by Huskyteer
Roger felt the cloud of irritation start to build around him as he walked from his car to the front door, sidestepping the elderly otter woman in the weird clothes who always tried to engage him in conversation and noting that the ‘FOXES AGAINST THE WAR’ banner he’d made his roomie take down from the living-room window was back in position. Turning the key in the lock, he sent up a silent litany:
Please let Frank have the rent money ready.
Please don’t let Frank be burning incense again.
Please don’t say Frank’s invited his hippie friends over.
The smell of smoky jasmine hit him as soon as he walked into the hall. Female laughter came from the front room, along with the sound of a guitar strumming one chord over and over again. Roger sighed, rolled his eyes, and climbed the stairs without calling out a hello. Once you started talking to these people, it was impossible to get away.
Roger was a very lucky raccoon. Not many freshmen were left a house and car in their great-uncle’s will. Roger remembered coming here as a little kid, in the back of his folks’ car. He’d liked running up and down the stairs, and sometimes there was a theater trip, or ice cream, or both. New York City had seemed so exciting, and Uncle Bob, who wore aftershave and a velvet jacket, much more glamorous than Roger’s father in his suits and ties.
Then the visits stopped, though there was always a letter on Roger’s birthday and at Christmas, with a few dollar bills and the instruction to spend them on something fun.
The old man must have been fonder of Roger than his great-nephew knew.
His house was handy for college—and the car, an old Plymouth station wagon, made Roger a popular guy, at least when someone wanted a ride somewhere. To cover the bills, though, he needed to rent out the second bedroom. The Village wasn’t quite the place it had been when Uncle Bob moved in, and only one student responded to the flyers Roger stuck up around campus. A fox with blond hair down to the middle of his back, wearing a dress.
“It’s a kaftan, man.”
Roger asked him flat out if he could pay the rent.
“Hey, I will pay the rent, and I will clean the bathroom, and I will cook the meanest chili you ever tasted. And I won’t interfere with your scene if you don’t mess with mine, dig?”
He had mostly kept his promise about the rent and the cleaning; Roger had yet to take him up on the chili. It wasn’t Frank’s fault that everything he said or did drove Roger nuts.
The herbal cigarettes. The strange music he played late into the night. The way he ate Roger’s food, then claimed he didn’t remember doing it—bizarre items like a whole box of cereal or a package of uncooked spaghetti. Most of all, Frank’s friends—strange-smelling friends in weird clothes, who liked to come round and lie on the carpet and talk disjointed nonsense for hours on end.
Creeping up his own stairs to his own bedroom in his own house so as not to disturb his uninvited guests, Roger considered his scene thoroughly interfered with.
The blind in his room was drawn to keep his books from fading in the sunlight, so it took Roger a moment to notice the naked girl in the middle of the floor.
She was sitting cross-legged, with her eyes closed and her paws held out as if she were waiting for gifts to be placed in them. Roger had never seen anything like her before. She might have been a cat, but her face was pointed like a weasel’s. Her sandy fur was blotched with black. Her thick, stripy tail, which was as long again as her body, lay across her lap and up over her shoulder. In the light spilling through from the landing, she seemed to glow.
This was not something Roger felt like dealing with right now, or ever. He tiptoed backwards. But the floor creaked under his foot, and her eyes opened. They were huge, round and dark.
“Peace, man,” she said.
“Er...same to you,” replied Roger, his gaze fixed firmly on the ceiling.
“No, that’s my name, Peace Man, I’m a linsang, it’s great to meet you,” she said. She was obviously used to explaining her name and species, but she sounded sincerely delighted to be doing it.
He should order her out. But it would hardly be decent to make her stand up and expose more of herself. So he should get out. But it was his room! His last refuge against the flower-powered invasion of his home!
Somehow, this particular invader didn’t seem so bad. She sure smelled better than most of Frank’s friends. His initial shock and bad temper were ebbing, replaced by something…fluffier?
