Still Life with Shape-shifter by Sharon Shinn Read Free Book Online

calculator as she determines to the penny how much she must make on every menu item to turn a profit.
    “So what appeals to you?” I ask him.
    “I’m a sucker for chicken pot pie. Is it any good?”
    “Well. It’s not very fancy. But going by down-home standards, and if you’re in the mood for a hearty meal, it’s great.”
    “Then that’s what I’m getting.”
    The instant he lays his menu on the table, Corinna’s daughter is back to take our orders. I ask for iced tea with my meat loaf, but Brody is seriously tempted by the vanilla shake.
    “I’ll save it for dessert,” he decides. “Or maybe we can split a root beer float,” he says after the waitress departs. “Then I can really feel like I’ve slipped back in time.”
    “I have a scünci in my purse, I think,” I say. “I can put my hair in a ponytail.”
    “Too bad I left my letter sweater at home.”
    “Do you really have one?”
    He nods. “I ran track in high school.”
    “Were you any good?”
    “Won a few races but didn’t qualify for State, so I’d say I was about average.”
    I slump against the worn vinyl of the booth and study him a moment. “So, okay,” I say. “You know everything about me. What’s there to know about you?”
    He already looks as relaxed as a man can be, half-sprawling on his bench, one elbow up on the back of the seat, no tension that I can read in his body or his hands. He gives a little shrug as if to say,
Not much to tell
. “Grew up in Cape Girardeau. Pretty standard suburban Midwestern life. My dad worked for an insurance company, my mom had part-time jobs but spent most of her time running the family. I have three older sisters who don’t think their days are complete unless they’ve called to boss me around about something.”
    “So you’re the youngest and the only boy. Spoiled rotten, I suppose.”
    He grins. “Some people might say so. But I always kind of thought I was like the poor stupid dog that the crazy pet lady likes to dress up in Halloween costumes, you know? And you see the pictures of that dachshund or that beagle wearing the hat and the cape and the boots, and you think, ‘That poor son of a bitch.’ You know he’s just got no say in his life at all. That’s how I felt growing up. ‘Brody, come here. Brody, go there. Brody, wear this. Brody, you can’t do that.’ And they always ganged up on me, so even if I didn’t want to do whatever it was, I always had to.”
    I regard him through narrowed eyes as I consider this. “Yeah, okay, maybe, but somehow I’m not getting a meek-and-mild vibe off you. You don’t seem worn down and docile. So I guess you figured out how to outsmart them.”
    He laughs. “I learned a couple of tricks that have served me well over the years. I learned to be compliant when I had to be—to give in with grace when it was clear I couldn’t win. I also learned a certain—I hesitate to call it deviousness—”
    “Oh, I think that’s exactly the right word.”
    “I like to think of it more as a combination of charm and manipulation. A basic skill set that allowed me to get my own way on things that were really important to me without setting the whole household against me. And finally I learned—” He pauses a moment, trying to put it into words. Then he shrugs. “I learned to just walk away. I learned how to not care if I made people mad or hurt their feelings when I did something they didn’t want me to do. I learned that I
could
ignore what they said, and the world wouldn’t end, as long as I didn’t mind if they were upset. My sisters call this my stubborn streak. I call it a survival skill.”
    “And how have these various survival skills carried over into the other areas of your life?”
    He looks thoughtful. “Well, obviously, I chose a field where it’s practically a job requirement to be good at getting along with people. People usually are willing to talk to you if you seem like you’re attentive and accommodating. If you