Lavender Latte

Kim hadn’t expected the apartment to be so damn empty when Charlotte moved out.

It wasn’t as if Charlotte had taken up much of the shared space. The vixen had all but lived in the master bedroom, either sitting in her expensive computer chair surrounded by a multi-monitor corner desk or sprawled on a dilapidated twin-sized futon mattress watching movies or playing games on her own TV. The living/dining room was, for practical purposes, Kim’s exclusive domain. The furniture was largely all hers, too, picked up at thrift stores and the occasional department store sale. More than half the time, the goat only knew her roommate was home because the bedroom door was closed. She was about as low-impact a roommate as anyone could have wanted.

Even so, she and Charlotte had eaten out a lot together—probably too much, in retrospect—and had talked at least a little every day. If the vixen had been any more introverted she would have collapsed into a fox-shaped singularity, but she’d still been Kim’s friend. It was great that she’d gotten her dream job, but it sucked that it required moving to another state.

Right now, though, the practical concerns were getting to her. In the last week, Kim had discovered that even though the vixen rarely cooked, a dismaying amount of their “shared” pots and pans had actually been Charlotte’s. Kim wasn’t sure she even owned a sauce pan, let alone a decent knife set.

She hadn’t remembered to get the mail the last few days, either. As the one with standard office hours, Charlotte had made it part of her routine to stop by the mailbox. Kim had to figure out how to make that part of her routine now, but her schedule at the coffee shop was, well, a coffee shop schedule. The hours were good enough to be full-time with benefits, at least.

Speaking of that, it was time to be on the way to the afternoon shift. Oh. And make her first solo rent payment. Sighing, she scrounged around for her checkbook, made out a check and tore it out, and headed to the leasing office.

The bored panda behind the desk glanced up at her long enough to confirm that she wasn’t a new prospect before turning back to whatever web page she’d been looking at. “Can I help you,” she said, in a tone that barely made it a statement, let alone a question.

“Yeah, just making the rent payment.” She waved the check.

“278?”

“Yeah.”

“Hold on.” She got up and headed over to a file cabinet, opening the top drawer, fished around, and brought over papers, thrusting them out to Kim.

The goat’s ears skewed. “What’s this?”

“Your new lease.”

“We already took Charlotte’s name off, right?”

“Just one name on the lease, and not ‘Charlotte,’ so, yes. Renewal’s coming up in two months and this saves me a trip to tape it to your door, though. Win-win.” She wiggled the fingers on her free hand. “Check?”

Kim handed her the check and took the papers. “I thought the lease ran for another half a year.”

“It does not.” The panda sat back down and returned to client ignore mode.

“Right.” Kim walked toward the door, scanning the pages, then stopped. “Fourteen eighty?”

“Hmm?”

“The lease now is thirteen fifty. You’re raising it to fourteen eighty?”

“If that’s what it says, yes.”

Dammit. She understood she’d been getting a rent break from Charlotte, who’d insisted on paying a little more than half to take the master bedroom even though she used less of the flat than Kim did in practice. She wouldn’t have been able to handle the full price for the two-bedroom, two-bath pad for very long on her budget as it was, but she’d have been able to swing it for, well, half a year, until she could hopefully find something under a thousand. “Uh, what are one bedrooms here going for?”

The panda looked affronted for a moment at Kim’s continued presence. “Hold on.” She opened another browser tab and scanned it. “Today they’re starting at twelve fifty. They change weekly, though.”

She gaped. “Twelve fifty? A hundred less than the two-bedroom?”

“Two bedrooms right now start at fourteen twenty.” The panda glanced up at her. “The unit you’re in right now would be fifteen forty if we were renting it to you new. Even your new rate is under market.”

“Isn’t that great.”

The panda looked blank. “Have a nice day.” She turned back to her web browsing.

Kim wanted to say something cutting, but couldn’t muster anything witty. She made sure to stomp extra-hard as she left the office. Maybe her hooves would leave scuff marks.

“So why did they raise the price so much again?”

As Kim had expected, a glance up at Judy’s face showed guileless sincerity. “They don’t have inflation where you’re from, either, huh.” She tried to sound light and amused rather than sarcastic and bitter.

The raccoon giantess gave her an exasperated look, but not a hurt or reproachful one, so she must have gotten the tone right. “Commodity prices fluctuate, sugar, but on average they mostly wash out. And rentals aren’t commodities. They’re not subject to supply and demand the way, oh, cheese is.” She indicated the pizza they were “sharing.”

In practice, each of them had two slices of the same kind of pizza—two on Judy’s scale, and two on Kim’s. Kim’s table stood on a platform about ten feet over Judy’s table, their chairs facing one another. The Beanstalk was one of three restaurants that could handle mixed size parties, all three on Mensura College’s campus, although one of them—the upscale Chimayo—perched right at the campus’s edge, attracting more townie customers than college students (or professors).

Kim stared up at her friend. “You don’t think housing is subject to supply and demand.”

“I mean, rents shouldn’t be. If they can rent you a home for five hundred a month today, why would they need to raise the price a year from now, or ten years from now?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed. “Because their prices went up and they’re passing it on. Because they’re greedy. Because the people they’re buying from are greedy. All of the above. Look, I’m not a big fan of our economic system even when it’s mostly working for me, and right now it feels particularly sucky.”

Judy reached out and patted the back of Kim’s hand with a fingertip. It had taken the goat the better part of a month to stop reflexively flinching when the raccoon did that, even though she was incredibly gentle. (Except when she was an expertly chosen amount of rough, reserved either for special friends or deserving enemies.) “You know you have crash space with me.”

“I do, and if I need to I’ll take you up on it. I just hope I don’t need to. I don’t care how comfortable Saida is with her arrangement, though—no dollhouses.” She wasn’t entirely sure putting her paw down on that was the best call; Saida’s “dollhouse” was a full studio apartment set on a table in her girlfriend Autumn’s place. Even so, as cute as the pet/owner vibe those two gave off was, it wasn’t Kim’s scene. (She wasn’t sure if that was despite the similar vibe she knew she and Judy gave off when they were together, or because of it.)

The raccoon held up a hand. “I wouldn’t dream of setting up a full apartment in my room on your scale for a short-term stay, sugar.” She leaned over and winked. “I’d just throw you in my panties drawer.”

