CHAPTER 67 – Am I Wrong

They stayed at the hospital until night fell, taking turns holding baby Nozomi. Zara was a natural, cradling the child with a tenderness that put Mrs Mio at ease. Eppie, on the other hand, held the child as she would a cat, making Nozomi burst into tears and Mrs Mio’s hypertension apparent.

Eppie tried bottle feeding the baby as well, but the child knew instinctively that hers was a [Persona] and not the true flesh and blood of a living, breathing, normal human being, and so refused nourishment from a karmic aberrant.

Thus rejected and feeling dejected, Eppie sat as Zara, Mio and Mrs Mio talked for hours about babies, a topic both Eppie and Lana knew nothing about, unless Nozomi needed a trust fund. As for that, Eppie had a concept of a plan for Nozomi’s birthright, but she wouldn’t need to choose until May.

Somehow, between breastfeeding, bathing the baby, and teaching Eppie how to mix warm milk in a bottle and test the temperature, night had descended, and it was time for her and Zara to go back to Hotel Basque.

When Mrs Mio finally left for home, and the baby had slept, Eppie worked up the courage to recant a part of her revenge tragedy.

“You don’t… have to help us,” she said softly so as not to wake Nozomi. “You deserve better, Mio. The plan. William. All of it. You can just…” she gestured at the porch, the street, the whole unglamorous okay-ness of it. “Let go. Live in peace. You don’t have to be on that stage and deliver the lines. You don’t…”

Thanks… [System], for the Pavolvian conditioning.
Mio was quiet for a moment.
Down the corridor, someone else’s baby was crying for milk.

“You don’t think I should?” Mio looked at her with a stern expression uncharacteristic of the girl she knew as Lana-Eppie. Her rhetoric was a question and an accusation.

“But you have Nozomi, happiness,” Eppie whispered. “And I’ve been dealing with William this whole time. He is… unpenitent. He sucks out happiness like a vampire. Valorie knows the truth now, as well. She’s shaken, but she refuses to act on it. There are people here who love you. Think about that instead.”

Mio offered her a hand when she grew too agitated to continue without raising her voice.

Eppie took it.

“Thank you, Euphemia.” Mio held her skinny hand with her tiny hands. They were both petite women. Girls, really, even if Mio was now eighteen.

Mio looked down at Eppie’s fingers. “But have you thought that, maybe just once, I want to say what happened out loud? Even if I am Lavinia with her tongue cut out, in a room where people have to listen.”

Eppie’s chest shuddered.
For Mio, it wasn’t about justice, or vengeance, or revenge.
It was about closure. It was about… airing the pain.

“Okay,” Eppie said.
The choice was Mio’s.
Just as William’s choice was his to bear.

“Thank you,” Mio hugged her from the bed. “I am so happy that you’re here, Euphemia. I am so glad… for what you’ve given Nozomi.”

Eppie embraced her former friend, fusing with her maternal body. Her [Persona] absorbed the warmth, the milk scent, the motherliness, but her soul recoiled at Mio’s softness. She hoped she was right. That beneath Mio’s closure, it wasn’t just a friend making a sacrifice, that it wasn’t Mio saying yes because Eppie hoped for a closure herself—closure via the utter and unconditional destruction of William’s perfect world.

Hotel Basque on a Saturday remained as busy as ever, with its regulars and tourists who had come to try the authentic food. Carmen and her sister Pilar ran here and there, having no time to look after the girls other than to bring them the sumptuous chow.

Zara played, because Zara always played when she was in town. It was less a request than a house custom, the guitar coming out the moment the after-dinner lull set in, and the regulars settling back as if they’d paid for a show they hadn’t. Tonight, Zara kept the music sweet and sombre, thinking of Mio giving her bonnie baby the breast.

Eppie ate. Or went through the motions of it. The tortilla soup was good, the chargrilled skewers and tapas were better. She had already made up her mind to “Let it go,” insofar as her opinion on baby Nozomi went, and she knew, as the [System] knew, that she should be finding ways to convert William, somehow, so that Nozomi’s life wasn’t amiss as an heir to the Omnia Empire.

But the man was so god damned unpenitent, so arrogant in his belief in the privilege of the rich over the poor, the powerful over the powerless.
How was she going to change that?

Her phone buzzed against her thigh halfway through the skewers.

The meat fell from Eppie’s lips.

