Page 91 of How To Plot a Payback

“Did Sonya name him?”

“No, but Bernie is the perfect name. Of course she’d approve.”

“Does she buy him dog food?”

“It’s twenty dollars,” Lavender says, giving me an I-know-what-you’re-doing look. “Do you know how high my tab is from her? I once sank her boat.”

I pause. “I’d like to circle back to that story sometime. But to my point: Does Bernie sleep on your bed?”

“Yes, but dang it.” She drops her head. Clenches her fists. “Fine. If you must know, I’m starting to believe he’s my dog.” She raises a finger at me as I start to grin. “But I’m not allowed a dog on the lease, so I’d like to think of it as . . . fostering,” she says airily, wiggling her fingers in the air. “I’m helping a friend out. So let’s just keep this between you and me.”

I laugh incredulously as a little ding goes off in my head. How many secrets do I know now about this woman? With me, she’s a walking, talking open book. But another, more important question intrudes. “Hang on. Are you telling me you don’t own your flat?”

Lavender shakes her head.

“You’re leasing?” It’s less a question than a statement of incredulity, a statement that’s so hard to grasp I have to say the words and test them out in the air. “Why on earth are you leasing?” I raise my hand. “And for that matter, why are you afraid to tell your landlord about the dog? You can’t actually be afraid he’d kick you out.”

“I’m leasing because it made financial sense to try out a new part of the city before buying anything here. I’d rather not pay the Realtor fees and taxes unless I’m certain I love the area. So I’m on a month-to-month lease. And as for being afraid he’ll kick me out, I’m absolutely afraid he may kick me out. Bernie’s a big dog, and . . .” We both glance at Bernie, who is aggressively attempting to shred the penguin.

I know four secrets now. Might as well go for five.

“Alright,” I say. “Lay it straight. Are you a gambling addict?”

“What?” Her voice pitches up. “No.”

“Do you have a shopping problem? Are you secretly addicted to eccentric million-dollar emeralds in the shape of candy or whatever?” She stares at me, and I throw a hand out. “Or perhaps you accidentally purchased an island or something and now you have to scrimp in order to get by until you can sell?” I pause, then frown, looking at her quite seriously. “Are you being stalked and this is how you stay undercover? Oh!” With another flash of insight, I add, “Or is there something hidden there? Deep inside the walls? And you’re tearing the place apart while you hunt for it?”

Lavender laughs, a fresh, bright laugh that makes the gloss on her pink lips shimmer. She shakes her head at me, her eyes smiling. “This keeps you up at night, does it?”

“Oh. Some things do. Not this.”

I say it without thinking. She looks puzzled for a moment, but then her face clears. Which is a relief, because I really couldn’t say the truth: she has been the one keeping me up. She’s the one who invades all my thoughts these days.

She shrugs. “I have the flat because I like the baklava.”

She says it with such simplicity. As though of course one would trade multimillion-dollar views for a chance to hop downstairs to have your daily cuppa with a nice Lebanese family.

“What about those views? You don’t miss them?” I ask.

“No. After I got out of that scrape a few years ago, I did a complete overhaul of my life to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. I also felt . . . oddly . . . you remember when Headmaster Tucker hired that hypnotist during exam week to try to lighten the mood and got us all believing that massive basketball player—”

“Trent Howensky.”

“—was hypnotized to believe he was allergic to basketballs?”

“Coach Blevins was furious—they had championships the following week.”

“Well, it was a bit like that. When I snapped out of it, I really snapped out of it.”

“You . . . became allergic to fame and fortune.”

“I became allergic to inauthenticity,” she corrects, smiling up at me. “I’d rather live in a world where people throw birthday parties with homemade cake and spaghetti smashed together on the same paper plate. I don’t need my lonely bedroom wall to slide open to a pool I never use.”

“You had that?” I say incredulously.

“I want a dog park I can walk to. I want neighbors who can look into my windows whether I like it or not—”

“Okay, but really? Blinds are a good home staple—”