Kim choked on her beer and glared up, blushing. Judy blew her a kiss.

“You’re incorrigible.”

Judy winked again. “It’s why you love me.”

“I know.” Kim let out a melodramatic sigh and munched on her pizza a moment, then waved the half-eaten slice. “If you ever used magic to come down to the size of us littles, I’d invite you to go apartment hunting with me, but you’re still gonna tell me you’re too short as it is, right?”

“I am!” The raccoon put a hand over her head, mimicking measuring herself. “I’m barely seventy feet tall. I look bigger because I’m wide.”

“Pfft.” Kim waved a hand dismissively. Judy was wide, relatively speaking, although to say she wore it well was an understatement. She had a great career in fashion design ahead of her—at least, if she’d deign to fit into any of the world’s design studios. Maybe she planned to return home to giant lands post-graduation, although she didn’t keen on the idea when Kim mentioned it. This was her senior year, though; she needed to get something lined up soon.

“I can go with you to check out the exterior of places you like. And check on the rooftops.” Judy laughed. “Maybe they’ll give you a discount if they know you have a giant friend.” She raised her brows, tapping her chin. “You know, we could visit your current place and see if they’ll give you a discount if they know you have a giant friend.”

“Are you, of all giants, suggesting using your size to be threatening?”

Judy put a hand to her chest, fluttering her eyelashes. “Mercy me, no. I would never do that. I simply can’t help it if people your size leap to incorrect conclusions if I raise my voice a touch and look distinctly unhappy with them.”

Kim laughed. “Mmm-hmm. Well, I don’t think I wanna stay there now, even if I could get a better deal. Partially that’s because I’m pissed with them, but I live there because I was living with Charlotte, you know? We picked the location together because it was about the halfway point between where she worked and where I worked at the time. I got laid off from that job less than a year later and got the coffee shop job, which I love, but it almost doubled my commute time each way from under twenty minutes to over thirty. So I’m hoping I can find a studio or loft right in downtown, something older and cheaper but cooler. Get a little bohemian. Maybe walk to work.”

“Keep me posted on how the search goes, sugar. I don’t know what I can do to help, but you know I’ll do what I can.”

Kim smiled up. “I know.”

“So, what do you think?” The leasing agent looked as if she knew the answer, the bear barely mustering her version of the plastic smile Kim had seen a dozen times over the last two weeks. This was the first unit she’d seen truly in her price range—more often than not, she’d discovered the prices shown online were a year or two (or three or four) out of date. A couple of the other units had been around eleven hundred a month, which she technically qualified for; this one sat at an unusually low nine-eighty.

Kim thrust her hands into her pockets, returning an equally perfunctory smile. “Not bad. I’ll definitely think about it.” Half of that was a lie: it was bad. She wouldn’t mind that the unit squeezed kitchen, living/dining space, bed, and bath into barely more than four hundred square feet if they were four hundred interesting square feet. But they weren’t. The complex was old enough to be run down, but not old enough to have any style. Gray carpet, linoleum kitchen flooring, generic cabinet doors. She could imagine Charlotte wandering around, giving everything a careful but dubious once-over, and announcing it lacked good “fit and finish.” (Charlotte had been big on fit and finish, and irritatingly, Kim had come to appreciate it, too.) Beyond that, she had doubts about the condition of roughly every appliance, from the suspiciously sputtery refrigerator to the bathroom faucet with an agonizingly slow drip. At least she didn’t have to worry about the state of the washer and dryer, since the unit didn’t have either. The apartment complex had a single laundry room with five washers and, inexplicably, four dryers; currently, one of each was out of service.

The worst thing about it, though, was the location. This was still in Mensura County, but out in the unincorporated suburbs. Not the new, bright, boxy suburbs to the northeast, but the older, faux Mediterranean suburbs to the southeast. They had a little more character, and were a little more affordable. But from here, her commute to Higher Grounds would be forty-five minutes each way with good traffic, an hour with bad. Public transit here existed in a technical sense: infrequent buses, the closest stop a ten-minute walk from here, with a connection to regional rail that took her to a stop about fifteen minutes from work. From what her mapping app told her, it’d double her door-to-door time.

No. The worst worst thing about it was that she wasn’t lying when she said she’d definitely think about it.

After she left the leasing office with a brochure and a lease application in hand (“take it just in case, and remember prices could go up at any time!”), she got back in her car and sat there, rubbing around the base of one of her horns. The car was in solid shape, but it was nine years old, a hundred twenty thousand miles on it. She’d been able to absorb the four hundred something she paid for the 100K “do everything” maintenance last year, but the car had reached the age where repairs became both more frequent and more expensive. How would her budget handle that if her rent shot up by sixty percent?

Okay, it would survive, at first: she’d managed to get nearly three thousand into savings as an emergency cushion, mostly at Charlotte’s gentle insistence. (“Insistence” might be too strong a word; the vixen was merely relentlessly practical: “Set up an automatic transfer of thirty or forty dollars from each paycheck into savings.”) But it wouldn’t survive it, like, twice. And it sure as hell wouldn’t survive going back to making monthly car payments.

Kim tilted her head back and stared at the car’s roof. (Where had that stain come from?) She couldn’t afford to go solo, could she? She should be looking for another roommate. Not Judy, and not solely because of what “roommate” would mean given their relative size differences. Okay, mostly because of that. If she found a roommate willing to move in with her, though, she wouldn’t have to move any farther than the master bedroom in her current space.

But who? Friends? Coworkers? Tabitha and Piper both had housemates now and liked who they lived with, so possible but highly doubtful. Lydia had just moved out of a shared living space and rhapsodized about how happy she was to be living on her own. Claire had married last year, and wouldn’t want to move to a smaller place. Hmm. Could she have a spare bedroom? No, even if she were amenable to renting a room to Kim—a big if—her husband Dennis wouldn’t be. Also, it’d be three days tops before he said something that made Kim kick him in the nuts.

Customers? Talk to her regulars, maybe. Put up a notice on the shop’s corkboard. That last one felt a touch risky, but less so than posting on Craigslist. Marginally. Maybe.

Speaking of customers and coworkers, though, she had a shift coming up. Enough wallowing—there were lattes to make.

Higher Grounds didn’t have its own parking lot, even for employees, but she did get free parking at the closest city lot, a short walk from the café. It was a good day for a stroll, at least.

