“Yes.” He creased his forehead in confusion. “Why?”
“Just—” My toes stopped wriggling. My heartbeat slowed. I had been a fool, I realized, to imagine that Dad could know anything about last night. I had let my anxiety get the better of me, as I had done a thousand times before and no doubt would do again. “Just, I’m so happy for you!” I laughed, half with relief that he did not know what a certain wolf and lion had done the night before, and half with genuine happiness for him. “Who is she?”
“Her name in Annabelle Finch,” Dad said. “She’s an artist—a painter. I met her last year, at a gallery where she was displaying some of her work. Excellent work. I like a bit of art here and there—you know that—but I’m no expert. But even I could see how excellent this was. And, anyway, we got to talking and kept in touch online and now that we’re here for the whole summer, we’ve decided to meet.”
“That’s great, Dad,” I said. “Really, that’s fantastic.”
“And I want you to be there,” he went on. “Tonight. Me, you, Annabelle, and her son, Eli.”
I saw no reason to refuse this. I was so happy that he had not somehow divined by activities from last night that I would have agreed to meet anybody. “Of course,” I said.
He nodded once, and then turned to his food.
It’s over, I told myself. You did what you did, but nobody will ever know. Not even the lion will know. It’s done, you silly girl. Relax! You’ll never see him again!
Eli
It was her. I saw that instantly. It was like watching an old friend make her way across the restaurant, an old friend whose face you may have forgotten, but whose mannerisms, whose gait, whose voice, you recognized. Mom and I sat at the table near the back of the restaurant, the sun just beginning to set, as the tall, balding man in the suit and the young, short, blonde woman made her way over to us. Yes, I thought madly. Yes, it was her. Jesus, it was her. I gripped the edge of the table, thinking crazy thoughts like throwing it across the room just to create a distraction. I had never been more sure of anything in my life than I was of this: that woman was the wolf I had fucked last night.
“Relax,” Mom said, looking down at my hands, still clasping the edge of the table. “There’s no reason to be that nervous.”
Not that you know, I thought. No, from your point of view this is perfectly normal. If I had any doubts about the identity of this woman (which I didn’t), they were dispelled completely when the man and the woman arrived at the table. The woman’s perfume, rain water and fresh-cut grass, danced through the air and into my nostrils. Mom rose to her feet. Without realizing it, I had, too. She walked around the table and draped her arms around the man. “Andrew,” she said. She let go of him and pointed at me. “This is Eli, my son.”
I walked around the table and shook his hand quickly, because I did not want him to notice how much my hands had started to sweat. For a moment I felt an out-of-place urge to laugh, laugh raucously with my head thrown back, laugh at the impossibility, at the ludicrous chances of this situation. But I fought the urge back. I didn’t want to call any attention to my prior knowledge of the woman. I didn’t want Mom to know what we had done the night before. It was partly from embarrassment. That’s the last thing you want to talk to your mom about. And, also, I felt that it would diminish the experience if I talked about it. That night had been somehow—well—magical. This woman and I had transcended who we were and became just two pleasure-seekers, losing ourselves in each other’s body.
“Hello, Eli,” Andrew said, calling me back to reality. He pointed a hand at his daughter. Her eyes had been downcast. At the mention of her name she raised them. Her face was white like her legs. Two black-ringed sky-blue eyes looked out from above a button nose. Her small mouth was red with lipstick. She was sexy, even sexier than she had been with the mask on, that night. “This is Jessica, my daughter.”
Jessica held her hand out to Mom. Mom waved it aside and hippie-hugged her, kissing both her cheeks. “I’m so pleased to meet you!” she gushed. “It is such a pleasure! You’re an English literature student, aren’t you? And a dancer?”
“Yes,” Jessica agreed quietly.
“What a funny coincidence!” she laughed. “Eli’s an English student, and he has had dancing lessons, too.”
“She knows,” I felt like saying. “Of course she knows. We danced the Lindy Hop last night before we fucked.” But of course I didn’t.
Jessica was nodding along, and then Mom pointed at me. “This is my son, Eli.”
She held out her hand. I offered her mine. She looked down at the hand, and then her eyes widened, and she made to pull her hand away as though burnt. She thought better of it, and then shook my hand quickly. “Hello, Eli,” she said, her voice a croak.