“Thanks. You were pretty good yourself. That little girl.”
His head cocked. For a moment, his face did something I hadn’t seen before, something that wasn’t quite vulnerability and wasn’t quite warmth but existed in the territory between them. I thought it was a brief lowering of the drawbridge before it went back up.
“She reminded me of someone,” he said.
He didn’t explain.
Instead, he got in his truck, started the engine, and pulled out of the parking lot.
The parking lot was suddenly empty.
The bar was dark.
Somewhere across town, a little girl was falling asleep with a brown-and-white dog on her bed for the first time.
Somewhere closer, Peter was driving home to an apartment full of animals he’d rescued because saving things was the only language of love he trusted.
Chapter 12
Peter
The decision to bring General Tso to Paws and Pours had been Benji’s, pitched with the specific brand of irrational confidence that I was learning to recognize as his most dangerous mode.
“He’s a featured resident, Peter. He’s the star of the TikTok. People are going to come specifically to see him. We can’t have Paws and Pours without the General,” he’d argued.
“He hates other animals,” I’d countered.
“He hates other animalsin his home. This is neutral territory. It’s a different context with different energy.”
“He’s not a diplomat, Benji. He doesn’t adjust to context. He’s a cat who was rescued from behind a Thai restaurant and has held a grudge against all of humanity ever since.”
Benji leaned against the kitchen counter, pooched out his lower lip, and mumbled in an almostcartoonlike voice, “Just put him in the carrier with a card and a good photo. He doesn’t have to interact. He just has to be present, like a queen on a balcony. Pleeeeeeeeeeeease.”
Against my better judgment, and against the very specific scowl that General Tso had given me when I’d loaded him into the carrier that afternoon, a look that communicated with crystalline clarity that he knew what was happening and that his retribution would be both creative and inevitable, I had brought him.
For the first hour, things were fine.
General Tso sat in his carrier on an elevated table that Carlos had positioned away from the main adoption area. His orange bulk filled the space like a furry Buddha, his expression one of magnificent disinterest. His name card, which Mia had designed with a photo taken at what she called “his best angle” (from below, so he looked even more enormous and regal than usual), read:
General Tso
Age: Unknown. Breed: Domestic Shorthair (orange). Temperament: Complicated. Status: Permanent resident and supervisor. NOT available for adoption.
You may bask in his royal presence.
He lives so he mayjudge you.
The people adored him. They lined up to take photos with his carrier the way tourists might line up to photograph the guards at Buckingham Palace, with the same understanding that the subject was not going to engage with them and that this was part of the appeal.
General Tso received their attention with the indifferent majesty of a creature who had always known he was famous and was merely waiting for the world to catch up.
Then someone brought a golden retriever.
The dog was not part of the event.
It belonged to a customer who had apparently not read the promotional materials closely enough to understand that “Paws and Pours” referred to adoptable animals and was not a general invitation to bring your own pet to the bar. The golden retriever was young and enormous and possessed of the boundless, undiscriminating enthusiasm that is the hallmark of the breed. It was a creature for whom every person was a best friend, every surface was a potential bed, and every other animal was an invitation to play.
The golden spotted General Tso’s carrier.