As she reached the shop, a few short, sharp buzzes sounded from the crosswalk signals, followed by a tinny mechanical voice, the same one used to announce when it was safe to cross a street: “Giant approaching. Wait.” She glanced down the street in both directions—ah. There they were. That looked like Saida in her business attire, but she’d be Kim’s size if she were going to work, right? It must be Professor Thorferra, her cousin—her fur was whiter, her build slimmer, and she was at least fifteen years Saida’s senior. A mouse woman, a few feet taller than the cat, walked beside her. Just as collegiate-looking. Maybe another professor. Returning from lunch break?

She waved up as they passed by, but they didn’t look down. At least, not at her. They clearly watched where they placed their paws, walking down the road amidst the traffic without causing any damage. Granted, drivers in the area had to get used to sharing lanes with paws bigger than their vehicles real fast. You didn’t drive too close behind them, didn’t drive too slow in front of them, and they didn’t step on you. It worked in practice, even though the first time Kim saw a giant paw behind her car in the rearview mirror she nearly had a panic attack.

She took another moment to watch, gazing up at their tails. They both had cute butts. Were they a couple? Probably just coworkers. “Stop shipping the giant women and get to work,” she muttered aloud to herself, heading into the shop.

If there’d been an afternoon rush, it had already ended. Good. She knew there’d be another one starting a few minutes past four o’clock as people got off work (or ducked out of the office early). Currently, though, only a few customers were sitting around, and nobody stood in line.

“Hey, Kim.” That was Keegan, the shift manager, a kangaroo. “How’s the apartment search going?”

“Hey. Terrible, thanks for asking.” She washed her hands, and logged into the cash register. “I think I’m gonna have to just find another roommate. Or a room I can rent, not a whole unit. I’m not even sure I know where to look.”

“I’ve seen ‘For Rent’ signs right in the neighborhood here.”

“If I can’t afford suburbs, I definitely can’t afford Parkcrest.”

“It’s cheaper than you think. All the gentrification is happening in Eastside.”

“Which is three blocks east, which means everyone who can’t afford there has been moving here. Also, hello,” she waved her hand around, “how old is Higher Grounds? You know we’re part of the problem, right?”

Keegan waved a hand dismissively. “Please, we’re a locally owned indie success story, not a corporate coffee megachain.”

She smirked. “So we’re a tiny part of the problem.”

The kangaroo rolled his eyes and waved a rag at her. “Look, walk around the block tomorrow morning and see what’s out there. You might find something you love in spite of yourself.”

As much as she hated to admit Keegan had a point, Judy hadn’t just walked around the neighborhood trying to spot “For Rent” signs, instead doing all of her searching so far online. Well, she’d been contemplating going analog with Higher Grounds’ community corkboard, and you couldn’t get much more analog than hoofing it around for an hour or so. The next morning, she parked back in the city lot she used, and started strolling around.

The neighborhood had changed in the five years she’d been working at the coffee shop, showing the good and the bad of creeping gentrification. The sidewalks were cleaner, for one thing, and the city had built wider medians with green space. (She suspected the flowerbeds were more for the residents, but the wider streets were as much for giant pedestrians; there’d been damage from missed footsteps in neighborhoods with narrower streets in the past.) Interesting new shops and restaurants had moved in. And the neighborhood had begun promoting itself as the city LGBTQ hotspot, from joyous, overtly queer artistic banners on light poles to crosswalks painted in pride flag colors. She loved the banners, and loved that the trans crosswalk was on Higher Grounds’ corner.

But, old shops and restaurants had closed. The grungy taqueria with six-buck burritos bigger than your face, the head shop lit by black lights, the lightly used clothing store with the grumpy wolverine proprietor were all gone. The well-lit gourmet wrap place with the self-consciously crazy menu was good but twice as expensive, the kava bar was insufferable (and acted like a direct competitor to her coffee shop), and the new clothing stores were all chains, either designer puffery far above her price range or fast fashion crap that would fall apart after a year.

One thing she wasn’t seeing on her walkabout: apartments for rent. Most of the older buildings had residences or offices on their second and third floors, but if any of them were on the market, no signs were posted. She did pass by “1400 on 8th,” an old boarding house renovated into modern apartments, which she’d found online earlier. Unlike the studios she’d seen yesterday, those were interesting, at least from their photos. But they started at thirteen-fifty a month. Assuming those prices weren’t out of date.

She rounded a corner, taking a side street, and headed down an avenue that paralleled the main drag that Higher Grounds sat on. This block, at least, was fully residential on one side. And bingo: a “Unit for Rent” sign in front of one set of two-story townhomes.

She walked over to it. Hmm. The fine print gave a phone number—and the notation “2BR/2BA, $1500, NO PETS.” Damn. If the building even had a one-bedroom unit, it had to be out of her price range. Worse, she bet that was a good price for this area.

The east side of the street stayed fully residential another block before shifting to…well, honestly, she couldn’t tell what these were. Hmm. Offices on street level, residences on the second and third floors? Maybe retail at street level, offices above. But no, not exactly retail. This one was an art studio, this one was a tiny law office, this one was, uh, whatever business “Touray Design” was in. Whatever it was, they also had a “help wanted” sign up.

And, under that, a handwritten “loft room for rent” sign.

Kim paused, chewing on her lip. No other info. No size, no price, no clue what or even where the room was. Touray Design didn’t have the floor-to-ceiling windows of a storefront, but it still had big, clear front windows, looking in on…a living room? No, but definitely not an office. Art gallery? Furniture gallery?

She walked up to the door, which did have a full-height, full-width window in it, and looked inside. No customers or sales staff, as far as she saw. She tried the doorknob. Locked.

Hmm. Were there hours posted somewhere? Nope. No phone number, either. Ah, wait—she had missed small print right under the business name: OPEN BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. Awesome.

She let out her breath through pursed lips, making a rude bttthpt noise. The chances of this being another dead end were high. No, astronomical.

As she turned away, she saw the doorbell, off to the side. All right, fine. One last try. She stabbed the button, hearing a faint two-tone chime from somewhere inside the building.

Most of a full minute passed. Right before Kim turned away, a gazelle woman approached the other side of the door.

