Barbie & The Beast

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  “Darin?”

  No answer.

  “Darin?”

  Was that a sound in the distance?

  A door?

  Sitting up too fast, Barbie’s head whirled with leftover wine-induced vertigo. Tossing her legs over the side of the bed anyway, she stood by holding the bedside table. She’d had much too much to drink.

  “Darin? You there?”

  No sound. Odd.

  Barbie padded into the hallway, then to the living room, her head still running in spin cycle. But there was no Darin in the living room. No Darin in the bathroom, either. Did this mean there would be no tucking? Was this a big gyp? Where the heck had Darin gone?

  The muffled sound of her phone, returning suddenly, shocked Barbie into a shout. Puzzled, wary, then slightly enlightened, she dove for the couch.

  “Barbie?” Angie whispered from the other end. “What are you doing answering the phone?”

  “What are you doing calling?”

  Angie ditched her conspiratorial tone. “Ooh. Are we grumpy? This isn’t good. I’m sure this isn’t good. Where are you?”

  “My apartment.” Her voice was flat, petulant. The vertigo was returning. Riotous confusion.

  “Alone?”

  “It seems so, as of a minute ago.”

  “Good for you! Stand your ground on the no-sex thing. Or did the guy even have sex potential?”

  Barbie fell silent, feeling a sob coming on.

  “Who was he?” Angie asked with interest.

  “Darin. Russell.”

  “You make any second date plans?”

  “Thing is, I’m not sure.”

  Barbie got slowly to her feet and tiptoed toward the living-room window. She separated the blinds, peered out. No one out there on the sidewalk. No gypping tease of a guy anywhere in the neighborhood, though she couldn’t see the portion of the street directly beneath her window.

  “Not sure?” Angie said disbelievingly. “You either made plans or you didn’t.”

  “He said he’d take me to a movie.”

  Another peek at the street outside. Another big zippo.

  “A movie? Really? He agreed to that?” There was lots of interest in Angie’s voice now.

  “Plus shopping,” Barbie added softly.

  “Are you serious?”

  “He used the E-word, Angie.”

  A small hesitation. Then an audible gasp. “The E-word? On the first date?”

  Well, Barbie mused, it was actually their second meeting, but Angie’s question was a valid one. To night was, after all, their first actual date. Carting her around a graveyard didn’t count. Still, Darin had said he wouldn’t harm her to night or ever. He had stated very clearly that they would have another date. So, what had happened to him?

  “He used the E-word? Then what?” Angie wanted to know.

  “He left.”

  Good to do some editing here, Barbie decided. Nothing about deep kisses and longing for licking.

  “Before he left, did the movie and shopping date have a day of the week attached?” Angie asked.

  “Not really,” Barbie replied. “Is that bad?” She knew the sudden lack of Darin was bad even without Angie’s two cents. Darin had just up and left. Disappeared. Poof!

  “Maybe bad, maybe not,” Angie said. “The E-word is a good start, I think.”

  “There’s something else, Angie.” Here it comes, Barbie thought. Don’t shriek. Don’t start shouting, crying, or sounding overly concerned. “He didn’t say good-bye when he left.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Geez, Angie! You used the tone!”

  “Well, I suppose there were circumstances for this non-good-bye sayage?”

  “Lips on my throat one minute, non-good-byes the next. I think I heard the door close behind him.”

  “He got to lips on your throat?” Angie sounded flabbergasted.

  “Now’s not the time, Ang. But yes, he did, so sue me.”

  “I’m not chastising, Barb, I’m jealous! Been a long time since I had lips on my throat. Now. . .as for why he left. You didn’t have anything weird on your throat—like misplaced food or drool or something?”

  “Only a little lotion.”

  “Good stuff or cheap stuff?”

  “Ten dollars a bottle.” That would fit Angie’s definition of good, surely.

  Her friend took a few seconds to think. Then she cleared her throat. “You didn’t by any chance, um, accost him with rules while his lips were on your throat?”

  “Well. . .”

  “Lordy! You didn’t! Barb, listen. We need to talk about this.”

  “Might not be the time for a lecture, Ang,” Barbie reminded her. “Some confusion over here.”

