Still, it’s hard to know how to begin. I start by asking, “You watch any of those TV shows about vampires and werewolves and stuff like that?”
Ellen lifts her eyebrows but doesn’t seem unsettled by the seeming non sequitur. “Some of them. I think they’re pretty stupid. Oh, but I liked Dark Shadows when I was a kid.”
“So you understand the concept of a—a shape-shifter. Someone who can take animal form when he or she feels like it.”
I expect her to say What the fuck? or Girl, you are even crazier than I thought. Some sort of reasonable response wrapped in Ellen-speak. But she sits there a long moment, just watching me. She’s holding the lit cigarette so that the smoke drifts across her face, but it’s the only thing that moves while she thinks this over.
When she answers, it’s with her own non sequitur. “When I was fifteen, I used to babysit this kid down the block. Little girl, six or seven years old, blond and skinny. She didn’t like me very much. She lied all the time—even her mama knew that. You’d say, ‘Sammie, did you break this glass?’ and she’d say, ‘No, the dog knocked it over,’ even if you’d seen her do it. Even if she saw you seeing her do it. Little shit.”
She pulls on the cigarette again, blows out the smoke in one long, even stream. “She used to tell me she could turn into an animal if she wanted to. So I’d say, ‘Fine, then, show me,’ and she’d say, ‘I don’t want to do it now.’ And, of course, I didn’t believe her. But every once in a while—”
Ellen pauses to remember something, and I see her shake off the slightest shiver. “I’d go look for her and I couldn’t find her. I’d think she was in the basement, so I’d go down there, and she wouldn’t be there. So I’d come back upstairs, look around, go downstairs again—and there she’d be. Big as life. It wasn’t a real large space, there weren’t closets or boxes big enough to hold a child. But a hamster? Or a mouse? Sure. There were little nooks and crannies where something that size could hide.”
Now she takes a few swallows of her beer. “Once she was out in the yard—or I thought she was—but I couldn’t find her, and I checked under the bushes and behind the garage. There was a stray cat sitting on the woodpile, watching me, but it jumped off and ran into the neighbor’s yard when I told it to go scat. I went back in the house, checked the front yard—Sammie wasn’t there. Out to the backyard again—and she was there, climbing over the neighbor’s fence.”
She fixes her eyes on my face. They’re wide with remembered disbelief. “Well, you know. I still didn’t really believe she could change shapes. I mean, that’s impossible, right? But it spooked the hell out of me.”
“Did you ever tell her mother what she’d said to you?”
Ellen shakes her head. “I figured, why bother? Either it was true, and her mama knew, and her mama was a shape-shifter, too. Or it was a lie, and I’d look like a fool for even asking about it. So I never said anything.” She sips her beer again. “In fact, I’m not sure I ever told anybody until right this minute.”
I barely smile. “I’m honored.”
“So? Is that what you’re telling me? You can change shapes?”
“Not me,” I say. “Dante.”
I’ve only told her his name once, but, being Ellen, she recognizes it instantly. “That’s your mysterious boyfriend’s big scary secret? How come he finally told you now after fifteen years?”
I shake my head. “No, I’ve always known he was a shape-shifter. That hasn’t changed.”
“Really? And you’ve still slept with him all this time?” Her face lights up as a new thought comes to her. “Hey, do you ever do it with him when he’s, like, a dog?”
“Ewww! Ellen, that’s disgusting! Why would you even think that?”
“Well, why wouldn’t I? I mean, I’d guess that would be one of the perks of—”
I wave a hand. I think she’s kidding—though, I don’t know, Ellen doesn’t really have that many boundaries or taboos. “Stop. No. Never.”
“Fine. Whatever.” She sucks on her cigarette one last time, then stubs it out. “Prude,” she mutters under her breath.
Weirdly, this exchange has the effect of loosening the band of pressure that has circled my ribs for the past week. I have a moment where I can actually take a deep and unrestricted breath. “Sometimes it’s impossible to have a conversation with you.”
