Page 80 of Forget Me Not

“Hmm.” Calvin stood up. “So I assume you are.” He looked around again. “Did you know hustlers used to hang out in front of this fountain? Times have certainly changed. I can’t imagine that being tolerated by anyone who pays to live in a new high-rise. There’s a nice local coffee house down here.” He pointed in the opposite direction of the older buildings Ray had looked at earlier, then started walking. “The high-rise dwellers will be forced to use computers to buy sex, I guess, if any hustlers will even still live nearby. Kids, most of ’em. Human, fairy, elf. I don’t miss that. But shunting them out of sight isn’t protecting them. It’s just making their lives harder.”

“Calvin.” Ray suspected Calvin was talking to distract him. Or maybe these were thoughts Calvin couldn’t share with whoever he talked to now, in whatever he did. Calvin’s heart beat steadily, with no electronic signatures for a pacemaker, no arrythmia. Ray met his eyes. “Did we do any good at all? Did we ever truly help anyone?”

Calvin sucked in a breath. “Ray…”

“I’m tired, sir.” Ray could tell Calvin, because Calvin would understand whattiredmeant. “I want to lie down right now. I should be hungry, but I’m not. My head hurts. Cal can’t do anything about that and telling him only makes him worry more.”

“He can see pain in your colors. I hate to break it to you.” Calvin was concerned despite his even tone. “The lack of appetite is more puzzling. But, I suppose, since this is all new to you, I should tell you that if you don’t eat enough for long enough, you stop feeling hungry. One of the paradoxes of a frail human body.”

Frail human body. Ray wasn’t human. But they both knew that. “Your heart is fine for a human your age.”

“Is this exhaustion allthat you’re hiding from my son?“ Calvin returned, then got in line for the order window of the coffee house instead of going inside.

They waited in line in silence. Ray checked his phone for coffee orders. There were more than two. The coffee machine in the center was “broken or something” and could they get a large to-go container of regular coffee for everyone also?

He showed it to Calvin, who sighed.

Since filling that order would take a while, Calvin led Ray back to the sidewalk once they’d paid. Calvin had also ordered a decaf espresso for himself and a fully caffeinated quad shot for Ray, along with a mini-quiche. He didn’t make Ray eat it. He just stood there drinking his heart-healthier coffee until the quiche was gone. He only spoke when Ray returned from disposing of their trash.

“While we wait, we could pop over to Guerrero’s. Cal loved that place as a kid. Still does, though he’s usually too busy to browse among the comics and stuff his face with caramel popcorn. If anyone would know about the mural art, it would be the employees there. And you might find a nice gift for him.”

Ray did not ask why he would be getting Cal a gift. He didn’t even snarl. He just started walking alongside Calvin. Anyway, he remembered Guerrero’s. The artwork on the walls inside the comic book-slash-book store-slash-gift shop was very similar to the mural. He’d never really thought about it except to note it.

Apparently thinking Raywaswaiting on an explanation, Calvin said, “You used to leave him gifts even before you were together. Usually food. You didn’t sign your name, but he knew. You still do it now. And it’s not a bad idea, if he’s mad at you.”

Ray hadn’t claimed Cal but had tried to provide for him anyway. He didn’t know what to make of that, and distracted himself by contemplating the pile of offerings traditionally left outside the main entrance to Guerrero’s even though no one seemed to know why. Today it was a handful of flowers, cigars, some condoms still in the wrappers, a few tiny bottles of cheap vodka and whiskey, a pack of mint gum, a candy bracelet, a can of soup, and some change, a lot of it foreign.

“Tourists,” Calvin commented with a snort, but tossed some money down.

Ray touched the candy in his pocket but left it there since it wasn’t his to offer.

The counter with the register was near the entrance. The counter itself was plastered with signs for local bands and events. The wall behind the counter was painted in a huge landscape, the colors odd and contrasting but beautiful. Ray couldn’t tell where the landscape was meant to depict, someplace real or imaginary, but the colors were almost like fairy knitting; nothing that should have matched, but somehow fit together anyway, as if there was a pattern Ray couldn’t see.

Seated on a stool behind the counter, next to a glass display case of tobacco, cigars, and cigarettes that looked like it hadn’t been opened in decades, was an older teenager, bent over a comic book. She glanced up when they came in, studying Calvin first with still, watchful dark eyes, then Ray. She tilted her head to the side to look at Ray, observing all of him without raising her head. She wasn’t tall, with a stocky, athletic body, and her black hair was shaved short to her skull. She sniffed the air, just once, and her eyes widened.

Ray gave her a respectful nod. Whatever sort of being she was, she’d sniffed him out, but she must not have encountered many weres before. At the gesture, she curled back over her comic but kept her eyes on Ray for a few seconds longer.

Calvin stopped not far from the counter to look over shelves and shelves of candies from all over the world. There were some standards that could have been found in any grocery or drug store too, but also fruit candies and gums and chocolates with labels Ray couldn’t read.

Ray noticed one that looked vaguely similar to the bottled soda Cal had been drinking and grabbed it for him, then looked around to some of the other walls while Calvin lingered over some violet pastilles. One of the walls had been left unpainted and was covered in framed art prints and posters. Some of the posters looked to be signed. They must still do artist and author signing events here.

Behind them were rows of books and comics. Ray recalled there was a bigger comics room connected to this one through a narrow doorway, although he’d never gone in. That room had another bored-looking teen at a desk by the door, although the kid glanced up once or twice, twitching like a disturbed cat, possibly for whatever people were doing or saying in there. A few customers were looking through books. One was in a corner filled with clothes for sale; graphic t-shirts and fairy-knit items, that sort of thing. Another corner had displays of toys and figurines, the stuff on the lower shelves clearly meant for children, the stuff on the higher shelves for collectors. The whole place smelled like old paper, bubblegum, and caramel popcorn. Ray didn’t see any popcorn however, and assumed it was for special occasions or possibly weekends.

Calvin was putting the pastilles back when Ray turned around. He noticed Ray holding the candy and looked up, but didn’t say anything.

Ray flicked a glance to tin of pastilles, an old-fashioned candy made with flowers. “You could have Cal give them to her.” He thought Cal would. He would grumble, but he would do it.

Calvin was briefly made of stone, and then an older human again, his back turned to the candy display.

“You’re quiet, Ray. So quiet, so large, people thought you were muscle, no brains, when you were a rookie. But you got their attention quickly, got my attention. You notice things. Not like how Cal does… Cal and Benny, working together, make leaps in way that isn’t easily understood by others. You, maybe because of your senses, maybe because of how you stand outside of groups, even then, you notice things. Too much, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know because you don’t say. That could be a were thing too for all I know. But even I forget how much you notice. Then you say things like that.”

“Cal had some remarks about it.”Devastatingwas one of the words he’d used. It hadn’t had the sound of a compliment.

“I bet your superiors forgot it too, until you’d remind them. You and Penn. People think she’s the drive between you two, and maybe that’s true. But they all forgot, didn’t they? That you’re there, listening, observing, smelling everything.”

The girl at the register had her head up, openly eavesdropping.

Ray ignored her. Calvin was leading to something. “I try to tune most of it out.”

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