Sweetblood (9781439108741) (10 page)

Finally there is a brief silence, then the sharper sound of electronic chatter from the den. My parents, intellectual giants, watch about four hours of TV every night. They will
stare at it until it's time to go to bed. I wait until they are completely hypnotized, then sneak downstairs and get my father's cell phone out of his coat pocket. I creep back up to my room and call information. There are only three Redfields listed. I get the right one on the second try.

“Hello?”

I recognize Guy's voice right away.

“Where were you?” I say.

“Who is this?”

“This is the grounded vampire.”

“Lucy?”

“Where were you? I went to the Bean, but you weren't there.”

“I thought you were grounded.”

“So?” I'm not going to make this easy for him. If he really likes me, he'll have to learn to deal.

“Sorry—I didn't think you'd be there.”

“Well, I was.”

“Oh.”

“You know what I'm doing right now?”

“Talking on the phone?”

“I'm looking at that bug you gave me.”

“Yeah? Is it doing anything?”

“It's just sort of hanging out. Where'd you get it?”

“I have my sources. Hey, you want to go over to the Bean? They're open till two. They have live music at night.”

“Can't,” I say. “I'm grounded.”

Guy doesn't say anything for a couple of seconds, then, in a tentative voice, he asks, “Does that mean that I should go to the Bean anyway, just in case you decide to go—even though you can't go because you're grounded? Or do you mean you really can't go? Which is it?”

“Yes,” I say. I hang up.

I can be a real bitch sometimes.

Twenty minutes later I feel bad. I call Guy to tell him I was just kidding, but a woman answers—his mother, I suppose—and tells me he went out. I hang up before she asks who I am. I flop back on my bed and imagine him sitting at the same table I was at, sipping cappuccino and watching the door. Serve him right. At the same time, I know that I'm being completely unfair. I lay there letting the thoughts swirl around in my head. After a while I go downstairs and return the phone to my dad's coat pocket and wander into the den. The parents are zombied-out, watching a rerun of
Little House on the Prairie,
my mother's favorite show.

“Hey,” I say.

Heads turn.

“You think you could turn it down a little? I'm going to sleep.”

Wordlessly, my father lifts the remote and lowers the volume.

“Thanks,” I say.

I go back to my room. Now that I've announced that I'm going to bed, they won't look in on me.

I put on my black denim shirt with the silver buttons. I touch up my eyeliner and layer on a fresh coat of lipstick and run a brush through my hair and add a few rings to my fingers and grab my black cotton trench coat and climb out the window and down the antenna post to the ground like the predatory creature of the night that I am. I head up the dark side of the street, the long tails of the trench coat flapping behind me.

Espresso Yourself

The frowning barista has a bone in her nose. It looks like the short end of a wishbone from a Thanksgiving turkey, and it is stuck right through her left nostril like somebody stabbed her with it. The pointy end is hanging over her upper lip. I think it must be hard for her to talk. No wonder she is unhappy. I order a triple latte. While she hisses and foams, I look around.

The Bean is different at night. Different crowd; not so Joe College. I see a lot of leather but very few books. I am looking for Guy, but there are too many black-leather-jacketed, black-haired guys. Cigarette smoke hangs in a layer about four feet off the floor. The room is lit by a dozen tiny halogen track lights scattered across the dark ceiling: an upside-down field of miniature searchlights cutting through nicotine fog. It's hard to see across the room.

The barista pushes my latte at me with a boney frown. I pay her. She gives me change. I say, “Thank you.” The barista says nothing. I wonder why she is so unhappy, and why she has chosen to stick an ugly old turkey bone in her nose. Maybe it is an act. Maybe she doesn't know how to act, so she sticks a bone in her nostril and acts pissed-off. I've been there. Only without the bone.

I add four packets of fake sugar to my latte, then go looking for a table where I can sit and act blasé. I find one near the small stage, where two tall, pale, stringy-haired, blue-lipsticked women are setting up. They look like sisters. One of them has a big stand-up bass, the other an oboe. I sit and sip. The blue lips are talking, but I can't understand what they are saying. After a few moments of confusion, I realize that they are speaking another language, and suddenly I feel ultrahip and worldly sitting with my triple latte late at night surrounded by black leather and cigarette smoke and women speaking a strange tongue. So what if Guy doesn't show? I am my own cool self. I can sit here and be a part of this scene even though I'm only in high school and I don't know anybody and I can't imagine what these two blue-lipped women are planning to do with a bass and an oboe.

I am halfway through my latte when I find out. Without ceremony, the oboist sister begins to play. The sound is deep and pure and rich, tingling the fine hairs on my arms, a falling series of notes like the calling of an owl. She repeats the series again and again, each time with some tiny variation: a little slower, a little quieter, a little harsher. A contest of owls? I close my eyes and I am flying through the forest at night, hooting. Then the bass notes hit: I feel the thrumming in my lips and my breasts. Startled, I look at the bass
player. She is staring at me, a faint curve on her blue lips, long fingers slapping fat strings. I close my eyes and let the raw sound carry me away. I am flying again, sliding through the woods on liquid air, leaves stroking my body like fronds of seaweed. Maybe I am not an owl. Maybe I am some other night creature. I twist and turn in midair; the full moon flashes through the foliage. If I knew where I was I could fly across town to the Sacred Bean and see myself through the window, sitting here with my eyes closed, absorbing the sounds of oboe and bass.