“Sorry,” she says. “So. Dante can change shapes, not that it ever benefits you, and you’ve known about it forever. So why are you suddenly acting like you’re standing under the world’s biggest rock and it’s about to land on your head? Did he dump you?” She can’t repress a snicker. “For a tiger? Or a chimpanzee?”
“No. No, as far as I know, we’re still good.”
She reaches for her pack of cigarettes again, hesitates, and puts it back in her purse. I notice there are only three left. Maybe she’s saving them for a time she really needs one. “Then what is it?”
“Maybe you can figure it out,” I say evenly. “What’s happened lately that might make me worry about a boyfriend who can turn into almost any kind of animal?”
She makes a face—Fine, make me answer riddles—and rather ostentatiously assumes an expression of fierce cogitation. But it doesn’t take her more than a minute to put the pieces together. Kathleen. Ritchie. Mauled to death by a still unidentified creature…who might also have left human footprints behind…
“Oh, shit,” she says, and pulls out that smoke after all.
“Exactly,” I say in a very dry voice, and gulp down the rest of my beer.
Not until she’s taken a couple of drags on the fresh cigarette does she speak again. “What did he say when you asked him?”
“I haven’t seen him since it happened.”
“So you don’t know—I mean, you just suspect—”
“I can’t believe it’s true and I tell myself that every minute, but then this little voice in the back of my head says, ‘But it might be true,’ and I can’t shut that voice up,” I say. “And I don’t know what I’m going to do when I see him again. I don’t know what I’m going to ask him. I mean, how can you look at someone and say, ‘So! Kill any human beings since I’ve seen you last?’ I mean—if he hasn’t, he’ll be so hurt and offended he might never speak to me again, and if he has…”
My voice trails off.
“If he has,” Ellen says quietly, “your own life is in danger.”
Mutely, I look at her. All the reasons I have had for keeping silence so long suddenly rush back at me, clamoring, gibbering, screeching out my stupidity. God, how could I have told her this story? I have betrayed Dante as surely as if I threw a net over his head and dragged him to the nearest police station. I will never turn him in, but Ellen will. She’ll have to. She’s not a priest or a lawyer, someone sworn to secrecy no matter how heinous the confession she hears. She is more like a social worker, a teacher, someone trained to look for the burned hand or the broken wrist. The person who must call the hotline, confront the perpetrator, expose the abuse.
So long. I have been faithful for so long, have lived in silence and shadows. I was prepared to take this secret with me to the grave. I have woven the most complex and skillful webs of lies, have spoken them—unblushing and unremorseful—to the people I care about most in the world. And now all my carefully constructed fabrications have been yanked from their flimsy supports. I have been undone by grief, fear, and suspicion, all adding their own impossible loads to a burden that had already become almost too heavy to carry. But it does not matter why I have slipped and fallen; all I can see is the ruin I have caused by crashing down.
“Don’t tell anybody,” I whisper.
Her eyes are compassionate. The hand that is not holding the cigarette reaches out and brushes my arm. “Only if I have to,” she says. “Only if it’s true.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I don’t say much as we drive back to the office, don’t accomplish much before the day ends at five, don’t allow myself to think much until I get home.
When I step inside, I collapse on the couch and drop my face into my hands.
What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?
How can I repair it?
I can’t think straight, and the disastrous events of the past week have seriously disrupted my internal sense of time. I can’t remember when Dante is likely to reappear. Is it next week, or the week after that? I drag myself to my feet, cross to the kitchen to find the calendar hanging on the side of the refrigerator, the one that shows vintage travel posters for every month. If Dante’s last significant length of time in human shape ended on October 20—if he’s been staying in animal shape about twenty or twenty-one days—then he should be back very soon. Monday or Tuesday of next week.
