Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl (4 page)

Getting out of the hospital was
a lot
easier than getting in. Security didn't give a crap who left, and the admitting nurse was preoccupied with an elderly man in a neck brace bolted directly into his skull. Ouch!

Back on my bike, weaving in and out of rush-hour traffic, I vented by swearing at cars. What a massive waste of time! Now I hardly had a moment to eat before heading to the video shoot in DUMBO. And I was starved again.

In my building, the elevator refused to come down and get me. Of course, the evil tenants had deliberately left the door open on their floor so that no one else could use it. After locking my bike in the lobby, I hurtled up the four flights. In less than two minutes I'd inhaled a serving of day-old takeout noodles with spicy tofu.

I traded my sweats for skinny jeans and my favourite yellow T-shirt featuring a leprechaun dancing beneath the end of a rainbow. I shrugged on a jean jacket, slung Janis over my shoulder, and hurried back down to hail a cab and zip over to the production studio. The director expected us to be ready and on set when she arrived
at eleven, and her team needed a full hour to get me dressed and done up.

When I tore into the studio, makeup and wardrobe almost lost it. I was sweating like a fountain and my hair took “windswept” to a new level. But the stylists worked their wonders, tidied my short hair, powdered my shiny face, lined my hazel eyes with forest green, and painted my lips dark red. Luckily, the bruise on my forehead was now all but invisible, and they were too discreet to ask about my other scars.

A few minutes before eleven I was alone onstage, dressed in a black leather mini that had probably been brought into the world as a belt, two dozen plastic bracelets positioned strategically on my right arm. I picked at Janis's strings, trying to figure out how I could possibly still be hungry.

Then Harris wandered in. He crossed the room and stopped close enough for me to catch his scent, which was marked by a faintly spicy deodorant. I wanted to grab him and bury my nose in his hair. If he caught my eye I wouldn't be able to hide the way I felt. I glanced down and pretended to be fascinated by tuning keys.

“Where is everybody?” he asked.

I reminded myself that he couldn't actually read my mind. “Malika's in the dressing room. Jules got here late. She'll be in makeup for a hundred years.”

“Ahh.” He sat down cross-legged on the floor and took a sketch pad and an ink brush pen out of his canvas messenger bag. His curly hair flopped into his eyes as soon as he started to draw. He shoved it aside.

I shuffled a few steps to my left, trying to get away from his smell. And tripped over a cord attached to Jules's keyboard. Nearly went flying. Harris glanced up, then grinned at my dorkiness.
Slick, Sam. You're a real
rock star.

I prayed for one of my bandmates to come save me. Before I'd noticed how hot he was, being alone in a room with Harris was easy. Now that I wished his adorable girlfriend would fall off the face of the earth, it made me break out in hives.

I fixed my eyes on the dressing-room door and sent hurry vibes in Malika's direction. Jules wouldn't come out until the last second. She loved to make an entrance. And if the poor woman applied her makeup “wrong,” which always happened at least once, Jules would make her start all over.

“Hope you don't mind my coming,” said Harris, doodling away. “Vinnie said it would be okay. Seeing the shoot will inspire me.”

“No problem,” I said, craning to see what he was drawing. Was it me?

His head bobbed up and down as he scribbled,
looked up, and scribbled some more. He
was
drawing me. I blushed and my temperature rose another couple degrees.

“Did you leave early or something?” he asked. “Last night, I mean. You didn't come to the Cake Shop.”

The Cake Shop is this bar on the Lower East Side that also has shows in the basement and serves addictive cupcakes. Malika and Jules hang out there all the time. I have a love/hate relationship with the place, because it's always swarming with people who want a piece of me.

“Needed alone time.”

“You need that a lot, don't you?” He said it in a nice way.

“Guess so.” A zing shot through my chest. He'd been paying attention! Then Marie's face popped into my head and the zing turned into a pang of guilt.

Vinnie arrived in his usual used-car-salesman suit, along with our director, Spyke—one name only—who travelled with a pack of camera, lighting, and sound technicians. The crew all had choppy artistic haircuts, Williamsburg hipster outfits, and titanic lattes from a fancy Italian café around the corner. I used to find Spyke's warp speed refreshing. Today the gang's chattering grated.

