by Danielle Monsch, Cate Rowan, Jennifer Lewis, Jeannie Lin, Nadia Lee, Dee Carney
I should think not. Sofia shuddered. What would happen if the frog got out of its terrarium? She could just see the chaos as passengers screamed. Heck, she’d be one of the screamers.
“Please, Aunt Sofe? He needs someone to feed him and keep him company.”
“Keep it company? A frog?” Livia had been nuts for frogs for several years—so much that Sofia had taken to calling her Tadpole. She’d finally been given a real frog two months ago. Sofia had managed to avoid the thing, and she’d have been happy to keep that streak going. “What kind of food does it eat?”
“Him,” Liv said firmly. “It’s a boy frog. And he eats crickets.”
“Live ones?” Sofia winced.
Tadpole gave an enthusiastic nod, her golden bangs waving in her eyes. She looked just like her mother at that age. “I’ll bring some over in a container when I drop him off—enough for the whole time we’ll be gone. It’ll be fun!”
Fun. Sure. Sofia wanted nothing less than to host a slimy amphibian and its chirping insect meals for five days. But she knew when she’d been outflanked. “Okay. But tell your mom you need to come over and pick him up as soon as you come home, you hear?”
“Of course! I want ’im back as soon as I can. I like to hold him and sing him lullabies.”
Sofia snorted at the phone’s screen. “I’ll feed this thing, but there will be no holding or singing to the frog.”
“You have to. He’ll miss it!”
“I think he’ll manage. Don’t worry, Tadpole, he’ll be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow. Now go scoot and put your mother back on the line.” So I can nail her for designating me the frog-sitter.
“Promise me it’s not a poison dart frog or anything,” Sofia said the next day. Her sister, Carole, toted the terrarium into her living room and little Livia followed with the cricket container and a spray bottle. “I know, not that you’d let Liv have one.”
Carole shook her head and laughed. “Of course not, Ms. Vigilant. There’s nothing toxic about him. Just keep him out of the sun, like I told you. He needs a steady temperature, humidity from the spray bottle, and a cricket or two every couple of days.” They deposited the frog and its accessories on Sofia’s small dining room table, well away from the large windows that overlooked a park and gave such good light for painting.
“See, Aunt Sofe?” Livia said, pointing into the terrarium. “He likes it here. He’s already coming out from under the fern to look around.”
“Um-hmm.” There wasn’t much to view, unless the frog liked disheveled apartments, half-finished paintings, or cynical blonde artists with burnt sienna smudged on their cheeks. “I’m sure you’ll have fun on your trip. I know Liv’s grandparents will be glad to see you both.”
Carole looked down and ruffled her daughter’s hair. “We miss them, too. Six months already.” Since Brian’s funeral, came the unspoken words. An uncharacteristic sorrow tugged at Carole’s mouth, then glided between them to puncture Sofia. She’d have given anything to protect Carole and Liv from life’s pain, just as she’d tried to do for her happy-go-lucky sister when they’d been growing up and discovered their father’s constant affairs. At least her niece had ended up with one normal set of grandparents, who had a small Texas farm and hearts big enough to embrace Liv and Carole. It was more than their own father had ever done.
“We’re all looking forward to it,” Carole continued. “And Liv can ride her pony. Isn’t that right?”
“Can’t I bring Oreo back here?” Liv asked her mother. “We could keep her in the backyard. She’d be good. I know it.”
“There’s not enough room for a pony, sweetie, and the city wouldn’t allow it, anyway. Maybe someday we can get a bigger place.”
Sofia decided right then that Liv would get riding lessons when she got back from the trip, even though Sofia would have to twist her sister’s arm. Carole was ridiculously reluctant to take any of the money Sofia felt belonged to both of them. Their adulterous, three-times-divorced father, as rich as Croesus and as treacherous as a two-headed snake, had left his fortune all to Sofia—only because Carole had crossed his dictates about suitable partners and married a “lowly” army sergeant for love. Now Carole had only Liv and memories of her beloved Brian, while Sofia had tainted money sitting in the bank and an aversion toward people and their schemes.