Mr Biscuit? The black-and-white tuxedo cat?
She recalled vaguely that he was skittish and unfriendly, and that he came and went after eating or sleeping for a few hours when it got too cold. Mr Biscuit was an old stray, one that didn’t trust people and hated being touched.

And before she could stop it, before there was any reason to, her mind went straight to William.

For Christ’s sake, she told herself, you were always thinking about William.
She might be more obsessed with William than with Valorie.
The number of times she thought about William in a day was definitely not healthy.

William was on file, kicking one cat—and had threatened Mio as well, but there was no reason some guy with an impeccable reputation would go around harming the local stray population—not while he’s busy tearing up Valorie.

It just wasn’t logical.

She put the phone face down on the table and tried to rationalise Mr Biscuit’s demise.

It’s Winter. It’s cold. An old cat who dashed in front of a car going too fast on campus is far more rationally sound than William going around punting strays in an overcoat. By that same logic, CSULA didn’t just have one William. There were definitely people who would speed up when a cat was underfoot, or about to go under the bonnet. People were sick like that.

Zara finished the piece with a chord that didn’t quite resolve, mirroring her unfinished song, and a smattering of polite applause went up. She came back to the table and slid into her seat, breathing a little harder than the song should have warranted.

“You good?” Zara asked, reaching for her water.

“Yeah,” Eppie said, which wasn’t so much a lie as it was a deflection.

They ate. Or Zara ate, properly, while Eppie pushed her spiced rice around a plate with the focus of someone defusing a bomb strapped to a cat she barely remembered five minutes ago and now couldn’t stop seeing.

Paco came around eventually, wiping his hands on his apron, and dropped into the empty chair across from them without asking, the way he did everything. “Eat, eat,” he said, eyeing Eppie’s plate with theatrical offence, and then proceeded to eat off it himself, to prove that it wasn’t poison. He distracted her with the trucker’s running feud with the jukebox, about Pilar’s opinions on Sacramento farmers, about the seeding, the harvest, about Father Parson’s celebrity choir. Eppie found herself eating again because Paco was really that intense.

Nonetheless, the shadow of her [Usurper] sat at the table with them anyway, and it would stay until May. Eventually, the regulars thinned out, the lights came down a notch, and Eppie and Zara said goodnight to Paco and went upstairs.

Eppie showered first. Then tucked herself warm into bed while Zara performed her ablutions. Before they slept, Zara sat on her bed and parted Eppie’s bangs where they covered Eppie’s face.

They spoke a little while about school, about Sony, and about music.
Then Eppie pretended to drift off to sleep, so that her friend could sleep as well.

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Sunday.

The drive back to LAPA was quiet in the way of a girl’s trip. Sunday morning traffic was light going north; the valley gave way to hills, which gave way to the basin’s orange smear of light. Eppie watched the 99 turn into the 5 turn into traffic.

She called Eric on the way and described everything to the best of her ability, which went very well. Eric gave her their best and repeated the advice that Eppie should accept Mio’s choices. She told Eric about Mio’s choice, and her Newfoundland grew silent.

They chose instead to talk about the Grammy.
Eppie promised that, next time, for her Grammy, she would petition for seats for Emily and himself.

Noon, Eppie and Zara ate Carmen’s takeaway for lunch next to a park overlooking the valley, then reached LAPA in the early afternoon. Hugs were shared in the blessed presence of Eppie’s roommates, who came out to see what incredible deliciousnesses Carmen had given Eppie this time, after which Zara went home to report to her parents.

At night, Eppie went to the Stray Cat Society to see Lim about Mr Biscuit.

When she walked in, Lim was already there, cleaning out the litter boxes and changing the water. They had it easier in winter, but the warmth, food and accessibility also brought more cats than usual.

Biscuit was one of those vagrants, showing up only when the nights grew too cold.

“Hey,” Eppie said. “Biscuit’s been taken care of?”

The big man nodded. “It’s a shame.”

“A shame?”

“I would have preferred if he limped back here instead,” Lim sighed. “To die alone, cold and injured behind a dumpster, is no way for a cat to go.”

She opened her arms.
Lim accepted the hug.

Then, while arrested by Lim’s enormous body, she was struck in the chest by the man’s next question. “How’s the baby?”

“Very cute,” she answered into his chest. “The cutest baby I’ve ever seen, and Mio will be a wonderful and loving mother.”