The Changeling Bride (2 page)

Elle shuffled down the aisle behind the others as the bus came to a halt at her stop, and had to leap from the bottom step to the curb to avoid a deep puddle with oily sludge floating on the surface. She had taken but a few steps into the rain when she heard a splash behind her. She turned and saw an old woman, wearing the layered clothing of the homeless, sprawled half in the puddle, half on the sidewalk, her pant legs askew and raised to show bare withered calves veined like marble.

Fellow passengers stepped around her and hurried on their way as if she were invisible, and behind her the door to the bus closed with a hydraulic hiss as the driver pulled back into traffic. Elle bit her lip, then returned to the woman and squatted down beside her, reaching out a hand to touch her.

“Are you okay? Can I help you up?”

The woman didn’t answer, just rocked awkwardly on her back like a stranded turtle and made little grunting sounds.

“Let me help you up.”

Elle got behind her and grabbed her under the arms, pulling her as gently as she could up onto the curb into a sitting position. The woman was light, despite her bulky appearance. It felt like she had more clothing than flesh under her ragged jacket.

“Are you okay?” Elle asked again. The woman was breathing heavily, but seemed disinclined to move. Her feet were still in the puddle, mud splattered up her ankles. Her knit cap had fallen off, and Elle picked it up and held it out to her.

“Here, you’d better put this back on. You’re getting wet.” The woman made no move to take it, so Elle set it in her lap.

The woman suddenly leaned away from Elle, groping along the sidewalk with one gnarled hand until she found the cane that had skittered away from her when she fell.
She took her hat and shoved it inside the front of her jacket, then with a surprising burst of strength stood up, leaning heavily on the cane. Elle stepped back, then reached out again to steady the woman, who swayed and seemed ready to fall.

“Ma’am, are you sure you’re okay? Do you want me to help you get somewhere? Can I call someone for you?” Elle chewed her lip, uncertain. She didn’t feel comfortable leaving the old woman, but she didn’t know what to do with her, either.

“Do you want to come to my apartment?” Elle found herself asking, not believing those words were coming out of her mouth. She thought of the carpets she only walked on shoeless in hope of keeping them clean, the sofa she vacuumed weekly. She didn’t have much money, but she had Lysol disinfectant, by God. “I can make you something to eat, maybe some tea, and you can use my phone.”

The woman ignored her and reached an arthritis-warped hand into a pocket, fumbling around, searching for something. She drew out some old tissues that dropped to the ground and melted on the wet sidewalk, then poked through a handful of gum wrappers, lint, and bent paper clips. She found what she wanted, a piece of heavily folded pink paper, and carefully lifted it in her twisted fingers, holding it out to Elle.

The old woman obviously wanted her to take it, so she did. The woman wrapped her cold hands around Elle’s and squeezed. For the first time she looked directly at her, and Elle realized that the woman’s eyes were the same yellow-green of the morning transient’s, and their eerie intensity held her spellbound. The old woman smiled, as if with a secret, then turned and hobbled off, staggering from side to side every few steps but covering ground with unexpected speed.

Elle frowned after her, her lips parted in puzzlement. When the woman had disappeared into the slanting rain,
Elle looked down at the folded paper, then put it into her pocket. She’d throw it away when she got home.

“Tatiana darling, I’m home!” she called, opening the door to her apartment. It was hardly necessary, as Tatiana had heard her key in the door and was bounding down the hall even as she stepped inside. A smile curled her lips, her wet feet and the rain trickling down her scalp momentarily forgotten at the sight of her princess running to greet her.

She knelt down and opened her arms, burying her face in Tatiana’s neck, rubbing her hands up and down Tatiana’s lower spine in the way she knew the dog loved. She got her ear washed in returned, and then the big Samoyed wriggled out of her grasp and raced back down the hall, pouncing on a squeaky toy.

Tatiana had been a surprise birthday gift from her brother, Jeff, a testament to both his thoughtlessness and his clumsy affection for her. At first sight of the uncoordinated ball of fur, she had been in love, forcefully restraining herself from dribbling out all the nauseating endearments that immediately sprang to mind. “Darling. Precious. Widdle snookie-wookie-ums.” She had said them all in her heart, but had refused to so debase herself as to utter them aloud.

