“Hey, where are you?” she asks, and there's a pointed tone to her voice. It also sounds like she's in a crowd of people. There's a snazzy instrumental version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” playing behind her at full blast.
“Where...am I?” I ask her, starting to feel a mounting dread uncurling in my stomach. It sounds like she's at a party...
“Oh, my God, Kat, did you really forget about the party again?”
Oh, my God. Diane's Christmas party.
Diane's Christmas party that is, I realize, stricken, tonight.
As in...right now.
“Um...no,” I tell her, slowly hitting my forehead with the palm of my head over and over again. “I, um, didn't forget,” I lie through my teeth. “I'm...on my way now!” I tell her, with an extremely fake brightness.
Jewel glances quickly at me, one brow up, questioning, and I grimace at her as Diane coos with delight over the phone. “Wonderful!” she chirps “We'll see you soon!”
And then she hangs up.
“On your way?” asks Jewel, and I'm shaking my head as I step forward, curling my fingers around her upper arm.
“Jewel, I'm so, so sorry—my best friend is throwing a Christmas party, and I totally forgot to go last year, and she never let me forget it. I mean, it was pretty terrible of me to forget, and now I just forgot again. God, I'm the worst.” I blink, realizing something. “Um...I know this is really short notice, but...” I trail off, realizing exactly how silly of an idea it is.
“But...” Jewel prompts me with a soft smile.
“Well, I mean... Do you want to go? To the party? With me?” I ask her, hopeful, yet bracing myself for the no that's surely to follow. This is the shortest notice of all time; I met her exactly twenty-four hours ago...
“Yes,” says Jewel simply, giving me a broad smile. “I'd love to. Do you want to get headed out now?”
I glance down at myself and my elf costume. “I'm totally dressed for it!” I tell her, laughing, joy sneaking into my words and making them sound bright. “Just...um...” I glance longingly at the pretzel kiosk and sigh. “I'll just eat at the party,” I tell Jewel, and turn around to go, but Jewel is stepping up to the bored-looking teen at the pretzel kiosk and ordering me a pretzel. She glances at me with a sultry smile as she hands me the pretzel and the cheese dipping sauce. And I step forward, brushing a soft kiss on her cheek as I take the pretzel in, admittedly, very greedy hands.
I munch on the thing very happily all the way out to Jewel's car. She drives something black and nondescript, and after getting in, it's only a matter of minutes before we're pulling into a parking spot down the street from Diane's house.
“Oh, my God, I can't believe you actually made it!” is the way that Diane greets me when she opens the door. She steps forward and embraces me tightly, but then she's taking a step back, gazing at Jewel with wide eyes.
“And who's this?” she asks, putting on her best hostess smile.
“This is Jewel—the woman who just became my roommate,” I tell her with a wide grin. “Jewel, this is my best friend, Diane.”
They shake hands, and Jewel smiles pleasantly at Diane, who flashes me a very questioning look, but I just smile at her, too. “Well, welcome, welcome,” she tells Jewel pleasantly. “This is just an informal get-together that we throw every year. Come on in!” she says, and ushers us both inside. Outside, it's beginning to snow, and the wind off the water is tremendously cold.
“Let me take your coats,” says Diane, and when she's helping me out of mine, she leans close and hisses to me, “Who is this?”
“Well...I think we're heading toward being girlfriends,” I whisper back to her, and Diane's eyebrows skyrocket upward as she glances at Jewel again, and then looks back at me with a wide smile and a wink.
“Help yourselves to any food or drink,” says Diane, and she whisks our coats away to put them in the spare bedroom.
“Are you still hungry after that pretzel?” Jewel asks me companionably as she proffers her arm to me. I slide mine through hers, and then we're both wading through the sea of people already at the party and making a beeline toward the groaning tables laden with every type of fancy Martha Stewart-esque finger food you can imagine.
