“Hey, fluffy girl,” I say, shrugging out of my hoodie and tucking my hair behind my ear. I scoop her fat ass up in my arms and nuzzle my face in her white and orange fur. She squirms out of my arms and slinks her way back up onto the window.
“Glad you see you too, Rubles,” I say. I look past her and out the window. There’s a sad little planter box just on the other side, covered in spiderwebs, dead roots, and what I’m pretty sure is the remains of a bird’s nest.
From like three years ago.
And I sigh, because all I want to do is kick off my shoes and socks, slip into some shorts, curl up in bed with a cup of tea and a good book and Ruby on my lap, and read my troubles away.
But I can’t.
Because I’m now the mother of a tarragon plant, a cilantro plant, a basil plant, and a parsley plant, and they can’t survive on the kitchen table all afternoon.
So I roll up my sleeves and get to it, wondering why I forced myself into this. I slip on some rubber kitchen gloves—because we don’t have gardening ones, because nobody’s gardened here since before we moved in—and I start scooping. All of the old gray soil that’s been caking itself into bricks in the planter basket for years goes straight into the paper bag in my hand, handful by dusty handful.
I think of how much cheaper a hula hoop would’ve been. And then I remember I can’t hula hoop.
I think of how much easier it would’ve been to find things around the house to juggle. And then I remember we live on the fifth floor and the neighbors below us get mad if we walk around too angrily in socks.
So I sigh, and I keep scooping.
Putting in the new soil is actually kind of…I won’t say fun…interesting. It feels soft and lush under my gloved fingers. So soft that I actually decide to take the gloves off and feel the dirt.
It’s strangely…nice.
And then…
THE WILD BARKING OF AN UNTAMED CANINE!
I nearly drop the bag of soil the whole five stories to the ground below and brace myself against the sill to keep from falling out the window. Ruby is freaking the hell out, fur sky-high off her back and tail and claws dug into the bay window cushion.
My fear gives way to rage as I look out the window and across the eight-foot gap between where I stand and the next building over, at the wild fluffy mutt in the window barking away at my sweet Ruby darling. The dog owned by none other than the menace next door sitting at his desk: Sebastian.
I only know his name from all the times I’ve called the front desk about this yapping dog—more times than I can remember—and yet here he still is, harassing my poor kitty baby.
I growl and consider slamming the window shut. That’s what I’d normally do. But I look down at my little plant babies—I’m already kind of getting attached to them, I’ll admit it—and decide that if I’m going to get through planting all four of them, I have to end that racket.
Now.
“Hey!” I holler out the window. But Sebastian is wearing enormous headphones over his black curls, shirtless with his back turned to me at his desk. Ruby doesn’t like me yelling, though, apparently, because she panics. Her claws dig into the windowsill, her fur stands on end, her tail coils up against her ass like a corkscrew, and she yeets herself across the gap between my apartment and the building next door.
“Ruby!” I holler, reaching out for her.
But it’s too late.
She lands on Sebastian’s windowsill and leaps inside onto the carpet. The dog lunges at her, and she jumps off his closet door and runs straight into the desk lamp, shattering it into pieces.
Oh shit.
But Sebastian doesn’t flinch.
Seriously?
I stare, mouth agape at how oblivious this boy is while his dog and my cat chase each other around his room.
“Ruby, come back, girl, it’s okay!” I holler again, irritated at how ironic it is that now I’ve become the loud one. His headphones must be noise-canceling because he doesn’t turn around. At all. Instead he bends down and fluffs his dog’s fur, then looks at the floor, follows the trail of glass over to his desk, and then up to the broken desk lamp.
Before I can react or think to warn him, he’s getting up—no wait, he’s barefoot! He stumbles backward, holding his foot, and goes careening into his closet with a crash.
He groans with pain. I cover my mouth with my hands and freeze where I am, looking guilty as hell, just as he looks up and out the window at me. I can’t move. I want to run away and disappear forever to save myself from this embarrassment. But I also need my cat back.
As if she can hear my thoughts, she bounds back into view in the window, up onto Sebastian’s sill, and across the gap. I catch her in my arms and in one fell swoop, I set Ruby on the bay window seat, slam the window shut, run to my room, and dive under the covers.
I hope I never have to see that boy again.
And I hope he’s okay.
SEBASTIAN VS. THE PITS
It’s been three weeks since I’ve been able to sit at my keyboard and play.
I didn’t really care that I needed stitches in my foot after they took out the glass, or that I shattered my wrist and needed surgery after I went flying into my own closet.
Or I wouldn’t have cared if my arm cast had stopped at my elbow.
But no, Mr. Doctor Man just had to go halfway up my humerus, leaving my arm stuck at an awkward L-shape for the rest of the summer, right before I was about to
