Still Life With Shape-Shifter

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Still Life With Shape-Shifter Page 14

by Sharon Shinn


  Ann, by contrast, is her usual delightful self, though a somewhat more sedate version. After William’s alarming announcement, I am watching her even more closely than I ordinarily would, and what I mostly notice is how much she’s slowed down. She doesn’t fling herself across the room with her usual manic energy; now she strolls, or even saunters. As best I can tell from her frequent absences and my own hours at work, she sleeps about half of every day. Even so, she never seems entirely rested. She yawns a lot, or drowsily curls up against William on the couch. But she doesn’t seem unhappy; she doesn’t seem sick. She doesn’t complain of fever or pain. I can’t tell from observation if there’s anything wrong, and when, one afternoon, I ask her outright, she merely laughs.

  “Nothing,” she says. “Is there anything wrong with you? Except that you’re a big ol’ worrywart?”

  No. No, that’s my main affliction.

  During this three-week period, I hear from Brody seven times.

  Twice he sends brief, cheery e-mails with attachments he thinks will amuse me. One is an article about his sister Brandy’s winning a humorous internal company award for “most likely to stare down a tiger in the wild.” What did I tell you? he writes on his accompanying message. One is an article about two Oregon hunters who claim to have photographed a half-man-half-beast creature in some cave off the rocky coast. The creature is so obviously fake that you can actually see the store price tag hanging off the actor’s left elbow. This is what I’m competing with. This is what the vast American public believes is the true nature of shape-shifters, his message says this time. And you wonder why I’ve made no progress on my book.

  I’ve wondered no such thing. But I cannot keep myself from replying though I know it will only encourage him to stay in touch. Maybe you need a new topic. Maybe it’s time to expose the atrocities of kitten hoarders. He answers with a message box that holds only a smiley face.

  Three times he phones. Like the e-mails, the calls are short and amusing. Once he wants to know if Slices will deliver a whole pie to his downtown address. Once he opens with, “I know it’s a long shot, but would you have any interest in going to a hockey game tonight?” And once he calls to see if I’ll have dinner with him if he drives down from the city.

  I turned down the hockey game, so I can’t believe it when my response to the dinner invitation is, “I’d love to.”

  But Ann and William have disappeared again, and the house has taken on that echoing sound, and it’s the weekend, and I’ve remembered the kind of soul-stealing loneliness that you only feel when you aren’t expecting to be alone. I brace myself for a series of questions and subtle attempts to draw me out, but in fact Brody spends most of the evening talking. He’s just finished writing an article about a college professor who’s taken his whole undergraduate accounting class down to Mexico to help a group of village women organize a profitable business around their traditional crafts of pottery and weaving.

  “I love this kind of stuff,” he says, still buzzing with enthusiasm. “You know—‘one man can make a difference’ acts of faith and inspiration. Putting good into the world in tangible ways. Makes me feel like a piker. Makes me feel like I should find someone and donate a kidney. Do something to make my life worthwhile.”

  “You don’t think you’ve done anything worthwhile up to this point?” I ask.

  “Nothing big,” he says. “Nothing that has changed someone else’s life in a material way for the better.”

  If you write your book, you’ll change mine in a material way for the worse, I think. “There’s still time,” I say. “Maybe you’ll save a drowning kid or win the lottery and give all the money to charity.”

  He’s regarding me quizzically. “You don’t think about these things?” he asks. “Making the world a better place? Leaving your mark?”

  “If I say no,” I reply, “will you think less of me?”

  “I would think less of you if you were a serial killer,” he answers. “Anything other than that, I think I’d just find intriguing. Still trying to figure you out.”

  “I never really felt like I had that much time or energy left over to try to save the world,” I say. “Mostly I’m just trying to keep things together. Get through the day.”

