Page 1 of A Malicious Menagerie
1
The Offer
“Watch it,” a man growls behind me. He shoulders me out of the way, his white coat and air of importance marking him as a doctor.
“S-sorry,” I stutter, catching myself against the wall and wincing as the water in my mop bucket sloshes over the edge. The man doesn’t spare me a backward glance, his coat flaring behind him like a superhero cape as he makes a sharp turn down a side hall and disappears.
I straighten up and stretch out my back with a sigh, feeling closer to my grandmother’s age than my actual twenty-two years. By the time the sun is rising and my night shift is over, my joints hurt, my eyes are dry and crusty, and my hands are chapped and throbbing. All I want is to climb into my bed and never leave it… At least, not until tonight when I have to wait tables at Chucky’s Diner.
I take the bus twenty minutes to my stop and slog the ten minutes to Nan’s row home. Somehow, it always feels uphill no matter whether I’m coming or going. After a quick breakfast and a lukewarm shower—one of these days I’ll get the water heater fixed, I swear, but like most days, today is not that day—I slide into my twin bed with a relieved sigh. My bedroom hasn’t changed much since I was a teenager. Taking down the old band posters and mathlete medals hasn’t been high on my priority list. Now they seem like silly things to worry about, but once upon a time, they were the things that made up mywhole world.
I’ve just dozed off when a shrill sound startles me back awake. I sit up with a gasp, and it takes me a bleary minute to realize that it’s my phone. I pick up the brick of a flip phone that I affectionately call “Old Reliable” and glance at the screen. My heart stops abruptly when I see the three dollar signs on the caller ID, but I force myself to answer. “Hello?”
“Hello, Ms. Carmichael?” a saccharine voice asks. Like she doesn’t know very well who this is. Like she doesn’t have my phone number memorized by now. “This is Rebecca Hill from Sunny Shores Retirement Village.”
“Rebecca, hi, how are you?” I reply, trying not to sound like her call almost ended my life. And also like that ridiculous name doesn’t make me want to snort every time I hear it. I tried to keep Nan at home after her stroke, even dropping out of college my freshman year to take care of her. Still, by the time she broke her hip, I had to admit that she needed more care than I could give her at home. Sunny Shores was the best nursing home I could afford.
“I’m great, thank you for asking,” she chirps. She never bothers to ask me back, which is likely for the best. Who knows what might come out of my mouth? “I just wanted to check in. It seems that you were a little short on this month’s payment for Darla.”
Just like last month, and the month before that…“I get paid Friday,” I tell her, the script well-rehearsed at this point. “I can send the remainder of the balance then.”
“I understand,” Rebecca soothes in her best customer service voice. “But I do need to let you know that there will be a late fee.”
I grit my teeth. Normally, I try to be even-keeled. Pleasant and patient, not one to rock the boat or draw any negative attention. But today, I’m just tired and over it. “I know, Rebecca,” I snip. “As I’m sure you’re aware, I pay the late fee almost every month. You’ll get your money when I have it.”
There’s a long pause, and I try to dredge up some kind of guilt or embarrassment for my behavior. But honestly, I don’t really feel much of anything. I can’t remember feeling much of anything for a very long time. “Ms. Carmichael,” Rebecca says, then hesitates. “Anna.”
My ears perk up with a vague shadow of curiosity. Rebecca has never calledme by my first name before, hiding behind a shield of formality and fake respect. “Yes?”
Still, she’s silent for so long that I pull the phone away from my ear to check that the call hasn’t disconnected. I hear her voice rattle through the speaker and press it back to my ear just in time to hear her say the word “unorthodox.”
“Sorry, what’s unorthodox?” I ask, trying to catch up.
She huffs, the most unprofessional sound I’ve heard from her in the dozen phone conversations we’ve shared. “What I’m about to offer. I know it’s unorthodox, but there is a… benefactor.”
“A benefactor,” I echo, confused. I know what the word means, I guess, but I’m not sure how it fits into this conversation.
“A rich man,” she clarifies, “who helps people struggling to make ends meet. People like you.”
Gee, thanks,I think wryly, but I manage to keep it in my head. “Why would this rich man want to help me?”
“It wouldn’t be for free. He’s looking for someone to do a job for him. His last employee just quit.”
My eyes narrow suspiciously. “What kind of job?”
I swear to God, if this girl is trying to set me up with a pimp or a sugar daddy…
“Nothing untoward,” she promises me dryly. “But it would more than pay for Darla’s bills each month.”
“Give me a number,” I challenge, and when she does, I have to catch myself before I topple out of bed. That’s more than I make with all three of my jobscombined.A lot more. “To dowhat?” I sputter, my mind again conjuring up a room that looks like something out of50 Shades of Grey.
“First, are you interested?”
“Rebecca,” I growl through gritted teeth. “How can I know unless you tell me what I’ll be doing?”
She sighs. “All I know is that he has a collection of rare animals. He needs someone to take care of them.”
“Rare as in…” I hesitate, not wanting to put the wordillegalout there.
