And Ann and I go home, and Brody’s made dinner, and we watch a DVD he picked up, and we all go to bed. And in the morning, Ann and William leave, and I have no idea when I’ll see them again.
It’s a shitty way to live. But right now, I can’t think of an alternative.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It’s a solid month before Maria calls my cell phone late one Thursday afternoon. “Hi, Melanie, it’s Maria Romano. William’s sister-in-law,” she says, in case I could have possibly forgotten. “Just wanted to let you know Ann and William arrived a couple of hours ago.”
“How are they?” I respond, since it seems polite to include William in the question, but of course Maria knows what I’m really asking.
“Good, as far as I can tell. They both had healthy appetites, and neither of them had any sores or injuries. Ann’s been running through the yard, playing with Lizzie, so she seems to have plenty of energy. And so far she’s kept her husky shape.”
“So what’s your schedule like? Are you up for company?”
“My mom and aunt are coming over for dinner tonight, but you’re welcome to join us.”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to get in the way. But tell you what. I can take tomorrow off and come out to spend the day if that works for you.”
“That would be great. I’ll leave you a key.”
Brody’s on a deadline, so I make the long drive by myself, early enough to catch what rush-hour traffic exists along the rural roads connecting Highway 55 in my part of town to Highway 44 by Maria. The setter and the husky are sniffing at promising rabbit trails in the front yard when I pull up, but Ann comes bounding over the minute I get out of the car and frisks around my knees, barking and wagging her tail.
“You look great,” I tell her, bending down to ruffle her fur and let her lick my face. “And you’re being so well behaved! That’s my good girl.”
I pat her on the head, find the key under the doormat, and let myself in. I’ve brought a bag of groceries because I want to make dinner for Maria to thank her for playing hostess, and it takes me a few moments to refrigerate the perishables and organize everything else on the counter.
Then I whistle to the dogs, and we all climb into the Cherokee. It’s mid-July and bidding fair to be a hot day, so I figure we should enjoy an outdoor activity while the temperature is still tolerable. We end up at Babler State Park, not far from Maria’s, a place Ann and William seem to know well. I follow them along the heavily overgrown paths, swatting at mosquitoes, tripping on the occasional tree root, and calling them back a couple of times when I get completely turned around. They’re never lost, though, and I enjoy the outing, the company, and the day.
Dante’s waiting for us when we make it back to the house—at least, I assume it’s Dante. At any rate, there’s a pretty big German shepherd sitting on the front porch, panting a little in the heat, guarding the house with what seems like proprietary interest. He watches closely as I turn into the driveway, but doesn’t seem hostile when I cautiously step out of the car. William ignores him, heading straight for a water bowl under the carport, but Ann races over and nips at his ears, trying to entice him to play. He responds with a short growl of irritation, and she dashes off again.
Yeah, pretty sure it’s Dante.
I’m almost done making dinner when Maria arrives home, Lizzie in her arms. “Well, aren’t you sweet!” she exclaims. “You didn’t have to do this—but I’m delighted that you did.”
The meal is chaotic, because Lizzie eats with us and she is not a quiet or easy dinner companion. But once she’s full, she’s content to hang out in her playpen in the living room, watching a Nickelodeon video and sticking her fingers through the mesh whenever one of the dogs presses a nose against the side. Maria and I drink coffee and eat cookies and enjoy a long, comfortable conversation that, a year ago, I could not have imagined having with anyone.
“Has Lizzie changed shapes yet?” I ask.
“Oh, God. William didn’t tell you? Yes! Four or five times now.”
“Kind of exciting and kind of horrifying all at once, I bet.”
“That’s exactly right. So far she’s taken the same form each time—a little poodle puppy—you have never seen anything so cute.”
“I can imagine. So—where did the transformations take place?”
“So far, thank God, only at home. But I’ve taken her out of day care because—well, I simply can’t picture myself explaining this to the woman who runs it.”
“Then what are you doing about your job? Can you work from home?”
“That’s one solution. I’ve been staying here about one week a month. And Dante’s human a week a month. But, of course, that leaves a lot of time when somebody has to watch her.” She takes a deep breath. “So a few weeks ago, I decided I would have to tell my mom. She’d already asked if I would need help watching the baby, and we’d talked about moving her down here from Springfield, at least temporarily. And I knew that she might think I was crazy, but I knew she wouldn’t be—overset by the news, if you know what I mean. It’s pretty hard to rock my mom off balance.”
I blow on my coffee. “So what did she say?”
Maria gives a little laugh, still disbelieving. “She said, ‘Oh, I wondered if you knew.’”
“What?”
“That’s exactly what I said! ‘What?’ And she said, ‘Last time I was watching her, I left her in her crib and when I came back, she was a puppy. Just for a couple of hours, then she was herself again.’ I mean, I almost couldn’t speak. I said, ‘Did it occur to you to tell me this?’ And she said, ‘Well, I thought it might be a one-time thing. I didn’t want to worry you.’”
I start laughing, and I can’t stop. In some ways, this is the funniest story I have ever heard. Maria’s laughing, too, but not so hard that she can’t finish the tale.
