Larque on the Wing (13 page)

Argent carefully got into bed with him, shaking it only a little, and softly gathered him into an embrace, cradling him in his arms. The change of position was from Shadow's point of view a pain, literally, but if holding him made Argent feel better, fine. If he was the shadow, Argent was the sun. Whatever Argent wanted was fine with him.

That woman, Skylark—Shadow felt a question nagging inside him, but said nothing. Too tired to talk. His bruised mouth hurt. To hell with knowledge tonight. Tomorrow, maybe. Maybe not. Might just hurt the big guy if he asked. There were things Argent could have told him years ago if he wanted to, things Argent could have done years ago if he wanted to.

Argent was very softly stroking his hair. The beating had fatigued Shadow beyond his usual resistance to so tender a caress; it felt wonderful tonight to be held, cuddled. Had anyone ever babied him so when he was small? Had that same person then betrayed him?

Everything seemed alien. What a strange thought, that he had ever been a child. How strange now that somebody loved him. How strange that it was this strange man.

“Sky?” Lark inquired of the night.

No answer.

Probably Sky had gone into Araby to get closer to the music. Music and dancing were important to Sky, Lark recalled. She had last seen the kid dancing like the gleeful little devil she was. Dancing like Sky. Nobody else in the world could do it quite the same. Funny, as an adult she had always assumed she did not dance well enough, but when she was that age—she knew how to dance. When she was ten, she knew everything: who the good guys were, who she liked, who she hated, what she thought of God and his half-assed heaven/hell scheme, what she wanted to do with her life. She was sure of herself then. It was only when she hit the teenage dating years that she had started to hold back, keep her mouth shut, doubt herself. There was something about wanting to be loved by boys, men—even after she had married Hoot, in ways she had never felt sure of herself again.

A woman, she would not have gone into Araby by herself.

But now she was a boy, she went in at once, striding into the music as if into a giant blood-red light-up pumping heart. It engulfed her, flooded her, excited her, running through her body like the heat of a kiss. There were men in there, dancing with one another, giving hot glances to each other, and every one of them was worth looking at. And the music had her going, including that new exciting part of her between her legs. Lark wanted to stay and dance.

God. How long has it been …

But there was no golliwog girl in there. Lark felt a jolt of panic startle her heart. Damnation, she had to find Sky.

She checked the women's room, realizing too late that being male she might create a disturbance. She needn't have worried. There was no one in there except two men doing something with a white powder distributed on a toilet seat. No females in the place at all. On the dance floor, no females either, though she noticed beautiful young men with their shirts off dancing on top of the amps.

I could do that now
.

I could
—I could have
—
some of that …

Lark forced her gaze away from them and asked a man with a wreath of flowers tattooed around his arm, “Have you seen a funny-looking little girl?” He stared at her. She went out.

“Where the hell is she?”

Even though it was way past midnight, there were still people on the street. Lark asked around, searching Popular Street from end to end. No one had seen Sky.

It was ridiculous. This was a place where night happened; Sky should love it. Why would the damn girl run away again?

Almost out of options, Lark swore eloquently to herself. Her car was still downtown somewhere with a dead battery, her keys were at home on the dresser in the bedroom where Hoot lay probably still doing a slow burn, her license was home too, and anyway she was not who the mug shot on the license said she should be.

“Is there a phone around here?” she asked someone she recognized, the man who ran the bookstore.

He gave her a thoughtful look. “Yeah, but our phones don't exactly hook up to outside phones, if you know what I mean. You'd better go find a gas station or something.”

Nice guy
, she thought, caustic until she remembered she was male and didn't need to be protected. Then she asked him to loan her a quarter.

Getting out of Popular Street was no problem—she merely walked away. Getting back in would be the tricky part. Lark knew for sure now that she would want to get back in, to see how Shadow was doing, but would the chalk work again? Sky wouldn't care; Sky had the star. The little boogernose. Where was she? Could be anywhere, the way she flew through the air. How far could she fly?

Lark walked a few empty, silent Soudersburg blocks before she found a corner with a pay phone. No directory, of course; they always got ripped off, literally. But Lark knew the number. She called Doris.

