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Her cousin's mouth moves. Words tumble out of Ashtad's mouth and shimmer on the cheap plastic table. Rachael moves one with her pinky to line up with the plastic salt shaker. The piling words clang with the pepper.
He tells her a story about work. He thinks that it is very funny. She knows because he laughs as he tells it. He laughs. Large sounds that splinter into her glass of water. She wasn't drinking it anyway.
She won't say it.
She won't say it.
"How are my parents?" Her teeth cannot click down fast enough to catch the wings of words. They are out and she can see them in the air. Literally see them. A rush of fluttering lines out into the cacophony-glow diner. She flinches as the lines coil around her. She looks at her cousin and she flinches.
Rachel cannot read minds. She does not read Ashtad's mind. She does not need to read his mind. She has met him. She had met her parents. Swish of the Elvis clock on the diner wall. Hole in the wall. Swish. Swish of blue plastic suede shoes.
He glances to the left and up. He straightens a fork on the cheap plastic tablecloth. His fingers trace the ridges on the white paper napkin under her spoon. He puts his hand over hers and she smells pomegranates in her mother’s soup.
She sighs. “That good, huh.” He smiles. Squeezes her hand and she smells a pinch of cinnamon rubbed into lamb. He says, "When are you just going to apologize and go home."
She sputters, "I...I...have a place to stay."
"A spare room in the apartment of someone who is no better than she should be. How is she even paying for that place?" His words pile up with hard edges and she tells herself that he means well.
Rachel flushes. She can't really answer that. It's not what Ashtad thinks. It's. Kind of worse.
Rachel reminds herself that she studied at Quantico. That she has a Masters in forensics. That. She cannot eat her salad. Protozoa writhe in squirming masses in the beads of water on the leaves. That's why she's seeing sounds and tasting touch.
She smiles weakly. Weak. Pushes her salad around with a fork. Looks out the window and watches cars drive by. And a mass mob of cats walking down the street. She tilts her head and looks. The cats are wearing diamonds. Bracelets. Necklaces. She narrows her eyes. Definitely diamonds based on their thermal conductivity.
Ashtad has his hand on her shoulder. He says, "Did you see that?" The words look odd, until she realizes, not for the first time, that they are English red-blue and not Farsi green.
She says, "Yeah, I need to, yeah." She texts Dr. Rosen. She nods. "I had fun. Maybe, um. Yeah. We'll catch up later." She throws down some money, grabs her purse and runs out the door.
The cats have already disappeared down an alley. She focuses her eyes and smiles at the faint pitter patter of footprints glowing a cooling pink on the cement. She doesn't walk down the alley, because that would be dangerous and stupid. She waits for her team. While she waits, she puts on white plastic gloves and looks at the ally for things that have been left behind. Smiles as she looks.
Dr. Rosen texts back and she smiles some more.
~~~~~
She's cracked the window in her office. There's a bolt in her chair seat that jabs at her left thigh that would annoy her if she were letting herself feel it. She breathes in. Her eyes closed. Mint from her spent tea the drumbeat of the daf. Urine from the ally below around the corner a shark thrum on the zither. Gasoline fumes a spinning fiddle whine. Salt tang sounds the gong. There, three blocks away, a dry cleaners chemical timpani. Paneer soft strum of a tambur. It is a symphony. It is a City Radif in Blue. With splashes of brass. Woodwinds. Bells.
She breathes in again. The coffee shop bellow rises the roar of the mountain lion. Sweat is the earth. Old Leather surges goblet drums.
A hand on her shoulder. Heavy with a smear of roast beef and tuba. It's a discord that fits.
She looks up and wonders how long Bill has been talking to her. She lets back sound and hears, "You done looking at that board from the alley?"
Rachel blinks. Flushes. Tells herself that she can take a break. That she can break and she knows it.
