Page 26 of Except Emerson (Detroit ABCs #7)

“I ’m going to go slow. Slow and steady.”

I reached out my hand, knowing that this was a risk.

“Ok,” I breathed out as my fingertips brushed her fur. Coral turned and glared in her usual baleful way, but she didn’t hiss and she didn’t run and hide, so I petted her again. She allowed it. She also didn’t purr and cuddle like she did with Levi, but I thought this was a big step.

I’d been working up to it by sitting close to the two of them on my new couch, Hernán’s old one, while Levi and I watched movies together and she lay on his chest or lap.

At first, she’d ignored me as usual. She’d gotten stiff when I’d put my hand on his arm and near her body, but after a while, she’d permitted me to touch her, too.

Today was the first time I’d tried it while we were by ourselves, though.

This acclimation process had taken a while.

It had been a period in which Levi had come over a lot more, something that I encouraged.

He still wasn’t letting me help him with anything, not his finances or with finding a new apartment, though.

What was his take-away from our interactions, besides a lot of affection from a cat? It wasn’t clear to me.

Anyway, he did need a new apartment, because things between him and his friend August seemed to have soured.

On the day that Hernán had moved and we’d gone over to swim in August’s pool, something had changed in their relationship, but Levi wouldn’t tell me what it was.

He would only say that they’d had a disagreement, and then he looked angry.

Everything had seemed fine to me on that hot afternoon.

“Levi!” August had called when he’d emerged from his house.

He’d pressed another hidden button and all the walls of the living room had slid smoothly back, opening it totally to the pool area.

I’d felt a wash of air conditioning leave the building and I’d wondered about his utility bill.

“Hey, man,” Levi had answered, and they did a combined handshake/hug. “You remember Emerson?”

“Of course.” His greeting to me had been much more subdued, and I’d wondered if he felt weird about not hiring me to work in his club.

I’d acted very friendly to counteract that.

After all, the two of them had a long-standing relationship and I wanted to have the same thing with Levi.

To accomplish it, I needed to strengthen the bonds that we had already established.

“It’s great to see you,” I had told our host, and smiled.

He’d seemed taken aback by my enthusiasm but then smiled at me in return, and he’d sat next to me on another curved metal chair.

More people showed up, apparently coming right into the house and then strolling out to the pool deck to join us, but August had mostly ignored them as the three of us talked.

I had understood why Levi liked him, because when he wasn’t interviewing me in his underground club, he was funny and easy to hang out with.

“How’s your real estate job going?” he’d asked Levi, and I listened avidly because I’d been asking the same thing but hadn’t gotten much of an answer.

I didn’t get one that day, either. “Not bad,” Levi had said briefly, and just a few moments later, he’d suggested that we take the cat and leave.

It was easier said than done because the recent arrivals, who were now playing music at the same volume as the engine in August’s sports car, had parked everywhere and blocked us in.

It had taken a while to move their vehicles, and we had only done it after Levi told them all that he was the valet and he needed their keys.

“Should we just steal a car?” he’d suggested to me, but we’d decided that a better idea was to drive the one he already owned back to my apartment, where the power had finally come on and the air conditioning was working again.

But since that day, he’d been weird about his friend August. It wasn’t like I brought up his name all the time, but whenever I mentioned something about Levi living in his apartment or about his amazing pool, the conversation shut down.

Levi shut down, stone-faced and angry, and changed the subject.

I didn’t understand why, but he was still willing to talk to me about other stuff, to come over, to go for walks, and to tame my cat.

I was grateful and also mindful. Grant always became infuriated when I pushed too hard for information and it had led to some of our worst fights.

I didn’t want to argue like that with Levi.

I was also grateful that Hernán had finally made it to Nevada.

He had readily allowed me to track his movements and hadn’t turned it off once he’d reached his destination.

I could see that he was getting out a lot and wasn’t staying inside the house, like he had when he’d lived here in Michigan.

