Isolation Play (Dev and Lee) (42 page)

?

Once we’re both clean and significantly more damp, we walk back to his place. The restaurant didn’t actually make provisions to return his car, so we take a taxi down. I ask if he wants me to wait at his place while he gets his car, gets a phone, all those things he has to do in public. He only pauses a moment, pulling on a clean shirt. “Fuck that,” he says. “You’re leaving tonight. Long as we don’t start jerking each other off in the cab.”

“
I can’t believe I’m saying this,” I say, “but I’m not sure I could manage it.”

I wink, and that makes him stop, and I know he’s thinking maybe I’m suggesting we try. But even though I can still get him for a moment, he knows me well enough that his eyebrows lower, his mouth relaxes into a smile, and his tail starts swaying back and forth again. “Then I guess it’s safe. You want to get in a dress?”

He’s asking, not telling. I start to say yes, and then stop and think. Who’d recognize me? Things are getting quieter out there, and I’m in Chevali, hundreds of miles from where I live and work. Brian isn’t going to leap out from the shadows with a cell phone camera. And I know Kinnel isn’t looking to publish my identity. Yet. I’d love to go out and just be myself with my tiger.

True, people might look twice, seeing Dev out with another guy. There’d be rumors that maybe he was dating a fox. And the one day I don’t dress up is the day someone would recognize him and snap a cell phone pic to send to the papers. Would it be worth it? Does it really matter to him what I wear?

I’m talking myself back into the disguise. So I nod. I take fifteen minutes to put on my feminine musk, the fake chest, and a simple dress. I smooth the dress down over my stomach, adjust the waist over my hips. They’re a little too narrow, but my tail keeps everything in place just fine.

I look at myself in the mirror: a young, moderately attractive vixen. In the stark reality of his family’s—his father’s—assholery, the disguise feels more fake than usual. I feel like by hiding, we’re proving his father at least partly right, that there is something wrong with what we’re doing.

Silly, I tell the vixen in the mirror. This is as much me as when I’m in regular clothes. We’ve gone out like this a thousand times. I’m showing him that nothing’s different, that nothing’s changed, that I’m still here for him.

Nothing’s different. Nothing’s changed. That’s what he wants to hear, isn’t it? That’s what he needs to hear. That’ll take away that cloud over his head.

I’ve been staring at myself for five minutes. I smooth the wrinkles down in the dress one more time. I brush a light coating of eyeliner on. All the trappings are in place.

When I walk out, Dev pauses to look at me. For a moment, I’m seized with the urge to run back into the bedroom, take the dress off, and put my jeans on again. Then he takes my paw.

Restaurant first, to get his car. The parking lot is almost empty. Nobody sees us.

We drive to a phone store in an outdoor mall, where Dev magically gets helped ahead of the two other people waiting. The coyote who greets us perks his ears way up when he sees Dev. Leaving the person he’s helping to run over, he says, “Mister Miski!” His eyes flick briefly in the direction of the other customers, and he adds, “Welcome back! What have you decided on?”

That doesn’t really convince the other customers, and it confuses Dev, but I nudge him to go along with it and he does. Later, when the yote is getting Dev’s phone from the back, I explain it to him. “Oh,” he says. “I thought he really remembered me. I got a phone here two times ago.”

“
You don’t destroy phones that often.” I smile around at an impala couple who just walked in with their eight-year-old son. He is gawping at Dev.

“
People remember me sometimes.” He looks away from the impalas.

Whether it’s the sight of the family, or the coyote’s false recognition, Dev gets quiet then. The coyote comes back with a new phone and a request for Dev to tell his teammates about the store. Dev nods, holding the next-gen smartphone awkwardly. I promise to help him figure out how it works, with a wink at the coyote.

We walk by the impalas as we’re leaving. The son is still staring up at Dev. I wait for Dev to react; when he doesn’t, I tug on his sleeve. He waits as I crouch down to the fawn. “You recognize him?”

