House of Cards

CHAPTER 20

Margrit stood at her own front door, key in hand, oddly reluctant to use it. Beyond that threshold lay her ordinary life, not made up of Old Races’ quorums or gargoyle lovers.

Beyond it lay explanations she didn’t know how to make. She took a breath, then stepped back, abandoning her plan to go home in favor of somewhere-anywhere-else. Chelsea’s, maybe, or even Daisani’s office. Kaimana’s hotel suite. Anywhere that wasn’t home, facing friends who lay on the far side of a divide that seemed to grow deeper by the moment.

"Coward." She whispered that aloud, bringing the heat of another blush to her cheeks. Running was the coward’s way out, an action that belonged to someone else. Finding the heart-pounding desire to escape within herself was an embarrassment. Even in the chaotic first days, when Alban had first come to her for help, she hadn’t run. She’d refused, but it hadn’t been a childish fear of confrontation that had driven her to do so. She thrust her jaw forward now and reached for the doorknob.

It turned under her hand and Cole pulled the door open. He had his coat and shoes on, relief spilling over his features as he stepped back to let her in. "There you are. We were worried. I was about to go look for you."

Margrit squeaked and put her hand over her heart, dragging in a deep breath. "I told you I was going to disappear. Sorry." She came in and toed her shoes off as Cole closed the door behind her.

Cameron appeared from the kitchen to hug her. "Yeah, but I thought you’d introduce us to Mr. Daisani first. Where’d you go?"

"For what it’s worth, he noticed you." Margrit winced at the admission, wishing Daisani hadn’t seen her tall blond friend amongst the selkies, and having no idea how it might’ve been avoided. "He said you were lovely. I had to…work."

Cameron’s smile wobbled. "Tell him thanks. You okay, Grit?"

"No. Not really. It’s been a horrible few days. Tony broke up with me." The last words came out randomly, surprising her. Margrit stared down the hallway, afraid to look at either of her housemates as she tried to sort out her emotions. She felt numb, primarily, as if someone could bounce coins off her skin and she’d only detect a distant thud of impact. Buried beneath the safety of that anesthesia lay an ugly worm of relief, and she didn’t want to face that yet.

"Oh. Oh, no, honey, I’m so sorry." Cam walked her down to the kitchen and put her hands on Margrit’s shoulders, slouching to get a look at her expression. "Are you okay?"

"I’m…" Margrit shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "I’m okay. I’m fine. This’s been coming since January. I just…do we have any ice cream?"

"I can send Cole out for some," Cameron’s voice was already rising as she spoke.

"No. No, it’s okay. I’m okay, really. I’m just…I don’t know." She looked back at the front door. "We’ve been off and on for so many years, I think now that it’s real I don’t know how to…" Words failed her again and she ducked beneath Cameron’s arm to pull open the freezer door. "How can I be out of ice cream?"

"Maybe because you eat it a pint at a time?" Cam asked. Margrit looked over her shoulder to find a gentle smile on her friend’s face, and closed the fridge door again.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay, I guess that might be why. I should buy stock in Häagen-Dazs."

"You mean you don’t own controlling interest by now?" Cameron crossed the kitchen to hug her. "What happened tonight?" she asked more quietly.

Margrit put her forehead against Cam’s shoulder for a moment, hanging on. "It was a business meeting. I didn’t know Alban would be there. I didn’t know Tony would be there."

"Would it have changed anything if you had?"

Margrit looked away, caught. "I don’t know. It might be better this way."

"Are you sure? I don’t want to make this even more complicated, Grit, but you’re talking about a guy who was wanted on murder charges a couple months ago, right?"

"For murders he didn’t commit." Margrit set her front teeth together at the blasé application of truth in that claim, but left it alone, unable to explain further. "If Alban had never come into my life at all, Tony and I might be planning a wedding by now, and we might’ve even managed to live happily ever after. A good solid ordinary life. And I’d never know what I was missing."

"What are you missing?" Cole spoke from the kitchen door.

Margrit, hopelessly, said, "The chance to fly," and lowered her eyes so she didn’t have to see the uncomprehending look her housemates shared. "I’m going to go get ice cream. Want any?"

"You want company?" Cameron asked.

Margrit shook her head. "I think I might go for a run first. I feel kind of sick. It’d make me feel better."

"It’s eleven at night, Grit," Cole said doggedly. "Working for Daisani’s got to come with a gym membership. If you’re going to run, be safe, will you? Go use a treadmill."

"I hate treadmills, Cole. You don’t go anywhere. I’ll- ugh. All right, all right," she said to twin disapproving glares. "I’ll just go to the corner store. Shit," she added with feeling, as Cam scooped up her own coat from a dining room chair and gestured imperiously toward the door. Margrit sighed. "What, you don’t trust me? I’m wearing heels. Not even I go running in heels."

