Chapter Eight

I must have been more tired than I thought, because I accidentally fell asleep with Carson and didn’t wake up until two a.m. when he started crying. I rolled over and nursed him, then managed to get out of my clothes and into pajamas before falling back into bed. I flirted with the idea of getting up to brush my teeth, but couldn’t find the motivation. Carson roused briefly a few more times in the night and I dealt with him in a half-awake trance. At five a.m. I looked at the clock and thought, “Please, just sleep until six, please pretty please.” Imagine my surprise when I opened my eyes next and the clock read eight thirty. Carson stretched out next to me, pacifier next to his cheek, his tummy rising with the sweet and even deep breaths of sleep. An altogether peaceful picture. I stretched for a while, listened to the throaty rasps of a scrub jay outside the window, and finally sat up.

Carson opened his eyes and smiled at me, then reached up into his own little stretch. After nursing him, changing his diaper, and dressing him in his newly-bought-and-freshly-washed-thanks-to-Sheila clothes, I pulled on my jeans and a clean t-shirt, and headed downstairs.

The living room was quiet, but I found Sheila in the kitchen, sipping a mug of tea and reading some abstruse academic article about feminist rhetorical strategies. That was Sheila: the world in chaos with rogue paranormal beings running around trying to kill us, but if she had a few free minutes, she’d find something to read.

“Hey, sunshine, you slept in.” Sheila smiled at me, made a funny face at Carson, and got me a cup of coffee without asking. That’s why she’s my best friend.

“I know. Can you believe it?”

Sheila moved on to making Carson rice cereal and asked permission before mashing him a bit of banana. I devoted myself to coffee before anything else.

“Where is everyone?”

“Newt’s on the front steps with a phone call to his master. Tim’s sleeping, after taking most of the night on watch. Eliza went for a run.”

“Is she still…acting strange?”

“Mostly quiet. The same, I guess.”

As if summoned by her words, Eliza opened the back door and stepped into the kitchen. She wore running shorts and a blue t-shirt, with her fawn-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She gave a short smile as a hello and pulled up the neck of her shirt to mop sweat off her face. Breathing deeply—though not seeming winded—she tilted her head from side to side, rolled her shoulders, and dropped gracefully into a kitchen chair, only to bound up again and get a glass of water. Settling down for the second time, she drained the glass and finally said, “Morning.”

“Good morning. Did you have a nice run?” I asked, even though I personally thought the words “nice” and “run” should never be used together. Ever.

“Yes. Beautiful around here.”

Sheila nodded. “In southern Orgeon, we can’t complain about the scenery or the climate, that’s for sure. In fact, when I was interviewing for the job at the university and heard about the low salaries, people kept telling me, ‘But the scenery’s worth twenty thousand dollars a year.’ ” Her voice aptly mimicked the naïve enthusiasm of established faculty who didn’t need to worry about mortgage payments or student loans.

I snorted, Eliza grinned at me in return, and for a moment, things seemed almost normal.

The rapport broke as a phone rang in the living room.

“That’s my cell,” said Eliza, a note of puzzlement in her voice. I watched as she crossed into the other room to pick up her phone from the coffee table. She glanced at it and her mouth set into an expressionless line as she registered the caller. After a moment’s hesitation, she answered the call with a jab of the finger.

“Yes?”

I looked at Sheila, surprised. If Eliza answered me with that tone, I thought I might hang up. Sheila made an I-don’t-know expression. We both dropped any pretense of not listening.

“Uh-huh. I’m busy, you know.” Eliza turned her back to the kitchen. “We discussed that. I don’t have anything more to say.” After another moment. “This is pointless, okay? Please don’t call again. Just move on. I wish you well.” She disconnected and looked at her phone for a second, before she placed it down and walked back to the kitchen.

“Who was that?” I asked, even though I could tell by her scowl she didn’t want to talk about it.

