Animal Behavior

by Gabrielle Holly

  * * * * *

  Tequila had never agreed with him—never. Alex didn’t know what made him think that this time he’d get away unscathed. After they finished off the wine, Diana pulled out the saltshakers and sliced limes. Alex don’t remember how many shots he’d taken trying to keep up with those two, but the next thing he knew he was waking up naked on the big bed in their guest room. He vaguely recalled willingly handing over his clothes—all his clothes—after a drunken attempt to operate the kitchen blender ended with him covered head to toe with strawberry margaritas. Two blender blow-ups in one day was a record even for him.

  Alex found his freshly laundered clothes folded neatly on a chair in the corner, along with fresh towels and a brand new toothbrush. Even hung over, Diana was the consummate hostess.

  The shower was as hot as he could stand it, and Alex brushed his teeth twice, but when he wandered into the kitchen, he still had a fuzzy tongue and a splitting headache. Diana fixed him up with some aspirin and a strong cup of coffee. After a couple pieces of toast with peanut butter he finally started to feel human again. Bob was finishing his own breakfast. Diana and Sam kept a case of high-end canned dog food in the pantry just for canine houseguests.

  Sam stumbled into the kitchen. Her short brown hair was sticking out in every direction, reminding him of a hedgehog. She kissed him on the forehead and Diana on the lips, and groped for a mug. She flopped down on a kitchen chair, took a slug of her coffee, then rested her forehead in her hand.

  Diana quietly swept along behind her and gently placed Sam’s cigarette case, an ashtray and two aspirins on the table within reach. Diana squeezed Sam’s shoulder and Sam reached up to pat Diana’s hand. They caught him watching the exchange. Sam winked at him and Diana smiled her serene, Earth-mother smile. Alex envied these two. They had found each other and freed up that part of the human endeavor that wasted energy searching for a mate. Alex smiled back.

  They didn’t talk about what had been discussed the night before. But as Alex was getting ready to leave, Diana pressed a slip of paper into his hand and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Just try to keep an open mind, baby doll.”

  * * * * *

  The morning after their visit with Sam and Diana, Bob and Alex spent a quiet afternoon lounging around the loft. Alex checked his voicemail. It was empty. He sat down at the computer and checked his inbox. There were two electronic newsletters and half dozen offers for penis enlargement. His hangover had subsided to a dull headache and he was feeling restless.

  Alex took Bob for a run around the lake then came home and ate a microwavable dinner in front of the TV. He had spent the better part of the day pushing down the memory of Diana’s suggested alternative to his chronic dating crisis.

  Finally he sprang up from the couch and said, “What the hell?” Digging through his pockets, he found the slip of paper Diana had given him and grabbed his keys from the hook by the door. Bob’s ears perked up.

  “Not this time, buddy,” Alex said to him. “I’ll be right back.”

  Down in the truck, Alex typed the address into his GPS and followed the directions until he found himself in the warehouse district. The streets were nearly empty at this time on a Sunday night. Pulling up to his destination, he grimaced at the sign painted on the curtained front window. It was the outline of a hand with a star painted near the pinky finger and a crescent moon near the thumb. The sign read, Miss Desdemona Lustre, Palmistry, Tarot, Psychic Readings.

  The storefront looked dark and Alex nearly pulled away from the curb and drove home. Uneasiness twisted in his gut, but curiosity drove him out of the truck and up to the door. Alex didn’t know if he should knock or just walk in. As if in answer to his question, he noticed a small, hand-printed sign, “Please ring”. Alex pushed the button and heard a low buzz sound out behind the door, then waited long enough to start second-guessing his decision. He’d just begun to realize how ridiculous this whole thing was when the door creaked open.

  Maybe he’d expected to see some mysterious, kohl-eyed gypsy with her long hair covered in a silk scarf. He was surprised when a tall, lanky black teenager answered. The young man held the door open just enough to peek out and the smell of incense wafted out around him. “Can I help you?” he asked, sounding like he wasn’t at all interested in helping.

  “Is Mrs. Luster available?”

  The boy smirked. “Miss Luster doesn’t see anyone without a referral.”