"Extenuating circumstances. You’ve just been dumped. It may cause drastic behavior changes. Besides." Cameron herded her toward the door. "You always get me that chocolate banana stuff and I need a new favorite before I turn into a monkey. If we’re not back in twenty minutes," she said over her shoulder to Cole, "we’ve gone out to drown Margrit’s sorrows in Long Island iced teas, and won’t be home until the bars close."

"Hey. You said ice cream, not a night of boozing it up. Wait for me."

"Cab," Margrit said firmly. It was the only word she could remember having spoken since the bartender had announced last call. She’d lounged on a barstool until Cameron poured her off it, and in the interminable thirty-foot walk from the bar to the street, the only thing Margrit had been certain of was the need to take a taxi home.

"It’s only four blocks, Grit," Cole said. "You can run four blocks in thirty seconds."

"Nope. Cab." A surge of giddy pride at inserting a second word into her protests knocked her off balance, and she stopped walking. The world wobbled precariously around her and she breathed slowly, keeping herself drawn up straight and tall.

"Grit, you only had one drink. You’re faking it."

Margrit made a slow, ponderous turn to face her housemate. "I had one Long Island iced tea, Cole. That’s seven shots." Smug delight bloomed at enunciating "seven shots" clearly. Buoyed by it, she put her hand out and worked her way toward the nearest wall, finally slumping with drunken exhaustion. "I’m just going to take a nap here. Let me know when we get a taxi." With her eyes closed, she felt less obliged to produce a facade of sobriety. "You want meet him?"

The urge to slap her hand over her mouth and take back the question was overridden by the lack of coordination to do so. Even prying her eyes open to find Cameron and Cole glancing at each other took more effort than seemed worth it. Margrit tilted her head against the building. "You can say no."

"Why don’t you tell us a little about him first?" Cole’s voice was guarded.

"What do you want to know?"

"How about, why didn’t he go to the cops in January?"

Margrit drew in a deep breath, just sober enough to realize she shouldn’t have opened herself up for questions when she’d been drinking. The influx of oxygen produced a feeling of nausea in a stomach awash with alcohol. "He’s got a condition," she said very carefully. "He can’t be out in daylight, at all, and there was no way to be sure he’d be in and out before dawn."

"What, like a sun allergy?" Cameron’s voice drifted down the street. Margrit squinted, finding her standing on the curb searching the street for a cab. "I’ve never heard of a sun allergy that bad. What about hats and sunblock?"

"Sunblock and hats don’t work. He can’t be in the sunlight at all. Like dating Lestat. Only without the whining."

"Cops would’ve worked with a medical condition, Margrit." Cole’s voice remained stiff.

Margrit sighed. "Maybe. But he felt like he couldn’t go to them." She closed her mouth on further explanations, painfully aware that they, too, would fall short.

Cole eyed her a moment, then let it go. "So what’s he do for a living, if he can’t go out during the day?"

"He’s got, what do you call it? Means. Not rich, but he doesn’t work." Margrit rolled her head against the wall, trying to shake off a little of the alcohol. "He does soup kitchen volunteering and stuff. He’s a decent guy."

"How does he know Eliseo Daisani? Hey! Hey, taxi!" Cameron’s whistle ripped along the street, shocking Margrit into wakefulness. A cab down the block flipped its turn signal off and came toward them as Margrit took careful, precise steps toward the curb.

"They belonged to the same exclusive club when they were younger. Guess they still do. They’re not friends. They just know each other. I don’t know if anybody’s friends with Daisani." Margrit bit her tongue to keep from babbling as Cole opened the cab door for her with a gallant flourish.

"So how come you took the job, anyway, Grit?" His question followed her into the taxi a moment before he did.

"It was better to have him over a barrel than be over one myself," she answered with forthright honesty, then made duck lips at him. "You’re asking me questions because I’m too drunk to think before answering, aren’t you?"

"Absolutely. Why’d you break up with me in college?"

Margrit threw her head back and laughed out loud, as Cole looked pleased with himself. Even Cameron laughed, too, giving the driver their address before saying, "Even I know that one. Everybody says you had all the chemistry of wet flour. Too bad. You’re very pretty together."

The cab pulled up in front of their apartment building and Margrit paid, then put her hands out toward her housemates. "Help, please." They drew her from the taxi, trying not to laugh openly as she staggered to keep her feet. "You’re horrible friends," she told them. "Laughing at my misfortune. I get dumped and drunk and never did get any ice cream and you’re laughing at me." She shook their hands off, drawing herself up to her full three inches over five feet in height. "I’m going to get ice cream."

"Wired on sugar and buzzed on alcohol," Cole said to Cam. "I think we should go with her and watch this."

"Good. You can buy me ice cream. I just spent all my money on the cab." Margrit reeled around and marched off to the convenience store.