Eliza moved to the cabinet to get a bowl for cereal. I watched her sleek ponytail twitch with her abrupt movements. “Just someone I dated for a while who has a hard time understanding ‘no.’ ”

“Ah-ha.” I hoped some light-natured teasing might get us back to our moment of ease. “Who’s the unlucky guy?”

Eliza set down the cereal box with a thump and Sheila raised one hand as if that were supposed to mean something to me.

“The unlucky girl,” Eliza said, “is a friend of a friend from a pack in southern Wyoming near Rock Springs. It turns out she’s not my type.”

“Oh,” I said, then stopped, utterly blank about what to say next.

“Excuse me, I’m taking my cereal out on the porch.”

As the kitchen door closed behind her, I turned on Sheila.

“What the hell? Did you know Eliza was a lesbian?”

“Yes, of course. How did you not know?”

“What, I’m supposed to be able to tell? To just know without her mentioning it?”

“No.” Sheila’s eyes flashed. “I’m just surprised you never even thought to ask about her love life before. It’s not something she hides, Jules. She’s private, but she talks when her friends ask her normal questions.”

“Shit.” I rubbed my forehead. Without prompting, Sheila got up and poured me more coffee. “Shit. I can’t believe she and I never talked about any of that—about relationships at all. I just assumed…shit. And now she probably thinks I’m some kind of obnoxious heterosexual, with my heterosexist assumptions, or that I have some kind of problem with the fact she’s gay, or…I was just surprised.”

“Shit,” I said, again. “I am the worst friend ever. Sheila, I am a horrible, horrible friend! I never even asked Eliza if she was dating anybody! I am a lousy, rotten, self-preoccupied friend and Eliza is probably mad at me and has now realized I’m an awful friend.”

“Jules. Shut up.” Sheila reached across the table and cuffed me on the arm. “Now you’re being a selfish, preoccupied friend. Sitting here worried about whether or not you’re a good friend when Eliza is out there.” She pointed at the door. “Go. Go talk to her and clear it up. I’ll stay with Carson.”

“Shit,” I said once more to just myself this time. “You’re right.”

I downed half my coffee for fortitude, ignoring the slight burn in my mouth. After reflecting, I also prepared a mug for Eliza—with cream and sugar the way she liked, although I cringed a bit—and hoisted the mug as a peace offering.

She sat on a folding camp chair at the end of the back patio. I held out the mug to her and she took it, blowing on the coffee and sipping before setting it on the ground.

“I’m an idiot,” I said, pulling another chair up. “I can’t believe I never asked about your love life. I don’t care, you know. I mean, it doesn’t bother me that you’re a lesbian.”

Eliza quirked her mouth. “Some of your best friends are lesbians?”

“Shut up.” I rolled my eyes. “Cut the straight girl a break. Seriously, I don’t care if you date men, women, both or, or ani—” My hyperbole stumbled into silence as I remembered I spoke to a Were.

Eliza laughed out loud and I relaxed.

“It’s not a big deal, Julie. I just…” She shook her head. “Everything’s pretty tense right now and I know you didn’t mean anything by assuming it was a guy. We’re still friends.”

“Yes,” I said, jumping on the word. “Definitely still friends. Now we can be friends who discuss our love lives—not that I have one.”

“Not that mine needs to be discussed.”

“Okay, well, that too. But we can talk about it later, if it gets interesting. If you meet someone special, okay?”

“Okay.”

We finished our coffee in mostly companionable silence. When we headed back into the house, Eliza first and holding the door for me, a thought caused me to falter and nearly trip. She didn’t… Frantically, I cast my mind back through events. Her protective attitude toward me. The way she liked me to scratch her ears when in wolf form. Her anger at my enemies. The easy camaraderie and trust between us. The strain and tension I sensed in her now. Tim sensed she was lying…would she, if she covered up emotion, lying by omission, would that seem the same? Could she…?

I squelched the thoughts. Not possible. I was just being self-centered again, I told myself quite firmly.