  “Okay. Okay. Don’t get your pan ties in a knot. Well, my thought is that if the guy agreed to a movie, and if he used the E-word, I’d say you had a successful date, plain and simple.”

  Barbie sighed. “It doesn’t feel successful. We’d only barely gotten to scratch-and-sniff.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Did you say what I thought you said?”

  “Probably,” Barbie admitted with a wince.

  Hesitation, then: “You didn’t get to—”

  “Nope.” Not quite.

  Angie sighed audibly. After a few moments, probably trying to sound cheerful, she added, “I say he’ll call.”

  “The problem is that he might think he has E to do it in, Ang. E being eternity.”

  Angie made sympathetic sounds. “Plenty of other fish in the sea in that case, my friend. It was only one date, after all.”

  “Damn right. Plenty of fish,” Barbie agreed, though she had an inkling none of those fish would be like Darin.

  “We are prime fisherwomen,” Angie continued. “Adept at hook, line, and sinker.”

  Not so adept at wine ingestion, though, Barbie thought. Nor in reeling the fish into her bed. It looked like she’d definitely have to work on that.

  “Don’t worry, Barb,” Angie cooed. “Take a bath, eat those leftover Oreos, and get some beauty sleep. Remember in those Harry Potter books when the witchy nurse at Hog-warts gave them all chocolate to ease their minds and—”

  “Angie?” Barbie interrupted, her voice quavering. She squeezed her eyes tight.

  “—the chocolate made them better? And—”

  “Angie!”

  “Yeah, Barb?”

  “There aren’t any leftover Oreos.”

  Silence. Dead. Thick. Murky. Followed by some heavy breathing on the other end of the line. Then, “Uh-oh. This isn’t good, is it?”

  Barbie shook her head as much as her vertigo would allow. “I think I’m going to—”

  “No! Don’t do anything. You hang on, Barb. I’ll be over in a half hour. Can you wait half an hour? Hang on until then, okay? Take a shower. A hot shower. No, a cold shower. Definitely cold. Put on your poodle pajamas and drink some milk. Have some cheese. Cheese is almost as good as cookies. Turn on the TV. You’re going to be all right. Do you hear me, Barbie? I’ll be over as soon as I can!”

  “Okay.”

  Well, Barbie sniffled to herself as she hung up the phone, she might not have Darin, but she did have the doggie bag. That was something, wasn’t it? And help was on its way.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Too late!

  Darin, panting on the sidewalk beneath Barbie’s window, pressed his back against the warm brick wall. He was out of the moonlight and out of breath, but what did that matter now? Either way, Barbie was safe. Safe from him. Or was it the other way around?

  Like the moon, full and lusty in the sky, Barbie Bradley wielded power over him. Being with her, even without direct moonlight on his skin, could definitely bring on the change when he didn’t concentrate. Bits of the change, at least. Claws, for one. And a bit of fur on his arms. He’d been right about that. Barbie Bradley, it seemed, was a chip off the old moon.

  Miss Bradley would also no doubt be pissed ove
r his not-so-grand exit. Over the lame and (she would believe) inexcusable way he had up and left her. Hell, it was inexcusable. Totally. She’d have every right to be angry. He’d have been angry in her place.

  Darin pushed his claws into the mortar between the bricks and felt the grinding of his jaws. He tugged at the collar of his shirt and eyed the closest window. No lights in there. Raising the very sharp claw of his index finger, he scratched a heart into the wood of the shutter. He added BB and DR to the center of the heart. Childish, yes. Destroying her property, admittedly. Still, Barbie might see it and believe it a sign that he cared.

  He did care. He cared a lot. Yet for now, he could do nothing more than scratch this bit of graffiti. He was unstable. His insides were liquid, responding to the gravitational pull of the orb in the sky. His outsides had become a suit of rubber, expanding, contracting, never quite completing the shape of what he needed to become. He wouldn’t allow it. Not yet. Not fully. It was exhausting trying to hold on when Wolfy was so strong.

  One more glance at Barbie’s window. One more moment of regret. He was sorry to leave her, sorrier than he had ever been about anything. He couldn’t control the slippage, however. He’d tested himself and how far he could go in that apartment, but Barbie had touched him as he feared. Her touch had been. . .