“You've got to try Diane's spinach-artichoke dip. I could have just eaten an entire Thanksgiving dinner, and I'd have room for that spinach-artichoke dip,” I tell her with a laugh. “Here, try it.” I pick up a chip, and I scoop up a generous portion of the dip from a gigantic red bowl in the shape of Santa's head. I hold the chip out to Jewel, and instead of taking it from me, she ducks her head elegantly and bites the chip from my hand.
She chews thoughtfully, and then her eyes roll back in her head as she moans with delight. “My God, that's good,” she tells me, and then she's smiling wickedly at me. “You're blushing,” she tells me, leaning forward and wrapping an arm around my waist.
“That moan just reminded me of last night,” I say softly, one of my brows up as I chuckle a little, putting my arms around her neck.
Diane is suddenly at my elbow with a bright smile, holding a tray of cups full of egg nog. “Care for some nog?” she asks Jewel, and Jewel laughs, nodding and taking a cup from her. She still hasn't removed her hand from the small of my back. Diane dances away to offer more mugs to her other guests, and I lift up my mug, too, that I grabbed off of the tray.
“A toast?” asks Jewel quietly, leaning forward and placing her mouth against my ear. I shudder a little against her and sigh happily.
“To what?” I glance into her warm amber eyes.
She lifts her mug of egg nog, and she smiles so deeply at me that I feel dazzled by her. “To...possibilities,” she murmurs then, her eyes flashing brightly.
“I'll drink to that,” I say, and I clink my mug with hers.
From across the room, I hear a roar of laughter as Diane drops her tray of mugs. The mugs go flying in all directions, spattering the floor with an avalanche of egg nog, but surprisingly none of the ceramic mugs actually breaks. The people laughing are already drunk, and Diane herself is laughing, too, crouching down with helpless giggles as she scoops up the mugs and puts them on the now egg nog-drenched tray.
“You have the grace of a werewolf, my dear,” says her husband, Roger, offering her a hand up.
Instantly, the mirth of the moment is eclipsed by the frozen dread that begins to build inside of me. God, not werewolves. I hold my breath, thinking please don't bring up werewolves so hard in Diane's general direction that I feel myself turning blue in the face.
“God, werewolves. Don't get me started!” mutters Diane, standing and balancing the tray of cups expertly. She has a sour look on her face. “Did you hear about Mayor Oakes?”
I turn a stricken look on Jewel. Her face is hooded, her shoulders up, her body stiff, her normally warm, amber eyes darkened with pain.
No, no, no.
Mayor Oakes is the current mayor of Boston. And he just came out as a werewolf. The speech that he made at the press release was really emotional and vulnerable and wonderful—it gutted me. It took so much courage to stand in front of that crowd and reveal what he was. I don't think I'll ever forget one of his parting lines. He said, “I'm doing this for all the kids out there who feel that they need to hide themselves. Do what you need to do to be safe, but I need to come out to show you that you can be a werewolf openly. That it's okay. You don't have to be afraid.” There were protesters on the site of the press conference, holding up signs like “animals belong behind bars” and “this animal needs to resign.” But Oakes held himself with dignity as he stated his truth. And it was inspirational.
All of that happened two days ago. It would, of course, still be fresh news.
But whereas there might be hundreds and hundreds of households tonight in Boston discussing it with a positive response...this is not one of those houses.
“He needs to resign right now,” says Roger with a frown. “I elected him into office believing he was a human. He
lied to us!”
“I don't want an animal running this city,” says Diane viciously.
Maybe it's because it's so crowded in here, but I suddenly feel like I'm sweltering. The heat courses through me, along with anxiety and fear...and something else.
I don't like confrontations. I'm kind of a quiet person, and I like people to get along, generally. Every time that Diane has brought up something disparaging about werewolves in the past, I've called her out on it, but it's never been an impassioned calling out. I've told her quietly that I didn't appreciate it, and we both agree to disagree and move on to another topic.
But now?
Now it's personal.
“Diane,” I say, and I guess I say her name loudly, because most of the people in the room fall silent, and they turn to look at me. I gulp down air, realizing that my hands are balled into fists at my sides, that my shoulders are up, that I'm shaking.
