Page 73 of How To Plot a Payback

Sonya presses her lips together. Glares from me to Lavender and back again.

It seems like it takes everything in her, but at last she blows out, “Fine.”

And that’s it. Apparently this woman doesn’t like to waste breath.

“There,” Lavender says, grinning as she gives Sonya a squeeze. “All settled. We’re all just fine.”

“Tarte,” Chris calls, and despite the little dog’s ears perking up as she begins trotting over, he gives a little Sleeping Beautyesque musical whistle. It’s so loud and long, several people turn. It’s like the Samsung dryer song.

He picks her up.

I groan inwardly.

He’s clipping that ridiculous pink satin bow on her collar. The pink bow is twice the size of the dog.

But the sound of that clip and the sight of the little pink dog cradled in the crook of his arm does its magic.

The spell is released.

Even scary Sonya’s guard drops, and she takes a step forward. “Tarte, you say?” She studies the dog intently, then, after a long moment, reaches out tentatively with her glossy white nails and lightly taps its head.

“You know, if you love dogs so much . . . ,” Lavender begins, tilting her head towards Bernie.

“Can it,” Sonya retorts. “I’m not taking your dog.” Her eyes drift back to the tiny French Bulldog. “Cute bow. Oversized for her tiny frame. How old’s your dog?”

Chris shrugs. “Not sure. It was Kim’s.”

And here we go.

After a tremendous pause, he says softly, “Before she left her on my doorstep. Didn’t even knock.”

I roll my eyes as Lavender and Sonya both suck in a tiny breath.

“Oh, the poor thing,” Sonya says, eyes on Chris, while seeming to unconsciously rub the dog’s ears.

Chris gives a tiny and yet oh-so-melodramatic shrug as his eyes drift from Sonya to Lavender. “I’m just glad Tarte’s safe.”

I push open the dog gate and give Miles a tiny, quiet tug on the leash to let him know. We start our escape.

I’ll no doubt be hearing the details from Chris later, how he used the dog to land a date with the one and only Lavender Rhodes. Or Sonya. Or both.

Nobody ever uses just Lavender’s first name when recounting anything, by the way. She is, in their eyes, too much of an icon. An immortal. A Marilyn Monroe. A Johnny Cash. As though she didn’t have the same humiliating prepuberty experiences we all had. Which, of course, she did. (I’m thinking of one photo of her at the age of thirteen, immortalized in our yearbook during a particularly troubling era of braces, bangs, and acne.)

I can hear Chris going into his saga as I step onto the sidewalk and hop the curb. He’s deep into the chronicle of his previous relationship (for some reason women love when he rehashes the heartbreak story) when a passing tour bus drowns out his voice. I move to the opposite side of the street.

Despite the tumbler in my hand, it feels like a good moment to run home, and I break into a light jog. Within a minute, my mind swells with blooming ideas as I detangle the struggle of a particular scene I was working on late last night.

In fact, I’ve almost completely forgotten about the group when I hear a particular voice.

“Finn,” Lavender calls out.

I turn before I realize what I’m doing.

And immediately regret it.

Honestly. I have to stop looking back.

There Lavender is, dragging that dog beside her, running in flip-flops.