The Fallen (9 page)

“Four?”

“Oh, that's nothing. When I was little, we had …” But his brow furrowed, and he looked away distractedly.

“When you were little…?” Chloe prompted him.

“We had a lot. Of pets,” he finished lamely. “Lots of cats. Rare breeds, too, like Cornish rex and Maine coon.”

They wandered the paths randomly. Chloe
loved
seeing the zoo like this, for free, with no pressure to see all of the top animals, to see every square inch before it was time to go. They could pause as long as they wanted to watch a pair of simple mallard ducks that wandered into the aviary and skip the exhibits they didn't care about without feeling guilty.

But Brian was much quieter than before, except when he was pointing out interesting factoids and habits of the various animals they saw. He chewed the inside of his lip when he thought she wasn't looking, as if trying to decide whether or not to say more.

“So you had lots of pets when you were young?” Chloe prompted when they stopped to get her a diet Coke in a plastic monkey-shaped cup. He ordered one of those cappuccinos from a machine, something Chloe wouldn't have done if she were
starving.

“Yeah, uh …” Brian's face fell, completely losing the animation it had when he was talking about the meerkats and the cassowaries. “My mom's dead,” he finally said. “And my dad and me—we don't really get along. He's got this apartment he keeps here in the city—where I live, for now—but he does a lot of work out of his other house in Sausalito. We don't talk much.”

He shook his head. “But that's
way
too much information for a first date. You probably just want to make sure I'm not some kind of freak.”

Chloe laughed. “I have a secret mouse,” she volunteered, lightening the mood.

“What?”

“A secret mouse. His name is Mus-mus. From the Latin name for mouse, you know?
Mus musculus.
My mom doesn't know I keep him in a drawer of my bureau.”

“You keep a
mouse?
In your
bureau?”

“Yeah,” she said a little defensively. “Mom wouldn't let me otherwise.”

“That's so… cute.” He looked at her in wonder, as if that was the most charming thing anyone had ever said. They wandered out of the concession area, Chloe sucking noisily on the straw that impaled the monkey's head. A sign pointed to penguins, otters, and lions.

“Hey…,” Chloe said, remembering bits of the dream she'd had after she fell off the tower. “Let's go see the lions. I… dreamt about some recendy….”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She looked down as they walked, trying to match her stride to his, but Brian's legs were much longer. “My dad's gone, too,” she said. “And my mom's kind of a bitch.”

“Everyone's
mom is a bitch when you're sixteen.” He laughed. “I just would have liked to have known mine.”

“How did you know I was sixteen?” Chloe asked, suddenly suspicious.

“I didn't.” He shrugged. “It was more of a general comment. Not you in particular, but when ‘you're' sixteen, meaning everyone.”

He took the tiniest sip from his cappuccino but still managed to get a foamy mustache.

“The day after I turned sixteen, I almost punched my dad out,” Brian continued. He straightened up and looked her in the eye, daring her to disbelieve him.

“That would be
so
much more effective if you didn't have milk all over your lip,” she said, laughing. She reached over with a napkin and carefully wiped it off, dying not to drag it across his mouth too hard. She was doubly glad she had a manicure: it made the gesture twice as sexy. Denim dust under the nails would
not
have been attractive.

He blushed, and his hand went through his hair, dislodging a lock that made a Superman-style curl in the middle of his forehead.
With glasses and a dye job, he'd make a very passable Clark Kent.

He's so…
cute! Chloe thought again, and it wasn't for the last time that night. She wondered what the chances were that someone so much like her, so cute and so charming and so funny, could have randomly met her at work. If she had been in the back that day, or if Lania hadn't been so mean to him, or… it never would have happened. And while mentioning Xavier and his subsequent sickness with him was not the sort of thing one did on a first date
(or ever, really),
Chloe could definitely see talking to Brian about other things. Her mom, her dad, Paul and Ame, her near-death experience…

“Well, there they are,” Brian said, indicating the big yellow cats.