His old apartment was still empty and the “for rent” sign on the scraggly lawn in front of this building hadn’t attracted a lot of attention.

Since no one was upstairs, either, the place was very, very quiet.

Not that Hernán had been loud, but it had been nice to have another person around.

This current situation made me feel like I had a little girl, when our house was so isolated and my mother and I had gone for days without speaking since she was so busy.

I could have believed that I was the only person in the world, and that if I disappeared, no one would ever know.

But this situation would change soon. Ava and her daughter were on their way over to visit, and I had cleaned from top to bottom and moved around all of Hernán’s accessories at least a thousand times.

I wanted my place to look as nice as…well, as nice as a normal apartment.

There wasn’t much I could do about all the griege, but my former neighbor’s stuff was colorful and now there were three distinct places to sit: my desk chair (which Levi had helped me paint), Hernán’s armchair, and his couch.

Also, I now had glasses so they could each have a drink, if they wanted one.

My phone made a sound which didn’t make me jump anymore, because I was used to notifications.

I liked to see them because it wasn’t only clients who texted.

It was often Levi or Hernán, and Ava was in touch, too.

She’d asked if I wanted to go to the Detroit River this morning to see some kind of boat race with her and her daughter Everly, and I’d happily accepted.

Then she’d sprung the news that she would pick me up at seven sharp—seven AM.

That was ok with me, since I would already be awake due to Coral, and maybe that was what she was used to as well with her three kids.

Most people, though, slept in a little on a Saturday morning.

This new message was also from her and said that they were running late, and they wouldn’t have time to come into my apartment as we’d planned.

So I said goodbye to the cat and I was waiting on the sidewalk when they drove up.

As Ava came to a stop, I looked back briefly at Hernán’s empty window.

He would have been interested in what I was doing and I missed seeing his inquiring face there, watching everything that was happening with me.

“Hi,” Everly called from her seat in the back. “I found a huge spider in the bathroom this morning! We had to trap it and put it outside.”

“Wow,” I said as I got in. “How big? Like the size of a hamburger?”

“There are no spiders that big,” she answered confidently, and I explained about the giant huntsman spider and the goliath birdeater.

“But don’t worry, they don’t live in Detroit,” I said.

She didn’t seem worried at all. “I’m not going to tell Elliott about those,” she announced, and her mom told her that she was a great big sister.

“Good morning,” Ava continued to me, smiling. “As you heard, we’ve already had a lot of excitement today.”

We talked spiders for quite a while as we drove into the city.

The roads were peaceful and fairly empty, which was good because Ava went slowly.

I appreciated it, as someone who had never enjoyed speeding in cars, but other drivers might have been annoyed at how far under the limit she was going.

Soon enough, though, we had arrived at the Detroit River and Ava parked.

“Emerson, we can carry the chairs and the bag,” her daughter told me, and I said that was great. Ava was busy rubbing her shoulder and making a face.

“It still bothers me,” she said, when she saw me looking in her direction. “I had to cancel my rescheduled appointment because my parents went on vacation and Jeff went out of town for work.”

“Levi could have covered for you, and I would have helped.”

She smiled at me again. “It’s nice to know that I have even more backup. He just started his job, though, and I wouldn’t want to make him take time off so soon.”

And I didn’t have a car, so I couldn’t have done anything…

also, who was I? Just some woman she’d met a few times, and was now texting with fairly regularly.

“If I can help, I will,” I reiterated, and then dropped it.

As I’d learned, no one liked too much pressure from me, which was also why I’d tried to stop myself from constantly asking Levi about his job, apartment, and finances.

We walked together, with Everly and me carrying most of the gear, and I looked at the boats that were on trailers around us.

I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but probably something with motors.

These were long, like canoes, but a lot fancier.

There were seats, too, little ones all in a line down the middle.

“What’s happening here?” I asked and Everly started jumping up and down.

“It’s a surprise!” she crowed and her mom looked just about as happy, although she didn’t jump.