Normally, this knowledge would make me wild with anticipation, but now I stare at the stylized steamship with mounting horror. When Dante returns I will have to conceal my doubts and inner turmoil from him, and simultaneously make sure he is safe—from Ellen, from anybody. I’m not sure I am up to these tasks.
But I have to be.
I boot up the computer, delete about forty-five e-mails about erectile dysfunction cures, then compose a cheery little message to Christina.
I’m so glad you brought Lizzie by last week! She’s the most adorable little girl, and I’d be happy to watch her for you again sometime. Listen, if you hear from Dante over the weekend, can you tell him to call me before he comes over? I think one of my neighbors is spying on me—long story!—and I just want to make sure everything goes smoothly next time I see him. I’ll drop him an e-mail, too.
Thanks!
Maria
I don’t know what the likelihood is that, in the next few days, Dante will be human long enough to call his sister, but if I can get a message to him, maybe I can avert catastrophe. Or, at any rate postpone it. In case he checks e-mail but doesn’t make any phone calls, I also send a note to him.
Hey lover, I write, since that is how I always start my letters to him.
Call me if you get a chance. There’s a situation here and I want to avoid it if I can. Maybe we can meet in Columbia or Kansas City next time you’re available? Let me know. Miss you miss you miss you love you miss you.
M
Dante’s cautious, I know he is. He has an animal’s instincts for danger. Surely some predator’s sixth sense will warn him that trouble awaits him in St. Louis, that my house might no longer be a haven. Surely he knows that, if I had to choose, I would rather have him abandon me than have him die.
Friday morning when I arrive at work, there is a white van emblazoned with the local NBC affiliate’s logo and sporting what looks like a radio antenna from its back door. Standing on the path that leads from the parking lot to the front door are two men: One is a sort of scruffy guy operating a professional-quality video camera, the other is an actor-handsome man dressed in a neat trench coat and holding a microphone.
It looks like the local media has come to call.
I’m a little early, so the parking lot has only about half the usual number of cars, though more are turning in as I sit in my front seat and try to figure out what to do next. At the moment, none of the employees are actually speaking to the reporter, but I have no doubt that some of them will be only too happy to share their impressions with him. I am certain he has come to ask about the murder. Unless something really spectacular has happened overnight, there is nothing about our little company, or our neighboring tenants, to interest a news-gathering organization.
I stare a little harder at the reporter. No, he’s not here about the murder per se. He’s here about the murderer. This is the guy who has been publicly demanding that the mayor or the public safety commissioner or the governor disclose information they might be withholding about the marauding animal, and further calling for them to close the parks until the animal is killed or captured. It takes me a moment to remember his name. Something Brody. No, Brody Something. Brody Westerbrook. I’m guessing he made the name up because it would sound good when intoned by an announcer on CNN. He’s a slim brown-haired man who appears to be just under six feet tall. He looks bigger on television, but I suppose the camera always bulks people up. His face is handsome, with regular features and an attractive smile. I suddenly hate him more than I have ever hated anyone in my life.
This is even worse than me telling Ellen about Dante. A pushy investigative reporter trying to make a name for himself might try all sorts of stratagems. For instance, he might stake out the houses of Kathleen’s coworkers, hoping they’re so rattled by his ambush that they make unguarded comments about what a terrible job the authorities are doing protecting the good people of Missouri. Obviously, he wouldn’t be looking for shape-shifters who magically appear in the middle of the night, but he would be pretty damn excited if he happened to catch one on camera.
I see Caroline stalk by Brody Westerbrook with a contemptuous expression and a swirl of black skirts. Not two minutes behind her comes Grant, who doesn’t pause, either, though he offers up his usual friendly smile. The girl from the mailroom, though, she is willing to stop and talk. I see her wave her hands, pause to point at something invisible across the street, and then continue relating her story with great animation. Brody Westerbrook keeps his expression serious and his eyes on her face, nodding several times as if she is confirming something he has always suspected. I see him mouth the words “thank you” before she resettles her purse on her shoulder and trudges on toward the front door.
