"I guess not," Laurie said in a disinterested voice.
"See, the Fair Lady, She's going to change the world. But She has to have faithful followers to help Her do it. People who can do what She says, right now, without asking questions. Later, they'll be rewarded."
"Sounds like a comic book," Laurie said in a low voice. She was dragging out her binder, scuffling in the bottom of the book bag for a pencil. She'd show Chrissy. She'd actually go ahead and start doing her algebra homework right in front of her. Chrissy was only in pre-algebra.
"Go ahead, make fun of it. But don't blame me when you miss out later because you were afraid to take a few chances." Chrissy paused, to allow Laurie a chance to plead for more information. Instead, Laurie picked up her binder and book and took them over to her desk.
"See, it's like a war, right now," Chrissy suddenly resumed. "And, we're like Her spies and stuff. And some of us do even harder stuff, like being ninjas for Her, or something. See, there are people out there who know about Her and would do anything to keep Her from carrying out her plans. Because once She comes to power, well, everything's going to change.People who used to push us around are going to be real sorry, because we'll belong to Her and they'll have to do what we tell them. She's going to make them crawl for us."
There was great satisfaction in Chrissy's voice. Laurie glanced sideways at her through the curtain of her hanging hair. She was staring off through the wall, a look of petulant gloating on her face. Just the way she used to look when she'd talked about running away,and how her Mom and Dad would be really sorry they'd been so mean to her once she was gone. Only then she did run away and hid out at the shelter for two days, and her parents never even called the police. She glanced at Chrissy again. It suddenly struck her how dumb she looked, with her bangs starched up stiff over her forehead, almost like a rooster's comb, and one shaved spot over her ear. It was a tough punk hairdo, but she still had that fat, round little face she'd always had. Laurie's dad had always said Chrissy looked like a Cabbage Patch Kid with too much stuffing in her. She still did. Cabbage Punk,Laurie thought to herself, and giggled.
"So what's funny?" Chrissy demanded, instantly suspicious.
"Nothing," Laurie muttered. "I was thinking about something else."
"Listen, Laurie. You want in on this or not? Because if you do, you're gonna have to take some chances, and not worry so much about what Mommy and Daddy say." Chrissy thrust one hip out and put her fists at her waist. Like that one rock poster. Laurie wondered if she'd been practicing in front of the mirror.
"I don't know," she muttered. She didn't. The way she was acting, she didn't even know if she wanted to be friends with Chrissy anymore. Except, if she wasn't best friends with Chrissy, then she wasn't best friends with anyone. Heck, she was hardly any kind of friend with anyone. "I gotta think about it, okay?"she amended. She finally let her eyes meet Chrissy's. But there was no understanding there. Chrissy only shrugged.
"Well, don't take too long," she said flatly."There's stuff going on. Big stuff. You wait too long,you won't be in on it. You'll be one of them."
Laurie just stared at her. Waiting for her to say something else, to add something that wouldn't make it sound so flat, so final. But she didn't. Finally, she turned away from Chrissy's unsmiling face.
"I got an algebra test tomorrow. You know?"
"Yeah. I know. Hope you get a hundred percent and Mommy sticks a gold star on your forehead."
Laurie didn't look up again until after the door slammed. Then she stared at the space where Chrissy had stood, trying not to let the tears loose, and vaguely wondered where Chrissy had gone. And how long it would be before she gave in and followed her.
Watch the trail, now, it's coming to an end;
The river speaks the terms of my fate.
I can hear the laughter of the falcon and the wren;
I fear my repentance comes too late.
"LANNAN SIDHE"
Not even the stupid waitress uniform could make her look bad. She still had her hair pinned up out of the way, but that couldn't stop the streetlamps from snapping copper highlights off it. Durand looked at her, and felt angry at Step all over again. How the hell could that idiot look at a woman like Tiffany and still remember some stupid mess she'd gotten into as a kid?
She spotted him and came over to the car, opened the door and slid in, just as if she'd been expecting him. She leaned over and hugged him and gave him a quick hard kiss before she said, without malice,"You stood me up last night, you asshole."
"Couldn't be helped," he told her. "Cop stuff doesn't stop at five o'clock."
She sat looking at him with those huge eyes of hers.If any other woman had called him an asshole, he'd have told her to take off, find someone else to abuse. But coming from Tiffany, it didn't even bother him.Sometimes, when he wasn't around her, he wondered why. He knew all the stuff Step had told him was true, and always before he'd had a rule against dating women who had any kind of trouble in their past, divorce or illegitimate kids or smoking pot, or anything. Sometimes he tried to tell himself she'd been a whore and he shouldn't like her so much. But when he was with her it didn't matter. So he'd broken his own rule, to date her, and she kept right on breaking all his rules of how he thought a woman should be. Like now.
After two seconds of thought, she shrugged and forgave him. "Next time, try to call," she said, and settled in beside him.
"Buckle your seat belt," he told her, as he always had to.
Reluctantly, she slid back to her side of the car. As she dragged down the shoulder harness, she observed, "You ought to install a seat belt in the middle, so I could sit next to you instead of clear over here."
"In my spare time," he promised her, in the joke they shared about him never having any spare time.
"What would you like to do? Dinner and a movie?"
"Okay. But I got to go home and change first. You mind?"
"Nope." He pulled away from the curb, the old Chevy's clutch slipping. That was another thing he was going to have to fix in his spare time.
Durand was content to drive in silence, just smelling the faint trace of perfume that Tiffany brought with her, feeling her left hand rest on his shoulder as he drove. But Tiffany asked, "Aren't you even going to tell me about it?"
"About what?"
"About what kept you last night?"
"Oh. Cop stuff." He always hated to talk to her about anything to do with Step. He was the one thing they could never agree on. It was ironic, because if it hadn't been for Step, they never would have met. He was the one who had introduced them, on Durand's first day on the job. Of course, it had been Tiffany who'd followed up on the introduction, and called him at work to say she'd like to see more of him. No woman had ever done that before.
"It's Mike again, isn't it? What did he do to you this time?"
He drove two more blocks before answering, and she let him have his silence Then he said, "I'm starting to think he's mixed up in something dirty."
"Oh," she said. That was all. Waiting to hear the rest before she said anything more. Probably only he knew her well enough to hear the tiny chill in her voice.
Durand sighed. "It's like this. You know, I told you about that gypsy guy we busted, and how he got turned loose somehow. And the murder at the hotel and everything. Well, Step's been talking to me like it's over, homicide gets to handle it now, forget it.But yesterday I noticed he didn't change out of his uniform after work. So I kind of followed him, and saw him go to the park and talk to this guy with a carriage. And after he'd left, I go talk to the guy, and it turns out Step's been asking him all kinds of questions about a gypsy and a knife."