She says, "I'm almost done." She closes the window with a sharp snick. She stress nibbles on some Gaz from the bottom drawer of her desk. Warm arms around her and she's safe. Fights down the guilt that she's eating at all. The arms tighten. She picks up the shard of wood and inhales. Boron oxide. Magnesium. Gole Aftabgardoon on vinyl. It's like listening to the sun. She breathes in and writes down what she smells. Which involves a lot of cats. Old paint and old plaster. Wool fiber and she writes some ideas of what Gary should look for in the places they must go.
~~~~~
A month ago, her job was researching Alphas who talked to cats. Three years ago, her job, well the job she was training for, was catching criminals. Now, her job is researching criminals who talk to cats. Lots of cats. Who steal jewelry. She’d had thought fish, but there you go.
Bill keeps shaking his head and muttering about cat burglars and unprofessional and she's not listening.
Beside her, Gary waves his hands at ribbons of information only he can see. He says, "I should be in bed by now. It's after nine and I'm supposed to be home and in bed. Do you know, there's are a lot of pictures of cats with diamonds. And hats. People like to dress their cats. Why is that?"
"Because people are idiots." Bill's voice is gruff. Rough. Rachel brushes the words away and keeps walking to the corner where the old abandoned Art Deco hotel fades its splendor.
It doesn't help that Bills kicks in the front door. He holds out a badge, "FBI." Although, they aren't FBI. He never lets them forget that's who he is. Sort of.
As she follows him inside, cats mill around her feet. A young woman stands at the foot of a set of long curving stairs. She's wearing grubby jeans and is decked in diamonds. Dozens of bracelets and necklaces and three off angle tiaras. She yells, "They're my sparklies." She points at the cats. "Get them."
The cats meow. They mill. The fail to get.
"Come on. I'll feed you later." The cats meow some more.
Nina smiles helpfully and her voice drops. Rachel can feel it in her toes as Nina says, "Calm down. You should come with us."
Cat-lady tosses her hair and almost loses a tiara. "That is so very unfair. I want a people voice. But, no, I got a cat voice. And you know what commanding cats is like?"
Bill says, "Yeah, it's like herding cats. You need to come with us." Mutters, "crazy cat lady, what kind of job is this."
The woman throws up her hands. "Yeah. Uh. No." She runs up the stairs.
Bill chases after her and trips on three separate cats and slams into a wall. Cameron jumps over the cats and bounds up the stairs. For some reason, the cats swarm around Gary while he's doing something with the internet. He's quickly a victim of a cat-o-tac. They bend around his legs and pur. "Get them off. Get." He lifts one leg and then the other. "Go away. I can't touch cats. "
Bill should be chasing the crazy cat lady, but he's on the floor laughing. "Yeah, they can sense that." Nina rolls her eyes and calls Dr. Rosen.
Rachel bends down and pulls off a purring black cat with a white face. It meows under her hand. It is probably saying something like, "Hello, I'm your distraction. Now worship me and give me tuna." She buries her fingers in the soft fur and feels to its heartbeat. Soft and she thinks of yogurt stew with orange peals. She lets the cat go and brushes off Gary.
He glares at the cats. Flicks his fingers. Maybe he's looking up cat death.
Cameron calls. He caught the Cat-Lady. Good for him. It's all kind of an anticlimax and Bills is seven shades of annoyed. Partially because Dr. Rosen insists that they gather up the cats, which means a stop at three pet shops for carriers and then there's catching them. Nina cannot herd cats. They give Gary an antihistamine and have him stand on a chair and read the internet while the cats leap up and purr at his legs.
Rachel puts the last cat in a turtle shaped carrier and loads the car. She feels... it's not that she wants a super-secret cell of Red Flag terrorists with lighting fingers and acid spit. Hormone bomb riots. She looks up and the sky is clear. Not particularly full of stars. She lives in a city. For a moment, she looks. Really looks and Van Gogh painted the sky. Feels guilty, but then she breaths in and it's the song of the city.
"Earth to Rachel. Rachel." She blinks. Nina snaps her fingers. "Ready to go home." And it's odd, because Nina's apartment is temporary. Not her home. But, she smiles and right now. That's where she's ready to go.