“So then I said, ‘Well, no, I’m pretty sure she’s going to be changing back and forth between animal and human states for the rest of her life. Her mother was a shape-shifter, and she seems to have inherited the gene.’ And she said, ‘I always thought those were myths, but I guess not.’ I mean, she was as calm as if I’d told her Lizzie had inherited the ability to play the piano! So then I said, ‘Aren’t you astonished? Don’t you think this is pretty weird?’ And she said, ‘I suppose. But it explains a lot.’”
I raise my eyebrows. “So did you tell her about Dante then?”
“Yeah, since she’d obviously already guessed. And she said, ‘Well, that’s a lot better than some of the things I thought he might be.’” Maria makes a helpless gesture. “I’ve always thought my mom probably had secrets of her own, and this makes me think they are a hell of a lot more interesting than mine.”
“Wouldn’t that be an amazing day?” I muse. “If everyone in the world came forward and confessed the one big thing they’ve always kept hidden. I bet your mind would explode before the first hundred people finished telling their stories.”
She nods. “I wouldn’t take that bet.”
From the other room, I hear a dog bark once—a low, rough sound that I think comes from Dante—and Lizzie laughs in response. “So when Lizzie’s a poodle and Dante’s a German shepherd and Ann and William come visiting—”
“It’s like a dog park here,” Maria finishes up. “Sometimes I worry one of the neighbors might turn me in for running a puppy mill.” She gives me a quick glance, and adds, “That’s a joke. I love having them here. Lizzie loves having them. She’s always had a close bond with William, and she adores Ann. I wish they’d stay all the time.”
My smile is a little crooked. “I can’t speak for William, but staying in one spot for extended periods doesn’t seem to be in Ann’s nature.”
“It doesn’t seem to be in any shape-shifter’s nature,” she agrees. “Christina—Lizzie’s mother—didn’t have much trouble staying put, but Dante and William were always on the move.” She glances toward the living room. “Dante has settled down a lot since we adopted Lizzie,
and he’s here more often than he’s not, but sometimes—I can tell, he just has to get out of the house, out of the neighborhood. And I just smile and let him go.”
I pause to think about Brody for a moment. We’re still in those early stages of love, where the other person seems damn near perfect. Well, maybe he’s silently making up a list of all my defects, but so far I haven’t found much about him that either makes me want to kill him or makes me fear he’ll break my heart. I mean, he’s stubborn, he’s persistent, he’ll find ways to keep asking me the same question until I answer it, and God knows he’s not the neatest person on the planet. We’ve had a few discussions about laundry baskets and trash cans and how to put shoes in the closet. But those aren’t really flaws. Those aren’t deal-breakers.
I think my sister will shatter my heart before Brody will.
“I’m glad that having her around has been easy on you,” I say. “Knowing that she has somewhere to come—someplace she can be safe—you have no idea what it means to me.”
Her voice is soft. “Are you kidding? I understand exactly how important it is. I would have given the world to know Dante had a safe haven. I’m happy to be that haven for someone else.”
I shift in my chair. “But I don’t want to impose, either! I plan to come back tomorrow, and Sunday, too, if Ann’s still here—but not if you have other things going on. You have to be honest and tell me when it’s inconvenient to have me around.”
“I will, I promise, but this weekend isn’t one of those times. I’ll look forward to seeing you in the morning.” She sighs. “Lizzie’s always awake by eight, so anytime after that will be fine.”
I help her clean up the dinner dishes before I spend a few more minutes sitting with Ann, patting her head and whispering nonsense in her ear. Then I’m back in the car and heading south to my place, humming along with the radio.
“You seem cheerful,” Brody says, when I walk in the front door.
“It was a good day,” I answer, dropping down next to him on the couch. “Everyone seemed well and happy. And I really like Maria. I feel like we have a genuine connection.”
“She’s like a combat buddy,” he says. “Once you’ve gone through an intense experience alongside someone else, you bond for life at a level no one else can understand.”
“Yeah, like you would know from combat.”
“Hey, I survived Mr. Peterson’s advanced biology class in high school. We dissected a cat and everything. The kids who were in my study group are still some of my best friends.”
“You’re irredeemably frivolous,” I tell him.
“What, is that a character flaw?”
“And, anyway, I never hear you mention any of these people. How can they be such great friends?”
“Well, Joey moved to Cincinnati, but we still talk a couple times a year. He wants me to come visit sometime when the Cards play the Reds.” He glances over at me. “Wanna go?”
“I’m not really into sports.”
“You must have been the worst cheerleader ever.”
I laugh. “Well, I liked jocks. I just didn’t care that much about the games the jocks were playing. So what about the other people in the study group?”
“Carolyn and Joe are in Africa on a stint for Doctors Without Borders. They’re married now. We trade e-mails, and I follow them on Facebook, but I haven’t seen them in years.”
I turn my head to get a better look at his face. There’s the faintest wistful note in his voice. “That bothers you, doesn’t it?” I ask.
“That they’re so far away?”
“That they’re doing—” I wave a hand. “Something important with their lives. And you’re just hanging out here with me.”
He kisses my forehead. “I consider hanging out with you to be very important.”
