Man Made Boy (7 page)

Listening to the Siren’s voice was like slipping into a nice warm bath. Your whole body relaxed, and you sank into this sensation of total tranquillity. I heard some people even hallucinated. But at the same time, you felt this insane crush on her. All of a sudden, her weirdness didn’t seem so weird anymore. In fact, she seemed like the hottest chick you’d ever seen in your life.

That night she was even better than I’d remembered. More raw and edgy, like she was just about to let it go too far and bring the whole audience charging onto the stage in a trance. But she pulled it back at the last minute, and when she stopped singing, you could hear every seat in the house squeak as the audience leaned back all at once. Then they all burst into applause, shouting, laughing, some of them even crying as they got to their feet. It was that intense. She just stood, staring at them, not smiling. And she still looked like she hated them, but you could tell she liked the applause, too.

The stage went dark, and the applause slowly faded away. Once it was quiet, a single spotlight opened up center stage to reveal Ruthven. His skin glowed in the harsh white light, but his shadows held strong in their tuxedo shape. An all-black tux, of course. It was time for him to give his traditional closing speech. He’d done it every performance for as long I could remember, but it sounded completely sincere every time, and I never got tired of hearing it.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it has truly been a pleasure to entertain you this evening,” he said. “In most shows, it is customary for the performers to come out at the end for a curtain call to
receive a final ovation from the audience. However, the spells that we have weaved for you tonight are far too delicate to handle the strain of such an event. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that it would be a shame to shatter such rare things. You see, unlike most shows, we do not wish to dispel the illusion at the end. There is far too much in this world that is coarse and banal. Why not let just a little bit of mystery remain? And that is what we hope you take with you this night. Just a tiny seed of the magic we have wrought for you.”

He paused for a second, like he was soaking up the concentrated attention that was on him. The audience was completely silent. Then he smiled warmly. “But we do not wish you to think us ungrateful, and so on behalf of the entire company, I would like to extend our most sincere thanks for your patronage.”

The audience burst into applause, most of them jumping to their feet again. Ruthven took a single bow and left the stage. The audience stayed on, applauding at the empty stage for a little while.

“Well, thanks, guys.” I hopped down from the stool.

“Where are you off to so suddenly?” asked Laurellen.

“Hot date?” asked Mozart.

“Oh, uh…” Sometimes I wished I was quicker at responding. “Not really.” And better at lying.

The two of them grinned at each other.

“An
almost
date?” asked Laurellen.

“Just getting coffee,” I said.

“With who?” asked Mozart.

“Um, Liel.” I knew I was blushing. And they were totally enjoying it.

“That is so sweet!” said Laurellen.

“My advice is be assertive,” said Mozart. “Troll girls love that.”

“Really, we’re just friends!” I said. “It’s just coffee!”

They looked at each other again. Mozart rolled his eyes.

“Would you like a spot of glamour?” asked Laurellen. “Nothing obvious, of course. Just a subtle bit of a lift?”

I thought about it for a second. A little faerie charm might be just the thing to get Liel to see me as something more than a friend.

“Better not,” I said sadly. “My mom would kill me if she caught me with glamour on.”

Laurellen sighed. “Well, if you’re sure…”

Mozart poked him in the shoulder. “He doesn’t need it, anyway. Anyone with half a brain can see the kid’s got a heart of gold.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But being nice isn’t exactly something that scores with the ladies.”

IF I HAD to name one place in the entire theater where I felt the most clumsy, it would be standing outside the women’s dressing room. They were all out of costume by this point, so the door was open and I could see into the long, narrow room. It was lined with mirrors and bright, uncovered lightbulbs, and packed with beautiful, graceful, chattering females. It didn’t matter that they were all wearing comfy clothes like sweats and tights and that their makeup and glamour were all wiped away. I still felt so big and stupid, standing there with my big, stupid hands hanging at my sides. But it wasn’t that strange “monster” feeling like when I was talking with that human girl in the thrift store. It wasn’t anything so special or powerful. No, it was the feeling I knew really well. The one that reminded me exactly where my place was in The Show: at the bottom.

And there she was, at the far end, her green face tilted up a little as she pulled her sweat-damp, white, silky hair back into a ponytail with a thin leather strap. The tight muscles in her arms, shoulders, and back flexed as she tied the strap. She turned her head in my direction, inspecting the ponytail in the mirror. Liel caught me in her glittering, diamond gaze and I wondered if she regretted inviting me out tonight. I realized that here, in front of the other females, she could just turn away, pretend she didn’t see me, and I wouldn’t say a damn thing.

But then she smiled and held up a finger like “one minute.” She tossed her makeup, brushes, and other things into a little case on the counter in front of her. Then she grabbed her bag and wove her way through the narrow center aisle toward me.

“You want to go to the Cantina?” she asked when she got to me.

“Sure,” I said, grinning like a maniac.

As we walked through the tunnels and corridors up to the Cantina, I was so conscious of her walking next to me that it felt like that whole side of my body was on fire. I wanted so badly to just reach out and take her hand. But then I looked down and saw my meaty, stitched-up excuse for a hand so close to her long, thin, graceful one, and I just thought,
Don’t screw this up already
.

There were a couple of places for the company to hang out after The Show, but the Cantina was the most popular. It was also the closest thing to “going out” that a lot of the company could have, since it was the bar out on the mezzanine level of the lobby. Like the rest of the lobby, it was tricked out in a swirl of color and fabric that was supposed to give the audience an international carnival feeling.