“The scene downstairs got heavy so I came up here to meditate.” Peace Man’s eyes widened. “I’m in the wrong bedroom, aren’t I? You must be Roger, Frank’s told us about you.” She folded her arms across her chest, and her tail curled itself more tightly around her body.
“What did he say?” Roger croaked.
He regretted asking immediately. If Frank’s opinion of him was anything like his own opinion of Frank, he didn’t want to know. Besides, weren’t there more important things he should be discussing with a naked girl in his room, if he should be discussing anything at all with her rather than, say, running away and never coming back?
“He said you’re a real nice guy, but you need to loosen up a little.”
“Oh.” Roger had never felt more uptight in his life.
“Anyway, I’m sorry to disturb you, I’ll leave you to it.” She grabbed a turquoise silk shirt from behind her, slipped it on, and brushed past Roger as she made her way out of the room. That amazing tail slunk out after her; Roger watched the black tip vanish around the door jamb.
A few sandy hairs floated down to the rug. Roger, always tidy, gathered them up. There was a lingering smell of something flowery, mixed with an animal musk. He sat down heavily on the bed and massaged the dark fur above the bridge of his nose, poking at his emotions. He should be downstairs, bawling Frank out for not keeping a tighter leash on his friends. Instead, he looked at the hairs in the palm of his paw, lifted them to his nose, and sniffed gently.
“What the hell,” said Roger, who never swore. “What the hell?”
Roger usually made sure his path didn’t cross Frank’s, but the next day he waited until he could hear the fox scrabbling around in the kitchen before making his own entrance.
“Morning,” he said, which was technically true; it was five minutes to noon.
“Hey, man! Coffee’s on and I’m making peanut butter toast, you want some?”
“No, thanks.” Roger poured himself a mug of coffee. “Good time last night?”
Frank’s ears went guilty flat.
“Peace told me what happened and I am beyond sorry. She didn’t mean to upset you. She’s a nice girl.”
Just hearing Peace’s name made Roger blush a little. But he’d come in here to perform an interrogation. He pressed on.
“So, have you known her long?”
Frank buttered his toast. “You’re very interested in my friends all of a sudden,” he said, a sly grin working along his muzzle.
When did Frank start being...perceptive? He always seemed so oblivious to everything going on around him.
“I trust your intentions towards my girl are honorable,” the fox added, grinning wider.
“You and her—you’re not...” Roger’s heart clutched painfully.
“No, you’re cool. Peace is like a sister to me. As a matter of fact I don’t dig chicks, if you get me.”
Roger took a step back. “Oh—I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s a beautiful scene.”
For the past semester, Roger had been living with a homosexual. This, he guessed, was the kind of danger his parents had fretted about when he moved out, although of course they had never put a precise name on their fears. He should have been horrified. Okay, he was, a little. But his first emotion was relief that Peace wasn’t Frank’s girlfriend.
“I don’t think she’s seeing anyone right now,” Frank continued. When Roger didn’t answer, he added “Are we cool, man? Hey, you’re not gonna throw me out, are you?”
Was he? Roger wasn’t sure. Could he feel comfortable sharing his home with a guy who liked other guys? But he’d already been living with him for months.
The fox’s ears and tail, which usually bobbed back and forth as he grooved to whatever beat was playing in his head, were motionless, while his fingers flicked nervously.
Roger, a law student, was harbouring someone whose sexual preferences were against the law. But—the lawyer part of his brain kicked in—the fox wasn’t, well, doing anything. If there were any acts of dreadful deviance going on in his denlike bedroom, they were very quiet ones.
Frank might be annoying, but leaving piles of dirty washing-up in the sink wasn’t actually illegal—or even, Roger admitted, particularly immoral. He realized that the fox was putting an awful lot of trust in him with his confession, and he was flattered. Besides, Frank was the best chance he had of seeing Peace Man again.
“Of course not. I was just surprised, that’s all.”
