Jane Jones (7 page)

We held hands as we walked from the kitchen into the living room. I patted my mother’s arm before taking a deep breath and opening the door just a crack. Standing there, fist poised to rap on the wood again, was Eli Matthews, with an old wooden skateboard under his arm. Relieved but exasperated, I opened the door all the way.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, perhaps a bit too rudely.

He answered in what I now knew was his usual way—a rapid tumble of words: “I waited for you after geometry, to see if you wanted to walk home together … y’know, so we could talk about our project on the way. But when you didn’t come out, I tried to catch you at your locker.
Obviously, as you know, I didn’t. But I caught up with that girl Astrid and her friend—Celeste, I think? I asked if they had seen you around. Astrid said no but that she thought you’d be psyched if I just dropped by. I asked if they knew where you lived and they didn’t exactly, but then they actually went to the office and somehow got the secretary to give them your home address, which I thought was pretty unorthodox. But anyway, I figured since you all are good friends and they said you’d be cool … I’d just come over. I hope that’s … I hope you don’t mind.” Eli finally stopped to breathe. I realized I’d been holding my breath too, waiting for him to finish. Noticing my mother standing beside me, he stuck out his hand. “Hi, Mrs. Jones. I’m Eli Matthews.”

Ma slid me a sideways glance before accepting Eli’s hand. It looked as if she were simultaneously baffled and charmed by this goofy kid. I was simultaneously thinking that she was crazy and he was a crazy stalker.

“Ma, this is the guy I was telling you about. We’re doing the project together. For American history?”

“Really? You told your mom about me? That’s … wow. I mean, it’s not a big, big deal, but it’s nice. Nice to meet you, by the way, ma’am.”

“Nice to meet you too, Eli.” My mother smiled and squinted her eyes against the autumn sun coming through
the open door. She looked behind her into our empty, undisturbed living room, then back at Eli before saying, “Please forgive me. Would you like to come in?”

Before I could stop him or say a word, that tall, baby-faced, befreckled kid had dropped his board on our front steps and shouldered his way into our home. I looked from his metallic grin to Ma’s frozen smile. It was hard to tell which one of us was the most awkward.

“Uh, can I offer you anything?” my mother said. I elbowed her sharply in the side to shut her up. “Of course, I haven’t been grocery shopping this week, so perhaps a drink … of water? Perhaps?”

Real smooth, Ma.

“Oh, no thanks, Mrs. Jones. I had some water earlier today. I like to stay hydrated. Thank you, though. I really just came by to see if Jane wanted to brainstorm for a while on our history project. It counts for a huge part of our grade, and I think the earlier we—”

“I can’t. Sorry. Can’t do it right now,” I said. I didn’t owe him an explanation, but the way his grin dimmed a little made me feel like I should give one anyway. Even if it had to be another fib. “I can’t because … we’re going shopping. Me and my mother.” I widened my eyes at Ma until she caught on and nodded slightly in agreement.

“Oh, okay. Well, then.” His smile vanished completely, and I almost felt bad for him. Then, just as quickly, he brightened. “Wait, are you going grocery shopping now? Because I could come with you and we could talk in the car a little bit before we got there and then …”

“Nope. Not grocery shopping. We need to get some …” I struggled to come up with something that would prevent Eli from reinviting himself on our bogus excursion. “We need to get some … girl stuff.” Girl stuff? Good one.

My mother unhelpfully jumped in. “Yeah. We’re going bra shopping. They’re on sale today.”

While I was looking at my mother aghast, I noticed Eli, glancing at my chest. I turned to him and his eyes snapped back up to my face.

“Really?” he said. “I mean, of course. You don’t need me tagging along for that. You’ve got to focus on … that.”

Sometimes, when your mother utterly humiliates you by calling a classmate’s attention to your bust, the only thing you can do is own it. “Yup,” I said. “A bra sale can be really competitive. Gotta get our game faces on.” Originally, my intent was to get rid of Eli quickly, but as I noticed how much redder each additional mention of the word
bra
made his face, it was tempting to keep him around for a few minutes just to mess with him. Then Ma ruined it by taking pity on him.

“Eli, we should be back before too long. Why don’t you come by after you eat dinner tonight and you and Jane can work on your project for a couple of hours then?” I could not believe she was doing this to me.