Malika emerged in her New Wave schoolgirl
outfit: plaid miniskirt that barely covered her butt; blindingly white, collared shirt that looked great against her dark skin; and fitted black sweater vest with an Anarchist circle-A stitched onto it instead of a school crest. Horn-rimmed glasses framed her eyes and her full lips shone with gloss. She took her place next to the drum kit.

At last Jules sauntered out, wearing cakelike violet crinolines under a purple slip cinched at the waist with a wide gold belt. On her feet were dark purple cowboy boots. Perched on her teased nest of white-blond hair was a sparkly lavender ten-gallon hat that would've been at home on a rodeo-themed stripper, but also worked nicely with her eye shadow. Somehow she pulled off the look.

The stage lights turned on. I shifted into position, avoiding the electrical cord of death, and tuned out Spyke, who was barking orders at people. Someone played our recording of “The Spectacle.” Any song will annoy me after I've listened to it over and over, and the goofy dance moves we had to do for this video didn't help. Screw catchy, juvenile tunes—my next song was going to be death metal. Ha! Vinnie would flip.

Since Spyke's over-the-top theatrical instincts were perfect for the song, I was willing to put up with the
demands for take after take. But as the day progressed it got harder to pretend I was having fun. The lights blazed above my head. I was sweating. Buckets. We got our money's worth from that makeup artist. By noon, she'd had to touch me up after every take. I had so much makeup on my face I'd have to scrape it off with sandpaper.

I finally lost it—on the four-hundredth run-through of a silly choreographed sequence to match lyrics about New York being like a circus. Malika pretended to walk a tightrope while I clowned around. Jules refused to play along, because all she cared about was looking sexy. She kept pirouetting with a hula hoop around her waist, causing Spyke to stop everything and make us start all over again.

“Oh, god. Kill me now,” I snapped.

“What's your trauma?” Jules said.

“You're not six years old. That hoop is a terrible idea.”

“Shut up. I
refuse
to look like an idiot in this video, even if you're okay with it.”

“You're making the shoot take forever,” I growled. Yes, growled—it began in my throat and ended as a low rumble in my chest. My lips curled back over bared teeth. Jules gasped. I smelled the sharpness of fear on her.

Vinnie recognized the warning signs of a band brawl and quickly announced a break. I leapt off the stage before Spyke could argue and dashed to the catering buffet before anyone else could get in line. Brie and red pepper sandwiches, ordered specially for me, weren't going to make a dent in this ferocious hunger. I loaded a plate with roast beef wraps and chips, which made people's jaws drop—I'd been a vegetarian since I was twelve and watched a gruesome documentary on what life was like for cows at a slaughterhouse. But today I craved meat. I tossed a heap of carrots on top, then added a turkey and havarti sandwich for dessert.

Clutching two cans of organic soda in one hand, I sat on the floor in a dark corner far from the stage, hoping it would discourage anyone from coming over to ask about my change in diet. I shut my eyes and relished the fact that the lights were no longer pounding down on me. Sweet relief.

When I opened my eyes again Harris was hovering above me, holding a full plate. He hesitated, then sat down very close. If he moved just a couple inches to the left, his foot would touch mine.

“Must be hot under those lights,” he said, picking up a pepper sandwich from his plate.

“The worst,” I said from around a mouthful of beef, wishing he was a little less observant.

“So, did you notice my buddy's brother at the concert? I think he has a crush on you.”

I wasn't sure how to respond. Was Harris trying to set me up?

“The guy who stood there staring?” I asked.

He nodded. “Owen Lebrun.”

“Kinda creeped me out.”

“He's all right. At least his brother, Marlon, is. Met the guy in a class about how artists have depicted the natural world throughout the ages. He's some kind of genius, doing advanced research even though he's only like two years older than me.” Harris was slowly working on his undergrad at NYU, and his comic featured anthropomorphized animals who talked to people—I could see why he'd be into a class like that. For a second I considered telling him about the attack, but if I showed him the scar he'd think I was deluded, too. I watched him take a bite of his sandwich. I was used to being a loner, but I'd never felt this alone.