  Willpower could only take him so far.

  One sharp tear of Barbie’s flouncy bedspread with his wayward claws would have been the end. A nightmare. Worse yet, one mistaken nip to her neck or thigh—all in the name of love, of course. But Barbie wouldn’t know his fear, and he had to leave her with some hope. As well, in spite of his sorry exit, he himself had to continue to cling to the hope that she would not forsake him for this first faux pas. In no way did he want to frighten Barbie. Not now. Not ever.

  He had a few minutes left, he figured, until the change was complete. More than that if he could get away from Barbie and stay out of the moonlight. Long enough to make it back home, anyway. Barely. He had to forget about what he might have missed out on in Barbie’s bedroom. He had to bypass thoughts of the anger and hurt Barbie would be feeling. Tomorrow was another day. Tomorrow, in the daylight, he’d call her. He would think of some way to explain this mess. He would plan some way to get her back. He’d offer two shopping sprees. Ten movies. Right after he got back from his scheduled PD gig.

  The sound of silk ripping brought him out of thought. Christ! Another shirt was about to bite the dust. How many did that make this year?

  Tearing off his coat, shoving up his sleeves, and gouging his forearm in the process with his own claws, Darin thought, Jesus! Claws! What good are they, anyway?

  He inched one loafer-clad foot into the cascade of moonlight dripping past the roof of Barbie’s building, winced, and drew it back. Without bothering to take the time to look up and down the street for an audience, he gathered himself and made a dash for his Porsche.

  His skin began to shift as he reached for the door handle. His heart threw him a double beat that sent him reeling onto the car’s shiny black hood. His shirt tore with the sound of an ocean wave hitting shore, and his pants became uncomfortably tight. With a grimace he scrambled off the hood and tried again to open the car door, his head whipping side to side in a perpetual and uncontrollable shake that increased each time he took a breath.

  His hair lengthened, hit him in the face. A cough doubled him over. The skin on his face twisted painfully away from the bones and underlying ligaments as he jerked himself upright.

  There went the pants, torn open at the seams. He helped the process along, ripping with his fingers and claws until he was free of them. After that, he raised his new, feral face to the heavens.

  Okay, Wolf Man, Furball, Hairy-faced Hound, he thought, since he was no longer able to speak, yell, or shout. Get on with it. Enjoy.

  A grating sound followed his dive into the Porsche. His claws had trailed across the glossy exterior of the driver side door when he slammed it shut. Wolfy, getting the last dig in. Damn wolf didn’t have any manners at all.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Barbie sat on the floor with an empty cookie package on her lap, pinching the plastic pleats for crumbs, getting madder by the minute. Without the necessary chocolate fix—a girl’s (and okay, Harry Potter’s) best fix in times of stress or excitement—she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She might not even be able to cope!

  Although Angie would be on her way soon, she always took the time to beautify before heading anywhere. Beautification took Angie a while, an hour at the very least. Barbie doubted if she could hang on for an hour. Adrenaline was already surging. Her temper had risen dramatically. She shot to her feet.

  Hello, Rambo Barbie!

  Rambo Barbie wasn’t content to sit and look at empty cookie wrappers. Oh, no. Rambo Barbie demanded action. Rash action. What would Rambo Barbie do?

  Attack.

  The silk camisole, the one Darin had liked, she tossed onto a chair. Donning a pair of old sweatpants and a white T-shirt one size too large, Barbie grabbed her keys, her cell phone, her socks, and her running shoes. She made two last-minute calls. The first was for a taxi, the second, to Angie’s answering machine.

  “Angie? I know you’re in the shower, but get out. Meet me at the graveyard. Last night’s graveyard. Wait by the lamppost, and don’t get out of the car. Oh, and what ever you do, please don’t forget to stop at the mini-mart on your way.”

  It took a full ten minutes for the cab to arrive. Though Barbie looked closely at the back of the driver’s head, this cabbie didn’t appear to be the same guy who had delivered her to the Gypsy restaurant. Thus, she couldn’t grill him on where he had met Darin, or how Darin had paid. Bummer. She decided that this driver was also slightly intimidating. He wore sunglasses despite its being night and never turned his head when he spoke to her. Kind of creepy, she thought. Still, she was a woman on a mission.

