Lyle
“Just don’t do the teeth thing and you’ll be all right,” Tyrone said.
“Teeth thing? What teeth thing?”
“You know, how when you get nervous, your teeth start to protrude like your muzzle’s pushing out and you’re about to shift your skin. It’s not so pretty.”
“Thanks for adding to the tension,” I told him. “Now I’ve got that to worry about as well.”
I stepped closer to the mirror and ran a finger across my teeth. Were they already pushing out?
“I don’t even know why you’re going through all of this,” Tyrone said.
“I want to meet someone normal.”
“You mean not like us.”
“I mean someone who isn’t as jaded as we are. Someone with a conventional life span for whom each day is important. And I know I’m not going to meet her when the clans gather, or in some bar.”
Tyrone shook his head. “I still think it’s like dating barnyard animals. Or getting a pet.”
“Whatever made you so bitter?”
But Tyrone only grinned. “Just remember what Mama said. Don’t eat a girl on the first date.”
Mona
“Now don’t forget,” Sue said. “Build yourself up a little.”
“You mean lie.”
“Of course not. Well, not a lot. And it might help if you don’t seem quite so bohemian right off the bat.”
“Pete liked it.”
Sue nodded. “And see where that got you. The bohemian artist type has this mysterious allure, especially to straight guys, but it wears off. So you have to show you have the corporate chops as well.”
I had to laugh.
“I’m being serious here,” Sue said.
“So who am I supposed to be?” I asked.
Sue started to tick the items off on her fingers. “Okay. To start with, you can’t go wrong just getting him to talk about himself. You know, act sort of shy and listen a lot.”
“I am shy.”
“When it does come to what you do, don’t bring up the fact that you write and draw a comic book for a living. Make it more like art’s a hobby. Focus on the fact that you’re involved in the publishing field—editing, proofing, book design. Everybody says they like bold and mysterious women, but the truth is, most of them like them from a distance. They like to dream about them. Actually having them sitting at a table with them is way too scary.”
Sue had been reading a book on dating called The Rules recently, and she was full of all sorts of advice on how to make a relationship work. Maybe that was how they did it in the fifties, but it all seemed so demeaning to me entering the twenty-first century. I thought we’d come further than that.
“In other words, lie,” I repeated and turned back to the mirror to finish applying my mascara.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn any. On some other date gone awry, I supposed, then I mentally corrected myself. I should be more positive.
“Think of it as bending the truth,” Sue said. “It’s not like you’re going to be pretending forever. It’s just a little bit of manipulation for that all-important first impression. Once he realizes he likes you, he won’t mind when it turns out you’re this little boho comic book gal.”
“Your uptown roots are showing,” I told her.
“You know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, I did. Everybody wanted to seem normal and to meet somebody normal, so first dates became these rather strained, staged affairs with both of you hoping that none of your little hangups and oddities were hanging out like an errant shirttail or a drooping slip.
“Ready?” Sue asked.
“No.”
“Well, it’s time to go anyway.”
Lyle
“So what are you going to tell her you do for a living?” Tyrone asked as we walked to the Café. “The old hunter/gatherer line?”
“Which worked real well in Cro-Magnon times.”
“Hey, some things never change.”
“Like you.”
Tyrone shrugged. “What can I say? If it works, don’t fix it.”
We stopped in front of the Half Kaffe. It was five minutes to.
“I’m of half a mind to sit in a corner,” Tyrone said. “Just to see how things work out.”
“You got the half a mind part right.”
Tyrone shook his head with mock sadness. “Sometimes I find it hard to believe we came from the same litter,” he said, then grinned.
When he reached over to straighten my tie, I gave him a little push to move him on his way.
“Give ‘em hell,” he told me. “Girl doesn’t like you, she’s not worth knowing.”
“So now you’ve got a high opinion of me.”
“Hey, you may be feeble-minded, but you’re still my brother. That makes you prime.”
I had to return that smile of his. Tyrone was just so … Tyrone. Always the wolf.
He headed off down the block before I could give him another shove. I checked my teeth in the reflection of the window—still normal—then opened the door and went inside.
Mona
We were ten minutes late pulling up in front of the Half Kaffe.
“This is good,” Sue said as I opened my door. “It doesn’t make you look too eager.”
“Another one of the ‘Rules’?”
“Probably.”
“Only probably?”
“Well, it’s not like I’ve memorized them or done that well with them myself. You’re the one with the date tonight.”
I cut her some slack. If push came to shove, I knew she wouldn’t take any grief from anyone, no matter what the rule book said.
I got out of the car. “Thanks for the ride, Sue.”
“Remember,” she said, holding up her phone. Folded up, it wasn’t much bigger than a compact. “If things get uncomfortable or just plain weird, I’m only a cell phone call away.”
“I’ll remember.”
I closed the door before she could give me more advice. I’d already decided I was just going to be myself—a dolled-up version of myself, mind you, but it actually felt kind of fun being all dressed up. I just wasn’t going to pretend to be someone I wasn’t.
