Sinner

  “Yeah. Hey, what is —”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I hung up. I threw my phone, wallet, and keys into the potted plant by the front door.

  This isn’t happening.

  But it was.

  The second I pushed open the door to .blush., the second the air-conditioning hit my already cool skin, it was over.

  Isabel stood in between tables of clothing, staring at me. Her face looked bizarre somehow, like I couldn’t understand the angles of it.

  My stomach seized. My skin was ragged. My breath was in pieces. I couldn’t tell her what was happening. But she didn’t need to be told.

  She shut her eyes, just for a second. She opened them. She said, “No. Cole, I can’t —”

  But I was already a wolf.

  Just like that, it had happened.

  This was how to deal with disaster: Isolate the worst part of the problem. Identify a solution. Tune out every bit of noise.

  Here was the disaster: Cole St. Clair was a wolf in the middle of Santa Monica, trapped in my place of work, a business I had just been setting up for a private showing Sierra had this evening. It would have been bad any other time, but now, it meant that a wolf stood in the front of a store currently lit by one hundred candles.

  Isolate the worst part of the problem.

  Cole St. Clair.

  Identify a solution.

  It was enough to make me want to give up.

  There he was, in the flesh, everything I’d been afraid of. It was not a monster. It just wasn’t Cole.

  It was every wolf I’d left behind in Minnesota. It was every hurtling, grief-saturated memory that galloped into my mind. It was every tear I hadn’t cried since I’d moved.

  The wolf didn’t move. Its ears swiveled slowly toward me and away, back toward the street noise. The hackles of its lovely coat were scuffed up into feral suspicion. As before, just as I remembered, the eyes were still Cole’s: brilliant green and intense. But everything that made him Cole was stripped from them, replaced with instinct and image.

  He was poised for flight, but there was nowhere to go.

  I should have never let him back into my life.

  The wonder of Sierra’s creations was that he didn’t look out of place here, as long as he didn’t move. He looked stuffed and intentional. I had seen plenty of stuffed animals in my time. Thanks, Dad.

  That spurred my brain into movement.

  Think, Isabel.

  I took in the scene: wolf, pile of clothing, candles.

  Isolate the worst part of the problem.

  The candles weren’t a problem yet. Discovery wasn’t a problem yet. Those were only possibilities.

  The problem was the wolf. And if I thought about it, I knew the answer to this. I knew enough about the science to know that his body defaulted to human in this weather. The wolves back in Minnesota shifted into wolves in the winter, but this store was only a temporary winter. I didn’t know why the air-conditioning had made him shift now of all times, but I had seen its effect on him right in front of me.

  Identify a solution.

  I glanced toward the wall opposite, where the thermostat was.

  Heat.

  I glanced up at the clock on the wall. Fifteen minutes until Sierra was supposed to get here to start setting up the champagne. My heart was thumping.

  Damn you, Cole, damn you —

  I took a step, just to see what would happen.

  The wolf’s head jerked to follow the motion. There was nothing overtly aggressive about the move, but still, everything in the wolf’s posture suddenly looked dangerous. I saw the knot of shoulder muscles beneath the fur. I heard the thin, barely there scrape of nails on concrete as his paws tensed. I saw the dead-white canine as he silently lifted his lip and then dropped it again.

  A warning.

  As a wolf, Cole didn’t know me. He wouldn’t go out of his way to rip my throat out. But if I threatened him, nothing would stop him, either.

  I cut my eyes away from him. Staring would only be seen as a challenge. I took another step. Then another. I wasn’t getting any closer to him. No threat.

  The wolf turned, swift and sinuous, and left a noseprint on the inside of the glass door before turning back. Low to the ground, wary, he moved farther into the store.

  As long as he didn’t come over here — I had made it to the thermostat. I flicked on the heat and turned it all the way up.

  On the other side of the store, the wolf caught a sudden glimpse of himself in one of the decorative mirrors that leaned against the walls. He jerked back, surprised.