  She slammed the car door as she got in.

  The cab driver kept talking to a minimum, foregoing any opinions on Barbie’s directions. To his credit, he kept his lips buttoned about what he probably supposed was an odd choice for a jogging site. Maybe he assumed she was in search of drugs, and the running shoes were a simple alibi. Cab drivers had most likely seen it all in their checkered careers.

  Barbie tipped him generously for the short trip, waved him off, and stood beneath the lamppost where she had dropped her phone number the night before. Then. . .she reevaluated her strategy, which now was cast in an unfavorable light. The night was dark. The time had to be close to midnight. She was alone on the edge of a graveyard, chasing down a defective date.

  The inevitable pangs of self-doubt arose. There was a good possibility Darin wouldn’t be here. Just because the guy was a graveyard keeper didn’t mean he had to live in the graveyard. Silly assumption, dammit. Darin probably had a very nice apartment somewhere close by. Porsche ownership showed a liking for luxury. It also suggested graveyard keeping and part-time police consulting paid better than she would have imagined.

  A quick glance over her shoulder to the edges of the dimly lit parking lot produced no Porsche sighting. Nor were there any other cars, for that matter. Maybe a trip to the mini-mart herself would have been a better idea. Plenty of cookies there to take out her frustrations on. Tons of cookies. Shelves of the things. More calories, sure, but the action would have been more reasonable and far less dangerous.

  “Hey!” Barbie’s voice wasn’t loud enough to shout down the disappearing taxi. Its taillights, like animal eyes in the dark, were fading fast into the distance. She was too stunned by her own recklessness to chase the cab on foot.

  “Double duh on the darkness,” Barbie whispered. “Failing grades for my behavior to date.”

  She glanced up. The lamp above her head buzzed softly. Bugs were skittering nearby with a connection not lost on her.

  Moths to the flame.

  “Now I’ve done it,” she ranted, to cover the sound of the bugs suicide-bombing the light. She rotat
ed slowly, sighing. “Not that I’ve actually ever gotten into trouble. For all intents and purposes, I have always behaved well. Maybe I have a tendency toward temper tantrums, I admit. . ..”

  If this were really a temper issue now, Barbie told herself, she’d blame it on the Oreos. Those cookie packages should be larger, with at least a baker’s dozen inside. A full thirteen! Spare Oreos were what was needed in today’s society, along with more advanced problem-solving skills.

  Damn if she really wasn’t out here in the parking lot of a cemetery, despite her excuses and the blame-placing. In the dark. Alone. This merited a second sigh. The options, as Barbie saw them, were to wait for Angie to arrive with proper medication (Oreos), in which case Barbie would have to explain why she was out here, or she could adhere to Rambo Barbie’s idea and do what she’d come here to do: seek out Darin Dine-and-Dash Russell.

  The prospect of facing Angie was daunting. Scary. Since Barbie hadn’t told Angie about the meeting with Darin in the cemetery, hadn’t even admitted to knowing the voice on the answering machine when pressed, no possible explanation on the planet would appease her friend when she arrived. There wasn’t one single thing Barbie could say to make this right, except maybe, I’ll buy you dinner every week for ten years if you’ll forget about this and never mention it again. Thing was, who could afford all those meals on a teacher’s salary?

  Still, it really was inescapable: explanations were necessary—end of story. No matter what she did with her time until Angie arrived, she had to come clean. No matter what she did to Darin Russell.

  The thought was agonizing. How could things be any worse? Well, for starters, she could listen to Rambo Barbie and make it two for two.

  Edging out of the pool of light cast by the streetlamp, Barbie leaned forward as though she really would venture out alone into the darkness. Decision made. Inhaling deeply, winding herself up like a pitcher about to throw a ball and chanting “Hua!” Barbie took off at a sprint across the pavement. Up over the curb she went. Under the Forest Lawn sign, hoping there were no other extraneous party boys in the area. Three hundred rapid heartbeats later, she stood on the spot she thought might be ground zero, abduction central, huffing as if she’d run a marathon.