The Fox and her Bear (Mating Call Dating Agency, #2) (3 page)

The little drifting quilt of notes that carried him was a comfort. A much needed comfort. The door jingled again, jarring Dawson out of his moment of quiet reverie. The door chime was a bit of an odd curiosity. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but Tenner liked it, so what the hell.

Dawson snorted like someone just waking up and getting the very last snore of the night out of their system. “Whassat?” he asked with a start, and then shook his head. “Oh, it’s Jimmy.”

Jimmy Delfort, a crocodile-shifting barfly with the consumption habits of Norm from
Cheers
, and the physique to match, sauntered in and chug-a-lugged the glass of beer Tenner poured as soon he recognized the round-belly.

When Tenner returned his attention to Dawson, the big bear was still poking away at the keys, creating a comfortable, Muzak-like sound. If someone were crooning the words to some wholly non-offensive light rock ballad, it would’ve been right at home.

As the night went on, the bar filled up more than either Tenner or Dawson expected. The fights down the road must not have been much of a draw. The shifters of White Creek drank their fill, ate a disgusting amount of Tenner’s perfected poutine, and even managed to get through the whole night without once knocking over the antique popcorn machine next to Dawson’s piano.

He took requests that made him happy, some that made him sad, and others that he didn’t actually know, but pretended.

“Hey man,” someone he didn’t recognize, whose breath carried the spicy-sweet aroma of bourbon in heavy, heavy doses, came up and clapped Dawson on the shoulder. “Look at you. You’re sad.” Except it came out
lookhs at you, you’re shad.

Dawson was used to random bar patrons giving him advice, but not really this direct. She was smaller than the usual member of Tenner’s crowd, and vastly more attractive, but that wasn’t saying much. Anyone that happened to be female would have stood out in that crowd. It might’ve been a sad sausage party, but damn it, it was
their
sad sausage party. “Do I know you?” Dawson asked, as politely as he could manage after a night of Billy Joel requests that he dutifully granted.

“No,” she said. “Maybe. I’m not sure. Do you?” this was followed by a long, trailing giggle. He could always tell when someone wasn’t in their element, and this lady was definitely not. She had a certain elegance and grace to her that didn’t seem to make a lot of sense in this old, wood paneled joint. “I’m Yvette.”

She stuck out her hand, and Daws shook it. “Nice to meet you ma’am, you doing all right? Seem a little liquor-struck.”

“Oh you know,” she said, exhaling with a sigh. “Sometimes life just makes you need a drink, yanno?”

“I hear you,” Dawson said. He patted her shoulder. The woman had enormous eyes, almost comically so. And when she turned her head it went further than he was used to seeing a person’s head turn. “So, what brings you in tonight?”

“Huh? Oh, aren’t you busy or something?”

“Nah, last call’s in about ten minutes. People don’t normally get too interested in piano music at this point. And if they
do
have the wherewithal to ask, they always want to hear
Freebird
. And, uh, yeah, I’ll break a nose before I play
Freebird
again. So, what’s shakin’?”

She shrugged. “To be honest with you, I was just looking for someone. I’ve been running low on bears in my Rolodex and I don’t think I’ve ever met one of you that could actually play a piano without breaking it.”

Dawson shot her a confused, cocked eyebrow. “For your... Rolodex?”

“Oh, right,” Yvette said. “I run a dating service. Mating Call. Heard of it?”

Dawson nodded to Tenner, who deposited a thick, oily-looking stout on top of his bear paw coaster on the piano. Taking the mug in his hand, the bear took a small swallow, then a longer, deeper one. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t get out much. How does it work?”

“The dating agency?” Yvette accidentally laughed. “Sorry. That’s just not something I generally have to explain. A girl calls, a guy comes in for an interview, and when we find two that match, we... match ‘em. Mate ‘em, whatever you want to call it.”

Immediately, Dawson’s thoughts started wandering, the way they always did. It was the green-eyed girl again. Her nose was small, round, perfect. Her cheeks were sort of thin, and her flame-red hair framed a face covered in freckles. It was like she was inches away from him, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t touch her, couldn’t take her hand.

Yvette slapped him on the shoulder, jolting him out of the short fantasy. “You keep doin’ that, buddy,” she said. “It’s like you’re daydreamin’ about... hey, wait a minute.” Her eyes started sparkling with something that even not knowing her, Dawson immediately recognized as ‘hatching a plan.’ “You with anyone? No, you’re not, what am I saying?”