“Thanks!”
Frank reached out to give him a hug; Roger recoiled; Frank backed off in the opposite direction. There was an awkward pause, then each held out a paw and they solemnly shook.
“It’s not catching,” Frank said.
“I know.”
“I’d never make a move on you.”
“I know.”
“You’re not my type.”
“I—hey!”
“Sorry!” Frank laughed. “It was getting way too heavy. Anyway, I’m glad we’re cool, because I, ah, I’m gonna have trouble making my rent this month.”
Oh, perfect. Perfect. Not twenty-four hours previously, Roger would have jumped at this excuse to throw Frank out. Now that Frank was his only link to Peace, he couldn’t do it. Peace? How about that for an ironic name? Roger hadn’t known a moment’s peace since he met her.
“I bet you’ve been helping out your no-good friends again,” Roger said, in a tone he’d borrowed from his mom.
“My grades have slipped a bit,” Frank admitted, “and the old man stopped my allowance until they improve.”
“Have you considered maybe...improving them?”
“I’m on it, Roger, I swear. This semester’s been kind of a bad trip for me. Just give me a month’s grace to hit the books and I’ll get back in my dad’s good ones.”
The line, and the accompanying fox grin, were so corny that Roger found himself rolling his eyes and nodding.
“Fine. You can make up the difference by doing all the cleaning,” he said.
“Have a heart, Roger! What about the extra time I’ll be spending in class?”
“Welcome to my world.”
Roger swept out of the room, swishing his tail. It wasn’t often he got one over on his canny roommate, and it felt pretty good. He headed up to the bathroom to clean his teeth. Mouth full of VOTE (the tube was squeezed in the middle, suggesting that Frank had been using it without permission), he heard a song start up on the record player downstairs, at wall-shaking volume. Since he was unable to voice his usual Hey, keep it down!, he stomped hard on the floor with one foot.
The floorboards gave a wet crack, and a large section fell away in rotten splinters to leave a beachball-sized hole. Drops of water spattered down. Cables fizzed. Roger yanked his foot out of the way and balanced on one leg while he took stock of the disaster. Frank appeared in the doorway, his fur white with plaster dust and his tail puffed out like a popcorn ball.
“Missed me by that much,” he reported.
“Now what are we going to do? I don’t just take your rent to be mean, Frank—I need it for emergencies like this.”
Frank’s tail deflated and tucked itself between his legs. “Sorry I’m such a flake.”
“It’s not your fault the ceiling fell in.” Roger peered through the hole to the mess below. “How about making a start on your promise to keep this place clean?”
“Sure, Roger. Right away, Roger.”
As the fox scampered off, Roger puzzled over his suspicious eagerness to obey. Was he really feeling that guilty about the rent? Maybe. The raccoon knelt by the tub, looking for the cause of the problem. Must have been a pretty big damp patch to cause a cave-in like that. A leak in the tank, perhaps. He got down on paws and knees to investigate the space under the eaves, behind the tub, where the bathroom ceiling sloped down to meet the floor.
What the heck? Ranged in the small space under the roof, sunbathing under their own little lamp, were three rows of bushy plants with skinny, jagged leaves like outstretched fingers. Rather than earth, their roots rested in tanks of water. But the third tank was almost empty, the plants drooping, and a dark wet patch spread from it across the floor.
“So it was your fault,” Roger said under his breath.
“Hydroponics, man!” Frank announced when Roger challenged him downstairs. He had a dustpan and brush in his paws already. “Growing plants without soil! It’s the future!”
“Your future is looking pretty goddamn bleak,” Roger threatened. Even as he said it, he regretted the ridiculous goddamn. Sure enough, the corners of Frank’s muzzle twitched upwards.
“Ooh! Heavy!” he said, bugging out his eyes. “Sorry. Sorry, Roger. It’s not funny, I goofed, and I’m going to fix it, okay? Just trust me.”
