Janet Evanovich - Wicked Appetite

“I’m all wet,” Glo said. “I’ll make a mess.”

“I’m living with a monkey,” Diesel told her. “You couldn’t come close on your best day.”

Glo slid onto the backseat and set the broom next to the window. She slicked her hair back from her face and looked at Carl. “Wow, look at all the cool food,” she said. “You’re a lucky monkey.”

Carl gathered his food close to him and inched away from Glo. He leaned over and looked at the broom. “Eep,” he said.

I was watching over my shoulder, and I swear the broom twitched.

“Maybe you don’t want to let Carl get too close to the broom,” I said to Glo.

“It’s just a dumb broom,” Glo said. “Carl can’t hurt it.”

“Yes, but I’m not sure the broom likes him.”

Diesel glanced over at me. “Are you okay?”

“It twitched,” I whispered to him.

Diesel looked in the rearview mirror at Carl and then at the broom. “I don’t see any twitching,” he said to me. “Maybe you just have low blood sugar. We’ll get you a cupcake when we drop Glo off.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but I don’t want a cupcake.”

“I always want a cupcake,” Diesel said.

He turned a corner, and the broom slid across Glo and whacked Carl before Glo had a chance to grab it and set it back in place.

“Eeep!” Carl said. And he shot goo from the Easy Cheese can at the broom. The cheese hit the broom mid-stick and stuck like snot. Carl shot some more, and it missed the broom and hit the window.

“Knock it off,” Diesel said to Carl.

Carl gave Diesel the finger and shot goo onto the back of his head and onto the dashboard. Goo was flying everywhere. Carl was in an Easy Cheese frenzy. I had goo in my hair and goo on my soaking-wet bandage.

Diesel pulled to the curb, got out of the SUV, yanked Carl out of his booster chair, set him on the roof rack, and got back behind the wheel.

“Omigosh,” I said. “You can’t leave him up there. He’ll blow away.”

“I’ll drive slow,” Diesel said. “I won’t go over fifty.”

Two blocks later, we were at the bakery. We all jumped out and looked up at Carl. He was soaking wet, gripping the roof-rack rail with his hands and tail. He sat up and gave Diesel the finger.

“It’s a good thing I’m not a violent person,” Diesel said, looking at Carl. “We’re going into the bakery,” he said to him. “Are you coming?”

Carl gave him the finger and stayed on the SUV roof, and the rest of us went inside. Clara was behind the counter, her face frozen into a grimace at the sight of three people and a broom dripping on her floor.

“I rescued the broom,” Glo said to Clara, setting it in the corner.

“Maybe you should put it in your car,” Clara told her. “I just fixed my window. In fact, maybe you should drive the broom back to the Exotica lady and trade it in.”

Glo got a box and filled it with cupcakes for Diesel. Water ran off her sleeve and puddled in the display case and at her feet. “I know this makes no sense at all, but I kind of like the broom. And I think it might be starting to like me.”

“No charge for the cupcakes if you promise to leave immediately,” Clara said. “I don’t want to have to explain the monkey on your car to my customers.”

We took our cupcakes and squished out of the bakery. It was raining hard, and Carl was hunched on the SUV roof looking half-drowned and cranky.

“Would you like to ride inside?” Diesel asked Carl.

Carl shrugged.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Diesel said, lifting Carl off the roof and stuffing him into the backseat.

I buckled myself in with the cupcake box on my lap and crossed my arms to keep warm. The wet was getting to me. “I’m done,” I said. “I’m soaked, and I’m cold, and I’m not having any fun.”

“Understood,” Diesel said. “We’re going home.”

Two blocks from the bakery, Diesel rolled the window down and squinted against the rain blowing in.

“I can’t stand it,” he said. “The car smells like wet monkey.”

Zzzzt. Easy Cheese shot past Diesel’s ear and stuck to the windshield. I turned and glared at Carl. He was pressing the Easy Cheese nozzle, but nothing was happening. He was out of Easy Cheese.

“I told you not to put him on the roof rack,” I said to Diesel.

“My mistake wasn’t putting him on the roof rack,” Diesel said. “It was letting him back inside.”

We parked at the curb and walked around the house to the kitchen door. By the time we were inside, we were drenched again and dripping water by the bucketful. Cat came to welcome us, sniffed at Carl, and growled low in his throat. I couldn’t blame him. Carl smelled really bad. It turns out wet monkey isn’t a great aroma.

“We need to do something with Carl,” I said to Diesel. “He’s got Easy Cheese and Froot Loops stuck in his fur, and he smells like a sick water buffalo.”

Diesel filled the kitchen sink with warm water, dunked Carl in it, and soaped him up with dish detergent. He rinsed him off, I wrapped him in a towel and rubbed him dry. When I turned him loose, he was lemon fresh and weirdly fluffy.

“Maybe we should have used a conditioner on him,” I said to Diesel.

Carl smelled his arm and picked at his fur. “Eeee.”

I was no longer dripping, but I was still wet to the bone. I kicked my shoes into a corner and peeled my socks off. “I’m taking a shower. I’m going to stand under the hot water until I’m as red as a lobster.”

Diesel selected a cupcake from the box. “I’m right behind you.”

“You don’t mean that literally, do you? I mean, you aren’t planning on sharing a shower with me, are you?”

Diesel glanced over at me. “Is that a possibility?”

“No.”

“Your loss,” Diesel said.

“What about the forbidden Unmentionable joining thing?”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t get naked and ogle each other.”

“Wouldn’t that be frustrating?”

“Honey, every moment I spend with you is frustrating.”

I wasn’t sure if that was hot frustrating or annoying frustrating, and I didn’t want to ask.

“Both,” Diesel said. “And you need to get out of those wet clothes. You’re starting to look pruney.”

I ran upstairs, grabbed dry clothes, and jumped into the shower. I was halfway through shampooing my hair and the water turned cold.

“Damn!”

Ten minutes later, my hair was dry, I was dressed in sweats and shearling boots, and I’d replaced the soaked gauze with a couple giant Band-Aids. I stomped down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Cat, Carl, and Diesel were working their way through the box of cupcakes.

“You used all the hot water,” I said to Diesel.

“Wrong,” Diesel said. “I didn’t have any hot water.”

“Well then what happened to all the hot water?”

Diesel turned the tap on and waited for it to get warm. “How old is your water heater?” he asked.

“It came with the house. It looks pretty old.”

We went down to the cellar and looked at the water heater. It was completely rusted out and leaking water.

“I’m no plumber,” Diesel said, “but I know a dead water heater when I see one.”

He turned the water off, and I mopped the floor with some old towels.

“I can’t afford a new water heater,” I said. “It’s not in my budget.”

Diesel looked at the sagging overhead beams and the crumbling foundation. “You have bigger problems than a water heater.”

“I know. I need the money from the cookbook. It’s my only hope of fixing the house.”

“How close are you to finishing your book?”

“I’m almost done, but that’s not my problem. My problem is selling the darn thing.”