  He tilts his head, still watching me, as if sifting my words for more meaning, so I elaborate. “You know a little bit about my life growing up. Gwen was—odd. Unreliable. My father started getting sick when I was a teenager, and he was pretty much out of it by the time I was in college. I’ve been taking care of Ann since I was ten years old—I was practically her only parent by the time I was eighteen. I never had much time for idealism. I was just trying to get dinner on the table.” I shrug. “Maybe it sounds selfish. Maybe someday I’ll start volunteering at soup kitchens. Probably not anytime soon, though.”

  He nods, as if something in my answer has satisfied him, and asks, “How’s Ann?”

  I tense up a little, but it’s the first time he’s posed a direct query about her since he met her, and this question could be viewed as innocuous. “Good. Tired. I think she’s run herself pretty ragged, so she spends a lot of time lolling around the house when she and William aren’t off—” I’m not sure how to complete the sentence. “Hiking or something,” I end lamely.

  “William?”

  I nod glumly. “Her boyfriend.”

  “Sounds like you’re not a fan.”

  “I don’t dislike him. He’s a little old for her, maybe, and kind of a strange guy, but I don’t think he’s abusive or anything. Just—odd.”

  He nods. “Like Gwen was odd.”

  It’s a split second before I remember I’d used the same word to describe my stepmother, and another moment before I realize what I’ve revealed to him. He knows—or at least suspects—that Gwen was a shape-shifter; and now he suspects the same of William. But because he made me a promise, he won’t ask outright.

  I tilt my chin defiantly. “Now that you mention it,” I say, “they’re a little bit alike.”

  He grins. “Just what I’d have expected. Maybe he’ll turn out to be a good choice for her, then.”

  My voice is icy. “I don’t have any say in the matter one way or the other. So I’m doing my best to like him.”

  “I’m sure you are. I’d love to meet him.”

  “I can’t imagine you will.”

  But of course, the seventh time I hear from Brody during that three-week period, that’s exactly what happens.

  It’s around noon on Saturday, I’m clearing away the lunch dishes, and Ann and William are trying to decide where they want to spend the next couple of days. The weather forecast is sublime—sunny days predicted to hit sixty degrees, dry nights no colder than forty—and she wants to take him down to Johnson Shut-ins State Park. He seems to think it’s too far, so he’s been offering alternate venues. I try not to wonder why he’s so bothered by the distance, which isn’t that extreme. Maybe he’s feeling lazy. Maybe he’s worried that the rain will move in sooner than the weatherman says. Surely he’s not concerned that Ann doesn’t have the strength to make it that far.

  “You don’t have to go at all,” I say as I load the plates into the dishwasher. “I told you, Debbie’s having me over tonight for Charles’s birthday. She’d be glad to have you guys, too. I’m sure there’s plenty of food—Debbie always makes enough to feed the whole neighborhood.”

  William shows me the expression I like best, a curiously sweet smile laced with humor and self-knowledge. “Dinner parties are not my natural habitat,” he says.

  “Well, you wouldn’t have to worry about Charles and Debbie, who like all kinds of weird people,” Ann says. “But I don’t feel like I can sit still at someone’s house and behave. I’m all—” Her whole body twitches in a simulated spasm. “On edge. I need to run. I need to see the world a different way. I need to shift.”

  That’s when the doorbell rings.

  For a moment I’m frozen—Who’s there? Did they hear Ann’s last remark?—ev
en though common sense says the door’s too thick, and her voice is too soft too carry. My pulse is already at double time when I hurry across the room to open the door, and it kicks into a frantic beat when I see Brody on the other side.

  “I swear I’m not stalking you, I swear I really did have a reason to be in Dagmar,” he says, talking fast. “Had an interview this morning with a guy who runs a business right across the street from Corinna’s, and I thought, what the hell, it’s ten minutes out of my way, I’ll see if Melanie’s home.”

  Ann has come dancing up behind me, her smile so bright that I can feel it even with my back to her. “Brody! Come on in! Are you hungry? We just finished lunch, but there’s plenty left.”

  His eyes cut sideways to acknowledge her, but then he looks right back at me. “Not if Melanie doesn’t want me to come in.”

  “Don’t be silly.” She pushes past me to unlatch the door and swing it open in an inviting way. “You can meet William.”

