Why Should I Be a Magical Girl? I'm Overworked As It Is! — Chapter 19: De-floofing

Carmen listened to Maya’s footsteps fade. Shuli was gone. Carmen was free, finally, finally free on her day off.

She looked down at the fur-covered tape in her hand. A tuft fell off and landed on her sock.

“Why am I not surprised?” Carmen said, eye twitching. She threw away the tape, grabbed her phone, and selected a playlist called “calm vibes.”

Taking a deep breath, she tried to think positively. “I have a small apartment. It won’t take long. I can do this.”

If she wanted to be smart about it, she’d have to start with the laundry. Laundry was the longest, and she could clean while the machines did the work.

Carmen dragged her hamper to the middle of the room and grabbed Maya’s lint roller. Every piece of clothing got rolled before it went in. If she threw fur into the wash, it would fuck up whoever used the washing machine or dryer after her.

What if someone had a cat allergy? Carmen didn’t want to ruin someone’s day. She knew what it was like to have an asshole ruin her load.

She’d once had to pick wet pieces of tissue paper off her clothes because a jerk had apparently forgotten to check their pockets and didn’t bother cleaning the drum.

Cleaning the pile of clothes on the chair was easy. The clothes under the bed were not.

The only part she couldn’t reach well was the middle of her full-sized bed. Bending continuously was out of the question, so Carmen lowered herself onto her stomach and maneuvered a broom handle to push the clothes out on the other side of the bed.

What was nearby, she pulled out with her hand.

Each article of clothing came out wearing a fresh coat of cat. Each one got rolled and then re-rolled.

The hamper filled up fast.

Carmen put on her sandals, finger-combed her hair into a scrunchie, and hauled her fabric hamper down the corridor.

The elevator was working. She was catching a break. Maybe today was her real lucky day, not yesterday.

When the elevator got to the second floor, a woman in a pencil skirt and blazer stepped in. She was on the phone. The woman side-eyed Carmen, her overflowing hamper, carrot shorts, and the smiling bunny on her shirt as she spoke.

“Thanks for covering for me, Daryl. I have the USB with the presentation. I’m on my way back.”

She put her phone away and cleared her throat.

Carmen stubbornly concentrated on the flashing numbers showing their descent even though she could see the lady, who was still eyeing her, from her peripheral vision.

Neither said a single word.

The basement laundry room reeked of damp concrete. Two washing machines had out-of-order signs taped to them, with a frowny face that had two x’s for eyes. That left six machines available for use.

A laminated sign above them read: ONE MACHINE PER RESIDENT, THANK YOU.

Carmen unapologetically loaded her laundry into two washers, because how would they know? She poured in detergent, fed them quarters, and set a timer on her phone.

Her phone buzzed while she was holding it.

- Home safe. Shuli likes it here. You okay?

Carmen leaned against the humming machine.

She typed: I feel like someone parked a truck on my back.

She deleted it and typed: Yes.

Sent.

Maya had shown up with chicken and toys. She’d offered to stay and help. She’d taken the cat, the wand, the whole problem home with her.

Carmen typed another message.

- Thanks, Maya.

Then she went back upstairs to repeat the entire process of de-floofing the rest of her clothes and getting them ready for the washer.

If she did another double load while the other two were in the dryers, she’d be golden time-wise.

She muttered, “I swear. I’ll only hog those two washing machines and the two dryers. I could’ve used all of them, but I didn’t. That’s not too bad, right? No one really does laundry at this time anyways.”

She got through the rest of her clothes and checked her timer. She had time to vacuum. But first, she used Maya’s lint roller to clean her duvet. It ran out of sticky sheets, so she switched to tape. Then she stripped the bed, balled up the bedding, and stuffed it into black plastic trash bags, since her hamper was full again.

The vacuum was older than her lease. It roared to life. Carmen flinched. It was louder than a leaf blower. She had to move fast because the sound was embarrassing.

The dog next door barked nonstop.

Thankfully, the vacuum was louder.

Carmen was almost done with the entire apartment when the vacuum started to smell burnt. She tipped it over and found the brush roll wrapped in so much fur it had stopped rolling.

Reaching for it was a mistake.

Her back seized. A hot line of pain shot from her spine to her shoulder blade.

“Kill me. Kill me with this vacuum,” Carmen wheezed. She folded at the waist and breathed through her nose. She hobbled to the kitchen to get some scissors. Sucking in a breath, she cut the fur free. It came off in a felted rope, long enough to be a mini scarf.