  Alex felt compelled to convince the guy that he belonged there—even though he wasn’t entirely sure of that fact himself. “Diana Wallace sent me.”

  The boy swung the door wide and swept his arm in a “c’mon in” gesture. “Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”

  Red. That was Alex’s first impression. The room was dimly lit with candles glowing in crimson-tinted glass votives and electric lamps covered with filmy red scarves. A heavy red curtain on brass rings stretched across the rear wall of the shop. Alex supposed that separated the sales floor from the room where the psychic readings and séances took place.

  Shallow, open shelves ran the entire length of the wall behind the counter from floor to ceiling. There was a smattering of slick, new, mass-produced items—books and candles mostly—artfully merchandised among the ancient-looking inventory. A small rodent skull—raccoon, Alex thought at first glance—was perched on a stack of paperbacks—Wicca for the Uninitiated.

  There were plenty of Celtic symbols on the walls, a grouping of colorful bottles arranged under a glass cake dome and amulets hanging from the ceiling on cords. Scattered throughout the store were bells and other items that Alex was sure had a purpose, but couldn’t even guess at what it might be.

  He was most interested in the dozens of hand-labeled jars and wooden boxes lined up on a single shelf just above eye level and assumed most were only for atmosphere. Ground bat wings, powdered wolf blood, dried snake skin? Uh-huh. Probably just a bunch of spices bought from the bulk bins at that local food co-op where all the tree-huggers and wanna-be hippies liked to hang out.

  The kid walked behind the counter, lifted a thick text from a tall stool, dropped it on the counter and had a seat.

  Alex glanced at the cover. It featured a mortar and pestle and the title The Art of Compounding.

  “Pharmacy school?” Alex asked

  When the young man nodded, Alex realized he must be older than he had originally thought.

  “So what can we do for you?”

  “Is Ms.—Miss—Lustre available?”

  “She’s out,” he said, and picked up his text. Alex felt like he’d just been dismissed.

  “Can you tell him when she’ll be back?”

  “Nope.”

  “Nope?” Alex said, planting his palms on the counter and leaning in. “Why’d you let me in here if she’s gone and you’re not going to help me?”

  The kid closed his textbook, set it carefully on the counter and spoke slowly, as if he were addressing a three-year-old.

  “I let you in, sir, because you said Miss Diana sent you. But since you don’t know that Miss Lustre is…indefinitely indisposed, I kind of doubt that Miss Diana sent you at all. If fact, I kind of doubt that Miss Diana even knows who you are.”

  “Huh?” was the most eloquent response he could muster.

  The kid walked from behind the counter and headed toward the door. “I’ll show you out, sir. I was just getting ready to lock up anyhow.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Hold on just a second,” Alex said. He reached into his pocket and the clerk’s eyes widened. It took Alex a beat to realize that the kid probably thought he was there to hold him up.

  Alex held out his decidedly nonlethal cell phone and gave the clerk a give-me-a-break sneer. The young man’s expression of fear turned immediately to one of impatience.

  Alex hit Sam and Diana’s speed-dial number. When he told Diana where he was calling from, she squealed with delight. “Oh, baby doll, I’m so glad you decided to go! So, what do you thin
k of Miss Lustre?”

  As soon as Alex explained to her that Miss Lustre was gone and that some kid was trying to throw him out on the street, Diana instructed him to hand over the phone to the young man, whose name, she said, was Louis.

  Louis grudgingly took the phone and shot Alex a look bursting with attitude. He listened for a moment before the smirk dropped from his face.

  “Yes, ma’am. Yes, Miss Diana. Well this guy…Mr. McKenzie… I thought you knew about Miss Lustre’s little…difficulty with the IRS, and then when this guy didn’t seem to know about it, well I just assumed… Yes, Miss Diana. I will. Yes. I apologize, Miss Diana.”

  Louis disconnected the call, handed the phone back to Alex and slunk back behind the counter. “Sorry for the misunderstanding, Mr. McKenzie. So what can we help you with?”

  Well, now we’re getting somewhere. But at the exact instant Alex realized he’d won the battle, it dawned on him that he would have to confess to Louis what had brought him to the warehouse district on a Sunday night.

