Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) (11 page)

The next morning, his mother had made eggs and sausages, and though she had only put toast and eggs on his plate, his father scraped a sausage next to them without asking. Sol didn’t say anything, just ate around it, and bore the scowl on his father’s muzzle when he took the sausage and dumped it into the garbage disposal.

Even though he hadn’t dreamed, he’d woken feeling more anxious about his dream, aching to talk to someone about it. He didn’t want to annoy Carcy, but the ram had a calm, stable voice, and Sol hadn’t heard it in a while. And Carcy hadn’t answered him last night; that would be a good excuse to call. So he called on the way down to the bus stop, stopping a short distance away from the opossums.

The ram’s voice, deep and smooth, sounded just a little hurried. “Hi, Solly. I gotta hop in the shower in a minute. What’s up?”

“Oh, just…” Sol sighed. “You didn’t answer me last night. About the butter.”

Carcy laughed. “Hon, don’t worry about the butter. It’ll all be fine. That all?”

“N-no.”

He could hear Carcy moving around, the rustle of cloth. “I’m getting in the shower, Sol. Look, call me back later, okay?”

“I had a weird dream!” The words tumbled out of him. He clutched his side and rocked back and forth.

“Last night?”

“Uh, no.” Last night had been mercifully free of dreams, this morning free of strange paint spots on his fur. “The night before.”

“Well, write up an e-mail and tell me about it, ’kay? I need to go or I’ll be late for work.”

“Okay…” Sol sighed. It was silly, and he was acting like a kid. “Sorry. I don’t mean…”

“It’s not a problem, Solly. Just write it up and we’ll text about it tonight, right?”

“Right, right.” He pressed the phone to his ear.

He thought there’d been another male voice there in the background, but it was gone and there was only silence until the ram’s voice came back, loudly. “Love ya, Sol.”

“Yeah.” He flicked his ears back toward the opossum cousins, who were quieter than usual. “Me too.”

If the possums had heard him talking, they didn’t let on. They got on the bus ahead of him and headed for the back while Sol sat in his usual spot. He stared out the window and wondered who else might be at Carcy’s place at seven-thirty in the morning. The ram said he lived alone, but had made no secret of his active dating life. But Sol had always thought that no matter what happened on a date, the date wouldn’t sleep over. That was silly, he thought. What if they stayed up late, or had been drinking, and it wasn’t safe to drive?

Did that mean that Carcy didn’t love Sol? They’d never even seen each other in real life (not counting webcam pictures). If Sol didn’t live in a smallish town where everyone knew each other, and where nobody else was gay, it might be okay for him to date, too. He was more worried that if Carcy had someone else living with him, he would be less enthusiastic about Sol moving in. Sol would have to make him see that he wouldn’t be any trouble, and eventually it would have to work out. The fact that he’d called Carcy when he was stressed and needed someone counted for something, didn’t it? What he felt whenever he talked to the ram, that wouldn’t go away, and he knew that it would end happily.

His mind returned to Jean and Niki, how Jean had written about the beauty of Niki and the love he felt, and how Niki had heard Jean talking about his body. But of course, that last thing had been in a dream, not in the book. In any case, Niki’s belief in love from the dream, that was what Sol felt when he thought about Carcy. He thought Carcy felt about him the way Jean had written about Niki; at least, that’s what the ram had said to him in the past. Sol wouldn’t know until they had a chance to talk in person; their talks over texts and even over the phone always felt too constrained; his flowery e-mails had gotten only short, appreciative responses.

Sol shifted in his seat, leaning his head against the glass and inhaling the floral chemical scent of the sanitizer, strong enough to obscure the other students’ scents. He wanted more than anything for the bus to keep going, past the houses and out into the fields, onto the highway, past rest stops and across the state border, up to the smoky industrial outskirts of Millenport, past the football stadium and into the inner city where Carcy’s apartment was. He wanted to run up the stairs to knock on the door and run into the ram’s arms, and leave school and his parents behind. He wanted to feel the ram’s love for him, strong arms around him and the warmth of Carcy’s breath on his cheek ruff. He wanted to know Carcy’s scent.