  Brody remains unmoving on the porch, his eyes locked on mine. I haven’t said a word. I’m furious, I’m frightened, I’m trying to figure out how to play this. Did he hear Ann’s careless declaration? I need to shift. Will he take one look at William and instantly know what he is? He’s odd—like Gwen was odd. Will it make things better or worse if I lock him out of the house and refuse to speak to him again and force myself, though it seems impossible, to henceforth remain unmoved by his careless charm?

  It almost seems as if he can hear what I’m thinking. “Just let me know what you want,” he says in a soft voice. “I won’t do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

  “Sure,” I say finally, my own voice rusty. “Come on in.”

  I turn away and let Ann act as his hostess, chattering as she leads him toward the old oak table. “I’ve had lunch,” he says.

  “You could have a soda,” she suggests.

  “That sounds great. Something without caffeine if that’s an option.”

  I head to the kitchen to fetch a chilled Sprite, so I don’t witness the introductions Ann makes between Brody and William. I assume they shake hands—I hear William mumble something—but it’s Brody’s response that gets my attention and makes me whirl around so fast I almost drop the can.

  “Have I met you before?” Brody says. He sounds puzzled, or maybe just thoughtful, dredging through old memories.

  William is wearing a half-smile that clearly indicates Brody has asked a stupid question. “I don’t think so. I’ve never been to Dagmar till recently.”

  “No, it wasn’t here. You just look so familiar.”

  William hunches a shoulder and doesn’t answer. By this time, I’ve made it over to the table, and I hand Brody the can, belatedly thinking to ask, “Did you want a glass? And ice?”

  “No, this is fine. Thanks.”

  “Sit down, sit down,” Ann says, still acting as hostess. “Brody, would you like some cookies? They’re just store-bought, but they’re pretty good.”

  “No, no dessert, thanks. Unless you have pie,” Brody says, sinking to a seat. The rest of us arrange ourselves around the table though no one actually relaxes. I have the notion that William has gone into some kind of feral high alert, like a hare trying to outsmart a wolf. Brody, who is leaning casually against his chair back, is clearly still sorting through his memories, looking for a match. Ann is bouncing around like a child who’s eaten too much candy, and I’m as tense as a violin string. If you ran a finger across my forearm, you’d wake a low G.

  “Sorry, no pie,” Ann says. “But you and Mel could drive over to Slices if you’d like.”

  He glances her way. “You’d come, too, wouldn’t you?”

  She shakes her blond head. “William and I were just leaving. We’re going to spend the weekend—” She pauses, then smiles luminously. “Camping.”

  “Tents and amenities, or roughing it?” Brody asks.

  Now she laughs. “Roughing it.”

  “I need a tent and a sleeping bag,” Brody says, “but I scorn these modern-day campers who set up their RVs in the state park and get electricity and water and cable TV, for God’s sake.”

  “Mel hates to camp,” Ann says.

  Everyone looks at me, so I figure I have to speak. “That’s putting it too mildly,” I say, making some effort to sound humorous. “Absent the apocalypse, I’m never going camping again.”

  William unexpectedly enters the conversation again. “You should do it the way we do,” he says. “Then you’d change your mind.”

  There is a brief silence while everyone at the table considers what exactly he might mean by that.

  Then Brody looks over at me with a smile that is both understanding and amused. “So if they’re going to be gone all weekend,” he says, “are you free? We could go to dinner tonight. Or see a movie. Or something.”

  “Darn,” I say in a voice of exaggerated regret. “I can’t. I have plans this evening. Too bad.”

  Ann sits up. “Hey, take him with you to Debbie’s. She won’t mind.” In fact, Ann knows that Debbie would more than not mind. I’ve told her Debbie’s completely inappropriate response to Brody’s appearance in my life. Debbie would love to have him at her house tonight.

  But I just say, “Oh, I couldn’t. How rude.”

  By this time, Brody and I have had enough conversations that he can name the major players in my life. “Debbie—that’s your best friend from high school, right?”

  I nod. “Her husband’s birthday is today, and she’s having me over for dinner.”