Easy to promise to myself on the ride over, listening to Sue, but then my date had to be gorgeous, didn’t he? I spotted him as soon as I opened the door, pausing in the threshold.
(“I’ll be holding a single rose,” he’d told me.
(“That is so romantic,” Sue had said.)
Even with him sitting down, I knew he was tall. He had this shock of blue-black hair, brushed back from his forehead, and skin the color of espresso. He was wearing a suit that reminded me of the sky just as the dusk is fading and the single red rose lay on the table in front of him. He looked up when I came in—if it had been me, I’d have looked up every time the door opened, too—and I could have gone swimming in those dark, dark eyes of his.
I took a steadying breath. Walking over to his table, I held out my hand.
“You must be Lyle,” I said. “I’m Mona.”
Lyle
She was cute as a button.
(“Here’s my prediction,” Tyrone had said. “She’ll be three hundred pounds on a five-foot frame. Or ugly as sin. Hell, maybe both.”
(“I don’t care how much she weighs or what she looks like,” I told him. “Just so long as she’s got a good heart.”
(Tyrone smiled. “You’re so pathetic,” he said.)
And naturally I made a mess of trying to stand up, shake her hand and give her the rose, all at the same time. My chair fell down behind me. The sound of it startled me and I almost pulled her off her feet, but we managed to get it all straightened without anybody getting hurt.
I wanted to check my teeth, and forced myself not to run my tongue over them.
We were here for the obligatory before-dinner drink, having mutually decided earlier on a Café rather than a bar, with the unspoken assumption that if things didn’t go well
here, we could call the dinner off, no hard feelings. After asking what she wanted, I went and got us each a latté.
“Look,” she said when I got back. “I know this isn’t the way it’s supposed to go, first date and everything, but I decided that I’m not going to pretend to be more or different than I am. So here goes.
“I write and draw a comic book for a living. I usually have ink stains on my fingers and you’re more likely to see me in overalls, or jeans and a T-shirt. I know I told you I like the outdoors like you said you did in your ad, but I’ve never spent a night outside of a city. I’ve never had a regular job either, I don’t like being anybody’s pet boho girlfriend, and I’m way more shy than this is making me sound.”
She was blushing as she spoke and looked a little breathless.
“Oh boy,” she said. “That was really endearing, wasn’t it?”
It actually was, but I didn’t think she wanted to hear that. Searching for something to match her candor, I surprised myself as much as her.
“I’m sort of a werewolf myself,” I told her.
“A werewolf,” she repeated.
I nodded. “But only sort of. Not like in the movies with the full moon and hair sprouting all over my body. I’m just… they used to call us skinwalkers.”
“Who did?”
I shrugged. “The first people to live here. Like the Kickaha, up on the rez. We’re descended from what they call the animal people—the ones that were here when the world was made.”
“Immortal wolves,” she said.
I was surprised that she was taking this all so calmly. Surprised to be even talking about it in the first place, because it’s never a good idea. Maybe Tyrone was right. We weren’t supposed to mingle. But it was too late now and I felt I at least owed her a little more explanation.
“Not just wolves, but all kinds of animals,” I said. “And we’re not immortal. Only the first ones were and there aren’t so many of them left anymore.”
“And you can all take the shapes of animals.”
I shook my head. “Usually it’s only the ones who were born in their animal shape. The human genes are so strong that the change is easier. Those born human have some animal tributes, but most of them aren’t skinwalkers.”
“So if you bite me, I won’t become a wolf.”
“I don’t know where those stories come from,” I started, then sighed. “No, that’s not true. I do know. These days most of us just like to fit in, live a bit in your world, a bit in the animal world. But it wasn’t always like that. There have always been those among us who considered everyone else in the world their private prey. Humans and animals.”
“Most of you?”
I sighed again. “There are still some that like to hunt.”
Mona
You’re probably wondering why I was listening to all of this without much surprise. But you see, that grotty little dwarf I told you about earlier—the one that moved in on me—did I mention he also had the habit of just disappearing, poof, like magic? One moment you’re talking to him, the next you’re standing in a seemingly empty room. The disembodied voice was the hardest to get used to. He’d sit around and tell me all kinds of stories like this. You experience something like that on a regular basis and you end up with more tolerance for weirdness.
Not that I actually believed Lyle here was a werewolf. But the fact that he was talking about it actually made him kind of interesting, though I could see it getting old after a while.
“So,” I said. “What do you do when you’re not dating human girls and running around as a wolf?”
“Do?”
“You know, to make a living. Or were you born wealthy as well as immortal.”
“I’m not immortal.”
“So what do you do?”
“I’m … an investment counselor.”
“Hence the nice suit.”
He started to nod, then sighed. When he looked down at his latté, I studied his jaw. It seemed to protrude a little more than I remembered, though I knew that was just my own imagination feeding on all his talk about clans of animals that walk around looking like people.