  His haunch hit one of the tables. Three tall candles sat on the topmost part of it, above a display of taupe tops with sea-grass woven sleeves.

  In the mirror, I saw the reflection of the lit candles wobble.

  I held my breath.

  The candles tumbled.

  For one brief moment, as one of the candles fell and went out, I thought it would be okay. And then the other two hit. One of them rolled off to the side and sputtered. The third landed on a top, and it caught. The fire bit into the sea grass.

  Damn you, Sierra —

  The reflection of the growing flame caught the wolf’s attention. Even lower to the ground, he slunk away, fast, but there was still nowhere to go. He was trying to look brave and aggressive, but this world was small and unfamiliar and fiery, and he couldn’t bluster himself out of this trap.

  It was starting to get hot in here. Come on, Cole. Come on.

  The burning display began to release uneven smoke in opaque clouds. In two seconds, the fire alarm was going to go off.

  All I needed was for the fire department to show up and call the cops to shoot this wolf.

  Isolate the worst part of the problem.

  I took my chances. I grabbed a vegan leather jacket from the wall and bolted across to the burning display. I beat the flames. I didn’t know what vegan leather was, but it melted.

  As I hit the flames again and again, the wolf shot away from me, back toward the front of the store. His eyes were locked on me. Making sure I wasn’t a threat. Or maybe looking at the fire, making sure it wasn’t a threat. In any case, he didn’t see the frontmost display in time. He barreled right into it. This one was lit with low, stubby candles that wouldn’t tip. But he crashed right into it. I smelled a quick flash of singed fur.

  Overhead, the fire alarm went off. Loud and pure and continuous.

  And he broke.

  The wolf clawed up the table opposite, dashing candles every which way. Everywhere, I saw flames catching and holding. The tables of shirts, the racks of leggings, Cole’s piled clothing. Even Sierra’s plants gave themselves up, dried leaves curling first, and then the others wicking the fire hungrily. It was as if this entire place had been rigged as a bomb.

  I dashed to the back counter and got my bottle of water. I soaked the edge of one display. It was such a useless gesture. In the back room — was there something larger? When was the fire department going to get here? Did I just let the wolf out into the street?

  I couldn’t think. The fire alarm screamed at me to get out.

  Cole had pressed himself into a corner, ears flat back against his head, shaking.

  “How can this not be hot enough for you?” I snarled.

  But it was hot enough. Because he was shaking with the shift. Now his paws had become fingers, and they clutched the wall and scrabbled on the concrete, and his head was bent, shuddering, and then it was Cole, the boy, the monster. Naked and human, curled in the corner.

  I hurt. Everything in my heart hurt so bad, seeing him, smelling the wolf, watching everything get absolutely destroyed.

  His eyes were wide. Flames flickered in the shine of them.

  “God,” he said.

  The flames came no closer because of the concrete floor and walls. The only thing in here for the fire to eat was everything Sierra had made and everything I’d grown.

  I heard sirens in the distance. Fire. Police. C
ameras. Proof.

  “You can’t be here,” I told him, more furious than I could imagine, though I didn’t know yet what, exactly, I was furious at. I hurriedly kicked off my boots and peeled off my leggings from under my long tunic. I threw them at him. “Put those on. Get out. Go out the back.”

  The windows out front were suddenly filled with the dark red of the fire truck.

  “But —”

  My stomach felt sick with the ruin of all of it. In five minutes, Sierra was going to pull up. Nothing felt real. Or else, this was real, and nothing else had ever been.

  I screamed, “Get out of my life.”

  Cole shook his head like he was angry, and then he jerked on my favorite leggings. The front door came open, a suited fireman framed by it.

  “Are you alone?” shouted the fireman.

  I glanced over to the corner. Cole was gone.

  When something caught on fire, you could say It went up in flames or It all burned down. Up and down at once. Everywhere. It was all just destroyed.

  I said, “Yeah.”

  This is what they don’t tell you about being a werewolf.

