by Sharon Shinn
“Nah, I need to get back,” he says. “I’m doing a short run for Mark up to Chicago tomorrow, and I need to get organized.”
I’m half relieved and half disappointed. It’s been such a chaotic afternoon that I need a little solitude to review it and decide what I think about my several visitors. But I’m not nearly tired of spending time with Joe.
“Well, travel safely,” I say. “And I’ll see you Saturday.”
He grins down at me. “Can’t wait.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I e-mail Celeste to tell her I have a date for Saturday night because that’s a rule we established long ago: Never go out with a strange man without telling your best friend who might have slit your throat when you turn up dead. I can’t keep up with Celeste’s dizzying assortment of boyfriends, but I do always save the e-mails she sends with the relevant information, only deleting them once she’s dropped that particular guy from her life.
Practically the moment I hit send, my phone rings. It’s Celeste, of course, wanting to discuss my wardrobe options, but I steadfastly refuse to let her bully me into wearing something from her closet. I also won’t tell her where we’re meeting for dinner because I don’t want her “accidentally” running into us while we’re at Paddy-Mac’s, something she’s entirely capable of.
“Honestly, you’d think I’d never gone out with a guy before in my life,” I complain as she starts giving me advice about topics to avoid and precautions to take.
“Well, gee, let’s see. How many people have you dated in the past five years? Two? Including Ryan?”
“Three. You’re forgetting Luke.”
“Who—oh, the shape-shifter dude who looked like your dad.”
“He did not look like my dad!”
“Well, he was at least ten years older than you.”
I shake my head. “Hanging up now. I’ll call you sometime Sunday.”
“Not too early. I’m going out with Rain and some of the other girls Saturday night.”
“Celeste. I would never call you early on a Sunday morning.”
I hear the laugh in her voice. “Have fun.”
* * *
Saturday morning I feed and water all the animals, clear out my e-mail, completely discard the outfit I had decided to wear and put together an entirely new ensemble, which I also discard after lunch. This is ridiculous; my guess is that Joe won’t even notice what I have on, so any carefully calibrated nuance of presentation will be wasted on him. But the high-necked white turtleneck seems too virginal, the tight black cashmere sweater too come-hither, the red blouse with the denim vest too hoedown, the twin-set too librarian. And I’m not wearing a dress and pumps to a pub. In the end, I go back to the black sweater, but cover it up with a casual jacket, and complete the look with black jeans and a pair of boots. I do change belts three times, and necklaces twice, but in the end I’m reasonably satisfied with my appearance.
Before I leave, I track down Daniel, lying in his usual morose state in the barn. I crouch down by him and lift his muzzle so his eyes meet mine and I can be certain he hears me.
“I’m going into town,” I tell him. “My plan is to come back tonight, but if I die on the road, you have to shift into human shape and feed everybody. You got that?”
He beats his tail once against the floor, wearily, then yawns in my face. I take that as a yes. “See you later,” I tell him, and then I’m on my way.
I’ve allowed way more time than I need to get to town, so the sun is still shining mightily as I speed down the empty expanse of W and turn onto the more crowded lanes of 159. I’m happy—I’m actually dancing in my seat a little when the oldies station plays a Go-Go’s song. I laugh out loud when “Footloose” comes on. It seems like a sign.
I kill time at Walmart when it turns out I’m forty-five minutes early, but even so I’m parked and walking into Paddy-Mac’s about ten minutes before the hour. I like the place the minute I step inside. It’s mostly dark paneling and low lighting augmented with a few neon brewery signs, but it has a warm, welcoming vibe to it, a little rumpled, a little mischievous. It makes you feel like it should be easy to have a good time here.
I hadn’t even looked for Joe’s truck on the nearby streets, so I’m surprised to find him already at a booth, nursing a beer and perusing a magazine. I slip into the seat across from him before he realizes I’m even in the restaurant. “What is that, Guns & Ammo?” I say in a teasing tone.
He looks up, a smile breaking across his face. I can hardly describe how good it makes me feel to know that someone is so delighted to see me. “No, Soldier of Fortune,” he retorts.
“I’m not sure I know what that is.”
He laughs. “All about mercenary soldiers and militia for hire.”
I feel my eyes widen. “Really? That’s what you’re reading?”
He holds it up so I can see the cover. Consumer Reports. “Just joking. Though I have leafed through the occasional copy of Guns & Ammo.”
A young waitress has materialized at our table. She’s got dyed red hair pulled back in a ponytail, a fleur-de-lys tattoo on each wrist, and three silver hoops in each earlobe. She’s wearing a hand-lettered name tag that says RACHEL; it’s decorated with ink drawings of cats. I like it that Paddy-Mac’s doesn’t make its employees conform to a conservative dress code. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asks.
“Definitely,” I say in a faint voice. “Something with alcohol. Beer or—I don’t know.”
“This is our first week to offer a new hard cider, and it’s been pretty popular so far,” Rachel answers.
“Oh, that sounds good. I’ll have that.”
She drops off a food menu and heads back to the kitchen. Joe and I regard each other across the table.