He lifted his head. “How come you’re so calm about all of this?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I like the way it all fits together, I suppose. You’ve obviously really thought it all through.”
“Or I’m good at remembering the history of the clans.”
“That, too. But the question that comes to my mind is, why tell me all of this?”
“I’m still asking myself that,” he said. “I guess it came from your saying we should be honest with each other. It feels good to be able to talk about it to someone outside the clans.”
He paused, those dark eyes studying me more closely. Oh, why couldn’t he have just been a normal guy? Why did he have to be either a loony, or some weird faerie creature?
“You don’t believe me,” he said.
“Well…”
“I didn’t ask for proof when you were telling me about your comic books.”
I couldn’t believe this.
“It’s hardly the same thing. Besides—”
I got up and fetched one of the freebie copies of In the City from their display bin by the door. Flipping almost to the back of the tabloid-sized newspaper, I laid open the page with my weekly strip, “Spunky Grrl,” on the table in front of him. This was the one where my heroine, the great and brave Spunky Grrl, was answering a personal ad. Write from your life, they always say. I guess that meant that next week’s strip would have Spunky sitting in a Café with a wolf dressed up as a man.
“It’s not so hard to prove,” I said, pointing at the byline.
“Just because you have the same name—”
“Oh, please.” I called over to the bar where the owner was reading one of those glossy British music magazines he likes so much. “Who am I, Jonathan?”
He looked up and gave the pair of us a once-over with that perpetually cool and slightly amused look he’d perfected once the Café had become a success and he was no longer run ragged trying to keep up with everything.
“Mona Morgan,” he said. “Who still owes me that page of original art from ‘My Life as a Bird’ that featured the Half Kaffe.”
“It’s coming,” I said and turned back to my date. “There. You see? Now it’s your turn. Make your hand change into a paw or something.”
Lyle
She was irrepressible and refreshing, but she was also driving me a little crazy and I could feel my teeth pressing up against my lips.
“Maybe some other time,” I said.
She smiled. “Right. Never turn into a wolf on the first date.”
“Something like that,” I replied, remembering Tyrone’s advice earlier in the evening. I wondered what she’d make of that, but decided not to find out. Instead I looked down at her comic strip.
It was one of those underground ones, not clean like a regular newspaper strip but with lots of scratchy lines and odd perspectives.There wasn’t a joke either, just this wild-looking girl answering a personal ad. I looked up at my date.
“So I’m research?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Everything that happens to me ends up in one strip or another.”
I pointed at the character in the strip. “And is this you?”
“Kind of an alter ego.”
I could see myself appearing in an upcoming installment, turning into a wolf in the middle of the date. The idea bothered me. I mean, think about it. If you were a skinwalker, would you want the whole world to know it?
I lifted my gaze from the strip. This smart-looking woman bore no resemblance to her scruffy pen-and-ink alter ego.
“So who cleaned you up?” I asked.
I know the idea of showing up in her strip was troubling me, but that was still no excuse for what I’d just said. I regretted the words as soon as they spilled out of my mouth.
The hurt in her eyes was quickly replaced with anger. “A human bein
g,” she said and stood up.
I started to stand as well. “Look, I’m sorry—” I began but I was already talking to her back.
“You owe me for the lattés!” the barman called as I went to follow her.
I paid him and hurried outside, but she was already gone. Slowly I went back inside and stood at our table. I looked at the rose and the open paper. After a moment, I folded up the paper and went back outside. I left the rose there on the table.
I could’ve tracked her—the scent was still strong—but I went home instead to the apartment Tyrone and I were sharing. He wasn’t back yet from wherever he’d gone tonight, which was just as well. I wasn’t looking forward to telling him about how the evening had gone. Changing from my suit to jeans and a jersey, I sat down on the sofa and opened my copy of In the City to Mona’s strip. I was still staring at the scruffy little blonde cartoon girl when the phone rang.
Mona
As soon as I got outside, I made a quick beeline down the alley that runs alongside the Café, my boots clomping on the pavement. I didn’t slow down until I got to the next street and had turned onto it. I didn’t bother looking for a phone booth. I knew Sue would pick me up, but I needed some downtime first and it wasn’t that long a walk back home. Misery’s supposed to love company, but the way I was feeling it was still too immediate to share. For now, I needed to be alone.
I suppose I kind of deserved what he’d said—I had been acting all punky and pushing at him. But after a while the animal people business had started to wear thin, feeling more like an excuse not to have a real conversation with me rather than fun. And then he’d been just plain mean.
Sue was going to love my report on tonight’s fiasco. Not.
I’m normally pretty good about walking about on my own at night—not fearless like my friend Jilly, but I’m usually only going from my local subway stop or walking down well-frequented streets. Tonight, though …
The streets in this neighborhood were quiet, and it was still relatively early, barely nine, but I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that someone was following me. You know that prickle you can get at the nape of your neck—some leftover survival instinct from when we’d just climbed down the from the trees, I guess. A monkey buzz.