“Hi, Peter,” I said, and we shook hands.
“Tink told me about the attack several weeks ago,” said Peter. “That must have been awful.”
“It was bad,” I said in great understatement. “Thank heavens Tink was there.”
Putting his arm around Peter, Tink grinned at me. Matéo had told me that they’d lived together for a while, and then Tink had moved back home. I wondered what had happened—they seemed to be getting along well now.
“Here you go,” Matéo said, handing me a clear plastic cup of warm wine. A few orange slices floated in it; I smelled cinnamon and pepper and other spices. My parents had given me little tastes of wine sometimes at family dinners or holidays. I’d never liked the puckery, tannic taste. But this—this was delicious. It soothed my throat, and I felt like I could drink a gallon of it, which would not be a good idea.
“Vivi! Is that you?” Suzanne’s wide blue eyes were disbelieving to the point of almost being insulting. I knew I usually looked fairly casual, but was it that big of a change? Okay, of course it was. Irritated, I gulped down some wine. Its warmth curled up comfortingly in my belly. I was grateful when Aly took my arm and steered me over to introduce me to some friends.
Of all the people at the party, I knew the ones I already lived with, plus Charlotte and several of the people we had gone to the river with, and now Peter. After meeting the third stranger, I stopped being able to put names with faces and resigned myself to having to fake it through a lot of conversations. Having a cup to hold and sip from gave me something to do during the few awkward silences. But everyone was pretty friendly, most of the guys were openly admiring, and after about half an hour I realized I was having fun.
Someone possibly named Sydney was telling about how she almost changed by accident on a Disney World roller coaster when she was fourteen. It was so funny, and I wondered if I would have felt different about everything if I had grown up around a lot of other young haguari. Why had my parents decided to settle in a place where we were practically the only ones? After months of listening to Matéo and Aly tell stories about growing up, how much fun they’d had, how many haguari their parents had known, it was easy to believe that I might have had a completely different viewpoint on the whole thing if I’d been surrounded by kids like me.
“I was like, I hope this harness can still hold me, and planning how to leap out when we were near the ground. . . .” Sydney was saying, and we were all laughing, picturing it.
“And you could run and go hide in the Animal Kingdom,” I suggested, and she said, “Exactly!” and the others wiped tears of laughter from their eyes.
It was fun, fitting in like this, feeling like I was a member of a special club just by existing. These people were interesting, friendly, and bright. I was one of them. Smiling and sipping, I glanced around. Across the room I saw the altar that Aly and I had decorated. As people passed it, they casually touched their fingers to their lips, then to the statues, usually one or the other, not both. My parents had never done that—what was that for?
At some point someone refilled my cup again, and I inhaled the spicy wine scent deeply and swayed a bit on my feet. I needed to eat something. I sidled away from my group and headed outside to the food tables, my bare feet a tiny bit numb on the cool marble front steps. In the yard, all of my cake and cookies were gone, which was a gratifying disappointment. Someone had brought some not-very-Fécinte hamburger sliders, which I was thrilled to see. A couple of sliders, a handful of curried nuts, and a hunk of pomegranate filled my plate, and then I saw Charlotte at the next table cutting an apple pie, and I quickly got in line.
After I had acquired a piece of pie, I headed to an empty spot on the cement garden bench under the crape myrtle tree. I snagged it, balancing my plate on my knees and setting my wine on the ground. The grass was slightly damp, and when I inhaled, I smelled earth and wind. Looking up, I saw dark gray clouds moving quickly across the sky, blotting out the moon and stars. I hoped it wouldn’t rain till much later—this many voices inside the house would be overwhelming. There seemed to be much more than sixty people here, all of them like me. It was unbelievable. It was hard to feel like a freak. In fact, surrounded by so many strangers, I felt the most normal I ever had.
I was snarfing my way across my plate when a guy sat next to me, his leg touching mine. He was talking to other people in front of him but turned to say hello. His polite glance became a more focused head-to-toe exam, and then he smiled and held out his hand.
“Hello there. I’m Alex,” he said.
