by C. L. Stone
When we got to the sidewalk, Luke pointed to the door of the Chinese food place. “You like Chinese, right?”
I had to shake my head and shrug, with a small smile. “Never had it,” I said.
Luke opened his eyes wide and his mouth formed an o. “Saaang,” he whined. “I have to fix this. I know you’re a clean slate and everything…but I still assume…” He sighed and hurried in front of me to pull open the door.
The restaurant was smaller than other places they’d taken me to. There were oriental paintings in nice frames along the wall, and several rows of tables with chairs. It smelled good, like roasting meat and spices, different than the heady stuff I’d smelled before in fast food places.
An Asian woman stood by the counter. She spotted Luke and smiled, then started reciting. “Hello! One order of beef and broccoli, no broccoli, one order of barbecue beef, one order of pork lo mein noodles?”
“Sounds good to me,” he said with a smile and approached the counter, leaning his elbows on it. He looked at the paper menus stacked in a pile near the cash register. “You’ve got duck today?”
“Yes, yes,” the woman said, her short black hair falling into her eyes as she nodded. “And I have new shrimp toast.”
Luke made a face. “Shrimp toast? That sounds awful.”
“No, no, you’ll like it.”
“Okay, I guess. I’m trusting you,” he said and motioned to me. “And whatever she wants.”
I had no idea what to pick. I felt pressure to do it quickly as they both looked at me, waiting. I was dazzled by the pictures above the counter, the ones in light boxes showing different items. And then I looked at the paper menu; there was so much more. I turned to Luke, shrugging. “What’s good?”
Luke tilted his head and pressed his lips together, leaning into me as he studied the menu. “Girls usually like the sweet and sour chicken.”
How many girls did he know that he brought to get Chinese? I suddenly didn’t want sweet and sour chicken. “You got all beef items? Are those good?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I like the barbecue.”
The woman leaned over the counter and pointed at the paper menu. “Not had Chinese before? Try this,” she said, although I wasn’t really sure what she was pointing to. She turned and motioned to the display. “Honey chicken. And I’ll throw in some Sesame beef to try.”
Honey chicken sounded like a safe bet and the picture looked good, with fried pieces of chicken in an amber sauce. I didn’t know what sesame beef was, but I’d try it. “Okay. Sounds good.”
“Egg rolls?” She asked Luke.
Luke made a face and shook his head. “Do you have any of the good wontons? The ones with the meat? Not the crab though, the actual meat stuff.”
“I just made some,” she said and then left us to go through a clear plastic curtain into the kitchen. Two Asian men stood in an aisle between two stoves, working back to back. The woman started shouting at them, in what I presumed was Chinese, speaking very fast I wondered how the men understood her. They must have, though; one of the men replied and then started reaching for items on the counter.
Luke tugged me toward the rows of tables.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s have a seat while we’re waiting.”
“They’ll bring it out to us?” I asked, unsure the procedure and feeling awkward to step away from the counter. Shouldn’t we pay something now? The woman had gone into the kitchen. Maybe that was normal.
“Sure,” he said. “Don’t worry. They’ll take care of everything.” He pushed back a seat that faced the counter and sat in it. I sat across the table, facing the door and the wide window out toward the parking lot.
Luke fixed his hair, redoing a sloppy man-bun at the back of his head. “I broke your clip,” he said. “And I think Gabriel stole the other ones. He really hates those things.”
“I’m running out,” I said, pointing to the one in my hair now. “This is my last one.”
Luke chuckled lightly. “Next time I think of it, I’ll pick up some more. Maybe dozens.”
I smiled widely. “Gabriel might yell at you for encouraging me.”
He shrugged, and leaned in, his shoulders bunching over the table. “He’ll get over it. And it’ll be great to see his face.”
I could just imagine Gabriel getting very upset at seeing more clips, when he was probably counting down until he was sure I didn’t have any left. They did mysteriously disappear from time to time, more than what Luke took for himself.
“So, our first real date, and we’re getting Chinese food,” Luke said, still leaning forward, his elbows on the table. It felt like he was trying to get closer to me, but the table was in the way. “I really hope you like it. Otherwise, a year from now, you’ll be suffering with stuff you hate.”
“A year?” I asked. “What’s in a year?”
“Don’t you want to remember our first date?” he asked. “Have a one year anniversary?”
I blinked at him. “For a first date?” I said it, but without really asking, but more out of surprise, as I’d had first dates with a couple of the guys, but they never mentioned this. Could I remember each first date and the exact day it happened? Did it mean when they said official first date or…
“You can have it for any occasion you want,” he said. He leaned back with an arm slung over the back of his chair. It was a position I’d seen in magazines; it showed off his shoulders and made them appear wider. His shirt was smoothed out over his chest, and his collarbone was more prominent. “We could have one every week,” he said, drawing my attention back to his face. “First date, first time we met…what was that, three months ago?”
I lowered my eyes to the table. The way he spoke was like we’d been dating for those three months.
He knew about the situation with Lily and what that meant. Did the easy way he was talking to me now about dating mean he approved of it?
His silence made me feel like he was waiting for an answer. “Maybe? It feels like longer.”
