“So tell me something about this Daniel boy,” her mom said, sitting down at the table with a soft grunt. She was barely thirty-six, but her joints were stiff and worn out.
“Not much to tell.” Misty shrugged. “His name’s Daniel. He’s a boy. He’s really sweet.”
Lily jumped into her mom’s lap. She fed the cat some bacon. “He have a lip ring too?”
“No. I pierced my lip because I wanted to.” Misty had already explained this to her mom several times. “I didn’t do it because of Andre, Daniel, or any other boy.”
“Probably has a ring in his pecker.”
“Mom! He does not have a ring in his pecker.”
“And you’re so sure of that how?”
Busted. Misty sopped up her yolk with some toast and considered her response. “I know to be careful, Mom.”
Her mom sighed. She trusted Misty, but mostly because she had to. “Just graduate, okay? Please? That’s the only thing I’ve ever asked of you or Marc.”
“I’m going to graduate,” Misty promised. “Don’t worry.”
“Just graduate and never date a guy with a ring in his pecker. Do those two things, and I’ll be happy.”
“You know what would make me happy? If we could stop talking about peckers at breakfast. If we could hold off the pecker-talk until at least noon. Or better yet, never.”
Her mom chuckled. Waving her fork at Misty, she said, “Honey, I’ve made some mistakes in my life. But, God as my witness, I never dated any guy with a ring in his pecker.”
Misty covered her face with both hands, her shoulders trembling with laughter.
CHAPTER 11
Ice and snow melted away, anxious to return next year, as winter only lingered now in the long morning shadows. During spring break, while classmates scattered to Gulf Shores and Panama City, the pack prowled their city almost every night. During the lazy days in between, they lolled among the sprouting green of the furnace complex.
“By the way,” Misty told Daniel one afternoon. “Just so you know. Marc has a crush on you.”
Daniel asked, “Huh?” but the twins had started into a flurry of shoves and punches. Marc got Misty in a headlock, but she was still giggling.
“He’s started wearing the same body spray as you,” she said.
“So?” Marc snapped back. “I liked it, so I went out and bought some. That’s not gay.”
“Yes it is! It’s the gayest thing ever.” Misty twisted free. “If you went and had sex with another guy, it still wouldn’t be as gay as sniffing my boyfriend.”
Marc’s face darkened. Daniel slapped him in the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I started wearing it after Keith did.”
Instead of making him feel better, Marc’s face seemed to darken even more at the mention of Daniel’s cousin. Misty stopped laughing.
“Maybe I won’t wear it, then,” Marc mumbled.
“What’s your problem with Keith? That time he bumped into you in the hall?”
“Bullshit, he bumped into me. That—”
Misty cocked her fist back, making Marc cringe. “Well?” he yelled.
Misty groaned and turned toward Daniel. “That fight you broke up? It started because Angie called me a mutt. Keith was hanging on her, then Marc—it was dumb. Forget it.”
“She called you what?” Every muscle tensed. Daniel felt his shoulders hunch, his legs ready to spring.
“I said forget it. I told Marc to forget it. How come nobody listens to me?”
“So what? That doesn’t bug you?”
“Yes, Daniel, it bugs me.” Her tone made it clear that Daniel would never exactly understand. “But there’s nothing you can do that won’t bring ten times more trouble down on you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do! So forget it.”
Werewolves weren’t the only monsters that had roamed the night in Birmingham. The Klan once operated as an unofficial arm of the government, maintaining order with dynamite, assassinations, and an assurance that the police would quiet any witnesses. Frustrated blacks began answering back with rocks, bottles, and a certainty that the problems were nothing a few dead cops couldn’t fix. The days of Bombingham were over, but they’d left the city with wounds that would never heal entirely.
Daniel and Misty stared at each other. Then Daniel said, “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“I know, just …” Just he felt filthy by association. Keith was family. Daniel had dated Angie for a year despite how trashy she could be. He wanted to hug Misty but wasn’t clean enough.
“I’m going to talk to Keith,” Daniel said.
“No.”