  Ann jumps up. “I’ll ask her if Brody can come.”

  She’s racing off to find the phone before I’ve quite registered what she’s planning. “What? Wait—Ann—”

  I’m on my feet and about to run after her when William suddenly says, in a voice that nails me to the spot, “I know where I met you before.”

  I glance over at Ann, who’s punching numbers into the phone, then down at William, who’s leaning slightly forward in his chair. I had that wrong before. Not prey—predator.

  Brody is still lounging in his own seat. “Really? I can’t place it. Where?”

  “At Maria’s house.”

  At first Brody looks bewildered. “Maria—?” But I can see the exact moment he puts the pieces together. “Maria Devane. When I went there to interview her. You’re right. That was you.”

  Now William’s grin widens to lupine proportions. He looks like he’s just eaten a meal raw, and liked it. “Sorry if I hurt you.”

  Brody shrugs. He appears to be wholly at ease, but I’m wondering if he’s just very good at hiding stress or animosity. “Hazard of the profession. Sometimes people don’t like it when you come knocking on their doors, asking questions.”

  I insert myself into the conversation. “What questions?”

  Brody gestures in William’s direction. Neither man bothers to look up at me. They just continue watching each other across the table. “Last year. I was trying to get reaction interviews from people who worked with a murder victim’s wife. I went to the house of a woman named Maria Devane, and William was there, and—let’s just say he made it forcefully clear he didn’t think I should be bothering her.”

  “It’s Maria Romano now,” William says, as if this one detail is the most important part of Brody’s speech.

  “Maria?” I repeat, aiming the question at William. “Your Maria? Your sister-in-law?”

  I’m finding it a little difficult to accept the magnitude of these particular coincidences. Maria took care of Ann a few months ago when Ann needed shelter; Brody showed up at Maria’s door and happened to encounter William at her side. How odd that Brody’s life has already intersected, even so tangentially, with Ann’s, with William’s. He has dedicated his recent life to finding shape-shifters, and yet, before he even knew they existed, he practically stumbled across two of them at one woman’s house.

  Unless meeting William was one of the things that sent Brody on this quest to begin with. Unless Brody also encounter
ed Ann while he was interrogating Maria. Unless that’s the reason he first showed up at my door.

  I find that I can’t speak. I can scarcely breathe or swallow. Not that anyone is expecting me to contribute another comment. The men are still eying each other, measuring each other. William still looks poised to pounce, but Brody, though he keeps his face perfectly amiable, doesn’t look ready to back down. Distantly, as if the sound is coming from an alternate universe, I hear Ann’s laughter. She’s across the room, on the phone with Debbie, oblivious to the undercurrents of our conversation.

  “Sister-in-law,” Brody repeats. “That explains why you were so protective.”

  “My brother was out of town. I was watching out for her. You made her nervous.”

  “Didn’t mean to,” Brody says. “Just trying to get information. Part of my job.”

  “There are some things people don’t need to know,” William says.

  Into the silence that falls between them then, Ann’s laughter sounds again, closer this time. She’s heading back toward the table, the cordless phone pressed against her ear. “You tell her,” she says, and offers me the handset. “Debbie wants to talk to you.”

  I shake my head. “Tell her I’ll call her back.”

  That’s when Ann senses the hostility at the table. She quirks her eyebrows but doesn’t look too alarmed. Speaking into the phone again, she says, “She’ll call you in a few minutes . . . Sure . . . Okay, tell Charles happy birthday from me!” She makes a kissing sound and disconnects. “Debbie says you should bring Brody to dinner tonight.”

  “What a surprise,” I say.

  Brody finally looks away from William to glance up at me. “I’d love to go,” he says, “but I’m not feeling any great sense of welcome from you.”

  “You’re kidding,” I say in exaggerated shock.

  He grins; Ann laughs again. But her restlessness permeates the air, blows through and dissipates the tension that holds the rest of us in place. “William. Let’s go,” she says, her voice half command and half supplication. “We want to get there before sunset.”

 

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