Eyes of the Wolf

5
My bed was by far the best place in the world to be. The day before I had crawled under its covers around ten, and I was now emerging at 11:13 AM, feeling groggy but still possessing the need to eat and relieve myself, in whichever order seemed most appropriate when I actually reached the door.

I sat up, content for the moment to watch my lavender beta blow bubbles on the surface of his water, making it look like he was putting little diamond-pearl hybrids on the surface of his blue-themed tank. His neighbor, a crown tail so dark green he was black, was fanning out his cheeks and chin until he looked like that spitting dinosaur from Jurassic Park. In a good mood, I stood up and dribbled a couple freeze-dried bloodworms in each of their tanks, which some, like my scarlet crown tail, wolfed down immediately while the rest were content to stare suspiciously at them until they decided it would be worth retrieving the treats. Closest relatives to cats I had ever owned.

At this point my need to visit the restroom took immediate priority. While I was in there I remembered my resolution to shower, so I took care of that as well. By the time I got out again it was past noon. Dad wasn’t home from work yet, so my house was punctuated only by the calls of our three birds, the soft swishing of leaves as the iguana climbed up his bough to a higher place in his enclosure, and the occasional ploop of a turtle submerging itself in its pool. I curled my toes against the linoleum floor as I stared, unfocused, toward the kitchen, and then returned to my room to retrieve Puppy, a large stuffed dog fashioned vaguely after either a golden retriever or a yellow lab—I could never tell. Hugging him to me with my left arm, I used my right arm to search the pantry for something to quell the rising temper of my growling tummy. Upon my finding wheat bread in the fridge, toast seemed to be in order.

Pulling the twisty wire off the plastic bag around it proved difficult to do with one hand, but for some reason putting down Puppy seemed like more work than what I was already attempting. By the time I had opened it enough to reach the bread, it felt like my stomach was ready to climb up my esophagus and throttle me, and I was almost more nauseous than hungry as I filled the toaster. The bread didn’t seem to be changing in the toaster, which kindled more fury beneath my ribcage. My foot began tapping. When the toast was shoved back into open air again, I gave a small start and hit my head on the cabinet above me, and I grumbled nonsense to myself as I loaded my four slices onto my plate.
My hand was reaching for the last slice when the phone rang next to my left ear. I slapped the top of the toaster and let out a squeak that I was immediately embarrassed about despite my lack caring audience, though Iago did suddenly let out a yell of “Where are those Goddamn rattraps!” Wondering vaguely where he had learned such language, I glanced at the caller ID before answering with “You owe me a burn patch and some soap for Iago’s mouth.”

“Wha’d the bird say this time?”

“Something about mousetraps.”

“Did you squeak?”

“I burned my hand.”

“Aha, you squeaked. So were you curling your hair or trying to cook?”

“Funny.” I started one-handedly buttering, which brought up the challenge of keeping the bread on the plate while I slapped it with a greasy knife. “What’s up?”

“You wanna hang out today? I know your dad’s still at work, but we’re not doing any partying or anything, and he never cares. You wanna give him a quick call and see if I can come over?”

“Your place no good?”

I could feel the eye roll through the phone line. “My parents have been screaming themselves hoarse at my brother all day—his progress report was…bad.” She switched ears. “Really, no one wants to be here right now. Deaf ol’ Balto is howling from all the noise. You know that one note my mom always hits when she’s pissed, it always gets him…”

“Yeah, I’ll call my dad,” I promised, and kept it after she hung up. As expected—as usual—my dad said it was fine, as long as she had some way of getting here. When I called her back, she said she was taking her brother’s car—he was grounded from it anyway, by the sound of things, she told me.

I had finished my toast by the time she arrived, and began giving me the rundown of her drive here, which happened to be the first time she had driven clutch (“Honestly, it’s a good thing most of my trip was downhill, and I still managed to stall it in a million places. I don’t think I’ve ever been honked at so much…”).

As usual, I listened to her talk as I rinsed my plate in the sink and put it in the washer. She followed aimlessly behind me as she talked, and I highly doubted that she even realized where she was going. One of the many amusing traits that made her endearing. I strode into my room, stood aside to let her pass, and sat on my bed and watched her do the exact same. I set Puppy down on my pillow. Still listening to how some big-lipped guy on West Kings Street had started yelling in Spanish at her, I stood and was immediately mirrored. I sat again, and she did the same. I did this twice more when she broke off her rant and said, “Maya, what the hell are you doing?”