“I’m just going to talk to him.”
Misty took his hand. They left Marc in the casting shed and walked quietly through the perfume of wildflowers haunting the air. After a minute, Misty said, “It did bug me. I was so pissed, I could barely see straight, just thinking about Angie. But then I thought about what you think of me.” She nudged him. “What do you think about me?”
“I think you’re beautiful. And amazing and exciting.”
Misty nodded. “That’s what I thought you thought. You forgot breathtakingly graceful, though.”
“Well, breathtakingly graceful, of course. How did I forget breathtakingly graceful?”
“So I thought about what you thought about me. Then I thought about what Angie Walton thinks about me. Then I thought, Who cares what Angie thinks? Forgot all about the bitch. Okay?”
Daniel had hurt Bwana for insulting Misty and would have hurt Keith, too. A wolf had to protect his pack. But instead, he kissed Misty and whispered, “Okay.” His cousin would never know how lucky he was.
They lay in the grass, heads propped on their hands. Misty asked questions about his family. She’d started dropping little hints lately that she wouldn’t mind meeting them.
Daniel couldn’t let Misty come to his house. His parents told strangers in elevators about their son the Ivy Leaguer; there wasn’t a chance they’d go through a whole dinner with Misty and not mention it. Before long, though, Misty would start wondering what the big secret was.
Finally, Daniel said, “Hey, I’ve got to watch Mack Sunday. You want to go out and get ice cream, or something?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Daniel brushed Misty’s chin with a dandelion while he talked. “I’ll pick you up after church. Twelve or so.”
She nodded. “So you still go to church, huh?”
Daniel shrugged.
“That’s cool. Marc still goes. I think about going pretty much every week. But …” Dropping her voice to a guilty whisper, she asked, “Don’t you think God knows? About what lives here? What we do?”
“What? Think God’s going to strike you down?”
“No,” she said, annoyed. “It’s just, I don’t know, I don’t want to go and sing and stuff if I’m not being sincere.”
Daniel stopped teasing her with the dandelion. Misty sneered at herself. “It’s stupid, I know.”
Daniel promised her it wasn’t. He kissed her, then found himself laying his head against her breast. Settling onto her back, Misty ran her fingers through his hair.
She was a better person than him. She was beautiful and everything else he’d said. She was kind, too, with hurt animals and people who weren’t worth her mercy. But that fairy-like creature inside Misty was as hidden to the hand-lickers as the wolf. The constant drone of gossip around Misty drowned out her own delicate lilt. A stupid little hoodrat. She burned all her boyfriend’s clothes once.
Daniel wished he could rest there forever, between the cool grass and warm sunlight, listening to the soft beat of Misty’s heart.
Before heading out Sunday, Daniel poured his brother a glass of Kool-Aid. Girls loved the Kool-Aid-stain mustache. As soon as Misty saw Mack, she went into a daze, unable to take her eyes off him. She spent the afternoon cooing over him, hugging him, and pretending to be brontosauruses with him. Any gathering s
uspicions she might have had evaporated. Nobody with a little brother that adorable could possibly have anything sinister to hide.
Unfortunately, even though Cornell wasn’t noteworthy to Mack, ice cream and a girl who gave him piggyback rides were. At dinner, he told their parents about his and Daniel’s day.
Their mom looked at Daniel. “So Mack’s met her? Well, at least we know she’s not imaginary.”
Hunched over his plate, Daniel shoved food into his mouth.
“So why’s he the lucky one? Why haven’t the rest of us gotten to meet her?”
Daniel knew what to say to smooth this over. He just didn’t want to bother. “Because Mack actually waited until he’d met Misty before making up his mind about her.”
“Daniel, we haven’t made—”
“The hell you haven’t. You’ve called Aunt Leslie or Bwana’s mom. You came up with something to talk about for five minutes, then said, ’Do you know anything about this Misty Sandlin? Daniel won’t tell me anything.’” There was a subtle flush to his mother’s face. Daniel knew he’d caught her. “And probably ninety percent of what they told you was bullshit.”
