“Right,” I said, discarding my plans for the afternoon, which hadn’t been very urgent to start with. If we ate lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s, we couldn’t reach Monroe until one thirty, but I could make it home in time to change for work. After I’d ordered, I excused myself. While I was in the ladies’ room, my cell phone rang. I don’t answer my phone while I’m in a bathroom. I wouldn’t like to be talking to someone and hear a toilet flush, right? Since the restaurant was noisy, I stepped outside to return the call after a wave at Sam. The number seemed faintly familiar.
“Hey, Sookie,” said Remy Savoy. “How you doing?”
“Good. How’s my favorite little boy?” Remy had been married to my cousin Hadley, and they’d had a son, Hunter, who would be starting kindergarten in the fall. After Katrina, Remy and Hunter had moved to the little town of Red Ditch, where Remy had gotten a job working at a lumberyard through the good services of a cousin.
“He’s doing good. He’s trying hard to follow your rules. I wonder if I could ask a favor?”
“Let’s hear it,” I said.
“I’ve started dating a lady here name of Erin. We were thinking about going to the bass fishing tournament outside Baton Rouge this weekend. We, ah, we were kind of hoping you could keep Hunter? He gets bored if I fish more than an hour.”
Hmmm. Remy moved pretty fast. Kristen hadn’t been too long ago, and she’d already been replaced. I could kind of see it. Remy was not bad-looking, he was a skilled carpenter, and he had only one child — plus, Hunter’s mom was dead, so there weren’t any custody issues. Not too shabby a prospect in the town of Red Ditch. “Remy, I’m on the road right now,” I said. “Let me call you back in a little while. I gotta check my work schedule.”
“Great, thanks a lot, Sookie. Talk to you later.”
I went back inside to find that our food had been served.
“That was Hunter’s dad calling,” I told my boss after the server left. “Remy’s got a new girlfriend, and he wanted to know if I could keep Hunter this weekend.”
I got the impression that Sam believed Remy was trying to take advantage of me — but Sam also felt he could hardly tell me what to do about it. “If I remember the schedule right, you’re working this Saturday night,” he pointed out.
And Saturday night was when I made my biggest tips.
I nodded, both to Sam and myself. While we ate, we talked about Terry’s negotiations with a breeder of Catahoulas in Ruston. Terry’s Annie had gotten out of her pen last time she’d been in heat. This time, Terry had a more planned pregnancy in mind, and the talks between the two men had nearly reached prenup status. A question rose to my mind, and I wasn’t quite sure how to phrase it to Sam. My curiosity got the better of me.
“You remember Bob the cat?” I asked.
“Sure. That guy Amelia turned into a cat by accident? Her friend Octavia turned him back.”
“Yeah. Well, the thing is, while he was a cat, he was black and white. He was a really cute cat. But Amelia found a female cat in the woods with a litter, and there were some black-and-white kittens among ’em, so she got — okay, I know this is weird — she got pissed off at Bob because she thought he’d, you know, become a dad. Sort of.”
“So your question is, is that a common thing?” Sam looked disgusted. “Naw, Sookie. We can’t do that, and we don’t want to. None of the two-natured. Even if there were a sexual encounter, there wouldn’t be a pregnancy. I think Amelia was accusing Bob falsely. On the other hand, he isn’t — wasn’t — really two-natured. He was completely transformed by magic.” Sam shrugged. He looked very embarrassed.
“Sorry,” I said, feeling mortified. “That was tacky of me.”
“It’s a natural thing to wonder about, I guess,” Sam said dubiously. “But when I’m in my other skin, I’m not out making puppies.”
Now I was horribly embarrassed. “Please, accept my apology,” I said.
He relaxed when he saw how uncomfortable I was. He patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.” Then he asked me what plans I had for the attic now that I’d emptied it, and we talked of trivial things until we were back to feeling okay with each other.
I called Remy back when we were on the interstate. “Remy, this weekend won’t work for me. Sorry!” I explained that I had to work.
“Don’t worry about it,” Remy said. He sounded calm about my refusal. “It was just a thought. Listen, here’s the thing. I hate to ask for another favor. But Hunter has to visit the kindergarten next week, just a thing the school does every year so the kids will have a mental picture of the place they’re going in the fall. They tour the classrooms, meet the teachers, and see the lunchroom and the bathrooms. Hunter asked me if you could go with us.”
My mouth fell open. I was glad Remy couldn’t see me. “This is during the day, I’m assuming,” I said. “What day of the week?”
“Next Tuesday, two o’clock.”
Unless I was on for the lunch shift, I could do it. “Again, let me check my work schedule, but I think that’s going to be doable,” I said. “I’ll call you back tonight.” I snapped my phone shut and told Sam about Remy’s second request.
“Seems like he waited to ask you the more important thing second, so you’d be more likely to come,” Sam asked.
I laughed. “I didn’t think of that until you said it. My brain is wired in a straighter line than that. But now that it’s crossed my mind, that seems . . . not unlikely.” I shrugged. “It’s not like I object, exactly. I want Hunter to be happy. And I’ve spent time with him, though not as much as I should have.” Hunter and I were alike in a hidden way; we were both telepathic. But that was our secret because I feared Hunter might be in danger if his ability was known. It sure hadn’t improved my life any.
“So why are you worried? Because I can tell you are,” Sam said.
“Just . . . it’ll look funny. People in Red Ditch will think Remy and I are dating. That I’m sort of — close to being Hunter’s mom. And Remy just told me he’s seeing a woman named Erin, and she may not like it. . . .” My voice trailed off. This visit seemed like a mildly bad idea. But if it would make Hunter happy, I supposed I ought to do it.
“You have that sucked-in feeling?” Sam’s smile was wry. It was our day to talk about awkward things.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I do. When I got involved in Hunter’s life, I didn’t ever imagine he’d really depend on me for anything. I guess I’ve never been around kids that much. Remy’s got a great-aunt and great-uncle in Red Ditch. That’s why he moved there after Katrina. They had an empty rental house. But the aunt and uncle are too old to want to keep a kid Hunter’s age for more than an hour or two, and the one cousin is too busy to be much help.”
“Hunter a good kid?”
“Yes, I think he is.” I smiled. “You know what’s weird? When Hunter stayed with me, he and Claude got along great. That was a big surprise.”
Sam glanced over at me. “But you wouldn’t want to leave him with Claude for hours, would you?”
After a moment’s thought, I said, “No.”
Sam nodded, as if I’d confirmed something he’d been wondering about. “Cause after all, Claude’s a fairy?” He put enough question into his voice to ensure that I knew he was genuinely asking me.
The words sounded very unpleasant said out loud. But they were the truth. “Yes, because Claude’s a fairy. But not because he’s a different race from us.” I struggled with how to express what I wanted to say. “Fairies, they love kids. But they don’t have the same frame of reference as most humans. Fairies’ll do what they think will make the child happy, or will benefit the child, rather than what a Christian adult would do.” It made me feel small and provincial to admit all this, but those were my true feelings. I felt like adding a series of disclaimers — Not that I think I’m such a great Christian, far from it. Not that non-Christians are bad people. Not that I think Claude would hurt Hunter. But Sam and I had known each other long enough that I was sure he’d understand all that.