She tossed it into the garbage and finished up the room, wincing the whole time.

Then, she vacuumed the couch with the hose attachment. Frustrated because the hose wasn’t enough, she lifted the vacuum onto the couch, putting it on carpet mode. Nope. There were still stubborn pieces of fur.

Carmen wanted to fight the couch.

Her timer went off. She grumbled all the way to the basement, lugging her hamper.

By the time she returned, all that was left was the bedding in the two bags, her last loads.

She wiped down the counters, then got distracted by the inside of the microwave. She meant to move on but started reorganizing her cabinets by taking everything out and putting it back in.

She told herself she wasn’t procrastinating and scrubbed the bathroom until it smelled like a lemon had died in there.

Back in front of the couch, Carmen knew it would be her biggest foe. The vacuum helped, but it needed another pass. Shuli had claimed the dip in the cushion, and the cushion had absorbed her fur with a sponge’s intensity.

Carmen ripped off strip after strip of packing tape and slapped them down. Every single one came up furry. Shuli had been here for, what? Three days?

Was this really what it was like to own a cat?

Her stomach growled.

Carmen refused to acknowledge it until the task was done. She kept telling herself, “Almost done. Almost done. Just one more. Yep. Another.”

She lied to herself to help her push through.

Finally. It was done.

Carmen’s stomach was singing an opera at this point. Relieved didn’t begin to describe how she felt.

She opened the freezer, pulled out a microwavable lasagna, and nuked it. She ate standing up, fork in one hand, phone in the other.

“To Whom It May Concern,” Carmen mumbled as she typed. “It’s come to my attention that a building manager…” She paused, then kept going. “…mistakenly let a cat into my apartment without confirming that it was mine.”

She chewed. “I want to clarify that the cat does not belong to me. I took it to a shelter, and they found its owner.”

It was a slight veer from the truth. Nothing wrong with that.

“Please do an inspection to verify.” She stabbed her lasagna. “I expect to not be charged for an assumption that was made. If I am, I will be filing a complaint with the property management company…” Her thumb hovered. Then, with relish: “…followed by our local tenants’ rights organization.”

She signed it with her name and apartment number before hitting send.

Carmen peeled off the bunny pajamas, taped the fur off, and threw them into the trash bags with the bedding. It was the last thing to do.

She put on a different pair of pajamas, dark ones. She hadn’t been able to wear them in days. They felt like a reward.

Carmen sat at her desk with a pillow on the chair. She pried her laptop open.

Her writing application sat there. She’d left it like that so it would be the first thing she saw. The document listed the last edit as two months ago.

She’d been looking forward to today.

All week, through every rude customer and every double shift, she’d told herself: the day is coming, I’m going to sit down and focus, no interruptions.

She’d planned it. She’d eased off of her waitressing job, giving herself two days of only one job so she could be as rested as she could be to hit the ground running.

That was what she’d been holding on to. Then Shuli happened. Then the monster attack. To top it off, her free day turned into a cleaning day.

Her eyes burned as it began to dawn on her that she wasn’t going to write today either. All of her motivation was zapped. She had no energy.

She looked at the blinking cursor for a long time.

Then she shut the laptop.

She nabbed the pillow, crawled onto her bare mattress, and scrolled to a web novel instead.

******

That evening, after Shuli had eaten her promised salmon filet and fallen asleep on the bed watching the birds, Maya slipped into her office and shut the door behind her.

She flicked on the lamp.

“You, my pretty lilies, are going to have to make do in this room. You’re too dangerous for my new roommate. Don’t worry, you’ll get sun and my love still!”

Next to the lilies sat a small terracotta pot. In it grew a dandelion. Yesterday, it had been withered. Now it looked like it had never been hurt at all.

“Good soil, compliments, and sun can really make a difference, huh?”

Maya sat down, picked up her brush, and began to paint. She’d started it early this morning while she was waiting for Carmen to respond.

She finished the leaves first, the jagged edges that gave the flower its name, dent de lion, lion’s tooth.

Tilting her head, she applied layer after layer of gold, playing with the colors and lighting.

When she finally set the brush down, she turned the canvas around so it faced the pot.

“Look,” she said softly. “That’s you.”

The dandelion didn’t move.

“Aren’t you pretty? I wonder when you’re going to bloom.” Maya smiled.

It lit up.

“Oh, oh. Hey, you know, you kinda remind me of Carmen’s stalker wand. Dandy, hold that light!”

She dipped her brush.