Kim couldn’t help but stare; even by gazelle standards, she looked impossibly graceful, a model who’d stepped out of a fashion magazine’s luxury advertising section. Tall—not giant tall, but she’d still crest six feet even without counting the long, graceful horns, or the extra inch from the heeled sandals she’d slipped her hooves into. A burnt orange, sleeveless wrap dress hung off her shoulders and fell to her calves, slit on the right side up to her thigh. Straight black hair, cut at a precise angle, reached the small of her back. She looked familiar, too. Was she a fashion model? No. No, some other context.

Wait, had she come into Higher Grounds before?

The gazelle talked into a cell phone, clearly more focused on the conversation than Kim, even as she unlocked the front door. “What part of ‘non-negotiable’ are you having trouble following, dear?” She flashed Kim an expectant, impatient look.

“I’m, uh, here about the sign? The—”

The woman’s sweept up and down Kim’s form, clearly judging, and motioned her in, returning her attention to the phone. She knew she looked decent in her jeans and heavy T-shirt combo—dating Judy had made her step up her game in countless tiny ways, from thinking more about color combinations to thinking, well, at all about lengths, folds, and accessories—but now she wished she’d dressed up more.

Thrusting her hands in her pockets to keep from fidgeting, Kim followed as the woman headed through what must be a home furnishings showroom floor. Everything looked far out of her budget. Just one of the flower vases probably cost more than her couch and coffee table combined. The two outside walls kept the same red brick she’d seen on the outside; the studiedly neutral painted back wall didn’t reach the high, industrial chic ceiling, suggesting the showroom didn’t go back all the way to the real back wall.

The gazelle sighed melodramatically, waving Kim toward an austere office desk with a sleek, pastel-colored all-in-one desktop computer sitting on it, along with a few Field Notes branded notebooks. “I’m not unsympathetic, but—” She paused, clenching her free hand into a fist. “No, his deadline is absolute. We’re back to the definition of ‘non-negotiable.’”

Kim circled the desk, taking a seat in an attractive but uncomfortable chair facing the back of the computer. The gazelle slid into the more plush executive seat opposite. “He’s not available.” Head shake. “No, she’s incredibly unreliable, and her partner is a blithering idiot.” Eye roll. “Please. If design sense were dynamite, he wouldn’t have enough to blow the ass off an ant. And none of them have teams the way you do. Simon, there has to be—”

The gazelle closed her eyes, clenching her fist again, but spoke calmly, if stiffly. “All right. Have a nice trip, Simon. I’m sure you’ll find other employment when you return.” She lifted the phone away from her ear, stabbing the end call button, clearly making an effort not to hurl it across the room.

“So.” The gazelle took a deep breath, setting the phone down delicately, then placed her hands on the desk and laced her fingers together, looking down at Kim. “What’s your background?”

“Excuse me?” Was she starting out by checking references?

“Your school. Your training. Anything.”

“I don’t… I think I should see the room first, shouldn’t I?”

The gazelle stopped, visibly shifting mental gears. “Oh. Oh.” She smiled thinly. “You mean that sign.” She checked her watch, then pushed back from the desk and motioned Kim to join her. “My schedule is open for a few minutes before I plunge back into trying to save my business from unreliable help and unbearable clients. Follow me upstairs.” She headed toward the back of the showroom.

Maybe it was the gazelle’s specific wry tone, maybe it was the way she checked that bejeweled, expensive-looking watch, but recognition—of a kind—clicked for Kim as they stepped into a back hallway. “Lavender latte with oat milk, extra hot.”

She turned to look at Kim, one high brow arched even higher.

“Your order at Higher Grounds. I’ve made it for you two or three times.”

That got the woman to pause, one slim hand on the staircase railing. “I remember you, yes.” She turned without waiting for a response, starting up the stairs. “You’re the one who does it correctly.”

“Thanks. I’m Kim. Kim Corman.”

“Ella Touray.”

Back here, it truly did look like a converted warehouse, bare concrete floor running up to the brick outside wall. Shelves stretched along that wall, most stacked with canvases. Finished paintings, rough sketches, blanks. A door leading outside sat at the foot of the utilitarian, all-metal staircase. She paused for a moment. Some of the art looked familiar—the style, if not individual pieces.

The gazelle didn’t wait for her. “If you rent the room, you can come in through that door.” She pointed at it as she ascended. “A small parking lot is right outside.”

“Okay.” The goat hurried to catch up.

The stairs ended at an old wooden floor that creaked softly with each step she or the gazelle took. Directly ahead lay a small window, with a utility sink under it and a washer and dryer nearby. To either side, the landing ended at doors straight out of old noir detective movies: wooden with frosted glass panes. “That way,” she pointed to the right, “is my suite.” She headed to the left.

“Oh, you live here.”

“I do. Do you have pets?”

“No.”

“Good.” She unlocked the door. “Do you throw parties?”

“No.”

“Disappointing.” She waved Kim in.

Smiling awkwardly, the goat stepped through the door, made it five steps in, then stood, gawking.

The first thing she noticed, that anyone would notice, was the sheer space. The loft had to be over twenty feet on each side, and the ceiling clearly sat two stories overhead. Light streamed in from windows along the two outside walls, both at the normal level of second-story windows and at the third-story level. Vintage light fixtures and ceiling fans hung down from the ceiling. The hardwood floor from the landing continued on inside, but became refinished here, gleaming.

A kitchen—a full kitchen—lined the wall to the right of the entranceway, its tile floor raised slightly from the main floor to give it a touch of separation, built in an “L” with most of the appliances against the outside wall and the sink sharing the wall with the front door. The appliances didn’t look new, but they were all high-end, from the stainless-steel refrigerator to the five-burner gas stove that looked as if it might have once been in Julia Child’s kitchen. A counter sat between the kitchen space and the main room, offering lots of workspace on one side and bar-style seating on the other.

Biting her lip, Kim walked in farther. The rest of the space was empty, unsurprisingly. An oddly shaped space nestled into the back right-hand corner, reminding her a square box with one corner cut off at a forty-five-degree angle. Another frosted glass door, this one looking more like a shower door, sat in the cut-off corner. She peeked in. Yep, the bathroom, very generously sized. Big shower stall, lots of counter space. Like the kitchen, the fixtures looked a generation old, if not two or three in the case of the sink faucet, but distinctive.