  They don’t tell you you’ll have to run from a burning building wearing a pair of too-tight rainbow-skull-printed leggings to avoid being implicated in arson. They don’t tell you that when you run to your car, you’ll remember you threw your car keys into a potted plant in front of the building you just burned down and that you’ll have to return to the scene of the crime with as much discretion as a three-fourths grown man in a pair of very shiny leggings can manage before the personal effects can be found by someone who might rename them “evidence.”

  They don’t tell you that when you kneel with grace and dignity to retrieve the keys, you’ll rip the seam of the shimmery leggings right up from the ankle to what God gave you.

  They’d probably tell you that being naked in public was illegal, if you asked.

  But they don’t tell you how tiring it is to run from cops when you’ve just been two species in quick succession and then had to run to your car and then back again.

  They don’t tell you how this long-haired guy will try to give you his number as you’re running and flapping and bouncing your way back to the parking lot in the most circuitous way possible, so as to not lead the cops back to your Mustang, which by now you wish had died in the last fire you set.

  They don’t tell you how many people are going to get photos of Cole St. Clair, three-fourths naked, running around Santa Monica.

  They don’t tell you how hot black cloth seats get after the sun’s come out and you sit in them and you’re wearing nothing or next to it.

  They don’t tell you how even though you won’t remember a thing from when you were a wolf, you’ll remember the look on your now-ex-girlfriend’s face right before and right after for the rest of your life.

  They don’t tell you anything. No, that’s not true.

  They tell you, Come on, be a wolf. You’ve been looking for something for a while, and this, boy, is what you were looking for.

  F LIVE: Today on the wire we have young Cole St. Clair, former lead singer of NARKOTIKA. We had him on the show five weeks ago, just after he signed on with Baby North of SharpT33th.com. Did I hear a collective gasp? No worries, he’s survived, it seems. You’re just about done with the album, right?

  COLE ST. CLAIR: Da.

  F LIVE: How would you rate the experience on a scale of one to ten?

  COLE ST. CLAIR: Somewhere between an F and a hydra.

  F LIVE: That’s the kind of math I expect from rock stars. You told me before we started rolling that you had just one track left to record. Then what?

  COLE ST. CLAIR: You tell me.

  F LIVE: How world-weary you sound! How did you find L.A.? You staying with us?

  COLE ST. CLAIR: I love L.A., but I broke her things. I don’t think it’s going to work out.

  F LIVE: You broke a lot fewer things than most of us expected.

  COLE ST. CLAIR: What can I say, I’m a changed man. We gonna listen to that teaser track now?

  F LIVE: You East Coasters are always in a hurry.

  COLE ST. CLAIR: I don’t think I’m really an East Coaster. I’m — what’s that term? Currently without country.

  F LIVE: L.A. still wants you, boy.

  COLE ST. CLAIR: Martin, if only that were true.

  I knew that at some point soon, I was going to have to return Virtual Cole to Cole. I knew from both it and the radio and the calendar that he was nearly done with the album, and by extension, the show. And by further extension, Los Angeles.

  By further, further extension, me.

  Only that wasn’t true. I’d been done with him first.

  Maybe I’d just leave his phone at the apartment gate. Then it would finally be over, really and truly. No loose ends.

  The only problem in all of this was how much I missed him.

  It never went away. It never got any less. I kept thinking that if I just kept myself busy, finished this class, applied for colleges, researched futures that took me away, I would stop missing him for at least one minute of one day.

  But everything in this goddamn city reminded me of him.

  Sierra called me a few days after the fire. “Sweetness? I’m so sorry I yelled at you.”

  In her defense, she had found me standing in the smoldering remains of her business. “I think shouting was appropriate.”

  “Not at you, lovely. I know that now. I’m so terribly sorry I blamed you.”

  It also turned out that she was sorry that she had gotten busted for ordering an employee to violate fire code with all of the candles and none of the fire extinguishers. Turns out she was hoping I wouldn’t sue her.