What she had said instead, as she had cuddled the puppy to her chest and allowed it to chew her finger, was, “You know, don’t you, that this means I’ll have to find an apartment that allows dogs? And that I’ll have to housebreak her, and walk her, and make sure she gets enough exercise, and pay for shots at the vet and spaying, not to mention a dog license and dog food?”

“Aw, but, Ellie, how could you refuse that face? Huh? Just look at her, she loves you already,” Jeff had answered, a fatuous grin on his face as he snuggled his pregnant wife closer under his arm.

“Lemmee hold ’er, Aunt Ellie,” three-and-a-half-year-old Clarence begged, tugging at her pants.

“Not right now, Clarence,” she said, pulling away from his grasping little hands. She loved her nephew, but she wouldn’t put her heavenly angel in a child’s care. She summoned greater peevishness into her tone and continued, “And I’ll have to take her to obedience school and groom her, and I’ll get fleas in my carpet, and white hair all over everything I own. A dog is a big responsibility. Don’t you listen to the Humane Society ads?”

She had kept her, though, and rearranged her life to suit Tatiana. She had found an apartment she could barely afford, one that not only allowed dogs but was right next to a forested park where Tatiana could run off the leash. Her consequently reduced finances had meant taking the bus to work and no cable television, but she admitted those changes were probably for the best. She also now got exercise whether she wanted it or not; mornings and late afternoons found her outside with a Frisbee or ball, doing anything to help Tatiana burn off energy.

She shed her parka and shoes, and walked through the apartment to the sliding glass doors that looked out on the forested park. Tatiana shoved rudely at her legs, wanting out, and when Elle slid open the door the dog squeezed past her, zipping off down the narrow apartment complex lawn and back again. Elle stood and watched, a smile on her lips that had been in absence most of the day.

The phone just inside the door rang, making her jump. Her face scrunched in annoyance as she went back inside to answer it. It was probably either Jeff or a telemarketer, neither of whom she wanted to talk to.

“Hello?”

“Ellie! Glad I caught you,” Jeff’s persistently cheerful voice was dulled by the buzz of a car phone. “Tina wanted me to call and ask you over to dinner tonight. I
can pick you up on my way—I’m about fifteen minutes from your place as I speak.”

“I was just going to give Tatiana her walk. Can we make it some other time? She hasn’t been out all day.”

“No problem, bring her along. You can walk her before dinner. After, too, if you eat too much, ha ha. Can’t let you get fat on us, or we’ll never find you a husband.”

“Yeah, right. Look, Jeff, I’m just in a really bad mood tonight.” She watched Tatiana through the door, sniffing around, hot on the trail of some rodent. The rain had lightened to a soft drizzle, and although the woods were gloomy beneath the trees, they still called to her.

“That’s because you don’t get out enough. What’s the matter, you forget how to be sociable? It won’t kill you to make an effort. Tina’s feelings will be hurt if you don’t come, and you know the kids adore you.”

“Jeff . . .”

“C’mon, Ellie. For me?”

“Oh, fine. I’ll come, but you have to promise to have me home by nine.”

“No problemo.”

Elle hung up and gave a snort of frustration with herself. When would she learn to say no? Giving in seemed to be what she did best.

Forty minutes later she and Tatiana unloaded themselves from Jeff’s Ford Taurus in the driveway of his suburban home. The house was a variation on the same theme as all the others in the development: white plastic-latticed windows and neutral-colored siding, and a bay window beside the front door looking out on a patch of too-green lawn lined with bark dust and azaleas.

An unfamiliar car—an Escort with alloy wheels and a spoiler on its hatchback—was parked along the curb in front.

“Another guest?” Elle asked.

“Just Toby from work. You’ve heard me talk about him, haven’t you?”

“Toby, as in single Toby? As in, ‘Elle, why don’t you go out with this great guy I know’ Toby?”

“That’s the one.” Jeff gave his trademark grin.

Elle felt her stomach go hollow. Not again. “Jeff, what did I say last time? I thought you agreed to stop doing this.”

“But maybe you’ll like this one.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “I just want to see you happy, you know that.”

The front door opened and Tina came out onto the top step, the newest addition to the horde nestled against her shoulder.