“At three in the morning?” Doris complained once she was awake enough to understand what Lark wanted.

“Doris, I have to find the little brat.”

“Is this some sort of trick? You sound different.”

Lark's voice had always been low for a woman's, not too high for a young man's. Her magic makeover had changed it only subtly. She said, “Deeper chest, maybe. Or more resonance in my new nose. Other than that, we didn't mess with it.”

“
Huh?
”

Poor Doris. “Sorry, I forgot you didn't know. I'm a teenage boy now.”

A pause. Then Doris said cautiously in her best active-listening tone, “Would you like to talk about it?”

“NO.” Suddenly everything was way too much trouble and it felt good to be rude. “Think of it as a goddamn reincarnation. Just get your butt over here and pick me up, would you?”

Half an hour later Doris's tan Toyota pulled up at Lark's corner, as she had known it would. Some women got stimulation enough from soap operas, but Doris had never been able to resist an actual human melodrama in her life. That was why she had married the ex she now called Disaster Man.

The woman did not actually glow carrot orange in the dark, as Lark had suspected she might. Lark could not see her through the car's windshield. But she heard Doris gasp as she opened the passenger side door and got in.

“It's me,” she told her friend sourly.

“You've got to be kidding.”

“Who the hell else would it be?”

Doris turned on the car's dome light and stared. Scrubbed clean of makeup for the night, her face looked pale, buttery. “I can't deal with this,” she said.

It sounded like a replay of the earlier scene with Hoot. Lark snarled, “Yes, you can!”

“You've got—everything a man has?”

Suddenly calm and cheerful at the thought, Lark bragged, “Yeppers.”

“Then you're right, I can.” Doris began to smile with her lips pushed out, and the glow that flushed her cheeks did not appear to derive from carotene. In a voice low and slow she said, “Why didn't you tell me you were a
cute
guy?”

This jolted Lark upright. “You're hitting on me!”

Doris pouted her lips more sultrily. “Well, what do you expect?”

“I expect a friend, not a come-on!” Lark's voice went up an octave. Talk about not being able to deal with things—the thought of another woman's being attracted to her in a sexual way made her feel queasy. Loudly she requested, “Would you just
drive
!”

“Okay, okay!” Doris stopped kissing the air and put the Toyota in gear. “Where are we going?”

Lark gave directions. They headed toward the bungalow by the Cold Bottom River, Lark's mother's place, where Lark hoped Sky might have gravitated again. As she rode, feeling some need to make up for having yelled, Lark tried to explain what had been happening to her. Sleepy, or maybe preoccupied, Doris nodded at the appropriate places but admitted she was confused. Lark pushed at the darkness with her hands and summarized her situation in words any woman could understand: “Anyway, Hoot's mad.” She was surprised by her own heartache, saying it. In the excitement of the night and the fight, she had forgotten a while that she was also fighting with her husband. But now the pain was back. Maybe she should have let Shadow work on the parts of her he had missed. She could have a great time as a boy if it weren't that her heart and soul still belonged to a woman named Skylark Harootunian.

“Oh.” Connection was attained. Doris nodded. “I wondered why you didn't call him.”

Loyally Lark hedged, “I shouldn't say mad, really. He's upset.”

“Poor baby.” Doris's tone edged toward sarcasm. Since her divorce she had very little sympathy for husbands.

“Well, he is,” Lark defended Hoot. “He is a poor thing. Imagine, he's married to me and then I turn into a teenage tomcat in boots. He must think I've gone off the deep end.”

“Are you enjoying it?”

“Well, yes, dammit.” With a jolt of angry guilt. “But Hoot's not. I have to change back to being my pudgy, middle-aged self again just as soon as I can.”

“Shame.” Doris flickered a lecherous glance at her.

“Give me a break! You're not my type.”

“What is, then? If you can change, I can change.”

“Stop it. Let me alone.” Lark heard her voice squeak like a pleading child's. “I really just want Hoot.”

“Oh,
really
?”

“Okay, all right, so I'd love to try this thing out.” Lark indicated the bulge under her fly. “But I'm still a woman, I'm attracted to men, okay?”

