Charlaine Harris - Deadlocked

“You must be Ms. Stackhouse,” she said.

“Yes. I have an appointment with Ms. Osiecki?” I sounded out the name.

“Oh-seek-ee,” she said very quietly, presumably so the owner of the name wouldn’t hear her correction.

I nodded, to show I’d gotten it now.

“I’l see if she’s ready,” the girl said, leaping to her feet and making her way to the little corridor leading to the rest of the space. There was a door on the left and a door on the right, and after that the area seemed to widen into a common space. I could glimpse a big table and a bookcase ful of heavy books, the kind of books I would never pick up to read.

I heard a brisk knock and a murmur, and then the teenager was back. “Ms. Osiecki wil see you now,” she said, with an expansive sweep of her hand.

I went back to talk to Ms. Osiecki after taking a deep breath.

A woman of about thirty stood up from her broad desk. She had wel -cut short red-streaked brown hair, blue eyes, and brown glasses. She was wearing a nice white blouse and a wildly flowered skirt and high-heeled sandals. She was smiling.

“I’m Beth Osiecki,” she said, in case I’d gotten lost between the reception area and her office.

“Sookie Stackhouse,” I said, shaking the outstretched hand.

She glanced down at the pad, and I could see she was going over the notes she’d scribbled the day before when I’d cal ed her. She looked over at the big Scenic Louisiana poster by her desk. “Wel ,” she said, shooting me a quizzical look. “It real y is a special day for you, isn’t it? It’s your birthday, and you’re going to make your wil .”

I felt a little strange after I left the lawyers’ office. I guess there’s nothing to make you think about your own demise like making your wil . It’s also a literal y do-or-die moment. When your wil is read, it wil be the last time people wil hear your voice: the last expression of your wil and your wishes, the last statement from your heart. It had been a strangely revelatory hour.

Beth Osiecki was going to put everything in legalese, and I had to come in day after tomorrow and sign it. Just in case, I told her, I’d like to sign a list of the points I’d made. The list was in my own handwriting. I asked her if that would make it legal.

“Sure,” she’d said. She’d smiled. I could tel that she was adding to her meager store of “strange client” stories, and that was okay with me.

When I left Beth Osiecki’s office, I was pretty proud of myself. I’d made a wil .

I couldn’t quite figure out what to do next. It was three in the afternoon. I’d had a late breakfast, and a ful lunch was out of the question. I didn’t need to go to the library; I had several library books I hadn’t read yet. I could go home and sunbathe, which was always a pleasant pastime, but then I’d sweat al over my good makeup and my clean hair. I was in danger of doing that now, standing here on the sidewalk. The sun was glaring down ferociously. I figured it was at least a hundred degrees. My cel phone rang as I hesitated to touch the handle of my car door.

“Hel o?” I fished a tissue out of my purse and used it to cover my fingers as I opened the door. The heat rol ed out.

“Sookie? How are you?”

“Quinn?” I couldn’t believe it. “I’m so glad to hear from you.”

“Happy birthday,” he said.

I could feel my lips curve up in an involuntary smile. “You remembered!” I said. “Thanks!” I was absurdly pleased. I hadn’t exactly thought Tara would be thinking about my birthday, since she’d just brought twins home from the hospital, but maybe I’d been a tiny bit flattened when she hadn’t mentioned it this morning.

“Hey, a birthday is an important day,” the weretiger said. I hadn’t seen him since Sam’s brother’s wedding. It was good to hear his deep voice.

“How are you?” I hesitated for a moment before adding, “How’s Tijgerin?” The last time I’d seen Quinn, he’d just met the beautiful and single and one-of-the-last-of-her-kind weretigress. I don’t think I have to draw you a picture.

“I’m … ah … going to be a father.”

Wow. “Way to go!” I said. “So you guys have moved in together? Where are you living?”

“That’s not exactly the way we do it, Sookie.”

“Um. Okay. What’s the tiger procedure?”

“Tiger men don’t bring up their young. Only the tiger mom.”

“Gosh, that seems kind of old-fashioned.” And kind of wrong.

“To me, too. But Tij’s real traditional. She says that when she has the baby, she’l go into hiding until he’s weaned. Her mom told her that if it’s a boy I might see him as a threat.” I couldn’t read Quinn’s mind over the phone, but he sounded plenty exasperated and not a little resentful.

As far as I knew—and I’d done a little reading on tigers when I was Quinn’s girlfriend—only males who were not the actual dads were apt to kil tiger cubs. But since this was total y none of my business, I choked back the indignation I felt on Quinn’s behalf. At least, I tried to.

So she’d used him to get pregnant with a weretiger baby and now she didn’t want to see him anymore?

I told myself sternly, Not my battle . (Werewolves were much more modern in their thinking. Even werepanthers!) Since my silence had lasted too long, I leaped in with both feet. “Wel , I’m so happy that you’l have a cub, since there aren’t many of you-al left. I guess your mama and your sister are excited?”

“Uh … wel , my mom is pretty sick. She brightened up a lot when I told her, but it was just temporary. She’s back in that nursing home. Frannie found a guy, and she took off with him last month. I’m not real y sure where she is.”

“Quinn, that’s so tough. I’m real y sorry.”

“But I’m raining on your birthday, and I didn’t mean to. I real y did cal you to tel you to have a great day, Sookie. No one deserves it more.” He hesitated, and I could tel there were more words that he wanted to say. “Maybe you could cal me sometime?” he asked. “Tel me what you ended up doing to celebrate?”

I tried to do some concentrated thinking in a very short time, but I just wasn’t up to figuring out al the cracks and crevices in this tentative overture.

“Maybe,” I said. “I hope I do something worth talking about. So far, al I’ve done is make my wil .”

There was a long moment of silence. “You’re kidding,” he said.

“You know I’m not.”

There was a serious silence.

“You need me to come?”

“Oh, gosh, no,” I said, putting a smile in my voice. “I’ve got the house, the car, a little money saved up. It just seemed like time.” I hoped I wasn’t lying. “Wel , I gotta go, Quinn. I’m so glad you cal ed. It made the day special for me.” I snapped the phone shut and dropped it into my purse.

I got in the slightly less-hot car and tried to think of somewhere fun to go, something fun to do. I’d picked up the newspaper and checked my mailbox on my way to town, and hadn’t pul ed out anything but my auto insurance bil and a Wal-Mart ad leaflet.

I decided I was just hungry enough to treat myself to something special. I went to Dairy Queen and got an Oreo Blizzard. I ate it inside since it was way too hot to sit in the car. I said hel o to a couple of people and had a brief chat with India, who came in with one of her little nieces in tow.

My cel phone rang again. Sam. “Sook,” he said, “can you come by the bar? We’re short a case of Heineken and two of Michelob, and I need to know what happened.” He sounded pretty snappish. Damn.

“It’s my day off.”

“Hey, you pretty much bought into the business. You gotta pul your share of the weight.”