Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend (31 page)

What now? She could go to a coffee shop and sit in the window nursing a hot drink like some homeless person with nothing to do, no other way to fit in. She could wander around, running some more until she couldn't, and watch the faces of the office workers and the retail clerks as they began their day. One man was going store to store with a bucket in his hand, cleaning the windows of the shops opening for business. Did he have a contract, or did he just do it on spec, one step above a beggar, hoping to get paid?

A woman opened the door of the florist's shop across the street and spoke to the man, who nodded his head, grimaced while smiling, and kept cleaning the big picture window.

Why wasn't the running-shoe shop open yet? The front window was filthy. They needed her to call across the street to the window washer guy to get him to spruce up their business just as soon as he was done with the florist's window.

Shiels checked in her pocket. Would the window guy be insulted if she offered him five dollars to clean the shoe shop window?

Someone approached her from behind. “It's you again,” said the old guy, the running-shoe man. He had his keys in his hand.

“You really should get your window cleaned,” Shiels said. “And you're kind of late. I bet the mall stores are already open by now. If somebody wanted to pick up a pair of shoes before work so they could go out running at lunchtime . . .”

Her words dribbled to a stop. The man stared at her with windy blue eyes. He unlocked the door and said, “I used to open at eight, but nobody ever came. Why are you here?”

He held the door for her, in a gentle way, and she stepped into the gloom of the store. Really, there was so much he could do to make this place more attractive. “I think maybe you need to hire me,” she said. “Nobody's here because, frankly, the place is a dump.”

He flicked on the lights, but it didn't seem to make much difference.

“It's like you're caught in a time warp. You need new lighting, wall posters from this century, fresh carpets. My God, how old are these benches?”

He neither smiled nor moved. “The last time I saw you,” he said, “you told me you'd started running.” It was an obvious statement. She'd run most of the way here, was sweating still from the effort. She pulled out a tissue and wiped her nose.

“I can start without a salary,” she said. “Sort of an internship. After a while you could see whether it's been worthwhile having me around or not. I'm sort of a natural organizer. I'm currently the student-body chair at Vista View High School.” As the words came out, she hated how needy they seemed.

Needing to have him acknowledge her worth.

“Why aren't you at school now?” he asked.

“I have a flexible arrangement.” The lie came so easily, it was a shock, and she amended herself at once. “I'm thinking of taking a break, actually. Things have been fraught with me. At school. And in general.” Was she saying too much now? Those eyes on her did not waver.

“I think you wanted to learn how to run better,” he said.

“Well, actually,” she blurted, “you wouldn't believe how much I've improved since I bought these shoes from you! The first time I tried, I ran back to the school. I was late for this event I was organizing—and I almost died. I swear to God. I had this, like, out-of-body experience. I practically collapsed at the end of it. But this morning, you know, I just ran here, and it was like I was running . . .”

She was going to say “downhill,” but in fact it had been downhill. That probably accounted for more of the difference than she cared to say.

“If I'm going to teach you how to run,” the old guy said, “you're going to have to start by learning how to breathe.”

Shiels chortled, it was such an odd idea. “I already know how to breathe.”

“You're using your chest and nose and even throat muscles to get air down to your lungs. Completely wrong.” He stepped closer to her and grabbed her abdomen with his large hands. “Engage your diaphragm. Let your belly spill out.”

She held her breath, reflexively, and then blew out, and found herself gasping for air.

“Move my hands to breathe in. Use your diaphragm and your stomach muscles.”

She did it, she moved his thick fingers.

“Fine, but that was exhaling. Reverse it now. Engage your diaphragm to breathe in.”

It was ridiculous to be standing in the dust and disarray of the shoe shop being groped by an old guy who clearly hadn't the slightest idea how to run his business. Yet she did it—she found the large muscles below her rib cage and inhaled.

“Now relax, use your low chest muscles to release the air. Let it slide out. Good.”

Someone could walk in and see them.

“Again. Move my hands. You have to keep breathing.”

Obviously he was doing this to get her to go back to school. And she would, she would. But part of her also really wanted to keep moving his hands, to show him that she could do it.

“How's it feel?” he asked after a time.

She didn't know. She was just breathing.

“Relax your throat, your jaw. Don't engage your shoulders. Just let them rise and fall naturally with the movement.” He took his hands away, like her father releasing her bicycle all those years ago, when he'd first taught her to ride and she had managed a precarious balance.

“Keep thinking about it. You'll go back to your old habits if you don't keep it in your conscious mind for a while.”

Honestly, she couldn't tell the difference. It was just breathing a different way. She had never run out of air.

“This is how you were born breathing,” he said. “You learned to breathe shallow when you started to stress out. Just use your body the way it was designed. The large muscles for the large actions. Breathing affects everything else. When you get really good at it, it will become a whole body movement. Are you following me?”

She was feeling better. Maybe it was just because she liked being around him for some reason. Maybe she was calming down after her run.

“My name is Shiels,” she said, thrusting out her hand.

“Linton,” he said, grasping it. “I'd be happy to have some of your help around this place. Just . . . be patient.”

•  •  •

Patient! She could be as patient as the next person, but really. The place had not been cleaned—really cleaned up—in years. The silly excuse of a broom just moved the dust around, the mop was a health hazard, there was no vacuum. She sorted that out, took Linton's credit card—with his permission—and went down three blocks to Vacuum City and did not buy the most expensive model but didn't get the cheapest, either. She had to empty the vacuum three times in the course of cleaning just the main display areas. By the time she was finished, the window washing guy was long gone but he'd be back tomorrow morning, she felt confident. People go about their lives in patterns.