“Doesn’t it?” he asked. Suddenly, he sat up and snapped his fingers. “Hey, do you want to go check out the pet store? It’s only a couple of stores down. We can visit the puppies.”
I scooted to the edge of my seat, ready to stand until I remembered why we were there. “Shouldn’t we wait for the food first?”
“We’ll be right back.” He stood up quickly, going to the counter, and rapped his knuckles on the counter a couple of times. “Hey! We’ll be right back. Just heading next door.”
“Oo-kay!” cried the woman from the kitchen.
Luke turned to me, his blond eyebrows lifting up. “Come on. Maybe there’s a new batch of turtles, too.”
I’d never seen him so excited before, at least not about anything other than junk food.
I followed him out into the sidewalk and then he reached over for my hand, and held it, palm to palm, as we walked.
Luke breathed in deeply as we walked, and then out through his mouth. “Man, I haven’t been grounded in a while. But I have to say, this is the best one yet.”
He was in such a happy mood that I didn’t want to ask him why he’d done the prank, even though I wanted to know. “I am a little worried about the guys. I wish there is something we could do.”
“Honestly, unless Kota calls and wants us out there, it’s better if we stay home.” He squeezed his fingers around mine, and tilted his head to look at me. “Sang, I do a lot of stupid things, like when I invited you to go get that camera with me, but Kota knows what he’s doing. If he says stay put, we should stay.”
“Like that time after Gabriel was in the hospital when we went to check on Victor’s computer?” I said with a small smile.
He rolled his eyes and wagged his head from side to side, but there was amusement in his tone. “Really, Sang. You’re just looking for stuff to pick on, now.”
He was right, though. We had our phones; I didn’t need to worry about it.
Luke suddenly stopped and then tu
rned us toward the store we’d just walked past. “Whoops,” he said with a laugh. “Almost forgot where we were going. We were heading toward the Army office.”
He pulled away from me to open the door. The smell of wood shavings and ammonia hit me on the way in, and I shoved my fingers under my nose to try to prevent a sneeze.
“Strong smell,” Luke said, stepping behind me as he came in. We were in a path between shelves of dog food and cages that were on sale. He weaved his way around me, taking my hand again, and tugged me deeper into the shop. “Let’s go.”
I followed, dazzled by the array of cages and pet toys. There was a row of small pets: tiny lizards and what looked like a giant spider in a tank in the corner, but Luke avoided those.
As we weaved our way through the store, I noticed there were fish in tanks along the one side. I was dazzled by the colors, surprised at being drawn to fish and little turtles.
“I like to start on this side,” he said with a grin. “Save the cuddly things for last.”
He stopped by nearly every tank, studying the contents, reading the sign underneath that identified what type of fish they were. I was amazed at the variety.
Did Luke like fish? As he studied the fish, I studied him. I knew some things about him, but this was new.
“Hey look,” he said, pointing to one of the tanks. “Mini jellyfish.”
I came up next to him, pressing on his back so I could look over his shoulder at the tank in front of him.
His eyes were wide, and he was smiling at a tiny jellyfish, his finger on the glass, pointing at it. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
It was cute, a pink jellyfish floating alone in its own tank. You could keep one as a pet? I supposed if it sat in a tank all day, maybe it was easy to take care of. “Are jellyfish a lot of work?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never had one. Actually, I haven’t ever thought of taking something home.”
He seemed to be familiar with the pet store but he hadn’t considered owning a pet? I wondered if he liked animals, why he never got a puppy or a cat. Would North not like it if he got one?
“I don’t think my parents would have let me,” I said. “My sister and I found a stray cat once when playing in the yard, but we were told to leave it outside and it was gone the next day.”
Luke turned to me and smiled. “You could have one now, you know.”
A cat? No, not without at least asking Nathan. I wasn’t so sure he’d want one. I assumed if he did, he’d have one already. “You could, too,” I said.
He opened his mouth to reply, when we heard talking near the cashier area. At first it was just distracting but when Luke went to say something again, the voices sounded angry, mostly cursing.
I turned away from them, staring at the jellyfish, not wishing to interfere.
Luke turned toward the voices, and squinted his eyes, checking out the scene. “I wonder if the lady needs any help.”
This caused me to turn. There was a woman behind the cashier’s counter, her eyes narrowed, lips twisted into a frown. A couple of guys were standing in front of her counter, with red blotchy faces. They were looking at each other, holding onto their wallets.
“You’ve got to have enough money,” one of the men said to the other. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Tell me you have enough.”
His friend opened his wallet wider, like he’d see more money inside if he just unfolded it all the way. “You didn’t tell me a skunk costs three hundred bucks. We should just go find one out in the woods.”
“For fuck’s sake,” the first man said. He held open his wallet again. “We need an ATM.”
“There might be one at the corner store across the street,” the woman behind the counter said tightly. She had on a uniform work shirt and slacks. Her face was red and she was biting her lip, nervous or maybe to stop herself from saying something.
“There might have been one back at the bar,” one of the men said. He nudged his friend. “Let’s go get more money. Then we can take the skunk and scare the shit out of your wife.”
