Moonburn (17 page)

“Abra, please. We both worked for Mad Mal, remember? I mean, he didn’t exactly make a secret of his experiments.” Back when I still thought of werewolves as the stuff of old horror movies, Malachy had been convinced there really was a lycanthropy virus. He’d conjectured
that the virus caused regular cells to become more like fetal stem cells, able to take on any shape and function.

“Besides,” Lilliana went on, “it was pretty clear last year that some seriously weird shit was going on with you and your husband.”

I laughed in surprise at the unexpected profanity, then realized Lilliana had done it deliberately, the way a jazz musician might add a dissonant note for effect. “So, the thing is, Lilli, I don’t know if I belong with Red or not. And I don’t know if staying with him means that I’m never going to be able to have a baby.” I didn’t go into the whole business about my being in heat, because it felt like a little bit too much information. Despite the lasting impression made by a certain television series, most of the Manhattan women I knew kept the particulars of their sex lives between themselves and their psychotherapists.

Lilliana walked into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of chilled Pinot Grigio and two stemless Italian wineglasses. “Whoa, slow down there. Seems to me that what you’re really saying is, do this man and I work as a couple? Are we strong enough as a team? All this business about being alpha—you know, it’s not entirely a bad thing. If you’re going to do something as big and scary as having a baby, maybe you both have to feel confident enough to say, this is my little pack, and I’m leading it.” She poured out the wine and handed me a glass.

I took a sip, beginning to feel better. “I think I liked it better when I was human, and being fit to be a parent had nothing to do with whether or not you could become one.”

“Yeah, and you know how well that can work out. Come on,” Lilliana said abruptly, putting down her wineglass and standing up. “You know what you need now? A little retail therapy.”

Despite my protestations that I hated shopping, Lilliana
nagged me into putting on my pea coat and draped herself in a gray woolen poncho that would have made me look like a bag lady, but made her look like the queen of some exotic, far-off land. Then we headed over to my favorite eyeglass shop on Columbus Avenue. At Optical Allusion, the frames are arranged cunningly in the window on pillows and pedestals, as if they were jewelry. Inside, there were antique tables with artfully tarnished mirrors, and salespeople dressed in the kind of austere chic that suggested that we were in the presence of Art.

The moment I walked in the door, I felt conscious of my old, scratched spare pair of specs, drab hair, and unfashionable clothes.

“I think these looked great,” said Lilliana, who looked completely at ease dressed in yoga slacks and silver sneakers, a fringed scarf looped loosely around her neck.

“Which ones?” Maybe if I let Lilliana choose my entire wardrobe, I would be transformed into someone elegant, funky, impeccable.

“These.” Lilliana plucked a pair of rectangular red and black frames from a display. “Let me see them on you. Oh, Abs, those are amazing. They hit your cheekbones just right.”

“Those are my favorites,” said the salesman, a reed-thin man with an elfin look of amusement.

“I should have worn my lenses. I can’t see myself.” It was never a comfortable feeling, taking my glasses off in public. Everyone else could see me, but all I could see was a blur of browns and golds.

“You can always come back,” the salesman said.

“No, I need glasses now. I can’t walk around looking like this.” I indicated the outdated frames with their scratched lenses. Of course, the truth was, I could. Red didn’t notice if my hair was shapeless or my glasses were
from the previous decade. He didn’t care if I wore makeup or shaved my legs—to him, I was equally sexy in burlap or silk, furry or smooth-skinned. It was what I loved about him. And yet, if I were truly honest, there were times when I wanted him to care. I wasn’t exactly the most fashion-conscious individual in the world, but like most women, I tried to express something of my inner self in the choices I made. But as far as the language of clothes and makeup went, Red was illiterate.

And then I remembered that I had more serious concerns about Red. Like whether or not he was killing the animals he used to save.

Lilliana selected a different pair of frames. “Those are nice, too … with the clear glass on top. You look like a sexy bohemian.”

I went over to the mirror and peered into it myopically, trying to see if I had, in fact, been transformed. Unfortunately, all I could make out was a vague face-shaped blur.

“Yes, I like those, too,” said the salesman, who would probably have liked a monocle if Lilliana had suggested it.