“Ellie, how nice to see you. We have a special guest tonight, who came just to meet you.” She paused, taking in Elle’s apparel. “I wish you’d dressed a little more attractively. . . . We’ll just have to tell Toby you clean up good,” she said, smiling.

Elle cringed, aware that her makeup was creased and oily on her face and that the grubby comfort clothes she had changed into were covered in dog hair and gave her the shape of a coffee can. The sweatshirt ended at her hips, and the leggings she wore beneath showed every pound of rump and thigh.

“Toby!” Tina called back into the house. “Toby! Come out and meet Jeff’s little sister, Ellie.”

The day was not improving with age.

Three hours later, with one of Tina’s hamburger casseroles burbling unhappily in her stomach, Elle decided it was past time to go home. Toby was not bad-looking, but he took her quiet for an invitation to spout opinions on the Way Life Ought to Be, opinions with all the depth of thought, compassion, and factual accuracy of a Rush Limbaugh broadcast.

She made a show of looking at her watch, then sucked in her breath in false dismay. “Jeff, it’s past nine. God,
I’d really love to stay longer and chat, but I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.”

“I could give you a lift home,” Toby offered.

“Oh, really, that isn’t necessary. I wouldn’t want to make you go out of your way.”

Toby pooh-poohed her protestations, seconded by Jeff, and minutes later Elle found herself out the door and on the way to the Escort, Tatiana trotting ahead onto the lawn, there to do her part in altering the uniform verdancy of the grass.

She felt a moment of malicious delight when she saw it dawn on Toby that Tatiana—fluffy, white, shedding Tatiana—would be riding in his precious car. She waited on the curb as he hastily flung borrowed newspapers over the small backseat in a desperate attempt to save his upholstery.

Toby’s verbosity died a slow death on the ride home as Tatiana repeatedly attempted to crawl between them into the front seat, panted hotly in his ear, and drooled on his shoulder, and then, when forced to stay in back, drowned out his voice with the loud rustling and tearing of newspaper as she tore up and rearranged his improvised upholstery covers. She eventually settled down with a sigh and a final scrunching of paper, resting her muzzle on her paws and regarding the back of the seat with what Elle was sure was a profound disappointment at this sorry state of affairs.

Moments later the car filled with the stench of canine intestinal gas.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Toby swore, furiously rolling down his window. “Can’t you teach that friggin’ mutt some manners?”

“Tatiana is a perfectly well-mannered dog,” Elle replied haughtily, her chin lifted. Insult her dog, would he? “She is not a mutt, either: She’s a purebred Samoyed, and some would consider it an honor to be in her presence, flatulent or not.”

Toby turned to glare at her incredulously, finally at a loss for words, then turned back to watching the road, his shoulders hunched in anger.

He did not so much as wish her a good night when he dropped her off outside her apartment, and then drove off with an unnecessary squeal of tires. Despite how little she had liked him, she felt a sense of depression descend on her as the car’s taillights disappeared around the corner.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with me,” she said to Tatiana. “The problem can’t always be with the guy, can it?”

She let herself into her apartment, too distracted to feel the green eyes that followed her every movement from the shadows beyond the parking lot. She would not have slept as well as she had that night if she had known how long those eyes kept watch.

Chapter Two

Elle lay in bed Saturday morning, staring at the ceiling and wondering if she should get up. A splatter of rain hit the window, and she turned to gaze out at skies dark with clouds.

It had been four days since the surprise blind date with toady Toby. Jeff had given him her number, and much to her distress, he had called twice, apparently finding no need to apologize for his behavior in the car. Maybe he was waiting for
her
to apologize.

She wanted to strangle Jeff for giving out her number, but she knew that her brother just wanted for her what he had—a spouse and kids and a two-car garage. She wondered sometimes, though, if she would ever find happiness through conventional routes.

“It’s a malaise of the spirit, Tatiana, that’s what it is.”

Tatiana lifted her head off the bed and thumped her tail once uncertainly.

“Shall I expire of ennui? Is that how I’ll go?” She
pressed the back of her wrist against her forehead in a fainting pose. “Alone, nothing to show for my twenty-five years, in a dim little apartment I can’t afford, with no one to mourn my loss? Do I sound melodramatic?”