Jim Shepard - Kiss of the Wolf

“I like your hair like that, Mrs. Muhlberg,” he said. She had it up, because of the heat.

“Bruno, you’re something,” Nina said, eating.

“I like her hair, ” he said. He turned his palms up.

Joanie thought, At least I’m generating interest from somebody. She also liked the minor rebelliousness of the public flirting.

Before Gary took off, she’d been with Bruno at the funeral of one of Bruno’s friends, Mark Siegler. At the cemetery, they’d ended up on opposite sides of the grave. He’d made faces. She’d shot him a look, and he’d pointed to his crotch and arched his eyebrows.

“Someone called for you,” Joanie said. “Before.”

Bruno was instantly alert. “Oh yeah?” he said. “Who?”

She shrugged. “He didn’t sound happy. He said he’d see you later tonight,” she said.

Bruno looked at her. He flexed his shoulders to fix his shirt. He nodded.

They ran out of wine. Sandro stood up to get more.

“Sandro, get Joey’s homemade,” Nina said. “The one Bruno brought last time.”

“Which one’s Joey’s?” Sandro said.

“Look, there are two reds down there right next to each other,” Nina said. She held up two fingers, like a peace sign. “Get this one, not this one.” She tilted her hand to favor each finger.

Everybody laughed. Joanie looked cross-eyed at Todd. It was a thing they exchanged whenever anyone said something stupid. Sandro put his hand over his eyes.

“That’s a help, Nin,” Sandro said. “I’ll get this one.” He put his finger in his nose. He squeezed by Joanie, and they heard him going down the cellar stairs.

“So Todd’s a grown-up now,” Bruno said. His joking had changed. He looked preoccupied. Joanie filed the information: a Bruno weak spot, something to do with the call.

“Man o’ the house,” Bruno said.

Todd shrugged.

“I missed the ceremony,” Bruno said.

“Dere’re tree bottles down here,” Sandro called from the cellar.

“Get this one,” Bruno called back without raising his head, holding up his middle finger.

Joanie got up to go to the bathroom herself, laughing. The phone rang when she passed it, like she’d tripped an alarm.

She’d forgotten her husband. Todd was upright, alert again. She put her hand on the phone.

She answered it in front of everyone in the kitchen, turning so they could get maximum coverage. She said hello.

“Hello? Joanie?” Gary said. There was a sheeting noise behind him. She imagined a booth on an Arctic traffic median, the Alaska pipeline running alongside. Snow. But it was summer in Alaska, too. “Joanie?” Gary said.

“No,” Joanie said. “This’s Beatrice.” The line was quiet and she knew he was working on that: was he being played with? Meanwhile she enjoyed the reactions from the kitchen.

He introduced himself. He asked for Todd. Joanie told him to hold on and she passed the phone across the table to her son.

“Hey, Dad,” Todd said. He had the phone in both hands. “Yeah, she’s crazy.”

“You’re crazy,” Nina said to her. Joanie made a face.

She sat back down and took some provolone and bread on her plate, unable to go to the bathroom now without looking like she wanted to be out of the room.

Todd went over what he got. And the jacket, Joanie thought. “Oh, and Mom got me a jacket,” he said.

People kept their voices down. Clorinda sat beside Todd with a stiff silence, cutting her capacolla with a knife and fork. Elena murmured to Sandro. Nina looked at the receiver like her grandson was talking to Lee Harvey Oswald. Joanie could see how much it bothered her that the mess had already gotten this normalized. Everyone got away with everything except her family, and this was another example.

The mouse, she noticed, was on the windowsill.

Bruno saw it. He touched Sandro’s arm. It was crouching behind a cactus in a green plastic pot. Its back was bent. It apparently hoped it was hidden.

Todd was still talking to his dad. Sandro got up, nonchalant, to get a drink of water from the sink. He swung a hand at the mouse, a little swing, and it bolted across the counter, across the stove. Its paws made tinny scrabbling sounds on the stove top.

Sandro banged a hand after it and just missed. All four coils jumped. The mouse threw itself from the counter, little legs splaying in the air. It landed audibly in front of Joanie and reversed direction back past Bruno. He brought one big shoe down— boom —and all the noise stopped. The floor was still reverberating.

Joanie was afraid to look. Bruno looked at each of them and then down at his foot. He lifted his shoe, slowly, and on the linoleum there was a little curl of a tip of tail, like a gray fingernail.

“Dad, you should call back,” Todd said. But the party broke up before he did.

Everyone thanked Nina for having them, and Nina thanked everyone for coming. Joanie and Todd and Bruno helped with the cleanup.

At the screen door with her mother, Nancy said, “You sticking around, Bruno?” and Bruno said yeah, he was sticking around. Nancy left.

“Mrs. Mucherino does not like Mr. Mouse,” Bruno said when Nina came back to the sink.

“I’m not too fond of Mr. Minea, either,” Nina said, taking the dish towel from him.

“It’s all right, I failed,” Bruno said. “I had him right in my sights— budaboom —I didn’t finish it. I have to live with that.”

Sandro told him to give the mouse a rest.

When they were finished, they went out in the driveway and stood around Joanie’s Buick. It was warm and the crickets were loud. Todd loaded his presents in the back. The phone started ringing, but Todd didn’t hear it and no one else brought it up.

“How’s the car running?” Bruno asked. It was a ritual question, a “do I look out for you or do I look out for you?” question. He’d sold it to them. It was a dark-blue Century wagon. It looked like a hearse. It had an expanse of hood she never really got used to. He gave it to them cheap when it was three years old and had twenty thousand miles on it. Now it had a hundred and the body was dinged up, but it ran, no problem. When her father talked about it, he said, “That automobile doesn’t owe you a penny.” He pronounced it auto mo bile.

Gary had taken the Mazda with him, so the Buick was it as far as transportation went.

Joanie told him the car ran great.

“That automobile doesn’t owe her a penny,” Sandro said.

“That car was some deal,” Bruno said. He was looking around and down the street, like he was expecting company.

“I know it,” Joanie said.

“So, you gonna go home, or what?” Bruno said. “You tired?” She could see faint hopes fading. “You’re probably tired.”

“Todd’s pretty worn out,” she said.

“Thanks a lot for the helmet,” Todd said. He’d said good-bye to Nina and Sandro and was already in the car.

Nina came and gave her a hug. “I’m sorry about the way things turned out,” she said bitterly.

Joanie told her not to worry and said good-bye. That seemed to make things worse. Sandro followed his wife into the house with a look back at Joanie that said, Thanks a lot.

They heard banging around, the raspy sound of foil torn from the roll. The crickets started up. Todd was slumped against the headrest and looked already asleep.

They stood next to the car for a minute, awkward.

“What was the deal with that call?” Joanie said.

Bruno shrugged.

“Looked like it upset you,” she said.

He snorted.

She thought, I don’t need this. She hoped something would happen.

He took her cheek with his fingertips and turned her head and kissed her. She felt a rush of caffeine. She felt her lips after his were gone.