“Caffeine,” Danielle said miserably. “That’s what makes me human. Do you see what I see? A caffeine desert.”
“Perky Pollyanna personality. That’s a lot of Ps in one sentence,” Zoey said to Danielle. “So, are you now a crabby caffeine-deprived crumpet?”
“Nothing is funny until I get coffee. What gives? Why does this keep happening to me? I mean, to us,” Danielle groaned. “But mostly me.”
Zoey shook her head. “No idea. I was in there two days ago and they didn’t say anything about closing up.”
Another one. A ghost of uneasiness whispered through her. Why were so many businesses in her neighborhood folding? Did they know something she didn’t?
“Maybe it’s the trash?” Stewart shrugged.
“We live in a trashy neighborhood, all right,” Stewart said. Zoey and Dominique let out obligatory groans. Stewart prided himself on his painfully bad puns. Andrea giggled. Her son Lorenzo rolled his eyes and started to walk away.
Andrea’s smiled faded. “Where are you going?” she called out after him.
“Home!”
“Don’t go anywhere else! And go straight home, don’t stop off anywhere!” Andrea yelled as he vanished around the corner. Zoey felt a twinge of sympathy. Being a single mom with a surly teenaged son would be challenging enough, but in a city like Encantado, it would be especially stressful.
They looked at the piles of garbage near the street garbage cans.
“It’s not like there are no customers for these businesses. People still need to eat,” Andrea pointed out, looking at the closed-up café and shaking her head. “They still need to shop.”
“Yeah, that’s true. All right, the closest coffee shop that I’m sure is open is Big Betty’s. Twenty blocks,” Danielle moaned. “Screw everything in the world.” They trooped off down the block, heading west.
“At least it’s a nice day out,” Zoey said. “Sunny, no clouds, and the breeze is currently carrying the scent of garbage away from us.”
“Thanks for the weather report. By the way, why are you walking funny?” Danielle yawned. “Hot date last night?”
A blush burned Zoey’s cheeks. “Ha ha, you’re hilarious. No hot date, I worked last night.”
“Oh, right. The catering. So, you didn’t end up romping with any of the party guests?”
Zoey summoned up an expression of outrage. “I am a professional!”
“That doesn’t really answer my question. And your face is turning kinda red. Why are you walking like that?” Danielle persisted. Stewart and Andrea were looking at her with interest now.
There is no easy way to say “A werewolf bit me on the ass last night and now he says I’m going to be his mate at the next full moon. But then he didn’t like the way I kissed, so he left me. I think.”
So Zoey lied. “Pulled a muscle.”
“You should get that looked at,” Andrea said automatically, with a distracted glance back in the direction that her son had stormed off. “The witch doctor over on Twelfth is open weekends.”
Could a witch doctor treat a werewolf bite? Zoey wondered. Anyway, Zahara the witch doctor was ungodly expensive, so it would have to wait. “All right, we need a proposal for the neighborhood meeting Monday night.” The local business owners, and community leaders, were all meeting at the community center to discuss the garbage issue.
Danielle looked gloomy. “I don’t know. Sometimes it feels like it’s pointless.”
“That’s the lack of caffeine speaking,” Zoey assured her. “Fine, I won’t ask you again until after I’ve poured a double-shot latte down your throat.”
They made it to the coffee shop. Andrea ordered pastry for everyone because that was what she did; she fed people. She and Zoey were a good team. When they held neighborhood meetings, Zoey cheered everyone up, and Andrea worried about people and fussed over them like she was everyone’s mom, not just Lorenzo’s. Danielle was actually a hard worker who hustled a lot, she just complained the whole time.
They settled down at a round table that was painted like a Ouija board, and then nobody talked until Danielle had finished her second cup of coffee. Except for Stewart mildly mentioning that that the coffee shop was full of ‘has-beans’ and then he had to spell it out to explain what he meant, and everyone groaned except for Andrea who laughed kindly because she always had to encourage people, even the world’s worst punner.
“OK, guys,” Danielle finally said. “We have no way to get mass amounts of garbage out of this neighborhood. What are we gonna do, take little baggies of it to the business district and drop it in the public trash cans on the street? That would take a million years, we’d never get ahead. I mean, it’s hopeless, right?”
Zoey was the kind of person who heard “hopeless” and made it into a personal challenge. She leaned back in her chair, and her eyes travelled the room. They lit on the three garbage cans in the corner.
“Compost,” Zoey said suddenly. “How did I not think of that before?’