“So how’ve you been?” he asks. “In the—let’s see, seventy-two hours since I’ve seen you last?”
“Good. Nothing too exciting has happened in the past three days, though, so we’ll have to talk about the way more distant past if you’re hoping I’ll say anything entertaining.”
“Nothing exciting has happened to you, maybe,” he says. “But my life has been full of drama.”
I laugh and settle back against the padded bench. “Do tell! How was your trip to Chicago?”
“Not bad until I got on the Dan Ryan Expressway to find traffic at a dead standstill. Some big accident just off the highway. Three hours, just sitting there, nobody moving an inch. Drivers started getting out of their cars and talking to the people around them. Sharing food, sharing water bottles. I think I saw one couple meet, fall in love, and decide to get married while we were all just waiting.”
“Sounds horrible.”
“It was that,” he agrees. “On the other hand, none of us were dead, and it turned out that six people died in the crash. So it was hard to be too upset after we heard that.”
“Well, now I’m depressed.”
“Sorry,” he says. “That was meant to be more of an I’m-grateful story than a life-sucks story.”
The waitress brings my cider, which is amazingly good. When she recommends the beef stew and biscuits for dinner, I instantly agree. Clearly this girl knows what she’s talking about.
When she leaves, I pick up the conversation exactly where we left it. “I try to do the grateful thing instead of the bitter thing,” I say. “When I have a bad day—when I’m worried about money—when things just go wrong, I try to count up all the ways I’m lucky. It helps me shake off the mood.”
“Living in America in the twenty-first century,” he says instantly. “Running water, penicillin, and the Internet.”
“I usually count up more specific blessings,” I say. “Good friends, a wonderful house, and work I love.”
“Good health,” he adds. I nod, but inwardly disagree. I’m not thankful for my body, and that’s the truth; I feel like I live with
a severe disability that has shaped every single aspect of my life. Not that I’m planning to admit that to Joe at the moment.
He sips at his beer. “So what sorts of things put you in a bad mood?” he asks. “What makes a ‘bad day’ for you?”
“Stupid things, usually,” I say. “Long lines, heavy traffic, ungrateful clients, automated voice menus when I’m trying to reach a live person, tax bills that I’m not expecting. Flat tires. Broken air conditioners. Dropped cell phone calls.” I take another swallow of the cider. I love this drink. “Like I said. Dumb stuff.”
He leans back and considers me for a moment. “Yeah, none of those seem all that terrible,” he says. “I have to think there’s other things that bother you and you just don’t want to talk about them.”
I pause with the cider bottle halfway to my mouth and regard him in silence. How would he react if I listed for him all the issues that really depress me, all the details that scare me and worry me and tear at my heart? Turning into a wild animal in my father’s backyard. Living in fear that someone will discover that I am living a lie. Seeing everyone I love die too young because shape-shifters have short and violent lives.
“Well, I guess we all have things that bother us that we don’t like to talk about,” I say quietly. “I mean, what makes a bad day for you?”
“When I was on the force, it was seeing the awful things people could do to each other,” he answers readily enough. “Murders. Abuses. Stuff I sure don’t want to talk about now when we’re supposed to be having a nice conversation. These days— Well, if I read about some of those same things in the news, it’ll get to me, but not as much. These days, what bothers me tends to be more personal. You know, what am I doing with my life, have I totally screwed it up, will I ever figure it out? That kind of stuff.”
“You don’t seem to have totally screwed up your life, but I don’t know what you left behind in Joliet,” I say cautiously.
“Busted marriage,” he says. “And a job I was good at, but couldn’t take anymore.”
“I knew about the job,” I say. “I guessed about the marriage. What happened?”
He shrugs and looks away. “She wanted a bigger house and I didn’t. She wanted to move to Chicago and I didn’t. She wanted to go out five nights a week and I didn’t. She was a lot livelier than me all the time, if you know what I mean. She used to say that she brightened me up and I steadied her down. But after a while I think she started feeling that I was pulling her down. Holding her back. I was a lump and she was a butterfly.”
I am listening sympathetically until the very last line, and then I have to strangle a laugh. “I’m guessing that’s something she actually said to you.”
He nods. “Yeah, there was a lot of stuff along those lines, but that’s the phrase that sticks in my head.”
“Well, so far you don’t seem like a lump to me,” I say. “But I don’t know you that well.”
“And you don’t seem like a butterfly,” he replies. “Good as far as it goes.”
I’ve actually been a butterfly once, as it happens, and it was as carefree an existence as I can ever remember. But overall, I don’t consider my transformations as some manifestation of my basic temperament. I’m just not that random and experimental. “What do I seem like?” I ask.
He studies me a moment, either trying to figure it out or trying to put it into words. “The high school valedictorian who turns out to be a racecar driver in her free time,” he answers. “You know, someone who works hard and is super responsible, but then turns out to have this really unexpected secret life.”
It’s all I can do not to choke on my cider. He’s got the specifics wrong, but he’s dead on target in the general sense. “Wow, that makes me sound more interesting than I ever thought I was,” I reply.
“Oh, I think you’re pretty interesting,” he says. “I figure the more I learn, the more interesting you’ll get.”
