“Hey, I’ll have some of that,” Celeste says. She doesn’t seem surprised when Bonnie and I cry “No!” in unison.
“So what happens next?” Joe asks as Bonnie dishes up ice cream for dessert. “If you’re not going to tell the cops about the Foucaults, how do we keep Celeste safe?”
“She can stay with me for a few weeks,” Ryan says.
“I’d hate to cramp your style,” she jokes. He doesn’t smile in return; he’s about as serious as I’ve ever seen him.
“You can’t go back to your apartment,” Ryan tells her. “So you’re going to have to move. There are a couple of vacancies in my building, so I could keep an eye on you.”
Celeste usually shrugs off any notion that she might need anyone’s care, but this incident has really spooked her. I see her actually pause to give the idea consideration. “Maybe. I’ll think about it. But can’t I go back just to get some clothes?”
“No,” we all say at once. I add, “I’ll go pick some stuff up for you this afternoon. Just make a list.”
“Take somebody with you,” Joe says quietly.
Aurelia throws him a sharp look. “You think Kara’s in danger from these hoodlums as well?”
Joe nods. “The night they met Celeste, Karadel was in her company, so they know her. Karadel was also along for the joyride past the Foucault property the other day.”
“The what?” Aurelia says.
“Oh, it was just a little fun!” Celeste exclaims. “We wanted to see what Terry Foucault’s junkyard of doom looked like, so we drove by.”
“And they saw you,” Aurelia says. Her voice is dripping with are-you-really-this-idiotic disbelief.
Ryan and Celeste and I briefly exchange glances. No one mentions the gunshot. “They saw us,” Ryan says.
Aurelia gives him a look of withering scorn. “You were along as well?”
“I was driving.”
Joe looks at Ryan for what might be the first time today. “Which leads me to the next thing. You might be in danger, too. Because you were also with Celeste the night she met Bobby Foucault.”
Ryan meets his eyes and says quietly, “I can take care of myself.” There’s something in his tone of voice, in his expression, that gives me a chill; even though he’s not exhibiting any overt signs of aggression, something about him is exuding menace. With a shock, I realize that he’s not stunned and horrified about what happened to Celeste, as the rest of us are. He’s furious.
Joe doesn’t glance away. It occurs to me that he’s got a better read on Ryan than I do—that he probably picked up on that fury the minute he walked in the door. Old cop instincts coming to the fore, helping him identify the likeliest source of trouble. “I’m sure you can,” he answers, his voice just as quiet. “But don’t do anything stupid.”
“It’s obviously too late for that excellent advice,” Aurelia says dryly.
Joe looks at her, and some of the tension goes out of the room. “I still wish you’d tell the cops,” he says. “Or let me do it. Sheriff Wilkerson knows me. He’d believe me if I said the Foucaults had beaten up a girl last night.”
“But wouldn’t you need to produce this girl?” Bonnie says.
“Not necessarily,” Aurelia answers. “There’s a lot of reasons a victim won’t step forward. She’s afraid for her life—she’s got outstanding warrants of her own—she’s a junkie. While upstanding citizens occasionally get attacked by random strangers, the truth is that a lot of violence is perpetrated by people who know each other and who are sometimes living desperate lives.” She glances at Celeste. “Unless there’s proof that a crime occurred, the sheriff can’t arrest the Foucaults, but he can certainly watch them a little more closely. Keep them under surveillance.”
“Probably already doing that,” Joe agrees. “They’ve both got ‘lawbreaker’ written all over their faces.”
“So for the short term, Celeste stays here,” Aurelia says. “And Kara?”
“If you have room for me, I’d like to stay a couple days and look after Celeste,” I say. “After that . . .”
“You’re welcome at my place,” Ryan says warmly. I can’t tell if he makes the offer to embarrass me or annoy Joe.
Who answers, “Or mine,” in a similar tone of voice.