Chloe put her hand out to the rail. She had always sort of dismissed lions before as the popular and inevitable members of any zoo tour. Common, even. But she looked at them more closely now. One female rose and walked languidly over to a water trough. Every step was casual; her shoulders moved up and down slowly. There was no mistaking the power in her muscles. Somehow Chloe wasn't surprised when, after taking a gende lap and letting the droplets hang from the fur around her mouth, the lion turned and looked direcdy at her, golden eyes into her own hazel ones.

“I never realized how beautiful they were before,” Chloe whispered, unable to turn away.

Brian was saying something, spilling off factoids
about the big cats, but she wasn't listening. She could feel her dream again, like it was real.

“… know all about these guys. In the wild they eat like ten
pounds
of meat a day, sleep up to twenty
hours
a day, and can run up to fifty miles an hour”

You need a desert,
Chloe thought at them. The lioness showed no sign of hearing or caring about her. She wandered back over to the other females and let herself down onto the ground, lazily and heavily. She bit at her paw.

“Uh, Chloe? Chloe?” Brian asked, waving his hand in front of her.

“What? Sorry?”

“I was trying to impress you with my
National Geographic-like
knowledge of the big cats.”

“Oh, sorry. Very clever.” Chloe turned for one last look at the lionesses. “These don't just kill people, like Siegfried and Roy's tiger?”

Brian snorted. “Lions aren't usually as dangerous as tigers. But they're not house cats, either. They can get annoyed or pissed off—and even the friendly ones, like these, don't know their own strength compared to humans. They can accidentally kill a zookeeper while trying to play with him.”

“Oh.” Chloe thought about that last fact, and Xavier.

“We should probably go; it closes in like ten minutes.”

“Oh yeah. Of course.” Chloe shook her head. “I have to get you your monkey!”

Brian smiled shyly. “You don't really have to…”

“Of course I do, silly. This was a
great
idea for a date.” She grinned.

“Date…?” he asked, surprised. Chloe hit him playfully on the shoulder. As the twilight deepened and they headed back to the main entrance, Chloe felt a surge of energy jolt through her, making her skip, babble inces-sandy, and touch Brian as she talked, without embarrassment or reserve. She even bought him an extra-big monkey, one with long arms and Velcro so he could wear it around his neck.

They made it out just as the gates closed.

“This was great—thanks for suggesting it,” Chloe said honesdy. Her bus was coming; he was going in the opposite direction.

“Oh, cool. I'm glad you enjoyed it.”

She waited. He seemed to be looking anxiously for the bus. “Can I see you again?” Chloe finally asked, a little annoyed that
she
had to be the one to bring it up. Hadn't she bought him a monkey, after all?

“Oh—yeah—of course. If you want.” He looked down at her, unsure.

“Of course I do! Didn't I just say this was, like, the best date ever?” The bus stopped and opened its doors. “Aren't you going to kiss me?” Chloe asked, the first real flirty thing she had said all evening.

He leaned over and kissed her delicately on the cheek.

“Good night, Chloe,” he said softly, and turned around and walked away.

Chloe climbed into the bus, feeling her cheek with her fingers, wondering if this was as close to a normal guy her age as she was ever going to date.

As soon as she was sure he wasn't looking, at the last moment she dove off. There were
other
ways to get home. She took off her jacket, tied it around her waist—and ran.

This time she concentrated on more and more outrageous leaps, sometimes running along a line of parked cars, bouncing from roof to roof. When she turned off the street and started running through tiny parks, fences proved no issue: she vaulted over short ones and leapt as high as she could onto chain-link ones, throwing herself over the top and jumping all the way to the ground, sometimes as far as twelve feet.

A pit bull strained on its leash in the courtyard of one run-down condo complex; a beautifully groomed old yellow Lab barked at her, nipping at her legs as she streaked by. Even Mrs. Languedoc's nasty little shih tzu howled like a wolf at her when Chloe finally ran up her own driveway.