  “How long until you reopen?” I asked. I didn’t want to have to apply for a new job. I wanted to go back to not giving a damn.

  “All of the Fall line is gone,” Sierra said. “I have to make it all from scratch. I don’t know if the energy is balanced in that place anymore. I don’t know. I have to make some tough decisions.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. I was surprised to hear myself say it. I was more surprised to hear myself mean it.

  “Oh, I was in such a rut, gorgeous. This is good for me! All of my old ideas are gone and a new Sierra emerges! Do come to the next party. I am still sorry about yelling. I won’t yell again. Ah! I have to run. Ta, lovely. Ta.”

  I hung up. Thinking of her party made me think of Mark, which made me think of Cole.

  I missed him. I missed him all the time.

  The only thing that made it a little better was the foyer of the House of Ruin. My mother had already replaced all of the marriage and wedding shots that had hung there. The photos of her and my father had become photos of me and her, looking identical and sisterly. Or just her, grinning at the camera with her medical school diploma in her hands. Only, she should have known better with that last photo. Because even though my father’s face wasn’t in it, he still technically was. That grin she wore had been for him as he snapped the picture.

  It didn’t matter for my purposes, though. Because all I needed out of the wall was the absolute reminder that 50 percent of all American marriages ended in divorce, and the rest of them were on their way there.

  I would stop loving Cole. That was just the fact of it. This wall was proof that one day, I would stop caring.

  I closed my eyes. Not all the way. If I sealed the lids, it would break the surface tension, and then these tears would escape.

  “Isabel, you should come with,” Sofia told my back.

  My eyes flew open, wide as they would go. I didn’t turn around.

  “With? With who?”

  “Dad and me,” she said. “We’re going —”

  “No, I’m busy.” I could feel her still standing right there, so I added, “Thanks for asking.”

  She didn’t move. I didn’t have to turn to know that she was working her courage up to say something. I wanted to tell her to spit it out, but I di
dn’t have any energy left over to be mean.

  “You’re not busy,” Sofia said bravely. “I’ve been watching. Something’s wrong. You don’t — you don’t have to talk about it, but I think you should come with us.”

  I couldn’t believe that I’d been so bad at hiding my feelings. I couldn’t believe, either, that I had somehow lost enough of my prickly exterior to make Sofia think it was acceptable to call me on it.

  “Say yes,” Sofia said. “I won’t pester you.”

  “You are pestering me!” I spun. She didn’t look chastened, though her hands were folded in front of her.

  “It’s really nice outside,” she added. “I’m bringing my erhu. We’re going to go sit on the beach.”

  She unfolded her hands, and then she took one of mine. Her fingers were very soft and warm, like she had no bones. What the hell. It couldn’t make me feel worse, surely. When Sofia gave a gentle tug, I didn’t resist. At least until I got to the door.

  “Wait, my boots.” I also meant my hair. And face. And clothing. And heart. So many things really needed to be put in order before I left the house.

  “We’re going to the beach,” Sofia said. She let go of my hand and swiped up a pair of my mother’s flip-flops from the pile of shoes by the wall. She dumped them into my grip and went to get her erhu.

  Unbelievably, I ended up driving her to the beach in flip-flops and gym pants and a tank top, with my hair like a homeless person’s. I parked at the edge of the lot, where a bunch of sweatily buff boys played volleyball. My uncle (ex-uncle?) Paolo was already there, still in his EMT uniform, which reminded me horribly of the cops in the bass-player episode of Cole’s show. He ruffled Sofia’s hair like a kid’s (she smiled blissfully) and draped his arm over Sofia’s shoulder. “I was going to bring cupcakes. But then I thought, no, Sofia is going to make something that’ll make whatever you bring look like crap! So I brought booze instead!”

  He didn’t mean actual booze, of course, just local root beer, the outsides of the bottles moist with condensation. Sofia was delighted, as she had, of course, made bakery-perfect cupcakes. I was impressed with Paolo’s knowledge of his daughter.