I put down my plastic fork and shook his hand. “Vivi.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you, Vivi,” he said, and his voice took on a silky note. “Why haven’t I met you before?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been here almost three months,” I said, realizing with surprise that that was true.
“Ah,” Alex said. “Well, I’ve been traveling a lot.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a buyer for restaurants,” he said, turning more toward me. Over his shoulder I spotted a girl looking at us with irritation, as if I had distracted him from her. “Basically I travel all over a radius of five hundred miles and find the best seafood, meat, vegetables, and so on. The closer the better. Then I hook them up with restaurants here in town and get a cut of all the purchases the restaurants make. Lately I’ve been sourcing more organic stuff—it’s more in demand, and people are willing to pay for it.”
“That’s really interesting,” I said admiringly. “I never knew that was a job.”
“There are many buyers in every city with a lot of restaurants,” Alex said.
I smiled at him, hoping I didn’t have anything on my teeth. Just in case, I took a big sip of wine. Alex grinned and drank from his own cup. He was really good-looking and seemed oddly familiar—something about the way the corners of his dark eyes crinkled, and the wave of his thick black hair, sparked recognition in me—but I was sure I hadn’t met him before.
“What about you? What do you do?”
“I’m taking a year off between high school and college,” I said, trying not to sound defensive. “Right now I’m working at a coffee shop, trying to figure out what I want to do.”
“Cool,” said Alex politely.
Nervously I drained my cup, and then I realized that the world was tilting very slightly, and my tongue felt a bit thicker.
“Can I refill your glass?” Alex said, holding out his hand.
“Yeah, sure,” I said somewhat breathlessly. “Maybe just a soft drink or something?”
“You got it.” Alex disappeared into the crowd while I leaned back on my hands on the bench and tried to evaluate these new sensations.
This was being tipsy, I decided, and grinned a little. Very faintly, very far off, I thought I heard a low rumble of thunder. The clouds were poufy like gray wool that hadn’t been spun yet, but the festive paper Chinese lanterns lit the yard well enough so people wouldn’t trip. Everywhere I looked, people were smiling, talking, leaning close to each other. It was so fun. This was a great party, and I was having a lovely time.
“Here you go,” said Alex, handing me a cup. “Actually, they were all out of soda. It was a choice of beer or wine. I went with wine.”
“Good choice,” I said, and drank. Dee-lish.
“Everyone! Can I have your attention!” Aly stood on the front porch, banging a spoon against a metal pot. “Come on, people! Come on inside! Time for the ceremony!”
“Ah, yes, the reason we’re all here,” said Alex. “May I escort you inside?” He held out his arm, seeming so old-fashioned and gentlemanly that I smiled and said, “Uh-huh.”
Standing up was unusual. I normally had a great sense of balance, but my spine had gotten wobbly and was harder to control. Thankful that I was barefoot and not wearing heels, I took Alex’s arm, unable to tell if it seemed natural or if I had lunged at him alarmingly. Time to put the wine down.
Alex was tall, at least five i
nches taller than me, which I didn’t see often. We moved toward the house, me leaning on Alex’s arm perhaps a bit more than I meant to, and headed up the front steps with a sea of people. As the crowd shuffled through the double front doors, I suddenly felt too hot and kind of claustrophobic. People pressed around me on all sides, the floor lurched beneath my feet, and there was no air. My stomach started to roil, and panic began its slow, cold crawl up my legs to my throat.
We were heading in for the Fécinte ceremony. Aly and Matéo had put it together and it would be really cheerful with all these people. I’d resigned myself to take part in it, realizing I was less willing to hurt my newfound cousin than I had been to hurt my own parents. But now I was thinking I had to get out of here because I might barf. The very thought of more wine made my throat clench, and I deeply regretted the nuts that now sat sourly in my stomach like curried rocks. Plus shrimp and pie and sliders . . . oh no, what had I done?