She walked back out toward Touray, and spotted another door on the outside wall that she’d missed before. She opened it and looked back and forth. Yep, an actual balcony, running the length of the building on this side, wide enough to put out chairs and a table. A fire escape was visible at one end, leading down to the small parking lot. Not especially scenic, but not a bad view over low rooftops toward a creekfront park.

Wow. This was clearly way over her price range.

“You can close the high window shades from over here.” The gazelle walked toward a panel close to the kitchen and touched a button on it. With a soft whrrr, blinds lowered over the windows. “That’s also the control for the fans and the baseboard heaters.” She opened the blinds again.

Kim stared up. “I thought when the sign said ‘room,’ it meant, like, a bedroom.”

Touray arched a brow again. “It did say ‘loft.’”

“I know. How big is it?”

“Twenty-seven and three-quarters feet on the long side, twenty-two and a half feet on the short. Six hundred twenty-four square feet.”

“It’s a really neat space. Bigger than some apartments I’ve looked at. I’m not sure how I’d fill it.”

“I know.” Putting her hands on her hips, the gazelle looked around the loft appraisingly. “It’s a challenging space.” She shook her head. “Maria filled it with canvases, mostly. It was always a beautiful mess.” She stayed motionless for a few beats, then waved a hand. “I imagine it’s best suited to another artist.”

“I can see how an artist would have loved it. I…how much are you asking?”

“Twelve hundred a month.”

“Ah.” She’d expected higher, honestly, but she’d still hoped.

Touray tilted her head. “It’s market rate.”

“No, it’s a good price. It’s just a little outside my range.”

“Ask for a raise.” Touray walked to the front door, holding it open for Kim.

“Heh.” She couldn’t tell whether the gazelle was making a deadpan joke or not. “Well. Thanks for showing me the place.”

Touray led her back down the stairs. “I don’t suppose you have a design background and a half-dozen strong, careful friends, do you?”

“What?”

She laughed. “My other sign. I’ve been needing an assistant, and apparently now I need a team.”

“I don’t even know what it is you do, Ms. Touray.”

“Design and procurement, both interior and exterior.” She waved at the door leading to the showroom Kim had walked through. “You saw the furnishings. I love mid-century modern, but I can find what the client wants. Usually.” She sighed, putting her hands back on her hips. “But for outside work, such as the sculpture garden I’m designing for the Haymans up in the Green Hills—I’m designing around Mr. Hayman’s awful taste, but that’s neither here nor there—I need a crew. I can’t drop by the Home Depot and hire day laborers from the parking lot. It needs to be people who understand what they’re working with. Like the team I had until this morning.”

Kim furrowed her brow, stroking her chin. “So you need someone with great design sense, and you need to move big, heavy sculptures around with care.”

“Precisely.” Touray tilted her head, lifting a brow inquiringly.

“What about one person with great design sense who happens to be seventy feet tall?”

The gazelle stared at her, eyes going wide, then waved Kim back into the showroom, heading toward her desk. “Let me give you my card.”

Judy looked down at Kim. “So if I do this for your new gazelle friend, she gives you a break on rent?” They’d met in Mensura College’s Student Union building, the giant standing in the massive atrium, the little sitting at a balcony table right against the railing. This put her right above Judy’s cleavage, height-wise. She was pretty good about not staring into it, except when Judy deliberately drew her attention to it with a stretch or a deep breath or, more than once, picking her up and dropping her in.

“She didn’t say that.” The goat rubbed the back of one of her ears. “I didn’t ask, either. I mean, I should ask you first, right?” She looked away. “Also, she’s not my friend. Honestly, she’s kind of intimidating.”

The raccoon chortled, setting down her coffee mug. “And you doubt that’ll be as much of a problem for me.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way until just now, I swear. And this all sounds so…transactional now that I’m talking to you about it.” She sighed, looking up at Judy. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m asking you to do this on the off-chance she’s going to cut me a deal.”

“You didn’t promise her I’d do it for you as a favor, did you, sugar?”

She shook her head quickly. “Three Lords, no.”

“Then if she hires me, she hires me. I’d be doing it for her because she paid me. Your role here is employment agent. But you know I don’t have any formal background in painting or sculpture or architecture, don’t you?”

“Yes, but I know you know so much about all of them. And you do have a background in fashion design.”

“In the sense that the school’s letting me put together as close to a degree program in fashion design as we can manage. But officially, it’s a general artistic studies degree.”

“There you go. There’s your background.”

“I don’t know if that’s gonna fly any more than I can. But all right. Set up a meeting.”

“I can give you her number.”

“No, I mean face to face.” Judy stepped back, waving at herself with one hand. “I’m sure she’s seen giants, but she needs to talk to one for this all to work. That’s a whole different ball game.”

Kim pursed her lips. She had a point. “All right, uh, I’ll give her a call and see what she says. We probably shouldn’t mention we’re, uh,” she waved a finger back and forth between them.

“A same-sex couple.” Judy sighed. “You littles get so funny about that sometimes.”

“We do. But thank you, Judy. You’re amazing.”

She fluttered her eyelashes. “I am.”

“I owe you.”

Judy leaned closer and grinned. “Oh, yes, you do, sugar.”

It hadn’t taken as much cajoling to get Touray to agree to the meeting as Kim had feared, but it still hadn’t been easy. “Why can’t she simply call?” was the first, obvious question, followed by the snippier, “Don’t giants have phones?” Kim had to find the most diplomatic way possible to say, in effect, Judy wants to make sure you won’t lose your shit when you’re standing eye to ankle with her.

“I see.” The gazelle had sighed, drumming her fingers on the desk. “Are you expecting to get an offer of a lower rent out of this, Miss Corman? There are other people interested in the loft.”

“Judy asked me that, too, and the truth is if you gave me a break on rent for a year, maybe I’d take it. But I’d end up moving again in twelve months because it’d still be too much. You should take one of the other offers.” She’d shrugged. “I think Judy’d be able to do the work, I think she’d like it, and it’s not as if I’m volunteering her to work for free.”

“No.” Touray had chewed on that silently for an uncomfortable length of time, then gave Kim a list of possible times: two, that same day. When the goat had protested, she’d shaken her head curtly. “If I don’t have a solution by the end of business today, I’m going to have to drop my client. Waiting is not an option.”

And, so, barely two hours later, they were here.

