Bitten in Two

I took half a beat to sink into my research scientist Evie-cover. “Morocco’s amazingly cosmopolitan,” I informed her.

“Especial y in the new section of the city. But to answer your question, no, nothing major. We’re going out into the countryside again tomorrow. Don’t worry, if I have anything to do with it, Demlock Pharmaceuticals wil find at least five or six cancer cures in our lifetimes.”

“Wel , hurry it up. E.J.’s grown about a foot since you saw her!”

“That’s physical y impossible. Put her on the phone.” I waited until I could hear my infant niece gnawing on the receiver. “E.J.? This is your auntie Jaz. Are you being a good girl?”

I heard a gurgle. Or maybe a burp. And imagined the phone covered in regurgitated breast milk. Gross.

“Child, you’re what, almost four months old now? Stop being so cooperative and tel Mommy you want your own phone. Make sure you get texting. I hear that’s the new craze among babies your age.”

Evie said, “Are you corrupting my kid?”

“It’s my job. Look up Auntly Duties online. The description’s on Wikipedia.”

Evie laughed. “Okay, now cut the BS and tel me what’s wrong.”

“I—nothing. I’m having a fabulous birthday.”

“It’s only four o’clock here. That means I have a ful hour until Tim gets home. E.J.’s just discovered her hands, so al I have to do is make sure she finds them again after she’s lost them and I can nag you until you break.”

“I think Congress considers that torture.”

“Spil .”

I sighed and looked around the courtyard. It was empty.

Which meant Chef Henri, who liked to savor a glass of wine after work, had probably already gone home for the night. I stepped into the gazebo farthest from the front of the house and curled up on the couch. “I’ve been dating a guy at work.”

Amazing. Thousands of miles from home and my sister’s squeal stil forced me to pul the phone away from my ear.

I said, “See, this is why I don’t tel you things. Now my eardrum is bleeding.”

“It is not! Tel me al about him.”

Ha! Like I want you jumping a plane to Marrakech so you can shake your finger under Vayl’s nose and make him promise to keep his fangs to himself!

“He’s, ah, older than me.” But only by a few hundred years.

“Is he hot?”

Why did I suddenly feel like we were teenagers again?

First day at our new school, trading stories about the cute guys in our math classes. I said, “Smoldering.”

“Oh my God, I gotta sit down. Wait, I’m already sitting down. Okay, go on.”

“Would you rein it in? It’s not like that. Wel , it was. But now, I don’t know. He’s… changed.”

“Aw, Jazzy, tel me he’s not married.”

“No. He was, but she’s dead.” In fact, I killed the evil bitch, but I’ll edit that one out of our little talk too, ’kay?

Dammit, why did I start this in the first place? I hate lying to you.

Granny May spoke up from behind a bridge hand that, from the sparkle in her eyes, looked to be a winner. Maybe you needed to talk to somebody real for once, she said.

One of the few people you know who’s in a good relationship.

Could be. I tipped my mental hat to her, acknowledging a spurt of joy at seeing her seated at the table near the front of my mind again, no longer concerned about whether or not Brude was going to swing by and chop off her head. As if to celebrate the occasion, she’d chosen some real winners to play cards with too. Winston Churchil and Woody Woodpecker were partnered against her and Amelia Earhart. It was shaping up to be a hel uva game.

“Jaz? Are you stil there?”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, what’d I miss?”

“I was just wondering why you think he’s different now.”

“He’s kind of… living in the past. I real y lo—like him.

But this is starting to get to me. What if, you know, what if he never—”

“Everybody changes, Jaz. Every day. Al the time. How important is this relationship to you?”

I cleared my throat. “It’s up there.”

“Wel , I’d tel you to be patient, but I’m not sure you ever learned that one.” We both laughed. “In which