She was breaking hers. She did not miss school. She didn't miss it! She felt, actually, a huge relief to not be hurtling down those hallways, cramming other people's agendas into her head, or her agendas into theirs. She could be herself here, she could be simple, she could . . .

. . . breathe.

She could breathe here.

Her whole body was feeling better.

She hadn't even known it wasn't feeling well.

At one point her phone vibrated and she realized she'd forgotten all about it. Someone with a strange accent was calling from far, far away asking her if she would like to have her ducts cleaned. They were having a huge sale in her area.

“I like the idea of it,” she said, almost gleefully. “But I'd really like to try doing it myself.”

•  •  •

And then, oddly, in the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of rearranging the soccer cleats display, it was as if Shiels woke up to her larger reality.

She had abandoned the boy she was supposed to be protecting.

Pyke was alone with her mother, the least motherly person on the planet. Probably her mother had been putting on a display. Probably as soon as Shiels had left the house, her mother had sent the pterodactyl back to the authorities. And Shiels had trusted her!

“That's enough for today,” she said to Linton. The poor man was on his own. No extra staff had come in to relieve him, and hardly any customers had visited. How long could he manage like that and still stay in business?

No matter.

“I have to get home now,” she said.

Outside, she ran despite the stiff breeze, the uncomfortable chill in the air. Of course she did. It was uphill, and at first she felt almost as wretched as she had the afternoon of Autumn Whirl—but not to the point of puking. Not that drastic.

She was a better runner than that, now.

She was breathing better. When she lost the feeling of the thing, she gripped her midsection with her own hands and ran a few awkward strides like that, pushing their fingers out with her diaphragm and her belly muscles. It did seem she could get a lungful of air now. It did feel better.

Somewhat.

As always, she ran slowly, chugging up the hill.

Had
her mother sent Pyke back to jail while Shiels had been away?

If not, what had they been doing together all day?

Chug, chug, step by step, the distance slowly shrank.

No sign of crows.

No sign of what she was going to find.

•  •  •

Her mother. In an apron, stirring things in a big bowl, a recipe book open on the counter. A smudge of white flour on her cheek.

Her flushed cheek.

“Hello, sweetie,” her mother said. “How are you? Did you run somewhere?”

“Where's Pyke?” Shiels blurted.

“Upstairs. Resting. How was school?”

Shiels hurried up the stairs, her body still throbbing from her run. Pyke's door was slightly ajar. She burst in.

Jonathan's head jerked guiltily toward her. He sat on the corner of the bed, showing Pyke something on his phone, which he snapped into his pocket. “Where were you today? You didn't come to school,” he said.

“Mind your own business,” Shiels replied. “Don't say anything to the PD.”

Pyke was looking at her in his way. Steam heat rushed through her, curled her toes.

“Manniberg was asking for you,” Jonathan said. “I said you were having your period.”

How could this juvenile idiot be her brother?

“Thank you,” she said. “I will offer a similar level of sibling support to you someday.”

Jonathan wiggled into his usual knuckleheaded laugh. But Pyke kept gazing at her, long and steady, as if he knew, understood, nothing else.

Wanted
nothing else but her.

Shiels stepped toward the bed. “Why don't you go do your homework?” she said to Jonathan.

“I finished it in Healthy Society. We weren't doing anything else anyway.”

“Why don't you go play with your skateboard boys,” Shiels said, looking always at Pyke.

“It's too cold out there, nobody's into it,” Jonathan said. Shiels turned her gaze on him until finally he squirmed away.

“Close the door, will you?”

Jonathan left the door open. She breathed quietly—in the belly, deep and deeper—then walked to the door and shut it. Oh, how her chest filled! “How was it all alone with my mother all day?”

Pyke smiled crookedly. He wasn't saying, he was just looking. Looking at her.

She approached the bed again. She supposed she should ask him all sorts of questions about his defense—was there a trial date? Had he had time to meet with Jocelyne's uncle, the lawyer? What were they going to argue? Had they entered a plea yet?

He must have, to have been released on bail. It must have been not guilty.

A raft of questions floated into and out of her brain. Details. To be sorted out later. Now . . . now was for leaning onto the bed beside him and stroking, very lightly, his lovely beak. He seemed to like that. He closed his eyes and let out a deep, animal, purring sound—not a cat's, really, or at least not any small domestic cat's that she knew. Something stronger, wilder. Subdued for now.

He looked small but felt immensely strong still. She imagined he could fly anytime he wanted to, except for the surveillance ring around his neck.

She imagined he could take her with him.

He smelled . . . of oysters. “Did you get enough to eat?” she murmured. “Did my mother go by the fish store?” She stroked a little more firmly now. “Is there anything you are . . . craving?”

She couldn't help it, she leaned closer to him until her chest, sweating and hot still from the run, pressed against the side of his folded wing.

He nuzzled his beak harder against her hand.

This wasn't . . . at all . . . like being in the janitorial closet with Sheldon, which had felt like . . . practice somehow. This was . . . well, she wasn't controlling her own breathing particularly well. Her mouth was very close to . . .

“Shiels!” her mother said, striding into the room. “Maybe you should have a shower, dear!”

A strange smile. Her mother was bearing a large tray of oysters on crackers.

“He just loves these,” her mother said, and practically pushed Shiels off the bed. “And he needs building up. While you . . . You must have a lot of organizing you need to do.”

Shiels stumbled upright. Her legs felt liquidy.

“How are your applications coming, dear?” Her mother held a cracker poised just inches from the pterodactyl's spear-like beak.

But Pyke did not snatch anything. He waited, patient, subdued even, while she fed him like a child.

•  •  •

Shiels's Chesford application was due now, if she wanted to be considered for early acceptance. Lorraine Miens would look at the first of the thousands of files coming in, Shiels felt sure—she would read them with a fresher mind, more hopefully.