As Kim led Touray through the park close to Higher Grounds, strolling along a concrete path sporting the same colorful diversity-celebrating banners as the rest of Parkcrest, the gazelle pointed ahead. “That’s her?” They wouldn’t reach where Judy sat for another several minutes, but she stood out like a landmark.

Kim simply nodded, stifling the smart-ass responses that came to mind. How’d you guess? or No, she’s one of the other giants you must have missed.

As they approached, Judy looked down, smiling without showing any teeth. The raccoon sat cross-legged on a grassy field, hands folded in her lap. She wore a turquoise kaftan hemmed in purple and gold thread, short enough it’d be knee-length if she were standing.

“Hello, Ms. Touray. I’m Judy Parille. And hello, Kim.”

“Hi.” Kim waved.

“That’s a striking dress,” the gazelle said, with no preamble.

“Thank you.”

“Did you make it?”

Judy shook her head. “No, I ordered it online and had it enlarged.”

Touray nodded, walking around to Judy’s side slowly, as if making an appraisal. “I’d think it might be challenging to have the eye for doll clothes that translate so well.”

The raccoon’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “I’m good with small things.”

“How would you think about placing sculptures in a garden?”

Judy hmmed. “What kind of garden, Ms. Touray? Small or large? Are there are a lot of flowers, or more trees and water features?” She tapped her chin. “Do they want a more contemporary look or a period look?”

Touray raised both brows. “All the right questions.”

Judy smiled. “I’ve done a little studying of the subject.”

“Clearly.” Touray looked back up at the giantess. “Pick me up with your thumb and forefinger, please.”

Kim made a choking noise. That was not how giants should pick up littles. You held out your hand and let them climb on. Holding them up by their arms or even legs was safer than what the gazelle was asking for. Barely asking. Effectively demanding.

Judy’s eyes widened, too. “I—ah, that’s not—”

“Some of the abstract sculptures I’m asking you to handle may be quite fragile, relatively speaking, and you’re going to need both the confidence to manipulate them and the patience to put up with me calling out ‘a little more to the left’ or ‘turn it twenty degrees.’ Show me you’re confident in your touch, Miss Parille. That means not crushing my rib cage.”

Judy swallowed nervously, and rested her hands on her knees, closing her eyes and taking a deep, slow breath. Then she reached down for Touray, making a pincer out of her thumb and forefinger.

Kim shuffled her hooves. “You don’t have to—”

“Shh,” Touray commanded, and waited with her arms at her sides.

Judy put her finger against the gazelle’s front and her thumb against her back, hesitated, then pressed ever so gently and lifted the gazelle slowly into the air.

Kim made an involuntary squeak, putting a hand to her mouth. Touray’s eyes widened, but she didn’t react otherwise, resting both her hands on the finger in front of her.

The raccoon lifted her up to the giantess’s eye level, although she quickly moved her other hand in place a few inches under the gazelle’s hooves. “How’s this?”

“You’re hired.”

Kim tagged along with Judy on the job, riding along in a carrier on the raccoon’s belt on the hour-long walk to the estate Touray had told her to meet at. The carriers were semi-common on campus, but rarely seen off. They weren’t cages as much as single-person ski lift seats with harness-style belts, bolted to a belt clip worn on the giant’s side so the little passenger faced forward and, ideally, didn’t get jostled around enough to get motion sickness.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen houses like this,” Judy said as they got close. She pointed to a neighboring estate. “Even to me, that looks damn big.”

“Yeah, it is damn big. Not Mensura College big, but it looks more like a hotel than a mansion.”

“And just one family lives there.” The raccoon sounded disbelieving.

“And their servants, I guess.”

Judy shook her head. “You are really making a case for rampaging, sugar.”

She laughed. “You’re not going to tell me you don’t have rich people back where you’re from.”

“We do, we do. But it’s just not as…extreme as littles seem to be. Poor people here are extraordinarily poor, and rich people here are extraordinarily rich.”

“Someday I’m going to get you tipsy enough that you’ll tell me why you don’t want to go back home.”

“Mmm.” Judy glanced down at the goat strapped to her side. “The last time you got me that tipsy, I trapped you under a garter belt, as I recall.”

“And reminding me of that is supposed to discourage me how, exactly?”

“You gave me what-for when I tried to get a cute squirrel girl to sit on my lap with you trapped there.”

Kim flushed, remembering—the feeling of being held in place by the tight cloth, and the flirting voices above her. “That’s because I couldn’t see her through your skirt.”

“Oh, really.” Judy glanced down again with a grin. “You know I’m going to call your bluff on that when I get a chance.”

“Ha ha.” The goat paused, looking back up and squinting. “Call my bluff, how?”

“You’ll find out.”

“Mph. Don’t get me hot and bothered before your job, huh? I think it’s the next driveway.”

Judy laughed. “It is.”

Driveway didn’t do the entrance to the estate justice; a winding, two-lane road made its way another quarter-mile up the side of a lush hill before dropping a few hundred feet back down toward a plateau. The landscape had the look of a well-maintained park, cultivated enough to stay postcard perfect while giving the illusion of pristine, undisturbed nature.

As they crested the hill, the main house came into view. Whereas the previous estate had a castle-like ostentatiousness, this one had the lines of a mid-century architectural masterpiece: all light stone walls and panoramic windows, upswept red shingled roofs, cantilevered wooden balconies. While it was hardly small—Kim had gotten an eye for size estimation from hanging around Mensura, and she’d guess the structure had around four thousand square feet under cover—it did, at least, still look like a house.

“Is this closer to a rich giant’s house?”

“Closer, although it wouldn’t be on nearly this much land. Relatively speaking.” Judy walked toward the house, moving more carefully along the circle the driveway ended in and off onto the lawn on one side. She crouched down, studying the building’s lines. “It’s beautiful, though. I don’t think I’ve seen anything—”

A high-pitched scream sounded from the closest window. Kim looked in to see a squirrel woman running away in a panic.

“—like it. Oh, dear.”

“I thought Ms. Touray said the client wasn’t going to be home until Friday.”

“She did.”

A small, elegant car, an open-top red coupe that had to be thirty years old but in near-mint condition, had made its way up the driveway and was coming to a stop in the circle. Touray got out, raising a hand as she approached. Like Judy, she wore jeans and a T-shirt rather than her usual more glamorous attire. Also like Judy, she looked fabulous in it anyway. “Come with me around back.”

