“Of course I can’t call him. He calls through magic or something, there’s no number. But I’m the only who can hear him. That’s what I’m saying, Asher. I have to stay at the Crisis Center. That’s my special thing.”
“I’ve got to go call Audrey. I left my phone upstairs.”
“You massive wuss. Are you missing the fact that I am the only person who can speak to the dead, Asher?”
“Right, just you and the Emperor,” Charlie said. “Be right back.” He ran through the back room and up the stairs.
“It’s a big fucking deal!” she shouted after him, then settled into her well-practiced pout. Fuckstick, she thought. “Fuckstick!” she called after him, knowing he wouldn’t hear it, but saying it because it needed to be said.
“Lily!” called a voice from the stairwell.
Sophie ran, stumbled, hopped, tumbled, down the stairs the way she did, then climbed up on the bar stool next to Lily.
“I needs me my gin and juice,” she said.
“No gin,” said Lily.
“Just juice, then,” Sophie said.
Lily slid her Starbucks over to the kid, who took a sip, made a face, then slid it back.
“Where’s Daddy—I mean Mike?”
“You just missed him.”
More noise on the stairs, deliberate, heavy steps, lots of them, a tired horse descending.
Sophie leaned over and whispered wetly, “I’m not ’sposed to call my dad Daddy in front of anyone because it would be weird.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want it to be weird,” Lily said.
Mrs. Korjev came out of the back room, eclipsing Mrs. Ling, who was right behind her, but identifiable by the squeak of the little cart she always rolled her groceries in, despite having to fold and unfold it to get it up and down stairs, and up curbs, and on and off buses, or trains, about a thousand times every trip.
Lily greeted each of the grandmothers and they returned her greetings with the same distaste and distrust they had paid her since she was sixteen and had first come to work for Charlie Asher.
“Lily,” each of them had said in turn, slowly, as a greeting, just short of spitting in three languages after.
“We take Sophie to buy vegetable,” said Mrs. Korjev.
“Maybe snack,” said Mrs. Ling, defiantly, for no apparent reason.
“Both of you?” Lily asked.
Mrs. Ling stormed forward in teeny-tiny steps, stopping twice to uncatch her cart from the edge of the bar, but stormed right up in Lily’s face, well, in Lily’s general bosom area, but she was looking at her face. “You think we not know how to take care Sophie? We take care Sophie since baby. We know what good for her. Not Mike.”
“What is manny?” said Mrs. Korjev. “Is not real. Is imaginary. He is drug fiend. I see on Oprah.”
“Dlug fiend!” said Mrs. Ling. Then she said something in Cantonese, most of which Lily didn’t get except for “white devil,” which she’d learned a long time ago because it was how Mrs. Ling referred to anyone who wasn’t Chinese.
“Maybe you ladies should wait for Mike to come back. He shouldn’t be long.”
“We go,” said Mrs. Ling. “We go, four block to market on Stockton Street, four block home. Two hour, tops. You tell. We go.”
The two matrons herded Sophie through the back room and out the steel door into the ally, and Lily let them because, really, it was only four blocks, and it was the middle of the afternoon, so there was no danger from the Morrigan, and because she was a little afraid of both of them. “Bye, Lily,” Sophie called as the door closed behind them.
Lily’s phone buzzed. It was M. She contemplated sending it to voice mail for a half a second, then remembered that he hadn’t yet found out about her specialness.
“Speak,” she said.