Liel and I plopped down on a couple of overstuffed chairs in the corner. One of the dryad wood nymphs immediately came
over to take our order. Like all the nymphs, she was pretty in that standard Hollywood human way, although they had hair that was green like leaves and skin the color of tree bark. As near as I could figure out, the group of them shared some kind of hive mind, like bees. So individually they were kind of dumb, but as a group they could accomplish amazing things. Like serving drinks to a thousand audience members in a single ten-minute intermission with enough time left over for the audience to actually finish them.

“Liel, you were so great tonight!” the nymph gushed, completely ignoring me.

“Thanks, Meadow!” said Liel, gushing right back at her. “New number, so I was totally nervous.”

“No, no, you were fantastic,” said Meadow, patting her arm. “Now what would you like?”

“Can I get two Cokes with the extras?”

“After a night like tonight, you deserve it.” Meadow gave her a wink. Then she was gone.

“Extras?” I asked.

“Oh. It’s a rum and Coke.” She shrugged, like it was no big deal.

“Right,” I said, trying to match her tone. “Of course.”

She raised a thin, white eyebrow at me. “Haven’t you ever had a rum and Coke?”

“Um. No.”

Okay, it’s not like I’d
never
had a drink. My dad usually busted out a bottle of some old French wine on holidays, and the past few years he would give me a glass. But Ruthven enforced the twenty-one-and-over rule for drinking pretty strictly, and in a community as small as ours, it was hard to get around that. If I had tried to order like Liel just had, Meadow would have laughed in my
face. That is, assuming she would have asked for my order at all.

“Well, this should be totally fun, then,” said Liel. “I can’t imagine you after a few drinks!”

“Yeah.” I hoped I wouldn’t make a total ass of myself.

“Here we are!” said a different nymph as she placed two tumblers of ice and dark, bubbling liquid on the small table between us. “Two extra Cokes!”

“Thanks, Iris,” said Liel.

That was the secret of the nymphs’ speed. When you told the order to one, you told it to all of them. They just coordinated their traffic pattern in the most efficient way possible, simultaneously taking orders, making drinks, and picking them up, using whoever happened to be closest to each station. Honestly, I didn’t know how Liel could tell them apart. They all looked and acted the same to me.

I took a swallow of my drink and winced, the alcohol burning my throat.

Liel snickered a little. “Yeah, you can’t drink it like it’s a regular Coke. Tiny sips. Especially if this is your first one ever.” She demonstrated with a quick little tilt of her glass.

“Thanks,” I said hoarsely, trying not to cough.

She laughed again. “Don’t worry. Soon you’ll be knocking them back like a trowe.”

“Well, thanks for getting me to try one of these,” I said, taking a careful sip. “They really are pretty good.” Maybe if I kept saying it, it would become true.

“Hey, no big deal.” She stirred her drink with a little red straw. “So? I’m dying to hear about your adventure outside.”

“Oh, yeah, well, I mean, it wasn’t like anything unusual happened. We walked down to a thrift store to get clothes and—”

“Through Times Square? Was it just like in the movies?”

“Kind of. It was really loud. And there were humans everywhere. Like waves of them, all swarming into stores and restaurants. It was crazy at first, just to see them, so many of them. And then to be that close. A couple of times, one even bumped into me a little.”

“Wow.” Liel shook her head. “And nobody noticed that you were different?”

“Well, some people did. But since everyone assumed I was just a human with a lot of injuries, I guess it would have been rude to stare. The girl who helped me pick out your outfit—”

“Yeah! What was she like?”

“She seemed nice.”

“What did she look like?”

“She had red hair. And everything about her was soft and gentle. Her voice, her face—”

“White skin?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah. But not all humans have white skin.”

“Of course, I know that.” Then she looked down at her empty drink, frowned, and flagged a nymph over for another one. I wasn’t even halfway finished with mine.

“Anyway,” I continued. “The whole time she was helping me, she must have been wondering, but it wasn’t until the end that she asked me about it. The stitches, I mean. Like she had to work up the courage.”

“Like she was afraid of hurting your
feelings
?” she asked, like it was totally ridiculous. “About
stitches
?”

It didn’t feel ridiculous to me. Not anymore. To her, I had looked ugly. “She was kind, you know? And I guess—”

“Thanks, Sequoia,” Liel said as a nymph brought her another drink. Then she turned back to me. “So what did you say it was? Your stitches, I mean.”

“An accident,” I said. “With a thresher.”

She was in mid swallow and choked on her drink. Her cough turned into a laugh. “A
thresher
? Do you even know what one looks like?”

“Sure,” I said, laughing a little in spite of myself. “It’s like some big farm machine thing, I think.”

“That’s so awesome.” She shook her head. “The next human who asks, you should tell them you got mauled by a lion or something. That would be hilarious.”

I tried to imagine myself saying something like that and couldn’t help but laugh along with her. I hadn’t even considered trying to mess with them. God, why did I have to be such a goody-goody? Just like my parents, doing what I was told, trying to keep out of trouble.

I took a bigger sip of my rum and Coke. Maybe it was time to stop being such a good Boy.

“So, do you think there will be a next time?” Liel asked.

“Ruthven didn’t promise or anything, but he said maybe this could become a regular thing we do. And everything went fine, so I don’t see why not. He even introduced me to one of his business people. The guy who sells us rats for the Diva. Said I was his nephew and he was showing me the ropes.”

“Really? He said that?” She looked down at her drink, which was mostly gone already, too. She suddenly seemed kind of sad.

“What’s up?” I asked. “You okay?”

“Yeah, no, everything’s cool.” She smiled. But I’d been watching Liel smile my whole life. I loved that smile. If there was one thing I could spot, it was when she was faking it. We sat there in silence for a moment while she just stared down at her drink, swirling the ice with the red plastic stir stick.

“Hey.” I nudged her. “You know what he called me?”

“No, what?” she asked, still not looking up.