Roger was skeptical, but he had little choice. He could always ask his parents for help, of course, but that would mean a lecture from his mom about not saving for a rainy day. Then his dad would want to come and inspect the work to make sure it was done properly, and his mom would come along for the ride, and the precious independence he’d built up for himself would be shattered. Frank would laugh at him, and Roger found to his surprise that he cared. He cared, too, about the idea of his folks seeing Frank’s beanbags and candles and the posters in his room and the dress—no use telling them it was called a kaftan—and thinking their only son was living among freaks. His living situation was none of their business. Uncle Bob had passed the house down to him, not them…
“Hello in there!” Frank was waving a paw in front of his eyes. “You want to go see Peace tonight? She’s playing at this coffee shop in the Village. I know it’s not your usual scene, but she’s pretty good.”
Tonight? Roger wasn’t sure he was ready. He wasn’t sure he’d be ready in a week, a month or a decade...in which case, tonight was as good a time as any.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll get some studying in first. Maybe you’d better do the same—when you’ve cleaned up down here.”
“Got some good news on the academic front,” Frank reported.
“Oh yeah?”
“The ceiling apocalypse scenario took out the old boob tube, so I’ll have a lot more time to study.”
“The boob...you mean the TV? Aww, Frank!”
“I don’t want to tell you how to do your thing, man, but could you maybe lose the tie?”
Roger’s paw went defensively to his collar. “My mother gave me this!”
“Yeah...it kinda shows.”
“Fine.” Roger took off his tie and laid it carefully across the back of a chair, then undid the top button of his shirt.
“Let’s go,” he said.
He still felt overdressed in the dark little coffee shop. Shirts were being worn open in the Village this season, or not worn at all. Fur was unkempt and hair was long. One guy seemed to be wearing nothing but a large flag, with holes cut for his head and tail. Roger was pretty sure that counted as desecration.
On the stage, a goat in a black turtleneck was speaking into a microphone. None of his words, when Roger could make them out at all, seemed to make the slightest bit of sense, so he guessed it was a poetry recital. Some of the other customers were gazing at him, rapt, while others flat out ignored the performance. Roger decided to join the latter camp.
An Old English Sheepdog came over to their table, his eyes invisible under his woolly hair.
“Hey! Frank!”
“Davy! Hi! This is Roger.”
Frank stood and moved towards the sheepdog, who gave a tiny shake of his head and backed up, with a jerk of his muzzle towards Roger.
“He’s cool,” Frank said. Roger was? Cool with what? Ohh.
“It’s okay,” Roger confirmed. He stared fixedly at the singer. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the sheepdog give Frank’s ear an affectionate nip before the two sat down together. Their shoulders touched, and Roger suspected they were holding paws under the table.
It didn’t make Roger feel any more uncomfortable than he already did. But that wasn’t saying much.
The goat stalked off the stage, to be replaced by a massive brown bear who sang on one note in a rumbling bass. Roger couldn’t make out the words, but his coffee cup vibrated on its saucer.
Frank nudged him. “Stick around. Seriously,” he said. “You’ve got a treat coming.”
At last, Peace stepped into the ring of light. Roger had been starting to think he’d maybe misremembered the way she looked, if he hadn’t dreamed her entire existence, but picked out by the spotlight her fur looked even softer and more golden, her dark eyes more liquid and mysterious, than they had last night. She sat cross-legged on the stool, lifted her guitar to her lap and spoke into the microphone.
“Hi. This is called ‘Song for Joe’.”
She could have performed the Alphabet Song in the style of a hyena with laryngitis and Roger would still have been spellbound. But Frank had been right—she was good.
“Sometimes I see you in the corner of my eye
But when I turn around it’s just a shadow.
Sometimes I think I hear you laugh that way you did
But it’s always just the wind across the meadow.
Life is a one-way track
The light turns green and there’s no going back
But if I could
Then I would
And I’d be with you.”