I replaced my old glasses and perused the display. “What about these, Lilli?” I pointed to a cat’s eye in tortoiseshell.

“Librarian.”

I squinted at my reflection. “Sexy librarian? Pull pins out of hair and unbutton shirt and you’re gorgeous librarian?” The mirror was silent on the subject, and when I glanced at my friend, her brow was furrowed in concentration.

“Let’s try one more look. Can my friend look at that—no, the black with the little ivory-looking inlay for contrast.” This last pair was locked inside a glass case, which to my mind suggested that it was out of my price range. The salesman handed it to me as if it were a canary diamond.

“That’s the best one yet,” he said as I slipped the frames on.

“And coincidentally, the most expensive.”

“No, he’s right.” Lilliana lifted my hair off my face. “Now, this is sexy librarian, Abra.”

I decided to take her word for it. “I’ll take them,” I told the salesman. “How long will it take to get them made up to my prescription?”

“Do you want us to read the numbers off your current glasses?” The salesman took my old frames as if they were a dead squirrel and took them into the back. “Two weeks,” he said when he returned.

“That long?”

The salesman’s smile turned condescending. “I’m terribly sorry, you could always use one of those quickie optician’s shops, but we pride ourselves on the excellence of our work. We also have a large backload of work at the moment.”

I was about to capitulate and ask that the glasses be sent to me, but Lilliana put her hand lightly on the salesman’s arm. “I know you do excellent work, Jeremy,” she said, apparently pulling his name out of the air, “but do you think there’s any way you could help us get the glasses more quickly? My friend here lives out of town.” As she spoke, she tilted her head slightly, and I was reminded of a world-class violinist subtly altering the pitch of the music by the slightest alteration in posture.

Jeremy looked momentarily confused, then said that he would have to check with his manager. When he returned, he announced that my glasses would be done by the end of the day.

We walked out of the store and into the cold, bright day outside, and I turned to my friend in amazement. “How do you do that? Is it a spell? Can I learn it?”

Lilliana laughed, hooking her arm through mine. A cute young guy on a racing bike swiveled his head at the
sound. “Now, how about some new clothes? I know a great little boutique on the next block.”

“I think that last purchase just cleaned me out. Besides, it’s probably better for me not to try on clothes next to you,” I admitted, glancing down at Lilliana’s willowy frame. The cute cyclist, I noticed with amusement, was following behind us now.

“Girl, you have the most amazing Renoir body. Creamy skin, perfect little upturned breasts, tiny waist …”

“Oh, Lilliana,” I said, mockingly. “I never knew you felt this way.” On the street just behind us, the cyclist grinned and then weaved his front wheel, trying not to overtake us.

“Well, it’s true,” said Lilliana, unaware that a construction worker had paused to lick his lips at her departing figure.

“Lilli, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but the truth is, I’m pretty much invisible when I’m standing next to you.” As if to prove my point, a businessman stopped talking into his cell phone long enough to give Lilliana an appreciative look.

We paused at the traffic light, and a souped-up Camaro zoomed past, honking its horn. “Baby,” called the driver, “you looking fine!”

Lilliana tilted her head to one side. “What do you mean, invisible?”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Lilli, take a look around!” I gestured at the cyclist, the construction worker, and the businessman. “You’re like some kind of crazy man magnet! We can’t walk two steps without some guy bugging out.”

Lilliana stared at me as though I were going crazy. “Abra, those guys were checking
you
out, not me.”

“Oh, please. As a general rule, I do not cause men to fall off their bicycles.” I pointed to the cyclist, who had been too busy watching us to notice the taxi driver
opening his door to spit on the sidewalk. The cyclist was on the street, rubbing his bruised shin, and the driver was yelling at him.

“Maybe you just don’t notice,” Lilliana said.

I put my hands on my hips. “Lilli, please, don’t insult my intelligence. It’s perfectly obvious which of us is attracting all the male attention.”

At that moment, I felt a sharp pinch on my left buttock. I whirled around, and saw a young man in an anorak grinning at me as he darted out of the way. “Get me a piece of that,” he said, as if ordering something from a drive-through.