Yeah, there are often conversations that you don't want to take part in around the holidays. People “survive” their family holiday parties, and there are delicate conversations that you have to navigate with tact, because not everyone is going to see eye to eye all of the time.
But this is not one of those times.
There is a right way and a wrong way to look at werewolves. They are people, just like us, and they deserve all the dignity and kindness that everyone else deserves.
Just like I do, as a gay woman.
Just like everyone does, as a person.
I can hear the blood pounding in my ears when my best friend looks at me, my best friend who has her lip up, a sneer on her face.
“Yes?” she asks, jutting her hip out, balancing the tray on both hands now. “You like werewolves, Kat. For some reason,” she smirks. “You've always been a bleeding heart, but you need to understand that they're just not people. They're animals, and it's disgusting that one of those animals is now running the city.”
“No,” I tell her, and though my voice shakes, I stand straight. I'm flushed, can hardly breathe, but I press on. “They're not animals.”
“They can change into animals,” says Diane, with an elegant shrug and a sniff. “So that makes them—”
“Amazing,” I tell her flatly. “That makes them a hell of a lot more amazing than us. They can do things that humans can't even dream of. They could, at any point in time, kill us without even blinking, and they don't because they're just like us.”
“What in the world has gotten into you?” asks Diane, ducking closer, lowering her voice. She's snarling as she says, “Seriously, Kat, calm down. They're only animals.”
“Yeah,” I tell her quietly, searching her face. “We're all only animals. But some of us treat each other a little better. And right now, it's werewolves leading that charge.” My mouth is dry as I look at her, really look at her.
“What if I were a werewolf, Diane?” I ask her then. I stand my ground, and I stare at her. “Would you still be friends with me?”
Here's the thing. Diane has been a good friend in a lot of ways. But in a lot of other ways, she just...hasn't been. She lived with me for a long while, and we both signed the lease, but the minute she found Roger, she moved out without warning—like, literally, one night I came home from work, and she wasn't there. I never called her on it.
The only reason we ever see one another is because I begged for her to come to coffee once a week. Otherwise, she'd never hang out with me anymore. She thinks it's sad that I'm poor. She thinks it's sad that I love Christmas as much as I do. She thinks most things about me are sad, which, admittedly, isn't really what a friend should think.
She stands there now, regarding me with cold, uncaring eyes.
And then she says clearly, slowly, steadily: “If you were a werewolf, we wouldn't be friends anymore.”
I stand there, gutted.
For the record, I'm not a werewolf.
But, just like that, one of the two of us proved to be a beast.
“Goodbye, Diane,” I tell her. I take Jewel's hand, and together we move through the silent crowd, out into the snowy street. The door shuts with a resounding bang behind us, not because we closed it, but because Diane grabbed it and slammed it herself as we headed out.
“Wow,” I whisper, breathing out into the space between us, my breath curling like smoke. We left our jackets in the guest room, and it's very chilly out here, but I hardly feel it as I wrap my arms around myself, shaking not from the cold but from the interaction I just had with my best friend.
Or, rather...former best friend.
Jewel is gazing at me with hooded amber eyes. She reaches out, holding her arms open, and then I step into her embrace. The warm scent of cinnamon rises around us, and I exhale the breath I didn't even realize I was holding, relaxing against her.
“You didn't have to do that, you know,” Jewel tells me quietly, whispering the words into my hair.
“Of course I had to do that,” I murmur, closing my eyes. The snow whispers softly around us, dancing lightly to the ground, and all is still and quiet and bright. “It was wrong, what she said. I'm so sorry.”
“You know,” says Jewel, and her voice is tight now, so tight that I actually lean back, gazing at her face.
There are tears standing brightly in her eyes, reflecting the soft light of the snow.