I disentangled myself from Alex’s arm and looked up at him. “Excuse me a second. I’ll be right back.” Giving him a lopsided smile, I edged cautiously through the crowd, my lips pressed tightly together in a face that was suddenly clammy and tingling. Ducking under the ribbon closing off the stairway made the whole world slide sideways. I swallowed hard and breathed through my nose. Please do not let me tumble down these stairs, I thought, and clutched the wooden handrail. The world was tilty and my feet kept misjudging the height of the steps. I was sure people were watching me head upstairs, and I would be so mortified if I looked as stupid or as wasted as I felt.
By the top step I was gulping convulsively. Relief mixed with dread as I quickly wove my way to my room at the front of the house. Thank the gods I lived here and didn’t have to worry about getting home.
I felt awful.
The hallway was dark, and already the sounds from below were muted slightly. I practically crashed through my bedroom door, yanking on the ornately carved brass doorknob that sometimes didn’t catch properly. Tacking my way toward the bathroom, I reached it not a moment too soon, and for the first—and I promised myself the last—time in my life threw up from drinking too much. My whole system was saying, I forcefully reject the crap you shoveled into me tonight, and I will now expel it without your consent!
Afterward I felt drained and trembly but much better. This party was definitely over for me, though I could faintly hear the blessings they were saying for a metaphorical harvest, the acknowledgments of Tzechuro and Tzechura as the god and goddess of our people. They didn’t sing the traditional song that I’d learned as a child, I guessed because it was in an obsolete mingling of Spanish, Portuguese, and old Olmec. Not everyone here was from the same background: Our people existed on every continent, in most countries, in every race. We’d been around a long, long time. Vaguely I remembered hearing my parents talking about it—I’d been in the backseat of the car, almost sleeping, and we’d been driving home from a party at their friends’. Papi had been saying that Hassan’s mother felt that the Egyptian Tzechuro and Tzechura were much more authentic than our Brazilian ones. Mami had laughed and said that her mother had always felt the same way—that we, the Brazilian haguari, were the real, oldest haguari, the original ones. Other clans were new upstarts. They had both laughed, then quieted their voices so they wouldn’t wake me up.
I was pretty glad they couldn’t see me now.
Getting to my feet with a groan, I was thankful to see that Aly’s gorgeous dress had escaped much damage. I took it off carefully and hung it up, then put on the huge T-shirt I slept in. Being able to breathe in deeply felt wonderful. I don’t know how women used to wear actual corsets.
“Yep, definitely a freak of nature,” I muttered, looking in the mirror over the sink. My face was a pale green similar to my bedroom walls, with large dark circles under my eyes. Brushing my teeth and splashing cold water on my face helped, but all I wanted was to go to sleep and never, ever drink again.
When I opened the bathroom door, the first thing I saw was my lovely tall bed that was practically calling my name. With any luck, I wouldn’t get the spins when I lay down. Then a small, silent movement caught my eye, and a huge jaguar stepped silently through my doorway, nudging the door open with its wide shoulder and heavy head. Its mouth dropped open, and its lips curled up to show me its fangs.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“WHO ARE YOU?” I ASKED sternly. “You need to go back downstairs.”
The jaguar’s wide nose wrinkled and its eyes narrowed as it took two soundless steps toward me.
“Look, this is a private room. The party is downstairs. Out!” I frowned and pointed at the open door. A low, rumbling growl floated through the room, as if thunder could emanate from the jaguar’s deep chest. It took another step closer, enormous muscles moving with grace and unmistakable power.
That was when it occurred to me to be scared.
What if this wasn’t a party guest? What if it was the jaguar who had attacked Tink? Or maybe even it was a party guest, but Matéo and Aly didn’t know it was a traitor.
I took a step back toward the bathroom. After ten minutes of throwing up, I was shaky and not at the top of my game. I still hadn’t mastered changing on command. Unfortunately, I would be able to deal with this threat only as a jaguar myself.
“Who are you?” I tried again. “What do you want?” My voice sounded much less sure. How long would the solid wooden bathroom door last against a grown jaguar? About fifteen seconds. Maybe.