Wide eyes shift to me. “I’m sorry if he’s bothering you,” the father says.

“
It’s okay,” Dev says, and starts to leave, but I don’t follow him. He takes one step and then stops, folding his arms.

“
No bother at all, dear.” I give the fawn a nice smile. “You know who he is, right?”

He nods, slowly. “He’s a Firebird,” he says. “Nummer fi’ty-se’en.”

“
Fifty-seven, that’s right.” I smile. “What’s your name? You want an autograph?”

“
It’s very kind of you,” the father says, as the fawn says, “Ricardo.”

I stand and fish around in my purse for a piece of paper. “It’s no trouble,” I say, handing a little notebook to Dev to sign. “No trouble at all.”

Dev gives me a tired look, but signs the notebook. I tear the page out and hand it to Ricardo. We leave the pup clutching the precious paper in his hands, the parents saying “thank you” over and over, the father with his own autograph. “Lucky I didn’t get mobbed,” Dev says. But he doesn’t sound grateful, or sorry; the words feel empty, said by rote.

“
We don’t have much left to do today anyway.” It’s not hard to put some cheer in my voice. The sun’s out and there are a lot of people on this shopping street. My nose twitches, taking in all the scents. Everybody’s smiling, probably because the daytime highs are below 100 for the first time in six months. It’s the kind of day where just being out with Dev can set my tail to wagging, but Dev doesn’t look like he’s seeing any of it. I cast about for some way to distract him. “Take a girl to lunch?”

He glances up at the storefront and gestures to the closest place to get food, a Wrap Party. “That okay?”

“
Sure.” The wag in my tail falters, only for a moment. “Can we take them to the park? It’ll be pretty there and not too crowded.”

He doesn’t quite say, “Whatever,” but it feels like he has. I lift my muzzle and stay perky. For him.

Half an hour later we’re unwrapping our lunches on a park bench in front of a row of cacti and decorative rocks. “So,” I say, “what happened?”

He slumps, just a bit. “I told you. My father kicked me out.”

Delicacy is required here. “What did you say?”

“
Look, doc....”

“
Okay. What did
he
say?”

“
You know.” He stares at the ground in front of him. “Told me to give you up. Don’t bother coming home ’til I do.”

I feel a chill, and my paw clenches hard around my sandwich. God damn Mikhail. “What did you say that made him walk out?” He just shakes his head. “You wish you could take it back?”

“
No.” He says it low, but firmly.

My Mediterranean wrap is dripping over my paw. I loosen my grip “Mind if I come down for Thanksgiving?”

With one paw to his side, he takes a bite, chews, and swallows. “I’ll probably just stick around here. That’s our Monday night game against Pelagia. I could use the practice.”

I can see the outline of the brace under his shirt. I grope for reassuring words.“I know you don’t want to talk about it, but just listen.” He stares down at his plain turkey wrap. “This isn’t going to last. I can promise you that. Back in my activist days I heard dozens of stories of kids getting estranged from their families. It happens in the heat of the moment, and once the family realizes how much they miss the kid, they work something out. I won’t lie. It might take years. But it’s not forever.”

He grunts an unconvincing, “I know.”

“
Maybe there’s someone who can talk to your dad for you. You said you grew up around the auto shop, right? One of those guys, one of your neighbors, high school friends?”

He snorts. “It’s none of their business.”

“
You could tell them.”

“
You don’t understand how our family works.”

“
Then someone in the family. A relative, an aunt or uncle—”

“
Doc,” he says, all quiet, “I already told you I love you. I ain’t gonna leave you.”

“
I know. I just need you to know. It’ll get better.” I can feel the words falling short, like long passes clunking to the ground. But it’s not the end of the game. There’s no timekeeper counting down to zero.

“
Does it still help if I don’t believe it?”

There’s no life in his tail. He’s just picking at his lunch. I swallow, holding back the surge of anger. If his father were here right now I would kick him in the teeth. “Yeah. It does.”

