“Fritz, no! What did you do after the war? Where did you go? When did you come to America? Fritz!”
“Goodbye, Kitty.”
“Fritz!”
The line went dead.
Damn. Now what did I do with that? Tiredly, I spoke at the mike. “Dr. Flemming, if you’re listening to this, I’d love it if you called in. I have a few questions for you.”
Again, I checked the monitor, dreading what I’d find. I wasn’t sure I really wanted Flemming to call. This wasn’t likely to inspire him to a sudden bout of openness and sharing.
But Flemming didn’t call in. None of the calls listed looked remotely interesting. Anything I said next would be the height of anticlimax.
“Right. It looks like we need to move on to the next call. Lisa from Philly, hello.”
“Hi, Kitty. Do you know anything about rumors that there’s a version of Gulf War Syndrome that causes vampirism? I’m asking because my brother, he’s a veteran, and—”
Sometimes, I had absolutely no idea how I got myself into these discussions.
You have a lot on your mind,” Luis said. He was driving me around Saturday morning in a cute, jet-black Miata convertible he’d rented for the occasion. He looked dashing, elbow propped on his door, driving one-handed, with his handsome Latin features and aviator sunglasses.
God, did he know how to romance a girl. How could I possibly be distracted with him sitting not a foot away from me? A hot Brazilian lycanthrope at my beck and call, looking like something out of a car commercial, and I was frowning. I shook my head, b
ecause I had no idea how to answer him.
He’d taken me to Arlington National Cemetery because I’d wanted to see it, but it had been depressing. It wasn’t just the acres and acres of headstones, of graves, most of them belonging to people who had died too young, or the Kennedy graves, which were like temples, silent and beautiful. JFK’s flickering eternal flame seemed a monument to crushed idealism. The graves were peaceful. But the ceremonies: the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; a full military honors burial, with the horse-drawn caisson and twenty-one-gun salute. All these rituals of death. They seemed so desperate. Did honoring the dead comfort us, really? Did it really do anything to fill the holes our loved ones left behind?
T.J. didn’t have a grave to visit. If he did, would I feel better? Less forlorn? If he had a grave, it would be in Denver, where I couldn’t go, so it was all moot.
I’m sorry, T.J.
Stop it.
After the cemetery, we drove out of town to the state park where Luis spent full moon nights. He wanted me to be comfortable there. It was nice, getting out of town, leaving the smog and asphalt for a little while, smelling trees and fresh air instead.
We even had a picnic. Another car commercial moment: strawberries and white wine, types of cheeses I’d never heard of, French bread, undercooked roast beef, all spread on a checkerboard tablecloth laid on a grassy hillside.
Luis was trying to distract me. He was doing all this to take my mind off everything I was worried about. The least I could do was pretend like it was working.
“Thanks,” I said. “This is wonderful.”
“Good. I had hoped you’d smile at least once today.”
“I bet you’re sorry you found me at the museum.”
“No, of course not. I’m glad to have met you. I might wish you were not quite so busy.”
He wasn’t the only one.
I moved to sit closer to him, inviting him to put his arm around me, which he did. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
He chuckled and shifted his arm lower, so his hand rested suggestively on my hip. “After this week, I should hope so.”
I smiled, settling comfortably in his embrace. “How did you get it? The lycanthropy.”
He hesitated. His gaze looked out over my head, over the hillside. “It’s complicated.”
I waited, thinking he’d continue. His expression pursed, like he was trying to figure out what to say, and not succeeding. I didn’t know him well enough to know if he was the kind of person who’d wanted to become a lycanthrope, who’d wanted to be bitten and transformed, or if he’d been attacked. We’d had a week of lust and little else, which meant we might as well have just met.