He peered sideways. “Hey, are you pissed at me for some reason?”

“What? No! Why would you think that?”

“You just seem kind of annoyed … Hope I didn't do anything stupid.”

I sighed. “It's not you, Harris. I just feel like crap today.”

“You're kind of flushed.”

“Fever.”

He frowned. The expression just made him more adorable. “And you're still working? That's impressive. Also, I, uh, thought you were vegetarian …”

“I was.”

“Not anymore?”

“My body needs protein. Anyway, shouldn't you be worrying about your girlfriend instead of me?” As soon as the words popped out, I wished I could suck them back in. His frown deepened. Long brown eyelashes drooped to hide his eyes. “Sorry, that wasn't fair,” I said. “I'm just a cranky jerk. I don't know what's—”

“No, it's a valid question.” He took another nibble of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. “Marie's super hungover. Last night she went on a bit of a tear.”

“That's what beer's made for,” I said glibly, then stuffed half of Sandwich #3 into my mouth, and choked. Harris cracked open one of my sodas and passed it to me. I gulped convulsively to clear my windpipe. Awesome.

“Marie made a fool of herself last night. I'm surprised Jules and Malika didn't mention it. She showed up at the Cake Shop already drunk and kept knocking 'em back …”

“Jules gets paid to make a fool of herself. Probably didn't even notice. And Malika's too sweet to gossip.”

“Trust me, they noticed,” he said, staring down at his plate.

I wanted to run over and demand that Malika fill me in on every single thing that happened, but I just sat there gobbling my way through Sandwiches #3 and #4, and avoided looking at Harris.

When he spoke next, his voice was so quiet I almost missed it. “She also thinks I … like you.”

I choked another time. “S-sorry?”

“Yeah.”

I waited for him to say more. He didn't.

“Do you?”

Wow, I hadn't meant to really say it. Harris looked as surprised as I was.

“Uh, maybe,” he said. “I mean, yes. I think she's right.”

I was stunned—that I'd asked the question, and that he'd responded so truthfully. I couldn't look at him, so I looked at Sandwich #5 and wondered if I could get away with going for #6. Eagle-eyed Harris would definitely make some kind of comment. At least I still had carrots left. Oh, god, why couldn't I stop eating? Especially at a time like this. Maybe I had parasites. Could you catch parasites from a dog bite?

“We've been together so long,” Harris said, interrupting my panic attack. “Sometimes I don't remember what Marie and I have in common.”

We'd never had a single personal conversation, and now he seemed determined to peel himself open like an onion during my half-hour lunch break. The only thing I could think of to say was “From where I'm sitting, you two are lucky. I have trouble meeting guys I like enough to hang out with for more than five minutes.”

“Right. You could have your pick of guys. I've seen them fall all over you after concerts.”

“I'm shy,” I said. “Or picky. Shy and ridiculously picky.”

Harris leaned over and rested a warm hand on my torn fishnet-covered knee. He liked me. Holy crap. I wanted to jump him. But first, I needed more meat! I got up to nab Sandwich #6 from the food table and heard Harris's phone ring. He answered it in a low voice, glancing up at me, then turned away. I caught a bit of his conversation: “Look, not now. Marie, I know— Oh, for— No! Can we talk about this later?”

I was too embarrassed to eavesdrop any more, and I was still pissed with Jules, so I decided to avoid everyone by ducking into the swanky bathroom and locking the door. It was the size of a small living room and had a comfortable loveseat.

Putting down my plate on a wicker table, I dunked a stack of paper towels in icy water and wrapped them around my neck like a scarf. Then I turned off the light, sank down on the loveseat, and nibbled on my roast beef in the darkness.

My stomach didn't feel too good—all that meat was a shock to the system—but I just couldn't stop. By the time I was done, my world was spinning. I swung my feet onto the loveseat and lay as flat as possible, hoping it would help. What was up with my body? And what was up with
Harris
? Since I had no answers, I squeezed my eyes shut, pressed my hand to my unhappy tummy, and tried to stay calm.