She had a low, clear voice, and her claws picked the strings softly. She played a set of four songs, then stood up, acknowledged the audience’s finger-snapping and claw-clicking with a wave, and walked out of the light.
A couple of minutes later she appeared at their table, minus her guitar and wearing a fresh shirt.
“Great set, doll.” Frank stood up. “Davy and I are heading to the club. Why don’t you hang out with Roger for a while?”
“Sure. Be careful,” Peace said, kissing Frank on the cheek.
It was the most sisterly of pecks, but it still made Roger so jealous that in an earlier era he would have ripped Frank’s throat out with his teeth.
“And don’t call me ‘doll’,” Peace called after them. She sat down beside the raccoon.
“Don’t you want to go with them?” Roger asked.
“It’s kind of a special club, where they can be themselves. Besides, I’d rather stay and talk to you.”
She’d rather stay and talk to him? Heaven!
Unfortunately, he seemed to have forgotten how to talk. “I liked your songs,” he managed eventually.
“Thank you.”
“Would you like a coffee?”
“No thanks.”
Stop saying ‘like’, Roger told himself. You’re, like, starting to sound like Frank.
Peace fidgeted. “Roger—it’s late and that was a tiring set, so...”
He didn’t want to lose her now. He hadn’t done much so far to prove he was a fun companion, but he had to try.
“Can I walk you home?”
Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Sure. That would be lovely.”
After the first block her paw slipped into his. Surprised, Roger flicked his tail, which caught Peace across the buttocks. Before he could apologize, her own long and sinuous tail wound around him and draped across his shoulder like a scarf.
Roger stroked it with his free paw as they walked. She was so relaxed with him that he became less jittery himself, easing into this new feeling of togetherness.
Out in the fresh air, away from the noise and smoke, Roger found his tongue. He talked about his law degree, his fussy mother, Uncle Bob’s house and how come Frank lived there with him. Peace didn’t seem impressed at Roger’s possession of a house and car, but she laughed at his Frank stories, so he worked on those until it sounded like life with the fox was a real laugh-in.
Although she’d been chatty the night before, Peace seemed content to listen and smile. She didn’t say much about herself, except that she had come across from China with her parents when she was a baby. Her first memory was of being held up to the ship’s rail to look at the moonlight on the sea.
“What’s yours?” she asked.
Roger thought about it. “I remember my mom baking cupcakes,” he said. That was long, long ago—when his parents were his whole world. The feel and scent of her pink apron came vividly back to him. “She told me not to touch the ingredients, but I sneaked a big spoonful of baking soda, because if it goes in cakes it has to taste good, right? It didn’t.”
Peace just laughed and squeezed his paw.
“Well, this is me,” she said at last.
Roger looked up. They were standing in front of the coffee shop again.
The linsang was giggling. “I rent the room upstairs. Are you mad at me?”
She had deliberately led him around in a circle for half an hour. Half an hour of her delightful company, which he wouldn’t have had otherwise. How could Roger get mad about that? He started to laugh.
“Want to come in for a drink?” Her paw looped round his waist.
“I ought to be getting home. Early class tomorrow,” he said. “But I’d like to see you again. Very much.”
“What are you doing in the afternoon?”
“Er...nothing.” Studying. Working on his paper. Who cared?
“Let’s go for a walk in the park. I’ll meet you by the gate. Two?”
The word had a magical ring to Roger. For him, it meant not just two o’clock in the afternoon but two of them. Roger and Peace. Two-gether.
Too corny?
“Two,” he said.
The linsang made no move to go indoors. Instead, she took hold of his tie and gently tugged, so the raccoon’s face was drawn closer to her own.
He reached up and put a paw on each of her spotted cheeks. The fur was soft, and he could feel the warmth of her beneath it. It would be okay, right, to give her a kiss? It was the gentlemanly thing to do after escorting a lady home. He…
Before he could finish the thought, Peace pressed her muzzle against his and kissed him.