But of course, the bus stopped at the school, and even though Sol waited until most of the other kids had gotten off, until the bus driver said, “Hey, wake up,” the bus did not magically take him to Millenport. The only breath on his cheek ruff was the chill breeze of morning, scurrying along the golden bricks of the school to greet him.

He slouched along the tile floors to homeroom, and from there through the rest of the day. Again, he stayed late for practice, even though Friday nights were optional. Taric, of course, was practicing, as was about half the team. Nothing had changed, not even, Sol felt, his skill level. He had tried to recapture the brief moment of focus he’d felt the day before, but now Carcy had pushed the dream out of the forefront of his concerns, and he found himself daydreaming as much as he ever had.

Taric, now, was working harder than ever to show him up. Every time Sol fielded a ball and threw to a base, the coyote’s next throw came to the same base, quicker and harder. Twice Taric leaped in front of Sol to cut off a ground ball, snapping it up like it was his first meal in days.

Sol stewed.
The next time he tries that, he thought, I’ll jump right into him.
But the next time it happened, Taric leapt in front of Sol and knocked him backwards, scooping the ball up smoothly. The coyote pivoted and threw to first with a snap of the wrist, then trotted back to his position. The fox and the other coyote applauded, but others, including Xavy and the other wolves, looked away. Coach called out, “Good hustle, Taric, but let’s be a team player.”

“Sure, Coach,” Taric said, but when he took his position beside Sol again, he said, softly, “I am.
I’m
playing with the team.”

Sol flattened his ears. At least he wasn’t being humiliated in front of a large crowd. The cheerleaders weren’t even out; they had indoor practice on Fridays. And there were no other students watching, or at least, that’s what he thought at first. As he trotted in from fielding to go to the batting cages, he saw a red fox and a mink chatting at the base of the bleachers that surrounded the field. Losers, he thought. Bad enough I have to play baseball on Friday night, but they have nothing better to do than watch?

For the third day in a row, he and Taric were the last ones left at the batting cages. Sol was tempted to stay until sunset, just to see how late Taric would stay, but his mother had already warned him that they were going out to dinner and that she would come by to pick him up at 5:30 sharp. When Sol went back in to clean up, Taric was still standing in the batting cage, stroking line drives out to the field with cracks like wooden boards snapping in two.

Taric’s passion was baseball, Sol thought, and for the first time in hours, he recalled his dream. Niki had a passion for dance, and Henri had painting. That was one of the strongest emotions left over from his dream, that sense of purpose, even though in Niki’s case it was a frustrated sense. Sol just did not feel like baseball was his purpose, not any more, not with how he’d drifted away from the rest of the team. If he worked at it, he might recapture that feeling of purpose, but it was clear to him that he would have to do it alone, without his teammates’ support.

He doubted his father would accept “baseball is not my purpose” as an excuse for not regaining his starting spot. So he would just have to make it his purpose for the next month. Starting Monday, he vowed, he would stay later than Taric every day if he had to.

When he got home, his mother hurried him to dress up, and it wasn’t until he was in the back of the car, leaning against the window, that it occurred to him to ask who dinner was with. And when his mother told him “the Norstons,” he didn’t immediately connect his father’s work colleague Mrs. Norston with his teammate Xavy Norston, even though they’d gone to numerous events together. He did not process the connection, in fact, until they were walking up to the restaurant, and then Sol stopped dead.

Unless he stuck fingers down his throat to make himself sick right there on the sidewalk, he didn’t think there was any way he could get out of the dinner. So he greeted Xavy with a nod and sat at the table, glad that his shirt was long-sleeved so he couldn’t pull at the fur of his arm when his paw went there reflexively. Fortunately, Xavy seemed about as uncomfortable as he was, especially when baseball was brought up.

Sol’s father, for one, kept talking about how well Xavy and Sol worked together, kept asking Sol if he was watching Xavy in practice. Sol, painfully aware that this was a roundabout way of telling Xavy to watch out for him, made one-word affirmations and desperately wished for a change of subject. Mr. Norston picked up on the theme, but as he joined the conversation, it became painfully clear that he had not been told about Sol’s demotion.

