“No. But she’s fat intolerant.”

“Huh?”

“Forget it,” I said, getting up and clearing my plate. It felt kind of nice that he just didn’t get it. “I should actually get going. Thanks for dinner. It was great.”

He smiled, a dish towel over one shoulder.

“Anytime.”

I got home after seven, which was good because my mom had a yoga student. When she gives private lessons—yoga, modern dance, Pilates, you name it—the living room is strictly off-limits. Which is good because I get to skip the usual Q and A.

At seven-thirty, my mom appeared in the doorway to my room. Her hair was swept up in a scrunchie and she was wearing the idiotic workout stuff she wears even when she’s not teaching. A burgundy tank top, low-slung cotton pants, and a pink oversized T-shirt with the collar cut off, like someone out of a bad eighties music video. I mean, okay, I wear stuff from the past, but my look is cultivated. My mom’s like some prehistoric creature that stayed in the swamp too long and missed out on evolution. Only, in her case, it wasn’t the swamp, it was the StairMaster.

“Did you get dinner?” she asked suspiciously.

“Yeah, I nuked something.” This was an acceptable answer, since there’s nothing in our freezer but Weight Watchers frozen meals and the bags of peas she offers clients as ice packs.

“Mmm, okay.” Right answer. “Long day?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“It must be really rewarding, helping out with all those poor homeless animals.”

“Yeah, it … uh, it’s good.” I heard a nagging voice inside my head, reminding me that I’d never gotten around to mentioning that I don’t exactly work where my mom thinks I do.
Say something
, the voice said.
She’s in a good mood; tell her now. She’s bound to find out sooner or later
.