  What the hell? He was already dirty. He’d probably never see this guy again and the whole adventure would make for a funny story to tell at the bar—someday.

  “Women,” Alex finally blurted out. “I’m having trouble with women.”

  Louis bit his lower lip, clearly trying not to laugh. “Well, you know, Mr. McKenzie, any doctor can write you a prescription for this little blue pill—”

  “Not that kind of problem. I can get it up just fine. It’s women in general. I freeze up. I panic just thinking about approaching them and, when I finally do, I babble incoherently.”

  The more Alex talked, the stupider he felt. I’m a man of science, a doctor of veterinary medicine and I’m getting life coached by some college kid selling snake oil.

  “So it’s a software problem, not a hardware problem,” Louis summed up.

  Computer references were lost on Alex. He knew how to check email and surf the internet, but he didn’t really know how any of it worked. The confusion must have shown on his face because Louis shook his head and rephrased his assessment.

  “Your equipment is fine, you just need reprogramming. You need a confidence booster, Mr. McKenzie.”

  “And you can help me with that?”

  “Miss Luster can help you with that.”

  “And she’s not here,” Alex observed.

  Louis reached under the counter and pulled out a battered notebook.

  “No, but this is,” he said, tapping the cover.

  It didn’t look anything like Alex would have imagined a book of spells to look. It was a run-of-the-mill drugstore notebook; spiral bound, with a glossy green cardboard cover and college-ruled pages and it had seen better days. The cover was tattered and creased with frayed corners. The spiral wire had worked its way out of several of the bottom holes and the free end corkscrewed out of the top edge. The notebook as a whole had expanded to at least twice its original size with the addition of a hodgepodge of loose papers stuffed between its pages.

  Louis flipped through the book and, by all appearances, seemed to know exactly what he was looking for.

  “You’re lucky that I can make out Miss Lustre’s chicken scratch,” he said, still turning pages, careful not to let the loose leaves escape.

  Louis broke into a wide grin and tapped on a page. “Here it is,” he announced, “Potion for Confidence.”

  He carried the notebook to the shelves and spent a few moments looking between the pages and the jars. “It’s a tea, Mr. McKenzie. And you’re in luck—we’ve got all the ingredients on hand.”

  Knowing that Louis was studying to be a pharmacist made Alex feel, ridiculously, more confident in his abilities. He quickly reminded himself that pharmacist or no, the kid would probably just be selling him a concoction made up of inert powders and common kitchen spices. Louis turned around and set the notebook on the counter.

  “There are some pretty rare ingredients in this mixture, Mr. McKenzie. Miss Lustre’s policy is to collect the fee up front before any potion is prepared.”

  “Of course,” Alex said, pulling his wallet from his back pocket.

  “That’ll be forty-five even,” Louis said, without so much as a hesitation.

  “Dollars?”

  “Mr. McKenzie, this is a very old recipe, and it comes with an incantation.”

  Alex shook his head as he dug out his wallet and counted three twenty-dollar bills onto the counter.

  Louis tapped the bills on the counter to straighten the stack before ringing “No Sale” on the ancient cash register and returning to hand him three fives.

  That kid is going to pocket the money, Alex thought.

  Louis pulled a small glass bowl from beneath the counter and set it beside the notebook and consulted the ingredient list.

  “One large pinch each of parsley, rosemary and thyme,” he read aloud.

  He brought a jar of each of the herbs to the counter, pulled out one large pinch from each and dropped them into the waiting glass bowl. “One small pinch of dried bats wing.”

  Louis returned the herb bottles to the shelf and came back to the counter with a jar of something dried and jet black. When he pulled out the stopper, Alex immediately recognized the aroma of orange pekoe. Alex considered telling Louis to stop and immediately refund his money, but held his tongue and waited for his overpriced tea. The irony of not having the guts to call out the guy making the fake confidence potion was not lost on Alex.

  “Just about there, Mr. McKenzie. One more ingredient—powdered wolf’s blood.”

  Alex fought the urge to roll his eyes.

  Louis bent over the notebook, squinting. He carried it to one of the table lamps and held the page under the red-tinted pool of light.

