Chapter Two Gordon #2
“The next place I get is going to have some kind of cat-proof door. Or at least better latches. This one pops open if you don’t slam it hard. I think he followed me out when I took out the trash. He never has before, but...”
“You getting one of the new townhouses at Pine Point?” I ask. I just did, after years of sleeping in the woods and, after I took this job, the station. Of course, I still sleep there when I have to be on overnight duty. Maybe it’d be nice if she were in the neighborhood.
“No, I’m moving out of the town as soon as I find another job in the Jersey City area.”
“Ah.”
The cat is distracted by the fish, and I brace my feet, put one arm on the branch at the base where it connects to the trunk, and grab.
The cat protests, but I’ve got him, and I’m fast. I swing down the ladder without too much regard for how I’ll land, since troll bones are a similar consistency to granite. In three seconds, I’m down, and the cat is back in Andrea’s arms.
If I thought she was pretty before, it’s nothing compared to the adoring, relieved, utterly overjoyed look she gives this furry troublemaker.
It’s nothing to the smile she gives me. It’s like a ray of sun, and some trolls turn to stone in the sunlight.
I don’t, not being aligned with creatures of darkness any longer, but for a second, I feel like I’m a frozen statue.
I don’t think anyone has ever made me feel like pure sunlight has shot through my soul.
Which is funny, because I’ve helped save lives, delivered babies, picked up elderly people from falls, saved people from fires and car wrecks...
And now Andrea is alternately hugging and scolding the cat, speaking in two languages, and wagging her finger in the cat’s face, even as it purrs and rubs itself all over her cheeks and chin.
Lucky cat.
Lucky kids, I find myself thinking. Kids who get to learn from her every day, with her pretty voice and her sweet smile.
Even the way she scolds seems like a blend of serious and silly.
As though she wants you to do better because it’ll be sad if you don’t, not that you need to be scared of pain and punishment if you fail.
My father is the one who decided it was too dangerous to continue living in the way most trolls choose, preying on any living thing, being dirty, dangerous creatures often mistaken for serial killers and poachers—and I guess we were both.
He made my mother, brothers, and me learn a different way of life, a life that was human-adjacent.
There was no schooling, though, except from my mother, and she wasn’t a kind or willing teacher.
“I should have known, huh?” Andrea is still cradling the kitty with adoration seeping from every pore, almost singing to it, swaying from side to side. “There are new teachers at the school every few years. High turnover rate. Must mean that this town—”
“Must mean what?” I surprise myself by asking the question in a harsh voice.
Yes, I love this town. It’s the only place where I’ve been treated like a valuable person, like a helper.
Like a friend, even if I don’t want friendship.
I still know that people will rush to help me if I need them, and that’s something trolls can’t say, as trolls are known to fight to the death over everything from a leg of mutton to a prime cave spot.
“That this town... That this town isn’t right for me.” Andrea looks startled.
“Why?”
Why is right! Why am I asking? It’s her life. I don’t care if she moves to Mars and takes a whole herd of cats with her.
“Well, not just me, but a lot of young teachers, I guess. It’s a nice little place, but it’s not great if there’s downtime. In the summer, a teacher who can’t afford to travel and who doesn’t have friends and family here would go out of their mind.”
“Why?”
Oh, God. Stop it, Gordon!
Andrea blinks up at me, but instead of seeming offended, she smiles, like I’ve done something wonderful by being nosy and aggressive, demanding to know the rationale behind decisions that are none of my business.
“Well,” she begins slowly, thoughtfully, rocking the cat against her chest, not caring if it leaves an ocean of fur on the royal blue fabric, “I guess, honestly, it’s because I come from a crazy busy family, a big family.
A close-knit family. Well, not even that close-knit, exactly, but there’s always someone around, someone in your business.
And my mother married my dad pretty young and came to America from Luzon, in the Philippines.
He was just starting as an airline mechanic, and she was just starting as a college student, there to pick up her sister, my Tita Carla, who was an exchange student who studied for a year at UCLA, and they met in the airport lounge in Manila— This isn’t important. ”
I nod. It probably wasn’t, but I was hanging on every word. When she speaks, her voice is soft and buttery, and her eyes shine with excitement, like she’s been dying to speak to someone.
Wow. She really is lonely.
Can’t relate to that. Alone is good.
Say it. Alone is good.
I’m lying to myself, but Andrea is still talking, so that wipes out the rest of my brainwaves.
“The point is, my parents hit it off, half my mom’s family was already living in the US, and she and her sisters moved here, too.
My whole family pushed hard for the kids to appreciate education and things that would ‘give us opportunities.’” Andrea crooks her fingers to show that the phrase is to be taken with a little skepticism.
“Soccer, tennis, ice skating, piano, violin, taekwondo... You name it, my cousins, my brother, and I did. Plus, we had to be model students, involved in everything from Model U.N. to robotics club. We had to get straight A’s. ”