“Watch your mouth!” his dad snapped.
“Fine,” his mom said. “I wanted to know about this girl, and you wouldn’t tell me anything. What was I supposed to do?”
Daniel went back to his food.
“So Misty’s not as bad as people say. Good, I never thought you’d get mixed up with a girl like that. So bring her over sometime. We can’t make up our own minds until we’ve met her, can we?”
“I’ve asked her, but she doesn’t want to.”
“Why not?”
Daniel shrugged. “Because she doesn’t give a damn what you think about her.”
“That’s it. You’re through.” His dad pulled Daniel’s plate away and pointed toward the stairs. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately.”
“Nothing.” Leaving his family and heading to his bedroom, Daniel mumbled, “Something’s getting loose.”
Even wearing human skin, Daniel stood a step outside humanity now. Their constant chatter grated on him. When school started again, students dragging their bellies in the dirt for the teachers made Daniel sick.
Everybody had heard how he’d punched Bwana, and Daniel’s old friends didn’t want anything to do with him now. Watching them joke around with Angie and Keith, that was fine by him. He started wearing his tanker boots every day. He liked how rough and ready they felt. He liked how they set him apart from the hand-lickers.
But Daniel could only afford his revulsion because he’d already licked all the hands he needed to. Hidden in his desk at home, he had a letter from Cornell, a one-way ticket out of Birmingham. He’d earned it by keeping everybody who mattered happy and keeping quiet otherwise.
It was a subtle art, looking into somebody’s eyes and seeing, deep down, what they wanted to believe. Smart people and distrustful wolves would swallow almost any story if they wanted desperately enough for it to be true. Daniel could slip half a dozen lies past Misty and the pack before lunch, his sweet smile never wavering as they gobbled them down one after another. Now, Daniel realized that after four years of being the shooting star, of delicate manipulations and outright bullshit, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d said one honest word.
The days were running out, though. Soon, Daniel would have to choose between being a shooting star or a wolf, drop all the lies, and find his real voice. Daniel wasn’t even sure if he’d recognize the sound of it anymore.
But before dread of that coming moment grew too much to bear, the pack always gathered, once again, at the furnace. There, Daniel stomped his boots until his feet turned numb, chanting, “Want to be a wolf! A wolf! A wolf!”
Around him, the others screamed, then barked and raised howls. “A wolf! A wolf!”
Sweat and tears from the smoke dripped onto Daniel’s lips and fell pap, pap to the dirt. Exhaustion and Amanita muscaria wrapped him in warm delirium. They purified the animal inside him.
Someplace far away. Steepled halls above Ithaca. Two brothers, a mother and father. Something he needed to do soon. Something that was going to hurt somebody. Daniel stomped his boots. The human dross oozed from his psyche and fell pap, pap to the dirt.
Daniel’s skin shifted around his altered consciousness. Sight and sound flooded creature senses. Misty’s gentle whines would bring Daniel running. He’d bow low and whine back. Trotting beside her, Daniel licked her muzzle, making her tail wag.
He knew she was his companion, that she liked biting his ears. He knew her strength and quietness. He knew how moonlight burned across her fur. Nothing else remained.
“Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad,” Misty huffed. She lugged a box of green peppers to the stainless-steel sink in the deli’s prep area. Val trailed her.
“Look, I’m just telling you what I heard, okay? Angie was talking to Geneva in health class. She said something about him going to Cornell. This isn’t the first time either.”
“I don’t care what Angie says.” Misty jerked around. “You know she’s a damn liar. You know she’s still in love with Daniel.”
“I know, but …”
“But you believe her, anyway?”
“No. I don’t know. I mean, maybe Daniel isn’t exactly lying, but maybe he’s not telling the whole truth either. I mean, isn’t it kind of weird that he’s so smart, takes all those AP classes, but doesn’t have any plans after graduation?”
“He has plans.” She started washing the tomatoes. “We’re going to Europe, remember?”
Val sighed. “Before he met you. And also, you’ve never been to his house or met his family.”