They managed to avoid the subject until Mr. Norston raised his glass of white wine to the “wolves anchoring the infield”—Xavy played third base—at which point Sol’s ears, flat against his head, were as warm and uncomfortable as he could stand. He couldn’t respond, and his father didn’t raise his glass.

The table went silent, while everyone looked at Sol and his father, and neither of them spoke. Finally Xavy had to be the one to tell his father that Sol had lost his starting spot, and to whom.

“A coyote?” Mr. Norston said it loud enough for other tables to turn around and look. Sol cringed.

“He’s really good,” Xavy said. “College good, coach says.”

“I understand he doesn’t have much but baseball in his life,” Sol’s father said. “It’s hard to compete with someone when that’s the only option they have in life. Sol here is going to college one way or another. Computer science,” he said proudly.

“Yeah.” Sol had no idea what computer science was going to mean, just that it was a degree that made someone “employable” and involved computers, which he liked well enough.

“Sure,” Mr. Norston said. “That’s tough luck he plays your position, son. Them ’yotes from the trailers, when they see an opportunity, they grab after it with both paws. Don’t have packs to consider—barely got families, at that. You just be thankful you got a good family.”

Sol mumbled a thanks, picking at the fur on the back of his paw under the long sleeve of his shirt. Sol’s father laughed a fake, forced laugh. “Sol’s still gonna grab the starting spot back. Just gonna be a little harder than he thought. I’m workin’ with him, though. We’re going to hit grounders and all.” He’d offered this the day before, and Sol’s noncommittal noise had apparently been taken as acceptance.

“Xavy’ll help too, won’t you?” Mr. Norston said. Xavy nodded with what Sol thought was at least a little actual agreement.

Of course, it was at that moment that the waiter brought the four steaks and the two plates of steamed vegetables. It didn’t matter that Sol’s mother had ordered the same thing; all eyes on the table were on Sol. Xavy, who’d stood up for him, stared at the vegetables as if Sol had ordered garbage brought in from the dumpster in the alley and heaped on his plate.

“Is that…all you’re having?” Mr. Norston stared down at the broccoli, the carrots, the cauliflower.

Sol attacked his vegetables with a fork. “I’m not hungry for steak.”

“Are you feeling all right?” Mrs. Norston leaned across the table. “Your ears have been flat all night.”

The scrutiny of so many eyes was making his stomach hurt and his tail curl more tightly against himself. “I’m fine.”

“Doctor’s orders,” his father cut in. “Sol was suffering from fatigue and itching. Doctor thinks it might be additives in meat—chemicals, you know, hormones, that stuff in the news—so we’re cutting out meat except the organic stuff we get at home. It’s a pain, but…” He gave a whatcha-gonna-do shrug. “We got protein supplements and all.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Mr. Norston said. “Hey, once you get that crap flushed outta yer system, you’ll get that starting spot back lickety-split.”

Xavy’s muzzle bore that mix of curiosity and pity that was reserved for classmates with weird medical conditions, like the bobcat with the tic in his shoulder, or the asthmatic field mouse. Sol acknowledged the other wolf’s look and then bent to the business of finishing his plate of vegetables.

It was less awkward, if not much, to hear the Norstons give the topic of baseball a wide berth for the rest of the meal. By the time it was over, Sol was aching to do his homework. They made it through dinner with no more awkwardness, and things were going well even as they all left the restaurant. Then Mr. Norston turned as his family was heading toward their car, and said, “Bring some of those organic steaks to the barbecue tomorrow. We’ll toss ’em on the grill so Sol here can eat.”

“Oh,” Sol’s father said. “Good idea.”

But his brow had lowered, and his fangs showed over his scowl, and those were the last words he said all the way home. Sol texted Carcy about the awkwardness of the dinner from the back of the car, and in the middle of those texts he got a message from Meg asking if he had looked at her images or read any of her books yet. He ignored it until he got home, when she called him. He ran up to his room to take the call.