My imagination is quite real, quite intense. It has gotten me through many an algebra class.

The bass vibrations cease. The hooting of the oboe slows, quiets, then stops altogether. My ears are again filled with the chatter of multiple conversations. I open my eyes to find Guy sitting across from me, his blue eyes fixed upon my honey browns.

“I'm surprised you came,” I say.

Guy nods. On the tiny stage behind him the blue-lipped women are sharing a cigarette, taking a break. Guy is holding a tiny espresso cup.

“I can't stay very long,” I say.

Guy sips his espresso. His tattoo peeks at me from beneath the cuff of his leather jacket. I sip my latte—I
try
to sip my latte—but my mug is empty and all I get is a glob of foam on my lip.

“You want another one?” Guy asks.

“No, thank you.”

One corner of his mouth turns up. “You are very polite,” he says. He is sitting directly beneath one of the track lights. His thick black hair glistens.

“But I'll take an espresso,” I say. I don't want him to think I'm
too
polite. Also, I need to get rid of him for a couple minutes so I can think.

He melts into the sea of black leather, and I frantically try to imagine how the rest of the evening will go.

My brain freezes; I fail.

He is back with my espresso. I take the tiny cup in my hands and hold it up to my nose and inhale. The smell of it is toasty and deep and rich, like fresh baked bread, or tobacco.

“I wanted to ask you something,” I say. “The bug you gave me. Isn't it kind of late in the year? What happens when the butterfly comes out? If I let it go it'll freeze to death.”

“You can keep it for an indoor pet,” he says, grinning.

I taste my espresso. It hits the tip of my tongue and for the briefest instant it is sweet. Then it flows back into my mouth and I get hit with sour and bitter all at once. I swallow, and my mouth comes alive with intense coffee flavor even as my throat clenches, complaining of the potent bitterness. Guy is watching me; I keep my features carefully composed and wait a few seconds for my throat to loosen.

“It's good,” I say, but Guy is looking over my head. I feel a presence close behind me and turn to look.

A tall, scrawny guy with short, shaggy hair is looking down at us. He has orange eyelashes. I think his hair would be orange too, if he didn't dye it black.

“Hey, Weevil,” Guy says.

“How's it going, kid?” He extends his hand to me. “Hey there, baby bat. I don't know you, do I?”

“Not yet.”

“Look at you. You're amazing.”

I shake his thin, long-fingered hand. “Actually, I'm Lucy.”

He laughs. “You're funny too. You a student at Harker?”

“At the moment I'm a future high school dropout.”

“Really! A prescient future dropout. So, you guys going over to the Carfax tonight?”

“What's going on?” Guy asks.

“There's a thing. If you're not doing anything. You too, baby bat.” He winks at me.

“Maybe we'll drop by,” Guy says.

“You want a ride?”

“I got the dadmobile.”

“Cool. See you there, Dilly.” Weevil wanders off.

“Dilly?” I say.

Guy/Dylan/Dilly shrugs. “They used to call me that.”

“Apparently, they still do.”

“I like Dylan better.”

“What about Guy?”

He grins. “I'm more used to Dylan.”

“Okay. I'll call you Dylan. What's the Carfax?”

“The Carfax Arms. It's an apartment building over on the east side. The guy that lives there, Wayne, must be having a party. Interested?”

“What sort of party?”

“A goth thing, probably.”

“I don't know….” Sneaking out for a cappuccino was one thing. Driving across town to a goth party, that I wasn't so sure about.

“You're interested in vampires, right?” Dylan is grinning at me.

“So?”

“So maybe this is your chance to meet one.”

Butterflies and Beer

The Carfax Arms is one of those old apartment buildings that was probably very chichi when it was built a hundred years ago, but now it's not so nice. The marble floor in the vestibule is cracked and stained, the brass mailboxes are tarnished to the color of mud, and the ceiling has been covered with the sort of cheesy acoustic tile you might see in a Kmart. The inner door is plain gray steel, cheap and forbidding.

There are only four mailboxes. The apartments must be huge, I think. Dylan presses the button under mailbox number four. The button is old and yellow and has the look of a buzzer that hasn't worked in twenty years. The name
W. SMITH
is printed on a piece of white tape beneath the button.

“Somebody'll come down to let us in,” he says.

A minute passes. I can hear music and voices coming faintly from above. I'm too nervous to talk. A couple of
times I almost ask Dylan to take me home, but it passes. Dylan has his hands in his pockets. I sense that he is not quite as cool and confident as he seems. Another minute passes. He presses the button again.

“I don't think it works, Dylan,” I say.

The outer door opens. Three laughing black-haired girls crowd into the vestibule. Two of them I don't know, but the other one is Marquissa Smith-Valasco.

All three of them are wearing different perfumes. The clash of sweet and musk and spice is revolting.

“Hey, Dylan.” Marquissa smiles brightly and touches her hair.

Dylan nods, still with his hands in his pockets.

Marquissa notices me. Her eyelids fall back to their usual half-closed position. “Lucy,” she says.

“Good guess.”

“What are you guys doing standing out here? Is the door locked?” She shoves the door and it opens. Marquissa and her friends push past us and start up the stairs, leaving a trail of scent. Marquissa looks back at us. “You guys coming, or what?”