“That’s enough sharing with strangers for one day,” she said, kindly enough. “Because we both know you aren’t going to jump, why don’t you come down?”

“I’ll come down after you tell me why we’re going to Minneapolis.”

“We’re?”

“Sure! I’ll be your cool sidekick. We’ll have adventures and—”

“Stop. Go ahead and jump.”

“Awwwww, come on, Antonia,” she whined. “It’s just the thing I need.”

“It’s the last thing I need. And I don’t bargain with monkeys on Chicago rooftops, okay?”

“Okay, okay, calm down. Just tell me why you’re going and then I’ll climb down. Otherwise, if you leave, you don’t know if I’ll jump or not.”

“You won’t—”

“Just think, you could be minding your own business—”

“It’s what I should have done this morning, by Rayet!”

“—when bam! Giant killer migraine. All because you didn’t hang around and finish a conversation.” Bev slowly shook her head. “Tsk, tsk.”

Antonia scowled down at her. Bev pushed her reddish blond bangs out of her eyes so she could see if the woman was going to dart off over the rooftops to avoid communicating.

“Okay,” she said at last. “I’ll tell you why I’m going and then you climb down and go back to your life and stop with the goofing around on rooftops.”

“Deal,” she said promptly. “So why are you going to Minnesota?”

“Well…the pack lets me hang around because I’m full of useful little tidbits, you know?”

“I can imagine,” Bev said, impressed.

“But the problem is, I think some of them are, um, scared of me. And the ones who aren’t scared don’t like me.”

“I can imag—uh, go on.”

“So there’s the mate thing.”

“You mean, finding a husband?”

“Yeah. It’s a real drive among us, because compared to you guys, there aren’t hardly any of us. And the thing is, nobody wants to be my mate. They don’t know if their children will, um, be like me. And it’s not like I haven’t tried to be nice to guys, right? Even though, if I fooled a guy into mating with me I wouldn’t have much respect for him. But still. It doesn’t matter if I’m nice or awful. Nobody wants to take a chance on a deformed cub.”

“Oh.” Bev’s heart broke a little for the beautiful woman leaning against the ledge. If someone that thin and that pretty can’t get married, there’s no hope for the rest of us, she thought grimly. “So maybe you’ll meet someone in Minneapolis?”