“Yeah. Answer the question. You want to be one of those do-gooders, don’t you? You want to save the world.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know that the world can be saved. But, yeah. I’d like to find something to do that’s meaningful. That pays back in some fashion. I haven’t figured out what yet.”
“And when you do, you’re going to get restless.”
Now he fixes me with an unwavering stare. “Is that what you’re worried about? You think I’m going to leave you?”
I laugh slightly. “God, I hadn’t even gotten that far in my thought process. No, for once this isn’t about me. I was thinking about you. I was trying to let you know that I’m not so wrapped up in my own life that I don’t realize you have a life of your own, and dreams you might want to go chasing after.” I lean forward and flatten my hand on his chest, then make my voice a little too soulful. “And I want you to know I’ll be there for you.”
“Well, great. When I figure it out, I’ll drag you along wherever I decide to go.”
I blink because, no matter how it sounded, that wasn’t exactly what I’d meant. I’d intended to imply that I’d support him emotionally, root for him when he embarked on a new project, wait for him faithfully if he set off on some adventure in an exotic land. I haven’t been much farther than the city limits of St. Louis in my entire life. I have no need to go traipsing off anywhere. But I want Brody to know I’m invested in his dreams. I’m invested in him.
Before I can boil that down to a coherent reply, he says, “Are you going back to Maria’s tomorrow?”
“Yes. Are you busy, or can you come?”
“I’ll come. I don’t want Ann to forget me.”
“Or William,” I say, grinning.
“God, no. That would be a tragedy.”
We’re both too lazy to cook, so we scrounge for leftovers, which includes checking the expiration dates on a few canned goods and deciding it’s probably safe to eat them. The hike in the park has worn me out, and I’m in bed by ten. I think it’s closer to midnight when Brody climbs in beside me, but he wakes up when I do at seven the next morning.
I’m in an even better mood today—rested, happy, singing along with the radio as Brody drives the Cherokee down the winding two-lane highways through a landscape that is utterly and impenetrably green. It’s as if summer has forgotten there are any other colors. It’s hot, but I don’t care; I roll down the window just to smell the scents of grass and hay and fertilizer and baking asphalt and the occasional flowering bush. Brody grumbles and turns all the air-conditioning vents to blow on him instead of me.
He taps the horn lightly as we pull into Maria’s driveway, and I’m out of the car seconds later. Ann bursts out the front door, arms extended, hands joyfully waving, blond hair bouncing over her shoulders like the most disordered halo.
Yeah, she’s human.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
JANET
The only thing that changed Cooper’s life more profoundly than meeting me was meeting Evan Baylor, who was not only a shape-shifter himself but connected to a couple of dozen others in the region. Finally, Cooper had access to a community of people who were just like him—who understood his idiosyncrasies, his challenges, his unconventional joys, and his reasons for despair—without needing to have a single thing explained to them. I couldn’t imagine what that was like. I supposed it was, only in a much more intense fashion, akin to what I’d experienced when I finally encountered kindred spirits in college. I supposed it might be what a gay young man born in rural Mississippi would feel the first time he set foot in San Francisco. Like he had found the place where he belonged.
Even so, it wasn’t like all the shape-shifters of central Illinois got together in a clubhouse every few weeks and sat around sipping beer and trading stories. They were an odd, diverse, diffuse, and not particularly chummy group. Through Evan, Cooper met twenty or so men and women who could take animal form, but I only laid eyes on about half of them. Some of them were—like Evan, like Cooper himself—perfectly comfortable in their human incarnations, talkative and friendly and engaged, though they all exhibited a certain oddness that you couldn’t overlook even if you never would have guessed
what caused it. They were the ones who could hold down jobs, maintain relationships, speak with a sense of humor about the strange existence they had been fated to endure. Others were edgy and ill at ease when they took human shape, virtually unable to sit still long enough to eat a meal or carry on a conversation. These were the ones who lived on the very fringes of civilization and were in constant danger of slipping permanently into the wild.
For each of them, we learned, the process of transformation was unique. Some were human 350 days out of the year; they could control when and how often they turned into animals. Others, like Cooper, were at the mercy of some internal compulsion, though few of them switched so regularly between forms as he did. Some could choose what animals to become; others frequently found themselves to be creatures they had never imagined before. Some rarely traveled beyond the borders of Illinois. A handful had roamed the continent from end to end, meeting others like themselves in every state and climate. These wanderers were the ones who came back with information about places they’d discovered in their travels—safe houses and other havens where shape-shifters were welcome or at least out of danger. The homes of other shape-shifters, most often, the ones who had enough control over their lives to earn money and own property—or the homes of the people who loved them.
It was soon clear to me that I had a duty to this newfound circle of most unusual friends. I needed to launch my career, buy a house, and add yet one more refuge to the list of places where shape-shifters could pause in peace.
And I was willing—more than willing, even eager. And I realized these new friends could fill a need I had as well, supply a lack. The ones who learned to trust me might allow me to draw their blood and analyze their makeup. They might let me experiment with their chemistry and devise serums that reformatted their genetics. They might help me figure out the one thing I most wanted to know: how to keep Cooper human. How to keep him alive.