Jenner lay in bed, talking to Annie Carr on the phone, feeling her distance in the tinny sound of her voice.

“So let me get this straight, Jenner: you need to clean the skeletons down to the bone, and they don’t have any equipment?”

“They usually outsource their anthro stuff.”

“Huh. Well, just get the biggest stockpot you can find, and a heating ring. Get the biggest thing you can find, that way you don’t have to dismember them…that much.” She was enjoying herself.

“And what do I put the remains in? Water?”

“Well, you could do it in just water, but that’d take forever. Here’s my recipe: detergent to emulsify the fat tissue, meat tenderizer to…uh, tenderize the meat, and liquid hand soap, for that meadow-flower freshness.” He jotted the list, pausing at the hand soap.

He wasn’t laughing, so she added, “No, really: use liquid hand soap too—it’ll help move things along. Let them come to a boil and go for a few hours—if you take them out too soon, the tissues will cook onto the bone, and scraping ’em off will be hell.”

Jenner was taking notes on a yellow legal pad; he wrote, HELL, and underlined it several times.

Christ.

“Okay, Annie, thanks.” He scanned his notes. “I got it. How’s the missus?”

“She’s good, thanks.” She was silent a second, and when she spoke again, her voice was earnest. “Jenner? We’ve been thinking about driving up to Provincetown and making it official. When do you get back? It would mean a lot to both of us if you could be there.”

“That’s fantastic! And well overdue.” He paused. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. It was just supposed to be three months, but I don’t know what’s going to happen now.”

She said, “Rats.”

“You know I’ll make it if I can—you know I’m all about the hot lesbo wedding action!” He scrawled LESBO WEDDING on his pad.

She snorted. “Okay, well, let me know. And remember, Jenner, don’t leave the bones in there too long…”