“I’ll give you a piece of something,” I snarled back.

“You were saying?” The light turned green, Lilliana took my arm again, and we crossed the street.

“Hey,” said the cyclist, holding up one arm. “Hang on.”

We paused, and he came up next to us, a smooth-skinned young man a shade or two darker than Lilliana. “You all right?” she asked.

“Just scratched my knee,” he said. “Thing is, I think I know you,” he said, staring at me intently. “I can’t remember from where, but I know we’ve met.”

I rolled my eyes. “Lilliana, did you put these guys up to this? Is this the new ego boost—instead of hiring your own paparazzi, you hire your own stalkers?”

“No, really, I’m not fooling around,” said the young man, and then he looked embarrassed. “It’s just, did you and I … I feel this weird connection, like I’m drawn to you. I’m a great believer in listening to the heart,” he explained.

“I’m a great believer in examining the head,” I said, moving away from the cyclist.

Lilliana glanced over her shoulder. “So, this isn’t your typical reaction from the male of the species?”

“It must be a full moon,” I said, jokingly.

“Actually, it is,” said Lilliana, pointing up, past the tall buildings at the translucent, swollen moon hanging in the pale winter sky.

“Almost,” I corrected her. “It looks full, but it’s got another couple days to go.”

“Have you started carrying around a farmer’s almanac? Come on, country girl,” said Lilliana. “Here’s the boutique I was telling you about.” There were three outfits in the window, all of them variations on white shirts and slender black skirts. There were also a few shoes, sexy and clunky in the style of the 1940s. The name of the shop was The Sexy Librarian.

“You’re kidding me. There’s an entire store devoted to the sexy librarian look?”

Lilliana grinned as she opened the door. “You see why I can never leave the city.”

It was my dream store. There were very few things in the shop, but all of them were perfect. White shirts that were nipped and tucked in just the right places, with one-of-a-kind antique buttons. There were little navy dresses that radiated an understated funkiness that was almost, but not quite, frumpy. And there were racks of 1920s silky tap pants, and stockings with seams up the back, and camisoles in pinks and peaches and russets and plums, the color of the sunset as it deepened into night.

“Oh, my God,” I said. “I want it all.”

“I knew you’d love it,” Lilliana said happily, throwing things into my arms. “Try this. And this. Oh, and this, you have to have that on underneath.”

I ducked into the dressing room, and wriggled into the camisole. I was still buttoning up the shirt when I emerged, but I thought I had the skirt on straight. “Well, Lilli,” I said. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s sort of like that Hitchcock scene where all the birds start roosting together,” said Lilliana, and for
a moment, I didn’t understand what she was saying, because I was so surprised. The shop was filled with men. There were men crammed on either side of Lilliana, as if waiting for a dressing room, and other men visible behind them, checking out the sexy panties. I had seen the occasional hapless fiancé dragged into a store like this, but never a whole group of them. Huh, I thought, must be the new metrosexual fashion-consciousness I keep reading about.

And then I spotted the cyclist, and I realized something extremely peculiar was going on.

“I like it a lot,” said the construction worker, who had crammed himself into a corner between the businessman, the cyclist, and a bunch of Japanese tourists.

“Go try something else on,” said the cyclist. His voice sounded strained.

“Excuse me,” said the saleswoman, a lovely young Asian woman who wore the sexy librarian look very well, “but you’re going to have to tell your friends to leave. We just don’t have room for this many people.”

“They’re not my friends,” I protested. “I don’t know who these people are. Is this some kind of mass protest thing, like when that guy was organizing huge crowds to take off their clothes in public?”

A slow smile spread over the businessman’s pudgy face. “You want us to take off our clothes?”

“All right,” said the construction worker.

“Oh, man,” said the cyclist, who had snuck behind me to retrieve my slacks from the changing room. “I can smell her on these.” He took a deep whiff of my pants and I shouted, “Hey,” and grabbed one of the legs.

“Stop that. You’re being weird. All of you.”

“I need to be upside you,” said a Japanese tourist, consulting his phrase book. “Inside,” he corrected himself. “Yes?”

“I need to lick you from your toes to your ears,” said the cyclist.