Alonzo, who’s mostly been concentrating on his ice cream, glances up at that. His eyes go from Ryan to Joe and back to Ryan, until he sees me watching him. Then he focuses on his ice cream again.
“I,” I say in a hearty tone, “am going to stay here a few days and then go back and feed my animals and resume my normal life.”
Bonnie shows me a worried face. “Maybe we should talk about that.”
“Well, then, we’ll talk about it later. Let’s just get through the immediate crisis.”
“I’d feel better if someone in this house had a gun,” Joe says.
The rest of us look at Aurelia.
“Oh,” he says.
“I don’t think we have anything to worry about while we’re all together here,” she says. “So let’s just make sure everyone is abnormally careful and observant whenever we’re out and about.”
We all murmur agreement, and then people start stirring and stretching. It’s time for the meal to be over. Alonzo’s the first one to his feet.
“I have deliveries to make this afternoon,” he says. “If it’s okay for me to go.”
“Of course it’s okay!” Celeste exclaims. “I want you to start earning a paycheck! Then you can pay to rent the movies next time we have an X-Men marathon.”
He grins at her. “You have to buy the popcorn, then.”
“I will. Later, my man.”
He nods at the rest of us and ambles out the front door. Moments later, from the dining-room window, I catch a glimpse of him streaking down the street on his bike, headed toward the drugstore.
“I think I’d better be going, too,” Joe says, levering himself up. “Bonnie, thanks for the meal. Celeste—you be good.” She sticks her tongue out at him, and he laughs, then he glances at me. “Walk me out?”
We swing through the backyard to collect Jinx, who bounds out of the gate ahead of us, and Jezebel, who moves with her usual regal calm. The sun is still beating down like a midsummer day, but it’s probably no more than forty degrees out, and I’m instantly cold. I wrap my arms around my body for warmth and follow Joe to the truck.
He opens the door and motions the dogs inside, then turns back to me. “She going to be all right?” he asks in a low voice.
“I think so.”
“Close call. If Ryan hadn’t been there—”
“I don’t even want to think about it,” I interrupt.
He peers down at me; he looks concerned and uneasy. “But you’ll stay here, won’t you, until I come get you? You won’t do anything stupid?”
“You haven’t been paying attention,” I reply. “I never do anything stupid. I’m too responsible.”
He grins faintly and says, “I’ve got a trip tomorrow. Out to Topeka. Be back Wednesday evening. Will you stay here till then?”
“I might go out to my house in the day—with Bonnie and Alonzo and plenty of protection—but I won’t spend the night,” I promise.
He looks like that’s not quite good enough for him, but finally nods reluctantly. “And then maybe we can go out to your place and stay a few days.”
“Poor Juliet will be ready to kill me by then, I’m sure,” I say. “If she hasn’t run off already.”
“Nah, she’s like you. Too responsible.”
I put one hand on his shoulder and rise to my tiptoes to give him a kiss. “Drive carefully. Call me from the road.”
“Every hour too often?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Try it and see.”
* * *
The next couple of days are little but healing and bo
redom, sprinkled with random irritability. Celeste has never been a good patient, because she’s constitutionally incapable of sitting quietly, and Aurelia has never bothered hiding her moods or softening her opinions. It’s easier during the day, when Aurelia leaves for work, but there are still too many people in the house.
“You have to work today?” I ask Alonzo around noon on Tuesday.
“Already did some deliveries this morning,” he tells me.
“Then can you come out to my place for a few hours and protect me while I get some work done?”
“Aurelia keeps the gun locked up.”
He says it absolutely straight-faced, and for a minute I think he’s serious. But my expression must be all he hoped for, because then he cracks up. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll bring my baseball bat.”
We take Celeste’s car, which Ryan and I fetched from her parking lot Monday afternoon. Alonzo has his iPod with him, but consents to listen to the radio as long as I let him change channels every time a song comes on that he doesn’t like. Driving down 159 on a sunny day, communicating only by singing along to the radio, is a pretty good way to hang out with Alonzo. We’re both feeling fairly mellow by the time we arrive at my place.