I grinned. “Nothing.”

She rolled her eyes at me and started looking around my room. Her eyes fell on my bubble-blowing beta, and her frown intensified. “What’s it doing?”

“He’s bubblenesting.” When this didn’t get any kind of understanding, I elaborated, “He’s trying to make babies.”

“Oh.” She watched him for a bit longer before looking back at me and saying, with raised eyebrows, “You know your fish are too sheltered when they think that’s a blowjob. Talk about desperate.”

I snorted. The only kind of animal knowledge Chris took seriously was horse knowledge—other non-human things just kinda glided under her radar. She appreciated my pets; she always said my fish were pretty when I drew her attention to them, voiced her opinions on how creepy-looking the iguana was, “awwwed” at the little turtles, and admired the plumage on Iago and the two parakeets, Truth and Dare. She wouldn’t go near the laundry room, though—we kept two snakes in there, as well as the mice that we fed them.

“What’d you think of yesterday?” she said suddenly, rolling around until she was lying on her stomach and looking at the black crown tail.

I chewed my lip. “Umm…not much. I think those boys have some serious problems, but other than that…”

“Niko does have problems,” she overrode me, glancing at me. “That family won’t let him do much.”

“He said that yesterday.”

“I mean big problems. Didn’t you see his ear? He didn’t do that tripping over a sidewalk curb.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“But—”

“I only just met him, Chris!” I reminded her, and she closed her mouth again.

“He was looking at you a lot.”

I turned and glared at her, but there was a kind of triumph in her eyes. Apparently taking my silence as some kind of cue to continue, she said, her tone mischievous, “He was quite willing to talk to you. He was telling you stuff that he never mentioned to me. And,” she put a particular emphasis on this particular conjunction, “he was asking about you. Do you go to school with me? Why haven’t I ever brought you to Cold Stone before?”

My brain struggled to process this information.

“Of course, the questions weren’t ever right next to each other, of course, but they did come up. Honestly, Maya, didn’t you hear him? Well, if you hadn’t been staring out the window and ignoring people with gusto, or however you wanna say it, but anyway, the point is that you weren’t listening when you should’ve been, ‘cause then you would’ve heard everything. I think he likes you, Maya.”

For the first time, I wasn’t comprehending what Chris was saying.

“Chris,” I began, slowly, “I don’t know the guy. I don’t even know if I—”

“That’s what dating is for, dipshit,” she told me, nudging me in the shoulder with the heel of her hand. I shook my head at her, only half amused.

“He almost got in a fight in the middle of an ice cream parlor,” I said firmly.

“He let you stop him,” she shot back at me. “When I got mad at him once for switching ice creams with me, he didn’t do shit but eat my ice cream and expect me to eat the one he didn’t want. You got mad at him for something and he listened. That is a sign, my romantically-challenged friend.”

“So you’ve known him for awhile, huh?”

“Oh yeah.” She smiled. “He’s always in there after school. He says usually his family doesn’t follow him in there.” Her brows furrowed. “Hope that doesn’t mean he has to find a new hangout spot. I like talking to him.”

Chris sent another sly look at me. “He says he’s a dog person, too.”

“Did he tell you that today?” I wasn’t feeling any less skeptical.

“Nope. Told me that last month.” She smirked. “Maybe we can go to Cold Stone more often, and you can get to know each other better.”

“You’d go broke.”

“I’ll betcha he’d by you ice cream.”

“You’d still go broke.”

Chris made an aggravated noise, then rolled and suddenly pinned me to the bed with her knees on my arms. I sighed. “What?”

“You’ll think about it, won’t you?” Her protruding lower lip was not looking as cute from down at knee-level.

“What?”

“Dating him? Promise me you’ll think about it?” She must have read more reluctance in my face, because I suddenly found her skinny butt in the most uncomfortable spot on my ribcage. “He’s really nice, Maya, really. Think about it?”

Seeing no way out of it, I heaved a sigh. “Okay. I’ll think about it. Can you get off me now?”