Chapter Text
1: Missing.
Fridays Mabel usually had nothing to do except stay in and try to pretend to have a life. Frankly, the last couple of Friday nights have been even too boring for Mabel to pretend. Sitting at the apartment finding her own amusement while the only two best friends that she had were busy with their play stuff.
This particular mid-summer Friday she had plans to go out but they ended up getting canceled and so now she was laying on the bed, a face mask on her face, feminine products on the table next to her and some oldies movie on the laptop just near the end of the bed.
Her phone buzzed for a text she received. Theo. Coney Island. Hi. Am I bothering you? He asked.
Mabel replied back, It’s almost 3:30 in the afternoon. What can I be doing? I’m 29 and have no life.
I just turned 31. Nothing gets better after 30. Listen, I need your help and you’re the only sane one I can ask for the favor.
Mabel blinked a few times. Her? With what? What happened?
Theo went radio silent for fifteen minutes and Mabel began to think it was a prank before he replied back to her.
I lost Howard’s cat.
Mabel laughed for five minutes. “You lost what?”
Read the text I just sent you.
YOU LOST HOWARD’S CAT?
Yes DAD! Mabel could only imagine the eye rolls from her texting in all caps, ala Teddy Dimas. I lost the fucking cat!
How did you even get stuck with the cat? She texted him. But he didn’t reply and she thought possibly he was offended by her laughing at him. I’m sorry. I’m just perplexed as to how Theo Dimas gets stuck to cat sit Howard’s cat.
Turns out, Theo had typed out the story on a notepad in his phone:
I wrote this on a notepad because it's just a lot. It's like a God damn chain. Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon is easier than this shit.
Howard asked Uma to watch the cat. She agreed—shocking, I know. Uma had the cat for an hour before going off on her own to do something. She, however, didn’t want the cat alone in her apartment touching her stuff. What stuff IDK. So, she left the cat with the lady across from her–Janet DiMarks.
Janet is allergic to cats, but loves them. But after like 3 hours at 11 AM she needed the cat out of the apartment. She was going to die. She purposely did not want to be a podcast season of Only Murders (smirk emoji)
Janet left the cat with another neighbor. Jim Foutley. Not sure what happened, but the neighbor dropped the cat off at some other lady’s apartment. What is it with old women and cats?
Holy shit… Howard’s an old woman. I knew it.
Jim’s neighbor is friends with Dad. IDK if she knew what was going on with him, but next thing I know is the damn CAT IS WITH ME. She wrote down on a piece of paper that she asked Dad but Dad said he was busy and wouldn't be back until midnight. Stuff to do at the deli shops. But he said that I was going to be in the apartment all day so I can 'happily' watch the cat.
I got in contact with my father and asked what the hell was going on. Dad just told me to watch the cat for the next couple of hours and then I’m good.
Mabel couldn’t help but reply back, Your dad *SO* wants to get laid by this mysterious neighbor.
Ew. I’m still recovering from finding out about Will. I don’t need to know anything else about his sex life.
Will you help me? I've looked all over the apartment and there's no sign of the stupid cat. God damn cat. They're suppose to be easy---why did Howard get an annoying cat? She's needy but at least she could stay out in the open.
Oh, she didn't tell you she was leaving? (smirk) Mabel shrugged as if Theo was standing before her. She had nothing else to do for the rest of the evening. All she had to do was just shower off the face mask and get into decent summer clothes. Meet up here at my place in 20 minutes.