Everything appears to be in good shape. Some dogs barking, some dogs sleeping in the sun, rabbits sleek and healthy, tenants not murdered by backwoods assassins. The best possible scenario.
Scottie accompanies me as I make the rounds, cleaning up cages, double-checking water levels, and spending extra time with the youngest puppies. So does Helena. She’d been pretty quiet the other night, but now she’s talkative and full of questions. I wonder if this is her natural personality, which only comes out once she’s rested and free of fear, or if she’s in the manic phase of a mild bipolar condition. I only listen with half an ear. I’m a little surprised to see Juliet and Alonzo sitting together on the porch holding a quiet conversation, Desi sleeping at their feet. Juliet doesn’t seem any quicker to warm up to strangers than he is. But maybe when you’re always surrounded by adults, your only defense is to retreat into silence. You can put away that armor when you get a chance to talk to someone your own age. Or maybe each one thinks the other one is cute.
I listen to my voice mail, arrange to make a couple of house calls in Quinville “since it turns out I’ve got some business in town,” and clear out my e-mail. A lot of junk mail has piled up in the past four days, because I haven’t checked my account since before I changed shapes.
The most interesting piece of new mail is a message from Janet’s mom, who hasn’t communicated since I confessed that I thought I was falling for Joe. She writes:
Sweetie—I’m so glad to hear you’ve met a nice man. I know I’m not the best role model for how to pick a life partner, but I think you’re being very wise. It’s not the dashing, exciting, handsome man who will stay with you and love you to the end. It’s the sincere and thoughtful man, the one who maybe isn’t so good-looking but who has the bigger heart.
My eyes widen at the next paragraph; it was something I’d known about, but nothing she’d ever mentioned before.
I was always so crazy for your father, and he was such a bad person. Bad to me, bad to everyone. But I forgave him over and over, because of how he made me feel. I was dizzy when he walked into the room; I just couldn’t wait for him to put his arms around me. But he could be so awful sometimes. He drove you away. He broke my heart. Well, he almost killed me more than once. My life was so much better once I left him. You know I’ve been seeing Bradley for a couple of years now. Not nearly as attractive as your father, but I’ve been so happy with him. I hope you can be just as happy with your new guy.
I hope I can, too, I think. I’m almost ready to try.
* * *
Joe’s back Wednesday by five, and everyone agrees that it’s time for me to move from Bonnie and Aurelia’s place to his.
“Don’t even stay for dinner,” Celeste tells me, practically pushing me out the door. “Seriously. Just leave.”
We haven’t even backed out of the driveway when Joe says in a solemn voice, “Of course, if you’re staying at my place, we have a pretty big decision to make.”
“Oh?” I say. I’m both nervous and excited, but I try to make my voice nonchalant. “What’s that?”
“Eat out or pick up enough food to make dinner at home.”
I had been expecting him to make a crack about sleeping separately or together, so this makes me laugh, which makes me relax a little. “Make dinner at home,” I say. “I’m dying of curiosity to see how you live.”
We purchase a few groceries and head to his house, a rented bungalow on a run-down street where there are no sidewalks and the front lawns just end in a tired interface of dirt and asphalt. Most of the houses are built of white siding, and little distinguishes one from the other except small touches like green shutters or an orange roof. None of them have garages, and few of them have flower gardens or decorative shrubbery to brighten their dull exteriors. I figure Joe would have been just as happy in an apartment or a townhouse except he needed a yard for Jezebel, and now Jinx.
He lets the dogs out of the truck and into the backyard. It’s bigger than I would have thought, enclosed by a chain-link fence, and Jinx immediately goes chasing after squirrels. Jezebel trots over to investigate something hiding under a rusty black metal table that’s set out on the cracked patio. There are no chairs to accompany the table, but I do spot a small barbeque grill.
“Cozy,” I comment.
“Yeah, it’s about the same quality inside.”
