Werewolf Wedding(2)

Dirtier is the wrong word for it.

Hairier? Furrier?

Either way, my Prince Charming turned out to be a lot more beast than beauty. Which, come to think of it, is perfect for a girl like me.

By which I mean I’m always finding hairs sticking out of my pantyhose. Er, the two times a year I wear it, anyway. Look, what I’m saying is, there are a lot of things in the world to think about, and honestly? I never got real excited about shaving.





-2-


“Wait, did you just say ‘growly’? Is that even a word?”





-Delilah


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“Where the hell have you been?” Jeanette, my lone employee and best friend, had her feet up on her desk when I walked back into my studio with nary a sniff of the agony I’d been through a half hour before. “The phone’s been ringing like crazy and you’re out sweating.”

“Running the stadium,” I said, dropping my gym bag on the floor and taking off my shoes, which I placed on the hat rack. Who the hell needs a hat rack these days? And who the hell needs shoes when you’re indoors? “Bare feet get my brain blood going.”

“Gross,” she said flatly. “Anyway, why don’t you just use the elliptical you bought three months ago? You know, the one sitting in your studio? I feel like if it was in a house, it’d be used for storing laundry. Instead of boxes of clay, I mean.”

“I feel like we’re married sometimes,” I said.

Jeanette snorted a laugh. “I’d make you shave your damn legs if we were.”

With a smile, I shook my head and pulled the elastic out of my ponytail. I’d forgotten to let it out in the car, which is a lot better for drying out one’s hair. But as it stood, my coppery-blond mane had one hell of a kink in the middle of it. Jeanette tilted her head, in the same way that normally precedes your grandmother saying “you’re a mess” but meaning it in only the best possible way.

“Anyway, you said we had orders?” I asked.

“No, I said we had calls.”

“You’re... going to need to clarify that.”

I make things. Sculptures mostly. Sometimes I get a commission for a stained-glass window, and I do it because I’m not too proud or too picky to take the money, but I really hate it. All the dye and the lead caulking and everything, it’s just such a damn mess. One time I got a call from someone who wanted me to do an ice sculpture at their wedding. I was supposed to show up with a chainsaw and carve a huge block of ice into the shape of a dolphin. Speaking of stories I have, there’s a hell of a story.

That middle-aged lawyer desperately wanted some wild stunt that he was sure would impress his twenty-two year old secretary-cum-wife. The ponytail he’d grown and the convertible Porsche he’d bought weren’t enough, so somehow he decided to move on to ice sculpture. Don’t ask me how that train of thought goes. Anyway, I told the guy that I had no idea what I was doing, but he was about as into listening as I am shaving.

Turns out, using a chainsaw isn’t all that much different from what I normally do, so the statue was fine, if a little South Florida Kitsch for my taste, and Mr. and Mrs. William J. Kelly III, Esq. were married for at least three months. I know that because he called me to do the next wedding, too.

Like I said, I’m not proud enough to turn down work.

“No ice sculpture dolphins,” Jeanette said, reading my mind. Then again, that was the most memorable work I’d ever had, so maybe it wasn’t so much that she was a psychic and more that I was just sorta boring most of the time. “Although, uh, this one is pretty unique.”

“Unique’s good,” I said with a shrug. “It pays, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Well. Really well.” There was a peculiar look on my long-term best friend’s face that said more than her words. Her lips were drawn tight and she was blinking a lot, the way people do when they think they’ve seen a UFO but aren’t the sort to believe in that kind of thing. “Like, so well that I kinda think the guy was bullshitting me.”

“Oh come on,” I said, grabbing the estimate sheet she was holding in a hand that shook. Jeanette isn’t a shaker. “How much could it possibly... holy shit that’s a lot of zeroes.”

I stared at the note and shortly, my hands joined hers in a little group trembling session.

“What’s it for?” I asked, consciously forcing my hand to stop shaking. I might drink a pretty good amount – I am an artist after all – but nowhere near enough to get the shakes. Still, it was a lot of zeroes. “Did he say?”

Jeanette shook her head, still staring at the note with the zeroes on it. “Said he’d come by later. He didn’t want to commit to anything before he saw you. That’s how he put it, too,” her voice was distant and dreamy and holy hell that was a lot of zeroes. “Didn’t say anything about your work. Just said he wanted to see you first.”

Flitting dreams of scruffy-hot calendar hunks danced through my head. “Did he sound hot?” I asked, and then had to laugh at myself to pretend I wasn’t serious.

“Yeah,” she answered in a monotone. “Real growly. Back of the throat kind of, uh, Steve Perry growl.”