“Hooooo-ee!” Perhaps because she had been gotten out of bed at an ungodly hour by a person with a mouthy attitude, Doris was loving every minute of this. With zest she declared, “You're depraved, son.”

“Stuff it, would you?”

“I'd love to.”

“Dammit, can we stop talking about it and just go find Sky?”

“Certainly,” Doris jabbered. “Whatever you say, O deviant one. So what does Sky have to do with any of this?”

“Nothing. I just need to find her.”

“So you can get back to work.”

Lark blinked and had to think a moment what Doris was talking about, because moo cows and barnie poos seemed very far away. Art, now, that was another thing, her art was god-awful important—but she could no longer put an equals sign between it and her livelihood, or it and Sky. “No,” she said slowly, “no, not really. I just have to find her.”

“Why? It never bothered you to lose a doppelganger before.”

This was true. The world was probably full of her doppelgangers wandering around, naked ones, porcine ones, babies floating like footballs over cosmic goalposts, whatever. Lark had never felt any urge to follow up on any of them.

“There's something strange going on,” she admitted.

“
Nooooooo
. Here I am driving my girlfriend with the pop-off dick to find a runaway doppelganger at four in the morning, what could possibly be strange?”

“Doris—”

“I know. Shut up and drive.”

It was still dark when they reached the bungalow. But there was a light on in the kitchen, or rather the alcove that was designated as the kitchen, and through one of Florrie's uncurtained windows Lark could see Sky in there, veering like a moth from cupboard to cupboard. “Thank God,” she breathed. “Just wait here, Doris, I'll go get her.” She got out, closing the car door softly. No use waking Mom. Florrie tended to overreact when awoken. Let sleeping mothers lie.

Lark found the front door key under its customary rock to let herself in. Probably Sky had gone in through a wall—no. The door was already unlocked. Odd.

Trying to be quiet, she walked through the everything-room where Florrie lay peacefully snoring on the daybed, sounding rather like one of those wave machines marketed to soothe the raw nerves of executives. Still barefoot, Lark pussyfooted toward the kitchenette. “Sky,” she whispered.

At the sound the little girl spun to scowl at her, startled. Once she saw who it was, she relaxed somewhat, her thin face softening from fear into misery. “There's no
food
here,” she complained.

She had the refrigerator open, and Lark could see there was nothing on its shelves except a few glassy perennials looking very chilly in its pale light: catsup, soy sauce, salad dressing, white vinegar. And yellow plastic jars marked Nutri-Save. Evidently Florrie had gone over entirely to a diet of sawdust pills.

“Shhh,” Lark whispered, gesturing with a follow-me hand. “C'mere.”

Sky had turned her back, pulling open drawers, ignoring her. “Not even peanut butter,” she said in tones that were more wretched than angry. “Not even a piece of
bread
.”

“Would you shush! You'll wake her.” Illogically, Lark's voice rose. She stepped forward, bumping into an open cupboard door, the corner of which caught her right in the thigh. “Ow! Ouch!” She banged it closed. “Dammit. Come on. Doris is waiting.”

“But I'm h
ungry
!” Sky slammed a drawer and turned on her, grimy face curling. Her voice rocketed to a wail. “Nobody
feeds
me!”

Astonishment made Lark forget her immediate agenda. “You told me you didn't need—” she started.

“Box slop,” Sky accused. “Microwave monkey brains.”

Lark could not tell whether the young snot was referring to the contents of her mother's freezer or her own meal preparation habits. But it hardly mattered. The kid was an equal-opportunity pain. “Look,” Lark told her through clenched teeth, “if you'll just come with me, maybe we can go to McDonald's or someplace—”

Sky shouted, “I don't want to go someplace! You don't understand! I'm
starving
!”

“Oh, for Christ's sake.” Lark stepped forward and grabbed her by her bony wrist. It felt cool and chapped to her touch. Sky struggled against her wildly, and Lark's grip went slack with delayed-reaction surprise—the girl's grimy body was as solid as her own. The shock made her let go, and Sky fell in a heap on the kitchen floor. Lark staggered two steps back.