He’s right. The neutral interior has been listlessly furnished with beige carpet, off-white drapes, and eggshell-colored paint. In the small kitchen, the flooring is green and the wallpaper features faded images of tomatoes, parsley, and corn. Joe hasn’t made much attempt to decorate. The brown couch is clearly secondhand, and the scarred coffee table probably fifth-hand; there’s not a single piece of artwork on the walls. On the other hand, the widescreen TV is almost as big as my barn.
“I can see what matters to you,” I say.
He grins. “And it’s high-def.”
There are two bedrooms down the dark and narrow hall, though one is functioning as a storage unit, since it’s so crammed with boxes and luggage and unused furniture that you can hardly make your way through it. But he actually seems to have put a little effort into the room he sleeps in. The blue-and-white striped bedspread looks new, there are six big pillows piled against the headboard, and the curtains match the linens. On the dresser there’s finally some evidence of his human connections—framed photos of what I take to be family members, plus a couple of sports trophies and a stack of magazines. There’s another small TV in here, easily visible from the bed.
“Welcome to my palace of seduction,” he says in a deep voice dripping with meaning.
“Yeah, unless there are condoms in the bedside table, nothing about this room really screams seduction to me.”
“Oh, there are all sorts of fun things in the bedside table,” he answers, which makes me laugh again.
“Will it hurt your feelings if I say this is the most depressing house I’ve ever been in?” I ask.
“Nah,” he answers, urging me back down the hall toward the kitchen. “I think it is, too.”
“So why don’t you do something to fix it up? Or at least give it a little personality?”
He shrugs. “Because I don’t have any attachment to it. Because I don’t live here. I’m just staying here. I’m not going to put any effort into it because it doesn’t matter to me.”
“I think, even if I was staying someplace temporarily, I’d have to beautify it a little,” I reply. “If I didn’t do anything except put up a poster of bright red flowers. Something.”
“All right,” he says amiably. “You can decorate. Buy anything you like. Anything that makes the place feel comfortable to you.” br />
“Oooh, Lady Gaga posters and calendars of puppies and kittens?”
“You bet. Mi casa es su casa.”
“This will be an interesting challenge.”
The kitchen is reasonably well stocked with pots and pans and dishes and glasses, so my deduction is that his ex-wife wanted to start all over when it came to cookware and china. We both sip beers while he makes sloppy joes and I toss a salad.
I’m getting ready to set out plates and silverware when I realize, “You don’t have a table. Where do you eat?”
He gestures out the kitchen door. “In front of the TV. Just carry everything to the coffee table.”
He lets the dogs in, so pretty soon we’re all curled up in the living room, relaxed and happy. There’s a baseball game on—neither the Cubs nor the Cards have made the playoffs, so I don’t really care about the outcome, but I like the background noise of strikes and balls and crowd reaction. Jinx has his head on my knee and watches me with soulful desperation until I give him the last bite of my sandwich.
“I wouldn’t think a vet would spoil animals as much as you do,” Joe says. He doesn’t have much room to talk; he’s set his own plate on the floor so Jezebel can lick it clean.
“I remember what it’s like to be in dog form, and I loooooove human food,” I tell him. “It’s the shape-shifter in me, and not the medical professional, who does the spoiling.”
“Probably better for a shape-shifter to eat people food than a real dog.”
“Probably,” I agree.
He collects the dishes and takes them to the kitchen, returning a couple of minutes later with a pair of longnecks. He sets these on the table as he settles next to me on the couch.
“Want another beer?” he asks.
“No,” I say, and scoot around to kiss him.
He doesn’t need a second invitation; he scoops me into his lap and returns the kiss with enthusiasm. For a moment, the heady combination of heat and touch and excitement and desire leave me dizzy. But underlying the wild thoughts, the passionate ones, is a whole other layer of emotion. I feel at ease, I feel protected, I feel like I could strip down to my naked soul and Joe would just gather me closer, hold me tighter, make a safe and solid place for me to come to rest beside his heart.