Page 52 of Instant Karma

Ari giggles. “And yet, you’ve signed up to do just that.”

“I know.” I groan and stretch out on my side.

Ari tries the strings again, playing the same melody over and over until she lets out a frustrated groan. “Okay, this is clearly not right. Whoever wrote this arrangement had no idea what they were doing.”

She stands up and goes to her shelves of vinyl records. She scans the spines for a second before pulling a record from its paper sleeve and setting it onto the ancient turntable that has lived in this room since the day I met her. Probably it’s lived in this room since the day her family moved into this house. Ari’s record collection is something else—an entire wall of built-in shelves, floor to ceiling, each one packed full. There’s an order to the system, but it’s lost on me. Genre? Era? I know there’s a section of Mexican music somewhere, because Ari introduced me to an eighties rock band called La Maldita a while back, and they turned out to be pretty awesome, but I couldn’t say where their records live in all of this.

I do know where to find the Beatles, though.

That’s not what Ari is putting on now.

A beautiful melody begins to play, but it takes me a minute to place it. “Elton John?”

Ari shushes me. “Just listen. Oh, I love this intro. A flute! Who thinks of that? I never would have thought of that. But it’s so perfect!”

I make a face.Whatever you say, Ari.But she’s not paying attention to me.

On the record, Elton John starts singing about someone named Daniel, who’s traveling to Spain.

“Oh, hey, that reminds me,” I say. “Did Jude talk to you about working at the record sto—”

“Yes! Prudence. Stop talking.”

I press my lips together. Ari picks up her guitar again, but she doesn’t play. Her face is set with single-minded focus as she listens to the song.

My mind drifts back to the center and all the photos in Quint’s report. Fishhooks. Fishing line. Shark bites. Sad, tragic eyes.

I think about Quint, how angry he looked at first.

But then the way he lit up when he was telling me about the different animal patients they’ve had this year.

For some reason, I find myself thinking of his smile. His eager, ever-present smile. It seemed different today somehow. More energized.

Oh, come on, Brain. Are we really wasting valuable space toward analyzing Quint’s smiles? Knock it off.

My memories circle back to how Quint and the other volunteers seemed so busy, and Rosa so stressed. And why they don’t just hire more staff.

The song ends, and Ari hops up to stop the record before it can move on to the next song. She grabs her guitar, and I realize she’s trying to figure out how to play the intro, the part that the flute plays on the album.

“I think they might be in trouble,” I say.

Ari stops playing. “What? Who?”

“The center. Quint’s mom seemed super tense, and maybe it’s just because they were shorthanded today, but I don’t know. I just have a feeling, like, things aren’t going so well there. Most of their money comes from grants and it sounds like that’s barely enough to keep them afloat.” I massage my forehead. “I can only imagine what they spend onfish,much less everything else it takes to keep the place running.”

“Do they do any fundraising?” Ari asks.

“I don’t know.” I mull this over. There was all that paperwork in the lobby. Financial reports? Donor information? Grant applications? But if they are fundraising, they seem to be doing a terrible job at it.

“Araceli!” yells her dad from the kitchen. “Is Prudence staying for dinner?”

Ari glances at me.

“Is Abuela cooking?”

“I don’t think so.”

I pout, but it’s still the best offer I’ve had. “Yeah, fine. As long as it’s not fish.”

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