The Study of Animal Languages by Lindsay Stern

Author:Lindsay Stern
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-02-19T05:00:00+00:00

Ten

I have always envied Prue’s ability to sleep through anything. I don’t know how she does it. Not even thunder wakes her, whereas almost any sound, no matter how innocent, will pitch me back into the world.

So it is only natural that the cough of our Subaru should rouse me, despite the indecent hour—1:52, the clock declares, in mean red numerals—and the insulated wall that separates our room from the driveway.

I scramble out of bed. Reaching the kitchen and stuffing my feet into my boots, I wonder dimly whether I dreamed the sound. But when I burst out into the cold the car is idling there, its taillights burning. Snow falls through the cones of orange light. As I jog forward it starts again with a ragged aspiration, jolting toward the darkened road.

“Stop!” I call out.

It accelerates. I stoop to gather something, anything, to throw at the rear windshield, and instead jam my fingers into ice. Knuckles throbbing, I stamp the ground with my heel and dislodge a wedge of snow, hurling it at the retreating fender. There is a gentle thump. The car slows. I throw another wedge and miss, just as the front wheels clear the driveway and begin to turn. In the illuminated cabin I catch a glimpse of two wrinkled hands on the steering wheel. Desperate, I break into a run, cursing myself for failing to hide the keys.

He is driving faster now. Still running, I bend—hopping twice—and fling my boot. It hits the side mirror, and the car lurches to a stop.

“God damn it, Frank,” I pant, when he opens the side window. “Where are you going?”

“Noboru’s.” He gestures ahead, his breath coming in clouds.

“Noboru Hayashi’s?”

He nods. “Fourteen Willoughby Lane. Right around the corner.”

Melting snow burns through my sock. I say, “Get out of the car.”

“I’m already—”

“Out.”

He casts a supplicating look in my direction, and then relents, stepping out into the cold. As I retrieve my boot and park the car he waits by the side of the road, brooding. Not until we have entered the kitchen does he speak again.

“If you’d have let me, I could have straightened things out.”

He is wearing the suit he wore yesterday, his checkered tie clipped, the cuffs of his shirt neatly folded. His suede loafers are damp. The outsoles are blotched, probably ruined, rimmed with spurs of translucent snow.

“I fucked up earlier,” he adds. He must have showered, because his wet hair is brushed back. The scratch on his jaw has faded to a dark pink line.

“What . . .” I shake my head, at a loss. “What does Noboru Hayashi have to do with anything?”

Frank frowns. “Thought he was the chair of Biology.”

“And?”

“Please don’t mention this to Prue.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, blinking fiercely. “Look, I know I went overboard today. I . . .”—he closes his eyes—“I tried to do it by phone, but he wouldn’t hear me out.”

I snatch up our landline and scroll through the dialed calls. Three appear, placed ten minutes ago to the same local number.

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