He scrunched his eyes, wrinkling his forehead. “What are you talking about? How do you know I’m not seeing anyone?”

“You’ve got a blue shirt and slightly less blue pants. No self-respecting girl would ever let you leave the house like that.”

Dawson looked down. “They look the same to me,” he said. “But wait a second, how do you know I’d live with whoever it was I was dating?”

“You’re a bear, bears like to make very strong decisions without much thought. Thankfully it usually works out for the best.”

He shrugged. “Okay so even if you—”

“Look, this is what I do for a living.” She plunked a card down beside the half-full beer glass. “When do you usually wake up?”

“I help Tenner clean, get to bed around four. Usually up about noon. Why?”

She smiled. “Because you’re coming in to my place tomorrow at one-thirty. Address is right there. I’m going to interview you, and we’ll find you someone that’ll match those pants for you.”

“I, uh,” Dawson was stumbling over himself like his lip was lying on the ground. Tenner, for his part, was laughing almost hysterically. He was just about purple. “Hey! Wait! I never said I’d come!”

Yvette was halfway out the door already, but she turned her head all the way around. “Your mouth might not have said anything, but those eyes sure did. Like I said, I do this for a living.”

She was the last one out, as it happened. Somehow, Dawson had lost fifteen minutes talking to the woman with the strange accent and the slight slur in her voice. He stared, mouth agape, at his old friend, who was just then recovering his breath and his normal pallor. “You did this, didn’t you?”

Tenner shrugged. “Did what?”

“Set me up! You got her to come over and hoodwink me, shanghai me, bamboozle me into—”

“Jeez, welcome to 1946, Beaver,” Tenner said, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes. “You’re the only bear in the world I ever knew that started talking like he was living on
Nick at Nite
when you get mad. It’s kinda cute.” The bartender fluttered his eyelashes, which were not at all luxurious, and sat atop ruddy cheeks and a giant mustache. Dawson glared.

“Why? I mean, what the hell? Why’d you do that?”

“Look, kid,” Tenner said. “You’re a nice guy, a little gruff, sort of a temper, but you’re a nice guy. You deserve better than sitting in a bar, noodling at a piano and playing Billy Joel covers for the rest of your damn life. And anyway, she was right. You’re a damn eyesore with your mismatched pants. Somebody’s gotta fix that.”

As defiantly as he could, Dawson swallowed the rest of his beer. “Yeah? Oh yeah?” he stood up, a smile betraying his true feelings, but he was doing his best to look angry. “Well I’ll show you, you old son of a bitch, I’ll go to that woman’s place, and... wait, what the hell am I saying? I can’t do that.”

Tenner got quiet all of a sudden. “You... can’t? Why not?”

“I’m not the type to do all that sort of thing. I can find my own mate, thank you very much. It’s just that I’m not looking, is all.”

“Right,” Tenner said, drawing the word out to about thirteen syllables. “So when you’re sitting there playing that piano—which by the way is just about the best mate-catching skill I’ve ever heard of, and it’s going completely to waste because you’re playing to a bunch of dudes—and you zone out, you gonna tell me you’re not thinking of some girl?”

Dawson shrugged. “I don’t think of anything. I just zone out. What’s it to you anyway?”

Tired, grumbly and grouchy at having been caught red-handed in his slightly-pitiful pining, Dawson got up and bid his friend farewell. “I’m going upstairs,” he said. “I got some thinking to do.”

“Yeah, well,” Tenner said. “If I was you, I wouldn’t be late tomorrow. You really,
really
don’t want to be late.”

“Why? And who says I’m going anyway?”

“Oh,” Tenner said, “I think you made your mind up about five minutes ago that you were gonna go see ol’ Yvette. You better call her Eve though, everyone does. It’s kind of a ‘Walt sent me’ kind of passcode. But I’ll tell you this. Don’t be late, son, because Eve
hates
it when people are late. It’ll do you good anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dawson grumbled, tromping up the stairs. But no matter what he
said
, the whole way up, and the whole time he was getting ready for bed, and the whole time he was lying in his mound of blankets and pillows, the only thing on his mind was flaming red hair, burning green eyes.

Someday
, he thought as he drifted off,
someday I’ll catch you
.

––––––––

“W
hat on earth is
that
?” Dora walked through the front door of Mating Call Dating Agency’s office and dropped a pile of folders on her desk as the smell of something roasted and delicious hit her nose. “Is that pig?”