No one else is immediately available to talk to the newsman, and he says something to his cameraman and rubs his gloved hands together. No doubt he’s freezing. It’s barely thirty degrees this morning, and he has probably been standing out here for at least a half hour. I’m already cold, and I just turned off the motor five minutes ago.
I still don’t get out of the car. I am afraid that if I try to hurry past Brody Westerbrook, he will block my way, he will stop me. If he does, I am afraid I will shove him or kick his cameraman or start screaming maniacally in his face. And then I will become the interesting story; I will be the one Brody Westerbrook follows home. It is much too dangerous for me to catch his attention.
It is, no surprise, Ellen who comes to the rescue. I see her red Miata spitting gravel as she wheels into the parking lot. She no doubt spotted the NBC van from the road and instantly figured out why it is here. She is fighting mad as she leaps from the car and practically runs up to confront the reporter. I see the cameraman swing his lens around to capture her tirade, but Ellen doesn’t care. She is literally shaking her finger under the reporter’s nose, and once she actually shoves him in the chest. Though she is probably seven inches shorter than he is, and at least forty pounds lighter, I would put my money on her in a physical contest; you just know Ellen can fight dirty.
They’re far enough away that I only catch pieces of the altercation.
“Get the hell off this parking lot! You have no right to be here unless you have permission—”
“It’s public property and I have every right—”
“It’s private property, and I’m calling the cops!”
“Ma’am, I am a member of the news media, and under the Constitution I have the right to speak to anyone who is willing to speak to me—”
“Fine! Then do it from the other side of the road, because this is private property and I swear I will have you arrested!”
I wait until Brody Westerbrook and his colleague climb back into their white van and, slowly enough to show they’re doing it under protest, pull out of the lot and park across the street on the shoulder of the road. Then they disembark and continue filming, as Brody speaks into the camera and gestures toward our office building. I can only imagine what he’s saying now about freedom of the press and uncooperative citizens.
I take a deep, shuddering breath, and finally get out of the car.
As you might expect, the office is in a shambles again this morning. Everyone mills around the break room, sipping coffee or pouring a second cup j
ust because they can’t bring themselves to go back to their own offices and sit in silence. I hear the frequent refrain—“Did you talk to the reporter? What did you say?”—and a mishmash of replies. A fair number of people think Brody Westerbrook is using the power of the press to ensure the safety of the city, and they’re damn proud of him; the cynics say he’s mounted this campaign merely to boost his own career. I’m in the latter camp but I don’t offer an opinion. I don’t want to speak to reporters and I don’t want to speak to my fellow employees. I just want to get through the day with as little damage as possible.
Accordingly I huddle in my office, stare at my screen, and actually manage to produce a few of the more urgent reports. I decline the offer to have lunch with Grant and Ellen and a new girl in the creative department; I can tell Ellen is not surprised by my refusal, but she doesn’t push it. She’s strolled by my office a few times today and glanced in, but she’s kept her distance. She must know I feel like one single exposed nerve and that she’s the one who cut me open. But I know Ellen; this unaccustomed restraint won’t last long. By next week, she’ll be badgering me again. Have you talked to him? What did he say? Are you all right? How can I help?
A friend like Ellen is both a blessing and a curse. I’m convinced that even if I quit my job tonight, never came back to the office, moved to a different house, got an unlisted phone number, changed my e-mail address, she would still find a way to track me down. Are you all right? How can I help? There are days I know I am lucky to have won a friend who is so steadfast, so insistent. Today is not one of those days.
A little after three, I hear the muffled sound of my cell phone singing inside my purse. It’s a scramble to dig it out before the music stops, and I sound breathless when I say, “Hello?”
“Hey, baby,” says Dante’s voice, and I feel my whole body spike with emotion. Elation and terror, equally fierce. “Got your message. What’s going on?”