“You’re a dognapper. Do you dress in black and wear a mask?”
“I stole a kitten, too, but I gave her away.”
“Good move,” James says. “You’re not a cat person.”
Shelby goes to kiss him. “This is what I want,” she tells him.
She brings him into the apartment. She’s got the jewelry box on her night table, and for some reason James goes right for it.
“Hey,” Shelby says, embarrassed.
But it’s too late. James has found the postcards. He turns to her with a grin.
“Okay, I saved them,” Shelby says.
“So I see.”
“You knew I would.”
James shrugs. He greets her dogs, and as Shelby suspected, although they’re suspicious of Coop, they seem to love James. James leans up against Ben’s great-aunt Ida’s dining room table and rubs Pablo’s head. He happens to have dog treats in his pockets, which makes him all the more attractive, except to the General, who has a sour expression. The General is making growling sounds low down in his throat.
“I don’t like the way he’s looking at me,” James says of the bulldog. “Like I’m a rival.” James grabs Shelby and pulls her into the bathroom, so they can be alone. “How do you turn around in here?” he asks.
She shows him by sitting on the sink and wrapping her legs around him. “We’re hiding from our dogs,” she whispers.
They can hear Buddy whining in the hallway. A little paw stretches under the door.
“I’m not hiding anymore,” James says. “No more postcards.”
This time she doesn’t stop him from doing anything. Maybe he was a monster once, and maybe she was too. Maybe the only thing they have in common is that they’re survivors. But this is not the past, this is not the icy road. This is what she wants in the here and now.
Shelby has come home from the clinic at the Humane Society to find Teddy and Dorian hunkered down on the steps outside her building. At first it seems like a hallucination. But it’s not her imagination. That is definitely Mrs. Diaz’s Subaru parked on Tenth Avenue, and those are the twins making themselves comfortable on the stoop. One is supposed to be in Valley Stream, and the other is in a boarding school he is not allowed to leave.
“You’re kidding, right?” Shelby says. It’s the end of a bright spring day, and the air is clear and sweet after a brief shower. “Tell me you’re not here.”
“Hey, Shelby.” Teddy stands to embrace her. “You don’t know how good it is to see you.”
Still too handsome for his own good, and still a charmer.
“We decided to visit you,” Dorian tells Shelby. At least he has the decency to look guilty.
“You drove up and got him?” Shelby asks Dorian. “With your grandmother’s car and a learner’s permit?”
They’ve been wandering around the city all afternoon and are clearly exhausted and depending on her. The boys explain that Teddy signed in to the clinic at his school complaining of a stomach virus, then, as preplanned, he climbed out the window, ran through the field, dove under the bushes, and squeezed through a hole in the fence to where Dorian was parked and waiting.
“Like a jailbreak,” Shelby says.
“More like a day off,” Teddy corrects her. “The nurse doesn’t come back till eleven at night. My buddy delivers the dinner trays, and he’s going to cover for me.”
“And you came here because you’d like me to be arrested for harboring a juvenile who has defied a court order?”
The twins exchange a look. Maravelle always says that, as toddlers, they slept in the same bed. They hated to be separated, and it’s been hard on both of them.
“We came to you because I can’t drive without someone over twenty--one in the car,” Dorian tells her.
Shelby laughs. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Really, Shelby. Legally, I can’t. If I get caught I’ll never get my license.”
It’s all clear to Shelby now. They came to her because they’ve realized how much trouble they could get into, and they want a driver. “If you think I’m driving you back to Albany, you’re mistaken. I don’t drive.”
“You have to,” Dorian pleads.
“Actually, I don’t.” Shelby unlocks the front door. Why then does she feel the heat of Dorian’s eyes on her back, pleading even when he doesn’t speak? The twins follow her upstairs, where the dogs are overjoyed to see them. She asks Dorian to call the Hunan Kitchen and order them some supper. While he’s on the phone she turns to Teddy. “Are you happy that you’ve involved your brother in an illegal act?”
“I wasn’t thinking of it that way.”
“You have to start thinking,” Shelby advises him.
She has a copy of Nevermore out on the table, and Teddy scoops it up. “You read this stuff? Comics?” He seems surprised.