“I met his brother.”
“Who’s five!”
“So? Just because your boyfriend’s paranoid, doesn’t mean you have to think everything’s a conspiracy too.”
Val had finally asked the questions that had been floating through Misty’s head for weeks. She refused to listen. She refused to wonder what Angie had been talking about. It didn’t matter; Angie was full of shit.
“Look, Misty. I—” Val touched her shoulder, but Misty gave an angry jerk.
“Don’t.” She forced herself to take a breath. Val was her best friend, even if she tried to mother her all the time. “I know Daniel better than you do, okay? He wouldn’t lie like that, okay?”
“Fine.” Val walked off without another word.
Under the lukewarm spray, Misty cut bruises out of the peppers’ flesh. Maybe she didn’t know everything yet, but she knew the way Daniel touched her. She knew the way he looked at her. Those couldn’t be lies. The hand-lickers didn’t see anything in Misty besides a ragged stray. Daniel saw someone else, though, someone enchanted, as if she really were Puck in butterfly wings.
Misty couldn’t stop believing in him, no matter what. Otherwise, she didn’t deserve to have him believe in her.
CHAPTER 12
The wolf’s animal reserve was with Daniel all the time now. He grew distrustful of crowds. Too much noise. Too many bodies to watch, all moving at once. Even before winter had broken, the pack began refusing the shelter of the school lobby before class, meeting around one of the concrete picnic tables lining the front walk instead.
One morning after spring break had ended, they sat there despite the fat drops of rain plopping to the grass. They yawned and blinked bleary eyes but didn’t say much. First bell rang. A few stragglers rushed into the school. The pack still didn’t move. After a minute, Marc said, “Fuck it. Let’s skip.”
Eric nodded. “You’ve got some good ideas sometimes, Marc. They should give you one of those genius grants.”
“I’m in if you guys are in,” Val said.
“Me too,” Misty added.
They all looked at Daniel.
“What do you want to do?”
Misty snorted. “Not be here. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but—”
&nb
sp; “Daniel Morning, have you ever skipped school before?” Val asked.
“Yes.”
“I don’t mean playing sick and getting Mommy to write you a note. I mean out on the town, free as a bird, skipped school.”
“Well …”
“Oh, that’s so cute.” She pinched his cheek. “No wonder the teachers love you.”
“Such a responsible young man,” Eric said.
Daniel brushed Val’s hand away. “Okay, okay. But if you’re gonna skip, why not at least wait for a nice day? It’ll probably drizzle like this all day.”
“Baby, I promise.” Misty wrapped her arms around him. Their noses touched. “The weather’s always perfect on a skip day.”
The patter of rain shut people inside, leaving Misty and her friends to wander their own private city. Crisp air sharpened the sound of their chatter. Flower buds, such a pale green they were almost white, covered gray branches.
After stopping at a grocery store to buy some bread, they drove to Kelly Ingram Park. When they’d started talking about the movement in history class, Mrs. Turner had shown a photograph that had been shot in Kelly Ingram. It showed protestors in their Sunday best, their faces frozen in shrieks as fire hoses slapped them to the concrete.
The park lay on the old border between the black and the white sections of town, between the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church to the north and Bull Connor’s police and firemen to the south. During the Battle of Birmingham, protesters, mostly pissed-off high school kids, Misty’s grampa among them, marched day after day.
They emptied the schools and filled the jails. The cops hauled so many people off, they had to start holding them at the YMCA. No matter how many kids Connor arrested, though, hundreds more would cut class and assemble at the park the next morning. The sheer weight of the protestors’ bodies ground the city to a halt and forced it to surrender, beginning the slow process of desegregation.
These days, Birmingham’s battleground heart hummed with bees. Wet clover swished against boots and soaked jean cuffs as they passed the Civil Rights Institute. Glancing over, Misty remembered a youth group field trip she’d taken there years back. She’d bragged to the tour guide that Grampa had been in the movement. She’d been proud of him then. He’d seemed like Superman. He’d stood up for truth and justice. He’d changed the American way.
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