“Really? That would be great. Thank you, Mrs. Jones. So, Jane, I guess I’ll see you around seven?”

Before I could even think of another excuse, he was out the door and on his skateboard, pushing down our front walk. I watched him shift his weight to turn the corner and roll off down our street. “I guess,” I said to nobody, shoving the door closed. Then I wheeled around, ready to pounce on my meddlesome mother—but she was already at the front closet, wearing an old L.L.Bean barn jacket and sunglasses, trying to dig the keys to the Volvo out of her overstuffed purse.

“What are you doing?”

“Well, I guess we’re going shopping, right?”

“Ma!” I rolled my eyes. “There isn’t really a bra sale!
You
made it up, remember? I was just trying to blow him off.”

“Jane, I know. But now he’s coming over at seven and we really do have to pick up a few things so this house looks a little more … lived in.” She looked at me, on-the-ball mother to clueless teenaged daughter. “I’d like to be able to show your guest a little hospitality.”

I wanted to say,
You seem to be forgetting that it was
hospitality that got us into this whole mess all those years ago.
But I had used my mouth for evil enough for one day. In a weird way, my mother even looked kind of excited as she rummaged around in the bottom of her bag and came up with a fistful of keys. So, for once, I just shut up.

The next morning, I stayed in bed later than usual.
My atrophied stomach muscles ached. Apparently, vomiting is more of an abdominal workout than I’d remembered. “Jaaaaaaane. Time to get up, Sleeping Doody!” I opened one eye to see my little brother poking his head between the heavy velveteen light-blocking drapes on my canopy bed.

“Ugh, Zachary,” I said, calling him by the new alias he’d chosen when we’d moved to this town. “Can you never come in my room without knocking again?”

He banged his knuckles on the wall above my head. “I’m knocking! Is this good?” I grabbed a throw pillow and threw it at his head. (That’s what they’re for, right?) Zachary dodged, then darted out of my room, shouting, “Ma, Jane is throwing things at me!” I knew it was pointless to wish that the twerp would grow up, but I couldn’t help myself.

Slowly, I sat up and eased my legs over the side of the bed, gingerly placing my feet on the floor. I am not a morning vampire. I mean, most vampires don’t exactly jump out of bed whistling a tune when the sun comes up, but even before I was a vampire, I hated mornings. Even when I was just a girl, living in a little house on the prairie, getting me up and out of bed to do my chores was like pulling teeth. And speaking of teeth, my fangs were out. I was hungry and weak.

I shuffled across my bedroom carpet and switched off the humming sunlamps before my skin started to sizzle. One really small good thing about being a vampire is that you rarely sweat, so BO is not much of a problem. Bathing wasn’t something we did super-regularly back in the day, and even though I like to have a soak sometimes at night to relax, I can definitely skip a shower in the morning with no problem. I didn’t even bother sniffing my armpits. I felt around for my glasses, poked myself in the eye twice trying to get them on my face, then pulled on some “vintage” jeans, which I’d actually bought new in the nineties, and a gray hoodie from the athletic department of some school I’d gone to ten or twelve years ago.

Contrary to what you’d think, I don’t go around wearing Gothy capes or black lipstick. Any dark clothes or makeup would just accentuate how pale my complexion
is, and that’s not really what I’m going for. Sure, I’d love to wear something a little more girly or trendy, but I have fewer curves than the letter
I
. Plus, I would never ask for the money. My father breaks his back making crackers just to earn enough to pay the rent and our insane electric bills here.

As I reached the top of the stairs to make my slow descent, I heard my dad coming in the back door, after his shift at the plant. I made my way to the kitchen in time to see him, so tired, ruffle Zach’s hair and smooch Ma on the forehead. When he saw me, he looked up and winked before taking a seat. Just like a normal family you’d see on a TV show, but instead of passing buttered toast, my mother was setting defrosted black-market blood-bank donations in tiny half-full shot glasses at everyone’s place. Except for in front of me. What I got was a teaspoon containing what looked to be about two drops of the incredibly rare Bombay blood. It was twice my normal portion.

“Jane, I thought it would be a good idea if you fed a little more this morning … after everything yesterday.” My mother spoke in that tone a person uses when they want to sound like something isn’t a big deal, but actually they think it’s a really huge deal.