That might be true, if I had any intention of letting him learn exactly what my secret life entails. “But we were talking about you,” I say, turning the subject. “And whether or not you’ve screwed up your life. What would you want to do if you were starting over?”
“Still working out that part,” he says. “In the meantime, I do odd jobs and hang out with friends and let the days go by.”
“And you coach basketball, too,” I remind him. “Speaking of that, did Alonzo come to practice last night?”
“He did.”
“How’d it go?”
“Not bad. He was pretty quiet—waited for me or Mark to tell him what to do, didn’t trash talk with any of the other kids, kind of kept to himself. But he played pretty well and he seemed to enjoy himself and he said he’d be back next week, so I figured it was a win.”
“Did he go out for ice cream with everyone else?”
Joe shakes his head. “Nah. Bonnie came in with him and sat in the bleachers and watched us the whole time. I swear, she didn’t blink once. Then she took him straight home afterward.”
I muffle a laugh. “Did any of the other parents stay during practice?”
“Sure. A half dozen, maybe. Though most of them were on their phones or their laptops instead of watching the kids play.”
“Well, maybe next week she’ll let him stay for ice cream.”
“Not sure he wants to,” Joe answers. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who just hangs out. Some kids, you know, they have no interest in talking to adults—they just want to be with their peers. Other kids seem kind of awkward with boys and girls their own age. They want to be with the grown-ups having grown-up conversations. But Alonzo didn’t really seem comfortable with kids or adults. He didn’t seem to hate being there, but he didn’t—he didn’t seem like he was going to fit in anytime soon.”
I sigh. “Yeah. I’m not sure where Alonzo is ever going to feel like he belongs.”
I don’t have to elaborate, because this is the moment the waitress chooses to bring over our meals, so we lose the next few minutes to rearranging plates and pushing glasses out of the way and taking our first bites of the food. The beef stew is delicious, and Joe’s hamburger and fries smell just as good.
“I love this place,” I say. “I’m never eating anywhere else.”
“Fine by me.”
I take another bite. “Though I’m not sure I can convince Celeste to come here very often,” I add.
“Celeste—” he says, like he’s trying to remember who she is.
“My best friend.” I glance at him. “The one who had the little incident with Bobby Foucault at Arabesque.”
“Oh, right. The one who turns into a mountain lion.”
Again, I almost choke. I’m tempted to correct him—bobcat, not mountain lion—but, of course, I don’t. Instead I swallow hastily and answer, “Exactly! She prefers establishments that are a little more upscale.”
“As any wild animal would.”
Now I’m laughing. “Do you think so? Wouldn’t they be more comfortable at more casual venues? Picnics, hot dogs from food trucks, that sort of thing?”
He’s grinning. “I never gave it any thought. I suppose so. We’ll have to ask her.”
I try to imagine that conversation and decide I can never introduce the two of them. There’s no telling what kind of answer Celeste would give to that question. “Well, I’m not sure this is her kind of place. But I’m coming back here sometime.”
“Next week, maybe?” he says easily. “We can meet for dinner again.”
A glissando of pleasure tingles up my spine. “That would be fun,” I say.
“We might even make it a habit.”
Before I can respond to that, one of the other patrons stops by our table on his way out of the pub. The friends he’s with pause at the door, talking among themselves as they wait for him.
I’m not thrilled to recognize Sheriff
Wilkerson, looking every inch the benign Andy-of-Mayberry-style representative of the law. The skin crinkles around his blue eyes as he offers me a warm smile. “Well, hello there, Miss Karadel,” he says in that soft Southern drawl. “Good to see you back in town for the evening.”
“Good to see you, too, Sheriff,” I say, my voice as friendly as I can manage.
He jerks his thumb in Joe’s direction. “What are you doing hanging around with questionable characters like this fellow? Don’t you know he’s nothing but trouble?”
He says it in such an exaggerated way that I’m pretty sure he’s joking, and the amusement on Joe’s face makes me think I’m right. I assume an anxious expression.
“Oh no, I scarcely know him,” I answer. “Tell me, quick! What’s so terrible about him?”
“I had him watch my dogs for me one week when I was out of town, and when I got back, they wouldn’t give me the time of day. Just sat at the door all night, whimpering and pining away, hoping Joe would come back. He alienated their affection, that’s what he did.”
“That is pretty bad,” I reply.
“And then, when I tried to convince him to sign on as a deputy, he turned me down! What kind of man doesn’t want to protect and serve? ’Specially a big man with an excellent understanding of firearms.” He shakes his head. “I have to figure he’s up to no good. I just don’t know what it is yet.”
I cut my eyes over at Joe. Sheriff Wilkerson tried to hire him, and Joe turned him down? It reinforces my belief that Joe’s one of the good guys—albeit a somewhat lost and uncertain good guy.
“He does sound suspicious,” I say. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Would you do that for me? And then report anything you’ve learned.”
“I will.”
“Good girl.” He actually pats me on the shoulder as he turns to go. But I’m not surprised that, one step from the table, he turns back. “Have you heard from Miss Janet lately?” he asks.