Livia lowered her head. “You’re right. Oreo’s probably happier at Grampy’s, anyway.”
“A frog is one thing,” Sofia said. “No way will I babysit a pony.” She tapped Liv affectionately on the nose.
“Hey Sofe,” Carole said, “you’re coming with me to the Civil War reenactment next weekend, aren’t you?” Livia, immediately bored, wandered back toward the terrarium.
“We’ll see.” Sofia had learned at an early age that real life was tough, while younger Carole had dived headlong into the world of Make-Believe. People in costumes pretending to be from another era weren’t really Sofia’s thing. People in general weren’t really her thing.
Carole tsked. “Stop holing up in here. You need to get out more.”
“I’m an artist. I paint. I get out to paint. That’s plenty.”
Carole glanced at Livia, who was engrossed by the view through the terrarium glass, before turning back and speaking softly. “Ever notice how you paint the minutest details of your city settings, but you hardly ever paint people—or if you deign to include them, they’re blurry?”
Sofia shrugged. “I’m a realist—but I’m also a practical gal and people annoy me.”
“You’re a stubborn gal. Don’t let the past dictate the present.”
“You should talk, Sis. In fact, we will talk, when you get back.” There were riding stables up in Topanga Canyon; Sofia would grab the checkbook neither she nor her sister liked to touch and drive her niece to lessons herself if needed. “Now go on, you two,” she said in a raised voice. “You’ve got a plane to catch and I have a frog to avoid.”
Livia’s head popped up. “You have to sing to him, Aunt Sofe.”
“Nope. But I promise I’ll feed him and keep him safe until you’re back. Go have fun at your Grampy’s.”
She gave Carole and Tadpole bear hugs and watched them leave, her heart swelling with love. As far as she was concerned, they were the only people she’d cross through Hell for. The rest of the world was on its own.
With the door shut behind her, she found herself staring at the terrarium. “Okay, frog. Toad. Whatever your name is. We have to come to an agreement. You stay in that terrarium and live your froggy life. I will give you crickets and clean water, and somehow you will survive, even though I have no pets and have managed to kill every plant that has come near me. You will survive because you are Livia’s, and I love her, and I will do whatever it takes to make her happy. Including housing you for a few days and keeping your smelly, insectile, chirping food around.”
Toad said nothing, merely blinking its bulging eyes. Sofia supposed some people might even call it cute, with its glossy green skin and a dark streak along its sides. She wouldn’t have been among those people, but to each her own.
After a night filled with cricket chirps—which were less annoying than she’d thought, because they’d reminded her of girl scout camping trips when she and her sister had been younger—the next morning brought her to something she’d been dreading: it was time to feed the frog. She didn’t particularly want to be an accomplice to cricket murder, but neither could she let the frog go hungry. The situation wasn’t fair to the crickets or to the frog. Or, really, to her. Ugh, matters of life and death were not her forte.
“You stay at that end, you got it?” she told the frog, which sat on a branch, looking up at her with its bulging eyes. “Alrighty, then,” she said doubtfully, “as long as we have an understanding.” Slowly she lifted up the mesh cover, worried the frog might spring at her. It didn’t move.
She withdrew a plastic tube of live crickets from their container, praying to the god of pet-sitters that none of them would escape
, and lifted the terrarium lid. The frog sat as still as stone on its perch. “It’s probably as scared of me as I am of it,” she muttered to herself. But that didn’t mean she’d be okay with something escaping, whether frog or bug.
She shook the tube and the crickets fell out, scattering at the side of the terrarium away from the frog. She dropped the lid shut as soon as she could. “Yuck. Sorry, Toad. You’ll have to find them yourself.” And then she felt a bit guilty. “Okay, look, maybe I’m not very good at this yet. But I promise I won’t let you starve.”
Three crickets had plopped into the terrarium, so she’d just have to count to make sure they disappeared. Her shoulders hunched at the thought. “Would you mind eating them while I’m not looking? I’d appreciate it.”
The frog blinked.
“Glad we have that settled. I guess I’ll go paint.”