Eve looked up from Dora’s desk, where she had been sitting for a couple of hours already. She pushed her reading glasses up her long nose and blinked a couple of times. “What?”

“The smell. It smells good, but I don’t remember the last time you bought lunch for the office.”

“Oh it’s not for us,” Eve said, before turning back to making notes on a small pad. “We’ve got a bear coming in later, he’ll be hungry. And yes, it’s a pig. I got Boris from that meat market down the street to roast me a suckling pig.”

Dora crinkled her forehead so that her eyes went narrow. She clicked her teeth together and rubbed her puffy cheeks. “Uh, so you got a new bear client and you bought him a damn pig? Do we even have enough petty cash for that? And good lord, can I have some? That thing smells heavenly. I had no idea Boris could cook.”

Eve shrugged. “You know I like to take care of the men who trust me. Makes life easier. Full bellies make happy bears. That, and I haven’t had a bear in my Rolodex for weeks, so I’m pretty happy to have him.” She flipped through her notecards. “I’ve got just the girl for him, I think. Angie Holton? The fox who lives on Pine.”

Her voice was distant and thoughtful.

“If you had an opium habit, I’d think you were Sherlock Holmes,” Dora said. “What the hell would you do with yourself if you never found this job?” She took a folding chair from the wood paneled wall and unfolded it before flopping down. “And why aren’t you in your office?”

Eve made another note. “What time is it?” she asked, completely ignoring her closest friend cum assistant. “Not ten yet, is it?”

“Uh,” Dora checked her phone, “half past twelve. How can you not know the time? You’re sitting in front of a computer with a clock displayed as the screen saver.”

“I hate computers,” Eve said with a sneer. “I don’t trust what they tell me.”

“Even if it’s just a clock?”

“
Especially
if it’s a clock. The thing about computers is they’re going to trick us, make us reliant on them, and then when we least expect it, become sentient and wipe us out.”

Dora rubbed her forehead. “So you watched
Terminator 2
again last night? I thought we talked about this, Eve. It makes you paranoid.”

“No, I went out and got drunk at Tenner’s piano bear.”

“You mean bar? And since when do you get drunk? That sounds more like me.”

“Oh right, piano bar with a piano bear.” She pushed her glasses up again. “That’s our new bear.”

“He plays the piano at a bar? That’s what you got excited enough about to buy a suckling pig? Really?” Dora let out a long, trailing sigh. “And I can’t have any.” She was pouting comically.

“I said you could if he didn’t want it all. Anyway, you’ve never heard a piano sing like this bear managed. It was like he was tickling a baby that kept gurgling and laughing. Er, wait, that doesn’t sound right. It was like he was petting a cat that just purred and purred.”

“You’re hungover aren’t you?” Dora grinned. “Want some Alka-Seltzer?”

“More like
menudo
,” Eve countered. “That’s good for hangovers, right? And I’m out here because the pig is in my office in one of those stay-warm bags, and the smell of food is making me nauseous. How the hell do you do this every week?”

“Have you ever smelled menudo? You can’t sit in a room with a delicious roasted pig, but you’re thinking about eating stomach and tongue soup?” Dora asked, slyly aware of how evil she was.

“Ohmygod,” Eve gulped, and held her hand over her mouth. “Enough, enough!”

“Seriously though, first of all I don’t stay at a bar until closing time picking up clients. Also, I chug a couple pints of water right before bed. And take some Advil when I wake up. Wait, did you say
menudo
?”

Eve narrowed her huge, round eyes. “I saw on one of those shows where a clown shoe host eats bugs and yak tongues or whatever that it cures hangovers.”

Dora couldn’t help but laugh. She kept it quiet though, out of respect for her friend’s condition. “Tell you what. You bring the pig out here—I promise I won’t eat it all—and then I’ll go get you some Gatorade. You’ll be good as new in a half hour or so.”

“You get it,” Eve said. “I’m not entirely sure I can keep my dignity if I start heaving.”

“Dignity, she says,” Dora chuckled. “Only Eve could worry about her dignity when she’s nursing a hangover at half past noon.” She made her way back through the glass door to Eve’s office, fetched the enormous tray, and almost salivated as she placed it on a couple of chairs opposite the front door. She helped Eve, who groaned loudly, to her feet and packed her off to her office. She watched through the window as her owl-shifting friend hunched over, put her head in her hands, and massaged her temples.