“Everything yesterday?” Dad asked. “What happened yesterday?”

“Oh, nothing serious. Jane got a little sick at school.” Ma shrugged.

“Janie-girl, are you okay?” No matter what year it was or what alias I was using, my dad would always tack an “—ie dash girl” on the end. I secretly loved it.

“I’m fine, Dad, really. We should all just forget all about it.”

“Actually, Jim, Jane’s vice principal has asked us to come in for a meeting about it today. She’s under the impression that Jane might have an eating disorder.…”

“Your vice principal thinks you have an eating disorder?” howled Zachary. “That’s a good one! She has no idea that it would be metabolically impossible for
you
to attempt to eat anything without spewing everywhere, whether you want to or not!” My brother cackled and sniffed at his glass.

“Zachary, that’s enough,” my dad said. “Drink your breakfast.”

“What about Jane? Shouldn’t she have her breakfast before it turns into a tiny scab?” Zachary’s face grew thoughtful. “Actually, that would make an interesting experiment. Do scabs contain any nutrients beneficial to vampires? I could conduct a trial—”

“Zach! Eat.” My father was a man of few words, but my brother knew it was time to shut his fang hole. He sullenly
downed his glass. I couldn’t stay mad at him. As tough as it was for me to be stuck at sixteen, I imagined it was even more difficult to be eighty-five going on ten. He would be a genius by any college’s standards, yet he was fated to repeat fifth grade and middle school for eternity, without ever growing an inch. If he had anything going for him socially it was that he hadn’t had to deal with very many vampires his own age over the years. It seemed that all but the most unscrupulous of our kind considered it too cruel and unusual to turn a child. So he was a know-it-all and a loner and it didn’t exactly make him Mr. Popular. If anyone could understand my baby brother, it was me, and I loved the kid.

“Jane, please forgive me,” Zach said sweetly. Then his face split into a wicked grin. “I’ve completely forgotten to ask how your date went last night!”

Did I say I loved the kid? I may have misspoken. I caught myself wishing he were mortal just so I could kill him again.

“Date? What date?” My poor, confused father’s head swiveled around the table looking for a clue.

“It wasn’t a date, Dad. I’m doing a project with some kid and he came over to work on it last night after you left for your shift.”

“Some kid? A kid from the vampire community or a
kid
kid?”

“He’s a non-sucker, Dad,” Zach offered. “Pasty and weird, but non-vampire nonetheless.”

“I don’t know if I like the idea of a stranger coming into our house while I’m not here, Dottie. It isn’t safe.” My brother and I exchanged a brief look, before casting our eyes elsewhere. Neither of us would ever say it, but we both thought the same thing. My father had been in the house when the worst thing possible had happened to us. So had my mother. They had both been powerless to protect us then, hadn’t they? To worry about inviting some random kid into our home now seemed sort of ridiculous. Especially since any one of us probably could have glamoured him, and my mother or Zach could have easily drained him if he’d turned out to be an enemy. Picturing Eli Matthews white and wasted on my kitchen floor sent a shiver up my neck, and I shook my head to dislodge the image.

“He’s a good boy, Jim.
I
invited him to come. It’s good for Jane to be with children her own … her own age. Well, of course they’re not technically the same age, but … you know what I mean. Anyway, it’s required. We don’t really have a choice.” She patted my arm solicitously and my skin tingled pleasantly the way it does when one vampire touches another in a gentle way.

“Well,” my father said, still looking unconvinced, “I don’t like it, but I guess we can’t go bucking the system.
What’s the project, Janie?” My dad’s face transformed from a mask of worry to the face of love as he beamed at me warmly. No matter how stiff and cold my heart, it always swelled when my father looked at me like that. But even though I was a daddy’s girl all the way, I wasn’t really ready to discuss my history project or my history project partner with anyone just now.

“It’s no big deal, Dad. Just a history paper. But,” I said, shoving my spoon into my mouth and withdrawing it with a lipsmacking
pop
, “I really have to run or I’m going to be late.”

“Can I give you a ride, Magpie?” Magpie was another name he’d called me for as long as I could remember, even after I had gotten too old. Although I wasn’t fond of being treated like an eternal child, it comforted me to think that I would always be my father’s Magpie.