She spent the next few hours capturing the whirling colors of the Ferris wheel at the amusement park on the Santa Monica pier—and damned if Carole wasn’t right about the blurred people, but to hell with it, that was a stylistic choice.
When she returned she was almost afraid to look in the terrarium, but she did, and counted one cricket left. “You were hungry.” The frog had moved off the branch and was now perched upon a mossy rock.
“Ever get bored in there?”
Toad just sat, simply breathing and staring at her with its bulgy eyes.
She retrieved her easel and board from where she’d dropped them by the door and stacked them against the wall so they wouldn’t get lost amid the discarded clothing and stacks of papers on the floor. “Guess you don’t have much of a choice. Not that being free in LA would be fun for you, anyway. Judging by your current home, you like mossy rocks and quiet, green forests.” She stopped what she was doing and looked at the frog in its glassy prison. “Poor thing. How did you end up there, anyway?”
It didn’t seem fair. Sure, she knew Liv must be taking great care of the frog, but the terrarium wasn’t its natural home. “Hunh. Maybe we’re not that different, after all. We both know what it’s like to feel trapped.”
Feeling contemplative and oddly chatty, she pulled up a chair next to the terrarium to study its serene hues and textures. “My dad nearly made me marry the son of his CFO,” she said softly. “Someone who would keep building his empire. But Carole was the one who got shafted when she finally broke free.” She leaned her chin on her hands. “Brian was a terrific husband to her and a great father. He was good people, as they say, and there aren’t many of those.” She swiveled her gaze to Toad. “But you wouldn’t need to know that stuff. Your life is simple. You’re just a frog with a cricket to eat.” She grinned and grabbed her sketchbook to capture the delicate curl of the terrarium’s fern.
The next day, she continued to talk to Toad as she made more sketches and enjoyed the woodsy smell of the terrarium, a delicious change from automobile fumes. The day after that, she found herself humming as she painted landscapes based on various sections of the terrarium. The frog always made an appearance somehow, and then sat obligingly still as she worked. On the fourth day, she wondered if Toad had become her muse. She had multiple canvases done, all evoking fern-clad woodlands and tranquil ponds with nary a human in sight—most painted while she talked to the frog.
“It’s a good thing there aren’t any people around to hear me,” she told it. “They’d think I’ve cracked. Maybe you would, too—if you could understand English.”
She added a final spring bud to a lily pad. “You ever get lonely? Liv made a nice home for you, but it’s not like you can hop away to find a Miss Toad if you want. You’re it.” She sighed and set down her brush. “Though even in an area with eighteen million people, it isn’t easy. Unless you’re an enchanted frog prince, I don’t think I’ve been near the right guy, much less dated him.”
She reached into the terrarium and pulled out the ceramic pond to clean it and change the water. “Of course,” she added as she walked to the sink, “if you were a frog prince, your life would be sucking a lot more than mine.”
She put the pond back, brimming with filtered water, and found Toad with its head tilted up, looking at her. “Fine, I didn’t say it doesn’t suck at all. Just that it could be worse.” She leaned her chin on the edge of the terrarium. “I’m not judging, though. Believe me. I live in a huge city, free to come and go as I please, yet I’m lonely, too.”
Without thinking about it, she found herself reaching down to touch Toad. It was meant to be a gesture of understanding, two isolated creatures in LA. Toad held perfectly still.
“Hey,” she said, “you feel nicer than I thought you would. Smooth, not rough or scaly at all.” She stroked her finger along the back of its head and down its spine.
Toad’s eyelids lowered to half-mast.
“You like that? Who knew. And here I was afraid of you. Huh, maybe Carole’s right and I should take more chances.”
When she pulled her finger away, Toad blinked and took a step up the branch toward her. She chuckled. “Okay, okay. I get the hint.” She rubbed its head again and its eyes closed to little slits. “Is that better? Yeah, I wouldn’t mind someone doing that for me, either. Fine, I admit it. You’re really not so bad. When Tadpole asked me to pet sit for a frog, my eyes bugged out as much as yours do.”