Judy followed, slowing down her stroll enough that she kept pace with Touray’s quick, long stride. “I believe I scared someone inside the house.”

“Anyone inside the house right now would be a staff member, who should have been informed we were coming.”

As they rounded the house, Kim sucked in her breath. She’d expected a large backyard, but she’d still severely underestimated the scale. The lawn stretched at least a hundred yards wide, and several times that ahead, across three levels terraced into the hillside. Stone paths wound through and around meticulously cared-for flower gardens—clearly arranged with an eye toward the geometry—with neatly trimmed hedges delineating different sections.

“Your height likely gives you a better view of the different areas that Mr. Hayman has had his gardeners plant for theming.”

Judy nodded. “It does.” She pointed toward the back of the house, where a collection of sculptures in a hodgepodge of modern styles sat, most still surrounded by the crates and plastic wrap they’d been transported in. Some of them stood just a few feet high, clearly intended to sit atop pedestals; others stood ten feet or higher, while others—usually odd, abstract pieces—stretched out for twice that length horizontally. The largest piece constructed of eight huge cast iron rings welded together to form the gridlines of a globe. It had to stand close to three stories high. The workers who’d presumably uncrated them, a snow leopard and a jackal, sat on the patio, gaping up at Judy. “And I gather that’s the art that he wants installed.”

“Yes.”

“All in the next two days, by just you and me.” Judy ran a hand through her hair.

“The workers there will assist, and have been instructed to follow your direction as well as mine.” The gazelle looked up at Judy, folding her arms. “But mostly, it’s going to be you.”

Judy held out a hand for Kim, who unfastened her harness and climbed onto it. She set the goat down gently as she kept speaking. “It seems…surprising, now that I’m here, that Mr. Hayman shared so few opinions on which pieces should go where.”

“I’m sure he’ll give voice to more opinions when he returns on Friday and sees the choices we make.” Touray’s tone was desert dry. “The globe is the central piece, of course, and it has a pedestal already installed there.” She pointed toward a cobblestone circle at the center of the highest terrace, where several of the garden paths met. “The others we have free rein to place, although I trust you remember the notes I gave you when we spoke. Those are all about the constraints Ogden gave us that he fails to recognize as constraints.”

Judy grinned. “I do, Ms. Touray.” The raccoon straightened up, orienting herself, then gestured. “This upper terrace, contemporary work, grouped less by chronology than by harmony with the house’s architecture. I didn’t understand quite what you meant until I saw the house. The next terrace down, with the flower gardens, he wants to take more Neoclassical and Baroque. I imagine that’s where most of the pedestals are going. The last terrace goes modern again, with, what’s it called? Assemblage?”

“Yes, although I prefer the more descriptive ‘pains in the ass.’”

Kim stifled a laugh. She was starting to like Ms. Touray more.

The gazelle continued, “They’re all big pieces that Simon’s crew would have had to bring in a crane for, just like the globe. With you, though…”

“I can be the crane.” Judy looked over at the globe. “I don’t know whether that’s going to be the hardest one to install, but it looks like it’s the heaviest, and we know exactly where it’ll go.”

“Then let’s start.”

Judy walked toward the house. The workers stood up fast, taking a couple of steps back.

“Don’t run away, you two, please. You’re going to have to bolt this down while I hold it in place.”

The jackal and leopard looked at each other, then back up at her. “Uh.” The jackal nodded, looking nervous. “Okay, ma’am. You sure you can, uh, hold that?”

“Let’s find out.” Judy crouched, and took a few seconds to examine the globe. “All right, I think if I get my arms around the bottom half like this—mmph!—I can lift it safely.” With the sculpture encircled, she wrapped her fingers carefully around two of the cast iron rings, and slowly stood up, grunting with the exertion. “Ugh. This isn’t as heavy as I worried it would be, but it’s still heavy.” She turned and slowly walked toward the center of the terraced lawn, placing each sandal carefully. The two workers followed behind, at a longer than necessary distance.

Touray stepped back herself, watching. Kim moved to stand by her side.

“You’re remarkably used to giants,” the gazelle murmured, eyes on the raccoon.

“Lots of students from Mensura College come to the coffee shop, including a few giants. Even one teacher.”

That got Touray to glance at her. “You can serve giant-sized coffee?”

“Someone needs to magic it up to their size. A few students I know can.”

“I see.” Touray watched Judy. “You’re quite comfortable with Miss Parille, specifically.”

“We’ve known each other a while.”

Touray nodded, silent a moment, then began walking toward the raccoon.

As they’d talked, Judy had reached her destination, and was slowly crouching, lowering the globe to the concrete pad. She shifted her grip, making sure the sculpture had been properly aligned with pre-drilled holes in the base. “How does it look, Miss Touray?”

“Perfect.”

She held it in place, and looked over at the wide-eyed workers. “Come on, y’all. Let’s get going.”

“And the rabbit’s name is, again?” Touray and Kim walked through the park the next morning, Kim carrying a tray of four lattes—three, now, since Touray already had hers in hand.

“Autumn. Autumn Caligo.” Judy and Autumn sat against a hillside about fifty yards ahead. The rabbit, with bone white fur and black hair streaked through with blue highlights (a change from her usual mix of orange and yellow), made Judy look positively short. Her ripped black jeans and tight, faded gray T-shirt shaded her punkish look toward goth.

Touray nodded.

As they approached, Judy waved. “Good morning, Ms. Tournay. And hello, Kim.”

Autumn nodded to them, too. “Hey.”

“Miss Parille.” Tournay nodded to her, followed by the rabbit. “Miss Caligo.”

Kim set down two of the coffees. “This one’s yours, Judy, and this one’s yours, Autumn.” She pointed at each one, took the third for herself, and stepped back.

“Got it.” Autumn leaned over, tracing runes in the air with a finger over each cup, leaving glittering sparkles in the air behind. Then she touched each cup in turn. With a flash of light and a small blast of wind, each cup scaled up from their normal height to taller than either of the two littles.

Tournay’s eyes widened.

Autumn leaned over, picking up her cup. “Never seen magic before?”

“I have not. You make it look effortless, but I imagine it isn’t at all.”

Kim realized Tournay wasn’t looking at Autumn’s face; she was looking at the pride pins on the giantess’s jacket, a rainbow flag and a transgender flag. She tensed up.

