Lupi 04 - Night Season

Jewelry. A wallet once.”
    Lily didn’t seem shocked or even surprised by the subject. “So did my cousin Jenny when she was fifteen. Makeup, I mean, not a wallet. I’m not supposed to know about it, but my cousin Freddy told me once when he was proposing.”
    Ick. “Your cousin proposed ?”
    â€œSecond cousin, but we all just say cousin.”
    â€œYou’ve got a lot of family.”
    Lily nodded and waited.
    â€œI don’t have any sisters or cousins. I had an aunt—she’s the reason I’m not more messed up than I am—but she never had kids.” Cynna jammed her hands in the pockets of her new coat. “I was pretty much a cliché growing up, you know? Not just poor, but ghetto poor. Funny how they don’t call it that anymore. We have ‘urban poor’ these days.”
    â€œI guess some people think if they keep renaming it, maybe it will go away.”
    â€œYeah. Doesn’t work, does it? Kids still grow up like I did—absent father, drunk or junkie mother. I dodged some of the clichés, mostly because of Aunt Pat. I didn’t drop out of school or do drugs or get…get…” She stopped, swallowed.
    â€œPregnant?” Lily said gently.
    Cynna tipped her head up and stared at the girders crisscrossing the vaulted glass roof. The sky was blue and bright. After a moment she said, “I didn’t hyperventilate. I guess that’s progress.”
    â€œI guess it is. You want to go to the food court?”
    Cynna shook her head. “We’d better head back and get Rule’s card. I don’t trust that clerk.”
    â€œOkay.” They reversed direction. “Did you mean it about trying on a skirt?”
    â€œNo.”
    Lily grinned. “Temporary insanity does not constitute—oh, my God.” She stopped moving. “What’s she doing here?”
    Cynna couldn’t figure out who Lily was talking about. There were a number of “ she s” directly ahead—an older woman with a Talbot’s bag, a young mom with a toddler, two teens who should have been in school.
    All at once a runty bald something was standing ten feet away. It had breasts, orange skin, and pointy teeth. It—she?—wore a tight yellow dress with purple polka dots, and it was grinning at them. “Hi, Lily Yu!”
    The teens screamed. A nearby man in a suit gaped, then swung his briefcase at it.
    â€œHey!” It grabbed the case with both hands. That’s when Cynna saw the tail—long and prehensile, it lashed around to grab the man’s ankle. “Did you see that? He tried to hit me! Can I—”
    â€œNo,” Lily said loudly, hurrying forward. “Turn loose of him and give him back his briefcase.”
    â€œBut he—”
    â€œWasn’t expecting you,” Lily said, tugging on the briefcase. “You startled him.”
    â€œWhat in the hell is that thing?” the man demanded.
    My words exactly. Cynna didn’t say them, though. Lily seemed to have the whatsit situation under control, so she dealt with the teens. One of them was sobbing and clinging to the other, who glared at Cynna suspiciously.
    â€œGreat effect, isn’t it?” Cynna said cheerfully. “You didn’t see…ah, her coming, did you?”
    The dark-haired one frowned harder. “No.”
    â€œGreat! And your name is—?”
    â€œShauna. And this is Deanna.” Shauna was still suspicious, but her friend stopped crying long enough to protest Shauna’s making free with their names, which Mom had told them never, ever to do.
    Probably Mom had also told them not to cut school, but never mind that. The girls weren’t hysterical anymore.
    Lily recovered the briefcase and restored it to its owner. “Sorry for the shock, sir.”
    â€œBut he tried to hit me!” the orange whatsit exclaimed. It was child-size, but built like a squashed sumo wrestler. With breasts. Big breasts. And that tail. “Can’t you shoot him or something?”
    â€œNo,” Lily said shortly. “Gan, what are you doing here?”
    Gan? Cynna looked closer. The body had changed the most, but the face was different, too. Same orange skin and bald head, same ridiculously wide eyes with Maybelline lashes, but the rest of the features were…well, you couldn’t call them normal, but it was amazing what a difference a nose could make. Cynna would never