She withdrew her hand and was startled to see Toad hustling toward her end of the terrarium. “Wow. Demanding thing, aren’t you? All right, one more time and then I’m going to go take a bath and wash the LA stink out of my hide. And yes, it’s pathetic that I’m standing here talking to myself. Or to you. Either way. But at least I’m not a cat hoarder.”
Toad put its webbed hand on her knuckle.
“Is that some sort of request?” Its only answer was to wrap its other hand around her finger. “Does Tadpole pick you up or something? Oh yeah, she said she did. Okay… But if you jump away from me, I swear I will cause you grief. After I stop screaming and leaping onto chairs, that is.”
Gingerly she cupped her hand, and Toad crawled onto her waiting fingers. It didn’t squirm as she raised it, and its wedge-shaped head was cocked upward as if it were examining her, too. “I’ve never been given a once-over by a frog before.” She chuckled. “You’re probably more reliable than the average human male. You wouldn’t ask to borrow money. And I couldn’t be miffed when you don’t call me, since you don’t have a phone.”
She crinkled her nose. “I don’t suppose it could hurt. Here.” She pulled her hand close and delicately placed a kiss on top of Toad’s bright green head.
Exactly nothing happened.
“No, I guess that isn’t the spot, is it? One more, just in case.” She brought her palm up and, with a slight shudder, touched her lips to Toad’s mouth before jerking her head back. What the hell was she thinking, anyway? This had to be the dumbest thing she’d ever done. Even more moronic than playing Doctor with that weasely Jimmy Derkin in first grade. He’d told the whole class about it.
Still, she waited a few more moments, just in case. Fairy tales died hard, even for the cynical.
Too bad they did, eventually, die. No mystical puff of smoke, no tingling of bells or ghostly breeze through the room. “So much for magic,” she muttered. “No surprise there.”
Swallowing her ridiculous disappointment, she lowered Toad gently back into the cage. It left her hands without a struggle and sat looking through the glass at the other side of the room as if it had already forgotten all about her. Much like every guy she’d dated.
“Yep, you have quite a record, Sofe. I always said you’re gonna set the world on fire.” She rolled her eyes at herself.
What was that word… Oh yes, anthropomorphism: attributing human characteristics to animals. Which meant it was time to depart. “Excuse me, Toad, while I leave you to your terrarium. I’m going to go make like a frog and have a bath. Hey,” she said, and pointed a finger at him as she shuffled off. “No fair turning me into a frog instead. Green looks great on you but it
isn’t my color.”
Its only answer was to puff its throat.
Thirty minutes later, after a nice, hot soak, she wrapped herself in a big lavender bath towel, but couldn’t find a matching towel for her hair—damn it all, she’d have to start the Laundry Ordeal soon—so she grabbed a ratty one that she’d retire to her rag pile after the next wash. She wished for the 1,387th time that her skinflint landlord would replace the broken washing machine, but the light in the living room made the place a great painting studio, and the local fluff ‘n’ fold was just down the street.
She reached for her bathrobe, which she usually hung on the back of the door, and cursed under her breath when she realized she’d left it in that sunlit room, instead of where it would actually be useful. So much for getting organized. She tightened the bath towel around her boobs—why can’t someone make a towel that stays put, anyway?—and trooped out to the living room.
Where there was a strange man in outlandish historical clothing on her couch—leaning forward with elbows on his knees and staring out the window as if he were waiting.
Her scream echoed off her walls.
The dark-haired stranger jumped to his feet and spread his palms. “I’m sorry, Miss. I made sure I was sitting down to show you I mean you no harm.”
“Then what the hell are you doing in my apartment?”
“Er, I’ve actually been here for several days.”
“What the hell, you freak! You’ve been spying on me for days?” Hitching up her towel, she backed behind the corner so her body was hidden and only one eye peeked out.
“That’s not quite fair,” he said. “It was really vice versa.”
Her phone was on the other side of this guy and her ski pole was in the closet next to the front door, also closer to him. She didn’t believe in guns, though she’d been a fair shot with a bow and arrow back in summer camp. But none of that was going to help her get this nutcase to the other side of her apartment door.
“Miss, please listen. You were the one who began this.”