“You know,” she repeats, taking a deep, quavering breath, “when I told you about the apartment I was at last...I didn't tell you the whole story. Not really,” she says, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands and taking another deep breath. “It was my girlfriend who alerted everyone in the apartment building about me. Well, she was my girlfriend at the time, but I hadn't told her what I was. When I did...I hadn't realized how hate-filled she was. Her brother came after me with a gun,” she says, gazing into my eyes. “It was a hard time for me. So,” she says, drawing out the word quietly, “to go from that...such hatred, to this...someone willing to stand up for me... I can't tell you,” she says, her voice choked, “what that means to me.”
I reach out and grip her hands tightly. “Everyone deserves someone who will fight for them,” I whisper to her. “No matter what the cost.”
“Have you ever noticed,” says Jewel, her eyes shining, “how there's such kindness around this time of year? People reaching out and helping each other? There's so much kindness,” she whispers.
“What just happened back there wasn't kind,” I tell her, shaking my head.
“No,” Jewel agrees. “But what you did is. Kindness is what Christmas is all about... Don't you agree?”
And I do agree, but before I can tell her so, she's stepping forward, cupping my cheeks gently in her warm hands, and she's kissing me.
Somewhere in the city, a church bell tolls seven o'clock, the bright peals of the bell mixing with the softness of the falling snow. Down here on Earth, there's a lot of cruelty, I know. A lot of darkness. A lot of pain.
But there's also a lot of light. And kindness. And love.
I hold Jewel tightly, feeling the hope of the season rise around us both.
It's going to be a very merry Christmas.
Howl for the Holidays
“You want how many extra espresso shots?” The barista stares at me with huge eyes, as if I've just asked him to fill up a kiddie pool with coffee.
Hmm. A kiddie pool full of coffee.
I...would be totally fine with that.
“Eleven shots extra, please,” I say, giving him what I hope comes across as a nice, normal smile—with a nice, normal amount of teeth.
My mother always warns me that, before I've had my coffee, I'm in danger of making mistakes, of accidentally revealing what I truly am.
But come on—aren't we all wolves before we down our morning cup of joe?
“Sure. Eleven... Sure.” The barista marks the cup with a Sharpie and avoids my gaze, which makes me think that my smile may be slightly more pointy than I'd intended for it to be. I don't carry a purse, which means I don't carry a mirror, so
I just frown a little and touch my tongue to my incisors. Nope, still normal, human-shaped teeth.
So what's this dude's problem?
He must just think I'm weird for wanting eleven espresso shots.
Maybe I am, but usually I ask for twenty.
Here's something you need to know about werewolves: we're strong, fierce, fast, and smart (and loyal—we get that from our canine cousins twice removed), but coffee helps us be all of these things with more energy.
I guess we're a little like humans in that regard.
I toe out the closest chair at the closest table to the pick-up-your-coffee area and check my wristwatch, nose wrinkled with worry. Okay, whew...I'm still way ahead of schedule. I set my alarm for four o'clock this morning—and then I put the clock on the other side of my apartment so that I wouldn't be able to throw my pillow at it and ignore its annoying scream.
I have time to wait; I'm just impatient. My leg jiggles, and I fold my hands over my belly, leaning in the chair and balancing it on its two back legs. I want to get to my mother's house before the holiday traffic really hits. Plus, Mom is holding her annual Christmas Eve fundraiser, and she's hinted to me more than once that she's going to need my help to make sure it all runs smoothly.
Call it a hunch, but my wolf instincts—or maybe just past experiences—tell me that I'm in for a long, long holiday break.
“I have espresso for Georgia!” the barista calls out, lining up several large paper cups on the counter. The pleasant scent of the espresso merges with soy milk and vanilla syrup, and steam curls toward me like a beckoning finger. I stand, rising almost to my toes, following the scent kind of like a cartoon wolf chasing after the perfume of a gorgeous lady: practically floating.
Wait...
Wait just a second.
I stop floating, stand grounded on the balls of my feet, tilting my nose up in the air to catch the aroma of something besides my delicious espresso.
Then I turn, gazing toward the rest stop's automatic doors.
Yeah. The scent's clear as crystal. Crap.
Holiday Wolf Pack Page 12