  “G-R,” he muttered to himself, “G-R…must be ‘gram’.”

  “Problem?” Alex asked.

  “No. No problem, Mr. McKenzie. It’s just odd that Miss Luster had converted this last ingredient to grams. Usually it’s ‘a pinch’ of this or ‘a dash’ of that. Maybe it’s an expensive ingredient and she wanted to make sure not to use any more than necessary.”

  “It couldn’t be ‘grain’, could it?” Alex asked, trying to be helpful.

  Louis pulled the “powdered wolf’s blood” jar from the shelf and brought it to where Alex stood. He yanked out the stopper and peered inside. “Kinda doubt it could be ‘grain’, Mr. McKenzie.”

  He held out the bottle for Alex to inspect. The kid was right, the jar held a deep red, finely ground powder. Separating out a single grain would require tweezers and a magnifying glass. Alex looked in the jar again and realized the powdered wolf’s blood looked an awful lot like paprika.

  Louis placed a clean glass bowl on the digital scale at the other end of the counter and reset it to account for the weight of the vessel. He carefully tapped out the paprika-colored “wolf’s blood” until the scale read precisely 01.00, then replaced the stopper and added the last ingredient to the others. When he returned, he laid the notebook opened beside the glass bowl. He reached under the counter and produced a long, narrow black velvet bag with a drawstring top and pulled out what looked like a black lacquered chopstick.

  Holding the chopstick between his hands, Louis raised his arms over his head until it was pointing at the ceiling. Alex realized the thing he was holding was a wand. Louis closed his eyes and let his head drop backward. He stood that way for several moments, as if meditating.

  Looking back, Alex could remember exactly what he had been thinking at that moment—that maybe this experience was worth the forty-five bucks. It was pretty good theater.

  Louis kept his arms straight, locked at the elbows, as he slowly lowered the wand. His eyes remained closed and his head was still dropped back, yet the tip of the wand came to a rest on the lip of the bowl. He slowly raised his head and opened his eyes and locked Alex in his stare. Alex tried to look away, but he was paralyzed. Some kind of hypnosis, he told himself, still trying to break the gaze. This is just
part of the trick.

  While his intellect wrestled with his instinct, Alex’s stomach knotted. A quiver of nervous energy balled up at his tailbone, and shot up his spine until the electrical current exploded at the base of his skull, shocking the hairs on the back of his neck to attention.

  Even when Louis finally dropped his gaze, Alex couldn’t take his eyes off him. He was mesmerized by the clerk’s every move. The young man seemed different somehow. He wasn’t the college kid who’d opened the door for him. He seemed older now—ageless really. His movements were fluid, like he’d been in his skin for centuries.

  Louis didn’t look up at him again as he carried out the procedure, but Alex couldn’t shake the unfathomable power of his stare. His eyes had seemed jet black. Alex couldn’t tell where the pupil ended and the iris began, but told himself that was just because the pupils were dilated in the dimly lit room. His scientific justification did nothing to address the way those eyes had made him feel.

  Alex’s arms and legs were leaden. His feet seemed a part of the floor. He could feel himself sway slightly; not side to side or back and forth, but in slow, small circles—first clockwise then counterclockwise, over and over again. He doubted that he could stop swaying if he wanted to, but it was a moot point. He didn’t want to stop. Alex felt insignificant, unnoticed. And he felt, maybe for the first time in his life, peaceful.

  Then, like the bloom of a Fourth of July firework, a moment of understanding flashed in his mind. Alex guessed he’d always known that he was self-conscious, but he finally understood what that meant. For once, he didn’t feel like all eyes were on him—waiting for him to make a mistake. His heavy lids fell closed and a smile spread across his face. A thought came into his mind, a whisper really, not in his voice—not in any identifiable voice. It was just a serene, androgynous murmur that told him, After this, Alex, everything will be different.

  His revelation dissolved at the sound of clinking glass. Alex opened his eyes and saw Louis tapping the side of the bowl with the wand. He tapped three times, paused, tapped three times more, paused and tapped a final three times. He began to stir the ingredients while reciting from the notebook,