“I’ve been doing that spell for years now.” Autumn followed Tournay’s gaze, too, and grinned. “Okay, I’ll leave you all alone to talk business now. I have a breakfast date with my girlfriend, who isn’t either of these two.”

Touray inclined her head. “It was a pleasure to meet you, then, Miss Caligo.”

The rabbit stood up—way up—and walked away, coffee in hand. All three of them watched her make way parallel to the path, barely disturbing the grass despite her weight. Autumn was only a friend, but this view always reminded Kim she had a nice butt.

She glanced at Touray. Wait, was she watching Autumn’s butt, too? No, her gaze was lower, maybe not actually on the giantess at all.

Then Kim saw it. Oh. Oh. Pieces fell into place. Three Lords. Should she say anything?

Clearing her throat, Judy picked up her drink, too. “So how much work do you think we have left, Ms. Tournay?”

“On this job, perhaps four hours, given your work yesterday.”

Judy paused mid-sip. “‘On this job?’”

The gazelle sipped her own drink. “You mentioned yesterday how close you were to graduation, and you seemed…” She tapped her chin, and looked up. “At risk of being blunt, you seemed directionless.”

Judy grunted.

“I’d like to offer you the same contract that I had with your predecessor. It’s only piecemeal work, and I don’t know that it would be sufficient for full-time employment. On the other hand, each job—including this one—will pay you as if you were six workers my size.”

“Goodness. I…” Judy ran a hand through her hair, and sipped the drink, looking poleaxed. “I’ll have to—”

“Three Lords, Judy, say yes!” Kim burst out.

Both the raccoon and the gazelle looked at her.

“Come on. You told me how much you liked yesterday, right? At least try it for a while.” She turned to Touray. “Until she graduates, school comes first.”

“Understood.”

“You’re not my manager, sugar,” Judy grumbled to Kim.

“No, I’m your girlfriend.”

Judy looked startled, glancing at Touray, then back at Kim.

“I’d already surmised that, Miss Parille. I find the size difference…surprising, but love is love, isn’t it.” Her gaze grew distant.

Kim bit her lip. “Miss Touray, can I ask you a personal question?”

The gazelle looked at her, brow lifting. “Go ahead.”

“It’s about…about Maria.”

Touray froze.

“You told me she was an artist. And I saw the canvases in the back room of your shop. They’re hers, aren’t they? You saved them.”

The gazelle nodded fractionally, eyes on the goat.

“I thought I recognized a few of the paintings, but I didn’t place them until a few minutes ago. Maria painted the banners in Parkcrest.”

“You have a good eye, Miss Corman.” She sipped her latte, looking distant again. “You still make these better than anyone else at your shop, you know.”

Kim smiled awkwardly. “Thanks.” Being a barista had given her an ear for when someone wanted to talk—and when they needed to. She hoped. “Will you tell me about her?”

Touray sighed, but smiled, brow furrowing. “A wolf. Small, dark brown fur frosted with cinnamon tips. We met in college, at an art show, when I was confidently proclaiming how unworthy one piece was of being shown at a gallery. It was hers, of course. She argued with me, I argued back, and somehow out of that we became friends. To this day, I still don’t know how.

“We bought the place for that upstairs living space. I never intended to have a showroom, just an office, but she fell in love with that loft and made me fall in love with it, too. It might not be a mansion, but it became our dream home.” She fell silent a few seconds, looking lost. “We didn’t know she had an aneurysm until…after. She’d been fine that morning, but in the afternoon she’d had a headache, a migrane, and had gone to lie down. She never got up.” She took a deep breath. “I couldn’t bring myself to even go into her studio for more than a year after she passed, three years ago this fall.”

“How long were you together?”

“Last year would have been our twenty-fifth anniversary.”

“Oh, sugar,” Judy breathed.

“I can see why you’d want to hang on to the space. Not disturb it.” Kim rubbed the back of her neck.

The gazelle closed her eyes, wiping one with the back of her hand. “No. I can hear her voice in my head chiding me. ‘It’s a place to live, Ella, not a shrine. Let someone else enjoy it.’” She laughed softly. “And I know that damned wolf is right. Even when she’s not even here.”

They all fell silent again, until Touray cleared her throat. “How much have you been paying where you are for rent, Miss Corman?”

Kim blinked twice. “I, uh, the rent now is thirteen fifty, but it’s a two-bedroom. That’s why I’m looking for a new place. My roommate left, and—”

“What were you paying? Your share?”

“Six fifty.”

“That will do.”

Kim gaped. “You—uh—but Ms. Touray, you were asking for—”

Judy nudged her with a fingertip. “Three Lords, Kim, say yes,” she stage-whispered.

“Listen to your girlfriend, Kim. And call me Ella.”

Kim stared up from street level as the raccoon giantess, kneeling in a hidden parking lot behind Ella Touray’s shop, finished taking the last of her belongings out of a massive shoebox. Everything in her apartment had been packed up, fragile things wrapped or boxed on Kim’s scale, then put into a spare box of Judy’s, with giant-sized bubble wrap used for cushioning.

“I’m still amazed that worked.”

Judy laughed. “I told you. When’s your unpacking crew showing up?”

“About two hours. You’re way ahead of schedule.” Kim walked up the outside staircase to the loft’s balcony. Her loft’s balcony. “Has Ella called you with your next assignment yet?”

“There’s one coming up next month.”

She leaned on the railing, grinning. “So you basically have to work one weekend every month or so and get paid more than I do for it.”

The raccoon grinned. “Yes, but neither of us have any idea how benefits or even basic taxes work in this situation. We’re having to work with the career office at the college. I don’t think I knew the college had a career office.” She leaned down, bringing her muzzle in close for a kiss. “Thank you.”

Kim kissed her back. “You’re welcome. And thank you, for everything. You’re a doll for going along with this.”

Judy’s massive, close grin grew more teasing. “No, you’re the doll, sugar, next time you have two days off in a row.”

Kim bleated, reaching up to press both hands against Judy’s nose. “Don’t even think about trying to play dress-up with me, or I’ll be—”

“A shivering, blushy puddle?” Judy murmured.

She tried to look cross, but was already starting to redden. “You’re incorrigible.”

The giantess gave her another kiss. “It’s why you love me.”