She was dressed in a thin T-shirt that sported crossed bones, like a pirate flag, but instead of a human skull it boasted a faded panda head with exes for eyes. She was a little overweight, but the extra pounds suited her, rounding her face and softening her strong features. Under the distinctive aura of Juicy Fruit, I recognized her scent from O'Donnell's house.
"I'm Mercy Thompson," I told her. "Tim invited me."
She looked me over with sharp eyes and then gave me a welcoming smile. "I'm Courtney. He said you might be coming. We're not started yet--still waiting for Tim and Austin to get back with goodies. Come on in."
She was one of those women cursed with a little girl's voice. When she was fifty, she'd still sound like she was thirteen.
As I followed her up the stairs, I did the polite thing. "I'm sorry to intrude on this meeting. Tim told me that one of your members was just killed."
"Couldn't have happened to a nicer man," she said airily, but then stopped on the stair landing. "All right, that didn't need to be said, sorry. I don't mean to make you uncomfortable."
I shook my head. "I didn't know him."
"Well, he started our chapter of Bright Future and he was all right to the guys, but he only had one use for women and I was getting tired of fighting him off all the time." Her eyes really focused on me for the first time, "Hey, Tim said you were Hispanic, but you aren't, are you?"
I shook my head. "My father was an Indian rodeo rider."
"Yeah?" Her voice was mildly inquiring. She wanted to know more, but didn't want to pry.
I was starting to like her. Somewhere under all the bubbles, I was pretty sure she was hiding a sharp brain. "Yeah."
"A rodeo rider? That's pretty cool. Is he still?"
I shook my head. "Nope. He died before I was born. Left my mother a pregnant unwed teenager. I was raised w--" I'd been spending too much time with Adam's pack and not enough with real people, I thought as I hastily replaced werewolf with whitebread American. Happily she wasn't a werewolf, and didn't sense my lie.
"Wish I was Native American," she said a little wistfully as she started back up the stairs. "Then all the guys would go for me--it's that mysterious Indian thing, you know?" Not really, but I laughed because she meant me to. "Nothing mysterious about me."
She shook her head. "Maybe not, but if I were an Indian, I'd be mysterious."
She led me into a large room already occupied with five men who were tucked into a circle of chairs in the far corner of the room. They were evidently deep into a very involved conversation because they didn't even look up when we came in. Four of them were young, even younger than Austin and Tim. The fifth looked very university professorish, complete with goatee and brown sport coat.
Even with people in it, there was an unused air to the room. As if everything had just come fresh from a furniture store. The walls and Berber carpet were in the same color scheme as the house.
I thought of the vivid colors in Kyle's house and the pair of life- sized, Greek-inspired, stone statues in the foyer. Kyle called them Dick and Jane and was quite fond of them, though they'd been commissioned by the house's former owner.
One was male, the other female, and both of their faces had a dreamy, romantic expression as they looked up toward heaven--an expression that somehow didn't quite go with the spectacular evidence that the male statue wasn't thinking heavenly thoughts.
Kyle dressed Jane's naked body in a short plaid skirt and an orange halter top. Dick generally wore only a hat--and not on his head. At first it was a top hat--but then Warren went to a thrift store and found a knitted ski cap that hung down about two feet with a six-inch tassel on the end.
In contrast, Tim's house had no more personality than an apartment, as if he didn't have enough confidence in his taste to make the house his own. Even as little as I had talked to him, I knew there was more to him than beige and brown. I don't know what someone else would think, but to me, his house all but screamed with his desire to fit in.
It made me like him more: I know what it's like to not quite fit in.
The room might have been uninspired, but it was still nice. Everything was good quality without being excessive. One corner of the room had been set up as an office. There was a dorm-sized fridge next to a well-made, but not extravagant, oak computer desk. The long wall opposite the door was dominated by a TV large enough to please Samuel with waist-high speakers on either side of it. Comfy-looking chairs and a couch, all upholstered with a medium brown microfiber designed to look like suede, were scattered in a manner appropriate to a home theater.
"Sarah couldn't make it tonight," Courtney told me as if I should know who Sarah was. "I'm glad you did, otherwise I'd have been the lone woman out. Hey, guys, this is Mercy Thompson, the woman Tim told us might be coming, you know, the one he met at the music festival last weekend."
Her voice penetrated where our entrance had not and the men all looked up. Courtney walked me up to them.
"This is Mr. Fideal," she said, indicating the older man.
Close up, his face looked younger than his iron gray hair made him appear. His skin was tanned and healthy and his eyes were a bright blue with the intensity of a six-year-old.
I didn't remember his scent from O'Donnell's house, but it was obvious that he was comfortable in this group--so he must be a regular attendee...
"Aiden," he corrected her kindly.
She laughed and told him, "I just can't do it." To me, she explained, "He was my econ teacher--and so he's forever enshrined upon my heart as Mr. Fideal."