“She’ll shoot it, most likely. She’ll finally get some use out of that .22 I got for her. It’ll be hilarious.” The men walked out of the store, laughing and talking.
“Hmm,” Luke said with a frown.
The woman was shaking her head as she watched the men leaving. She wiped her hand across the counter, and then looked at the phone on the desk, before she picked it up slowly and then put the receiver back in the cradle.
Luke walked away from me and approached the counter. I had a sinking feeling but I was also wondering how the men were buying a skunk from a pet store. Skunks weren’t pets.
“Excuse me,” Luke said as he approached. I followed him, wanting to stay close. “Were they going to buy a skunk? Did I hear that right, or were they too drunk to realize it’s a cat?”
The woman frowned. “It’s a skunk. But I don’t want to sell it to them for a prank, though I don’t know if I could get away with refusing to sell it. I don’t own the store.”
“Where is it?” Luke asked.
The woman pointed toward the back of the store. “The boss wanted me to move him to the front, but it scares a lot of parents. He’s back with the exotic pets.”
I followed Luke to the back of the store. There were other crates for dogs and cats. Some of the dogs barked as we passed, but most of the animals were sleeping.
Near the very back was a circular pen, open at the top.
Inside was a black and white skunk, waddling around as it played with a little plastic ball. It grabbed the ball, holding onto it and dragged it backward toward a bed.
The woman came up next to us as we watched it. “It’s trying to take it back to the nest,” she said. “I should give it a dog house, so it’ll feel comfortable.”
“I didn’t know skunks made good pets,” Luke said.
“They are legal to keep here, but require a bit more work. They’ll take things from around the house, and you have to watch them around wiring and small objects.”
“Is it going to bite though? I didn’t know they were really tamable.”
“It’s cuddly, like a cat. But you can train it a bit like a dog. It’s too domesticated to just dump in the woods.”
“Can I pick it up?” Luke asked.
“Sure. He’s friendly.”
Luke bent over, snapped his fingers a few times, and then whistled. “Here, kitty kitty.”
I smiled at Luke pretending it was a cat.
The skunk perked up his ears, spotted Luke’s hand, and raced over, stopping just short of it. It sniffed at him carefully.
Luke bent forward, scooping it up in both hands, and cuddled it in his arm. Luke turned toward me so I could see it. It had a chunky belly, and small black arms. The white along its back and tail were very pretty.
I slowly reached out for it, petting the fur, keeping my hand away from its mouth and claws.
It seemed okay with my touch, until it reached out and a little hand held onto one of my fingers. Its big brown eyes appeared doleful. I wondered if it was really happy to be in that pen.
“He’s like a fat cat with hands,” Luke said, pulling him close to cuddle against his chest.
“Kind of like a cat,” the lady said. “But they get into stuff. They’ll steal your keys. They are a little better than a raccoon, though. And they’ll use a litter box.”
“And it won’t spray?” Luke asked.
“Scent glands were removed,” she said. “There might still be a bit of musk smell, but if you bathe him enough, you may not notice it. No worse than ferrets. And he’s neutered so you don’t have to worry about him wanting to run off and make little babies. They don’t have a rabies shot for them, so you have to keep a close eye on him and not let him get close to any other animals. Don’t count on taking him with you out of the country.”
I felt sorry for the skunk. It did seem like a lot of responsibility. “Those men will be back to take him soon.” I
didn’t want to be there if they came back and were upset, thinking we were interfering.
“I hope they don’t come back,” the woman said. “They’ll just be back in a week demanding a refund, if they don’t set him loose. Or shoot him like they were joking about. You shouldn’t buy pets as a joke.”
“No,” Luke said, turning to her. “You shouldn’t. Say, what do skunks eat?”
She smiled a little. “You really want to know?”
“And how much does a skunk cost? It was three hundred, wasn’t it?” His eyes were clear, determined. He glanced at the door of the pet shop and then at the skunk in his arms, its eyes actually starting to close like it was falling asleep. “Sang, I hope you like skunks.”
My heart raced. It was really cute, but then, we were talking about buying it out from under those men. Should we dare? “Luke?” I said quietly. “They could be back any second.”
“Is it okay if she takes him out of the store?” Luke asked. “I don’t want her here when they get back. We can tell them someone else bought it while we figure out what I need.”
“I won’t tell if you won’t,” the woman said, then turned to me. “He might stay in a pouch, sweetie. I can let you borrow something that will work.”
“We’ll just buy it,” he said. “That’ll make it easier.”
My heart was going so fast; I couldn’t believe we were being so impulsive and the woman was helping us. A skunk!
I kept looking at the door, waiting to see if the men came back in. Would they be very angry if I was walking out with the skunk they wanted?
Luke held onto the skunk while we followed the clerk to a selection of bags meant to hold pets. The woman handed me something like a book bag that you wear on the front. I put it on and Luke gently placed the skunk inside. “There,” he said. “Hold it like a baby.”
I’d never held a baby before. I supported the skunk as best as I could by wrapping my arms around the harness.
The skunk popped his head out the top, but settled in, seeming comfortable for the moment.
The woman ripped off the price tag. “I’ll just hold on to this,” she said.