The big cat gave another growl that seemed to shudder right through my gut. My only option was to rush back into the bathroom, try to get the door locked in a split second, then scream for help out of the open window. Which was on the other side of the house from the fairly loud party. By the time I got the window open, the cat would have smashed right through the door.
Then it would cut my heart out. And I would never know why.
The edges of the room got blurry and dark. My fingers felt icy—I was going to faint. That would make things simpler for everyone. I took another step backward, and again it came closer. It was now one leap away. A split second would see its jaws closing around my skull.
Through my increasing haze I didn’t hear footsteps in the hall, but then Aly was there, pushing my door wider. “Vivi? I heard that you—”
She saw the big jaguar and frowned. “What are you doing in here?”
“Oh gods, Aly, do you know him?” I asked thinly, weaving on my feet.
“Vivi! Sit down!” Aly hurried over and pressed me down onto the antique slipper chair in front of one window.
Across the room the jaguar roared, but in a small way, not shaking the windows.
“Shut up, you idiot!” Aly snapped. “Don’t you see that you’ve scared her to death?”
The jaguar blinked and immediately sat down, then sank to the floor, changing back into a human before my eyes. The thick pelt disappeared, muscles atrophied, smooth tan skin emerged . . . in less than thirty seconds the familiar, dark-haired, naked human was standing up.
“Alex?” I said weakly.
“I’m so sorry, Vivi,” he said sincerely. “I thought you’d think it was funny. I kept waiting for you to laugh.”
“Funny?” I repeated.
“It’s not funny to be threatened by a stranger,” Aly said sharply. “Vivi, I’m so sorry. This oblivious idiot is my brother, Alex.”
“I’m really sorry,” Alex repeated.
“Hello? Naked guy? Still threatening,” I said, keeping my eyes locked on the wall.
“Oh.” Alex got a pillow from my bed and held it over his crucial parts. “I think my clothes are in the hall.” He turned and hustled out, but of course we got a great view of his bare butt.
Aly shook her head and sighed. “He’s older than me by a whole year, but that hasn’t sunk in yet. Now, what happened to you? Coco told me she saw you come upstairs, not looking great.”
“I drank too much,” I admitted. “Got sick as a dog.”
“Oh, no
!” Aly laughed ruefully. “Yeah, that mulled wine can knock you on your ass. How are you feeling now?”
“I was doing better till I came out and found a strange jaguar in my room,” I said.
“Really, so sorry,” said Alex, coming back into my room and tossing the pillow back onto my bed. His jeans were zipped but not snapped, and his shirt was unbuttoned and hung open, exposing his great chest. He looked like the cover of a steamy romance novel. “I really thought you’d laugh, maybe throw something at me, maybe change yourself. I didn’t realize you weren’t feeling well.”
“I didn’t recognize you,” I said, suddenly remembering that I was sitting here in nothing but my underwear and a big T-shirt. I crossed my arms over my chest.
Alex looked surprised.
“Let’s go downstairs and leave Vivi alone,” Aly said firmly, standing up. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?” She rubbed my shoulder and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
I shook my head. “I think I’ll just try to go to sleep. But thank you again for everything you did to get me ready. I felt like Cinderella. Till I barfed.”
Aly smiled. “I was glad to do it—it was fun to show you how beautiful you are. I know you’ll feel a lot better in the morning. Now, come on,” she said, taking Alex’s arm. As I saw them standing next to each other, I realized why Alex had seemed familiar: There was definitely a family resemblance. In a way, Alex was more handsome than Aly was beautiful—I mean, Aly was really pretty, but he was gorgeous. As beautiful in his own way as Rafael was in his way.
Once they closed my bedroom door, I went over quietly and locked it. I was not up for any more surprise visitors tonight.
• • •
After the party I was even more determined to learn how to change. If I’d been able to change, I would have felt safer when Alex had come in. Also I had, for once in my life, felt like one of the crowd. All of them, everyone at that party, knew how to change, how to express both sides of themselves. I was the only one there who didn’t. I didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to stand out among my own kind.