We sit like that for several heartbeats. Then he curls a paw behind my head and leans down to kiss me, softly. “Thanks, doc.”

He’s smiling, but the sadness in his eyes grips my heart like a vise.

?

What I didn’t tell Dev is that a lot of times, it is forever. The parents don’t come around, and the kid realizes he’s better off without them—or doesn’t. Whether the split happens in a dramatic scene in a restaurant or simply over a protracted period of less and less connection, it doesn’t matter. A lot of times, they reconcile. A lot of times, they don’t.

If nobody does anything, if they all just let the situation lie and nobody tries, then inertia takes over. You get used to not talking to your family, you forget why you valued them as you build other bonds. Eventually you’re left with just a little numbness when you see other happy families, when friends talk about their awesome parents.

Me, I’m okay. Sure, once in a while I think it’d be great to have a family. But as far as Dev feels from his, I’m way more remote from mine, and I’ve grown to accept it. Dev might, but it’ll take longer. And it’ll take a lot out of him. I don’t think Mikhail’s plan will work—I believe Dev when he says he won’t leave me to go back to his family. But I can see how his ache, his sadness will become a sore spot between us.

That sadness is what consumes me at the airport gate, waiting for my delayed flight. My cast itches like hell, and the more I think about the look in Dev’s eyes, the faster I pace back and forth. A tiger in an elegant blue suit walks by on his way to another gate; for a moment I picture Dev’s father, and my paw tries to curl into a fist.

There has to be something I can do. There just has to be. First he fucks up my thumb, then he kicks Dev out. He thinks he can just do whatever the fuck he wants. Well, he can’t push us around, not like this. I need to make this better. I need to do
something
.

Sure, he’s got the physical edge on me, but I’m better with words. I could take him apart logically, dislocate his arguments with sarcasm, pierce him with wit. The problem with that is that logic, sarcasm, and wit are useless against emotion. All I’d do is make him lose his temper and come at me. Or hang up, if I do the smart thing and call him on the phone. Smart, here, is a relative term.

Maybe I could talk to Duscha, even if Dev won’t. Problem one: I don’t have the number. Problem two: I don’t feel like being charming. Problem three: I don’t think that would help anyway. I need to talk to someone, though, to get some of this out of my system. I call Salim, but he’s not picking up his phone again. I scroll through the other numbers on my phone. Alex doesn’t know about Dev. Neither do my other friends. My father...not right now. So I walk to the window, away from most of the people waiting, and call Aunt Carolyn.

“
They kicked him out,” I growl when she picks up.

“
Just like that? Was there a scene? Were you there? Are you okay?”

“
No, I was—I’m fine. His father’s like this primitive tribal chief or something. Lord of his little family kingdom.”

“
The mother’s okay with it?”

“
I think so. She seems to like me. But she doesn’t have any say.”

“
Don’t underestimate the female influence. How’s your tiger taking it?”

I stare out the window at the airplanes. “Dev loves his family. They don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve him. But he loves them.”

“
Maybe he should call another press conference, tell the world he still loves his family. Or is he not that much of a drama queen?”

“
He’s not any kind of drama queen.”

I still love her laugh. It’s melodic and reassuring. Usually it can make me smile. “I suppose that’s best. Two in a relationship would be a little much.”

“
Did you ever want to punch your mother?”

“
More times than I can count. But it was much more satisfying to send her pictures of me with my ne’er-do-well boyfriends. That’s what she hated most of all: her daughters consorting below their ‘station’.”

I pause. “I could send his father a picture of him in a cheerleader’s outfit.”

Even her surprised half-laugh is musical. I tell her about the prank his teammates played, and she demands that we bring the picture when we come visit. Because that’s the Sunday before Thanksgiving, our conversation turns to the holiday.

“
You should call Bren.”

I turn to face the corner of the window and wall. “I talked to Father already. Dev can’t come home with me for Thanksgiving.”

“
Not for that. Just for ideas.”