“Kimmy, what's wrong with you?” Chloe heard her neighbor scold the dog.

Chloe wandered over to the cheap picket fence. This time she was breathing heavily, and her lower stomach was cramping—Chloe wondered how badly she would pay for this exercise session tomorrow. She stuck her hand between the plastic slats to let the dog nose her.
They had never been particularly good friends in the past, but Chloe had occasionally thrown it raw hot dogs, trying to get it to shut up when Mrs. Languedoc was away.

Kimmy growled, backed away to a safe distance, and began barking again.

“Whatever.” Chloe shrugged and went inside.

“How was your study session?” her mother called from the table, where she was paying bills on her laptop.

It took Chloe a moment to remember exacdy what lie she had told.

“Lousy. We got
nothing
done.” She threw her jacket into the closet with disgust. “I just don't see why Lisa keeps inviting Keira along. All she wants to do is gossip and bitch.”

“Well, if you need help”—Chloe's mom looked over at her and smiled—”I was great at trig.”

Of course. You were freaking great at everything.

“Thanks.” Chloe gave her a weak smile and went upstairs to the bathroom.

Blood.

On her boy panties, in the front part of the cotton crotch. Bright red. Her ten-dollar
nice
boy panties.

Her first thought was that she had ripped her hymen during one of the gigantic leaps off fences she had taken, legs spread wide.

Then as she felt more wetness on the inside of her leg, she realized what it was.

Holy shit.
She finally got her period.

“About time,” she muttered, and started rooting through the bathroom cabinet. That must have been what set the dogs off. They must have smelled the blood on her. She finally found a box of tampons—another thing that, if she didn't like her mother's brand, she would have to start paying for herself.

I have to call Amy,
she thought. Chloe smiled.

And then she got a cramp.

“Hey—Where Were
you last night?” Amy demanded. Once again, the bus had arrived early or someone at the school had arrived late, and they had to wait
outside
for the first bell. It was a brisk fall morning, and, like many other students, Chloe had not dressed for extended outside lounging; she stamped her feet and balled her fists into her pockets, considering bumming a cigarette.

“I had a date,” Chloe responded coolly. It was easy in this temperature.

“With Alyec?”

“No. Someone else.”

Amy regarded her for a long moment. She was going sort of mod today, sort of Austin Powers, in a big purple fake-fur coat and goggles.

“What the fuck, King?” she finally said. “First you don't even answer when I invite you to my poetry reading and now you announce this little secret life—”

Chloe knew how she
wished
she could respond. Like
the people on TV who always had a good answer, the proper words, just enough righteous indignation:

“I have a secret life? Since you and Paul started dating, it's like neither of you exist anymore. We haven't really seen each other except for my birthday, and suddenly you're pissed that I won't come to your poetry reading you so
graciously deigned
to invite me to?”

Or at least the heartfelt, emotionally genuine pre-mutual-crying speech:

“Amy, I've really felt abandoned recendy. I know that you and Paul have suddenly become very important in each other's lives, and I respect that—but
we're
friends, too. A lot has been going on in my life I haven't had a chance to tell you about—and you're my best friend. I really need you sometimes, and lately I feel that you just haven't been there for me.”

But, “I'll be at your poetry reading,” was what she actually said, grudgingly, looking at the ground.

“Oh.” Amy looked confused, then relieved. “Thanks. Maybe you'll tell me about your secret lover
then?
” Yeah. Whatever.” There was a long pause. Chloe sensed that this was a crux of a moment, what could be the beginning of a serious rift. For a second it was breathtaking, like she was poised at the edge of a canyon, at the top of a tower, ready to jump: no more annoying, pretentious Amy
or
weirdness with Paul, just a slow parting of ways behind her. In front were Alyec or Brian, the new things she could suddenly
seem to do, the freedom and excitement of the night.

But she wasn't ready for that yet. An image came to her mind of the lionesses in her dream and at the zoo. If they were human, they wouldn't even let something as small or foolish as this waste their time.