“She was a brave dog.”
“No, I mean Bree,” she said pointing.
The girl was asleep on the window seat. Cat took the tissues from her hand and covered her baby with a quilt.
“Seth, please fix my bedroom window. Then I can put her down in there.”
“Yeah.” He picked up the planks and resumed his march toward the back.
3
Cat watched from her kitchen window as Lelani buried the dog under the small plot of grass behind the building. The patio umbrella was strategically positioned over her to block the centaur from the only other building with a bird’s-eye view of the backyard. She was a beautiful woman in a turtleneck knit, with the ass end of a horse where her legs should have been. Her tail, which was also scarlet, was neatly banded by three gold ringlets one foot apart, forming spheres of hair with a tassel at the end. The fence and bushes around the backyard were high, but still, Cat wanted the horse-girl back inside as soon as possible. Things were already hard enough to explain without the neighbors spotting Lelani.
Seth made several phone attempts to get his photography career back. Someone named Carmine, with a cruel voice that the little plastic earpiece could not contain, made it clear that Seth would not only never work again, but that there were men combing the five boroughs ready to serve him his knees on a platter plus a court summons for breach of contract. To take his mind off his troubles, Seth tried boarding up the bedroom windows. He did everything badly.
Cat finished calling the contractors, then vacuumed for an hour, picking up glass and other debris from the fight. Bree was sleeping off the aftermath of her outbursts over Maggie’s death. They all needed a time-out from life until everything was back to normal. Would anything ever be normal again? Cat wondered. How would this genie go back into the bottle? In all the years she pondered her husband’s origin, nothing like this had crossed her mind. Was Cal really a knight, just like in the storybooks? A member of his country’s nobility, heir to lands and a fortune? Did that make her Lady MacDonnell? She chuckled at the notion. No one ever mistook her for a lady. She soaped up a sponge and began washing the dishes.
When Cat was a little girl, she beat up boys, climbed trees, and spat farther than a camel. Her older sister Vanessa dressed in Barbie pink and pretended the decrepit jungle gym in the backyard was a castle tower from which a mysterious prince would rescue her. Vanessa ended up with Vinnie, an electrician from Fort Lee and her first child six months after the wedding. Cat allowed herself a second chuckle. Turned out she was getting the castle. Life was full of little ironies.
“Cut that out,” she whispered to herself. “There’s no castle. You need a reality check.”
The monotony of the dishes caused her mind to wander, and she considered the lives of Cal’s mother and sisters. Would it be like the movies-long gowns for the ladies and chivalry coming from every sword-wielding dork? A million rules of etiquette for every function: how to curtsy, present oneself to those of higher rank, where to sit at a table, how to hold in a fart and scratch one’s ass properly. Cat did not know the first thing about being an aristocrat, nor did she want to. Cat avoided caviar, ballroom dancing, and hobnobbing with the pretentiously dull. She struggled to remember which side of the plate the utensils were set on when she had her own guests for dinner. She couldn’t imagine putting Bree through all that.
“Ow!” she yelped, nicking herself on a chipped glass. “Serves me right for thinking nonsense.”
She rinsed the cut in cold water and wrapped a paper towel around it. She went to the bathroom to find a Band-Aid and spotted the pregnancy test dissolving in a puddle in the tub. She’d forgotten it in the excitement. The result was ruined. Cat felt ready to vomit, but she didn’t know if it was the cut, morning sickness, or the realization that Cal now had a family she’d have to meet-a family who had never gotten the chance to approve of her-that lived in a castle, had its own crest, traced its lineage for generations and had never heard of the Equal Rights Amendment. My God, she realized. They’re Republicans!
“Excuse me, my lady…”
Lelani startled her. For a four-footed being, the horse-girl was surprisingly silent. Cat was also jumpier than usual. It would be some time before her nerves settled.
“Please, don’t call me that,” Cat said.
“How should I address you?”
“‘Cat’ is fine.”
Lelani looked uncomfortable with the notion but pushed on regardless. “I was curious as to the duration of the captain’s interrogation?”
“A few hours. It doesn’t get more serious than a dead cop. He has to explain how and why he left the scene, without implicating you or Seth. He has to convince them that he was dazed and injured. That he got the jump on his assailants, but was too injured to pursue or radio for help. Otherwise there’ll be disciplinary action.”
“I see.”
Cat found the centaur hard to read; she was so guarded with her emotions. She thought the girl might be judging Cal. “He’ll bend the truth to its limits,” Cat added, defensively. “It’s not in his nature to lie outright.”
“I know,” the centaur responded.
Again, Cat couldn’t make heads or tails of Lelani’s enigmatic responses. She went to the kitchen and put a pot of water on the burner. This time Cat could hear soft clopping on the hardwood as Lelani followed her. For a large creature, the centaur was amazingly graceful navigating the cramped living space of bipedal humans. She wasn’t as big as an actual horse, but big enough to have caused Cat some concern when Cal left her behind in their home. She had yet to knock over a lamp or break a piece of furniture. Cat wished she could say the same for the other one, as something, probably porcelain, just hit the ground and shattered in her bedroom. A weak, “Sorry!” emanated from the back of her apartment.
“Some tea?” Cat asked Lelani.
“Yes, thank you,” the centaur responded. This time, Cat noted a smidgeon of pleasure in her response.
The horse-girl-horse- woman — was very polite. For some reason, Cat expected someone who was half horse to behave more like an animal. Was it even housebroken? Where would she do her business? Cat took out a few days’ worth of old newspaper from the recycling bin and placed it on the kitchen table, just in case. There were a million questions Cat wanted to ask but didn’t know how to begin. She prepared the tea and brought it into the living room on a tray with biscuits. She sat on the couch while Lelani lowered herself on the floor next to the coffee table. Folding her legs beneath her, the centaur still came up to eye level. If Cat concentrated on the woman’s chest and up, she looked like any other gorgeous redhead in an olive-green turtleneck knit.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Cat asked.
“Is what dangerous, my lady?”
“Squatting like that. I seldom see horses lie down, unless they’re sick. Something to do with twisting their intestines or delicate leg bones. Do you sleep standing?”
“I am not a horse,” Lelani responded, with a slight edge.
“Oh,” Cat said. She scratched the house-training question from her list. “I’ve never met a centaur before.”
“Clearly.”
“I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“My intelligence quotient measures in the top two percent of my class. I attend one of the finest schools in the Twelve Kingdoms. My family can trace its lineage for a thousand years.”
Cal was right. These things were very proud-and very defensive.
Cat was off to a bad start. This being, strange as it was, had saved her family and restored her husband’s past to him. Lelani was important to Cal. Whatever her trepidation about the future, Cat would try to remain on friendly terms with the centaur.
“Does your family also live in Aandor?” Cat asked. “If you don’t mind my asking?”
“My tribe lives in the Blue Forest. We are hunter-gatherers. Archduke Athelstan has granted the forest safe haven from hunting and logging by humans. Centaurs patrol the single road that runs through it and keep it free of
