Page 8 of Darling Beasts

“First time for everything,” I mumbled.

“Anyway! Lucky me!” Diane threw on a smile but missed, landing on a clenched grimace instead. “We get to have a slumber party. That will brighten this dreary, rainy week.” She considered me for a minute, head cocked. “Is everything okay? You seem a bit... frantic. Is that a rash on your face?”

“Ummm...” My eyes darted toward my bedroom. “Will you do me a favor? Can you... look in my closet? Let me know if you see anything strange?”

Diane let out a hiccup of alarm. “Oh, God! Don’t tell me it’s a rat or mouse!”

I sat for a moment in my shock, bewildered that Grand Diane could be felled by something as ordinary as a rodent. There were millions of them in New York, though likely none in my closet, if the bird was still in there. “No rats,” I said. “But, please, go see for yourself.”

***

“What a way to start the week!” Diane kept saying, both before and after the man from the fish and wildlife department confiscated the bird. He seemed thoroughly unfazed, even as he confirmed that, no, this was not common at all. “We’re lucky the warden was able to get here in this weather. The subway is flooded!”

“Oh,” I said, rubbing my face. I doubted he’d take the subway with a bald eagle, but it was probably beside the point. “Well. That’s solved. Can you call the attendance office and let them know I’ll be late to school? I guess Ozzie won’t be going.” My eyes slid in the general direction of his bedroom.

“Didn’t you hear?” Diane asked. “School has been canceled.”

I scrunched my nose. “Because of a little rain?”

“It’s more than a little rain. It’s a mess out there! An absolute mess!” Hurricane Sandy was scheduled to make landfall that day, and they’d closed the stock market, which was a pretty ominous sign. If people weren’t up for making money, anything was possible.

“Oh,” I said again, and looked around. Two major problems in one morning—eagle, hurricane—yet it felt anticlimactic somehow. A funny thought, in hindsight.

It was hard to remember what happened next. Maybe Diane and I sat around watchingThe Price Is Right.Maybe I did some homework or maybe I put off my homework and screwed around on the computer instead. The details were hazy, but not what happened when Dad called sometime around five o’clock.

“Yes, they’re here,” Diane said in a very bad whisper. “Gabby’s right next to me. I’ll put you on speaker.”

“NO!” I mouthed, frantically waving my hands, feeling betrayed. I’d expected Diane to soften the blow about the eagle, as she did with most things, and now it seemed I was supposed to break the news.

“Get your brother,” she said, and I glared. We were not a “group phone call” family, and why did Ozzie need to be involved? But I did as asked, because I was that sort of kid.

As we gathered around the phone, I snuck a glimpse of Diane, who had tears bubbling in her eyes.This isn’t about any closet eagles, I realized, my suspicions confirmed ten seconds later when Dad confessed he wasn’t in California for work. He’d gone because his estranged wife—our mother—was dead.

Nobody cared about eagles after that.

Chapter Five

Talia

Talia had been expecting this call since last night, since the moment she’d been driven off in Diane’s Volkswagen Passat.

“Hello, Ustenya,” she said. “What’s up? I’m on my way to work—”

Talia heard the door close, and the sound of Spencer’s footsteps as he circled back.Shit. She didn’t want him listening or chiming in with his two cents. He found the very notion of a family-run campaign nothing short of outrageous. It was another example of how Marston Gunn thought about no one but himself.

“I only have a minute,” Talia said to Ustenya as Spencer materialized in front of her, backpack affixed to his shoulders. “This will need to be quick.” She looked at him defiantly, proud of her rock-solid boundaries. Despite her boyfriend’s views on the matter, Talia didn’t always let Ustenya and Dad walk all over her.

“What is your decision?” Ustenya barked. “Tell me now.”

“Wow. Okay. I highly doubt you need to knownow,” Talia said. “And I’m still ruminating. You’ve given us a lot to consider.”

“All you must consider is that he is your father, and he asked, and you will go.”

Talia glanced up and caught eyes with Spencer. He made a slicing motion across his neck. She turned and walked into the dining room.

“There are logistics involved,” she said. “My job, for example. I’ve only been at Schaefer for a year.” Crossing one arm over her waist, Talia stared out through the floor-to-ceiling casement windows, past the treetops and redbrick buildings, fixing her gaze on the wood water tank in the distance.

“Quit your job,” Ustenya said. “You do this often, no?”

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