The Falstaff Vampire Files (4 page)

When she wasn’t attacking a keyboard or chopping at things in the garden Vi had an energetic way of pouring out the most amazing ideas. Even people who wanted to dismiss her were mesmerized once she began to talk.

“So how’s
Vampire Wedding
coming?” I asked.

Vi waved the shears in greeting. “The course of undead love did ne’er run smooth.” She bent back down to lop off a dead branch—she was brutal with her pruning, and her plants flourished. “But look who I’m talking to—the woman with a young stud for company.”

“Not anymore.” I sighed and sat on the stone bench. “I just found out Hal is engaged to someone almost literally half my age.”

Vi stopped in mid slice and straightened up to look at me. “Kris, I’m so sorry.”

“But not surprised.”

“No. That doesn’t make him less of a bastard.” She turned back and lopped off a few more branches before she set her clippers down and came to sit beside me. “When did you find out?”

“Earlier today. I’m still in shock.”

“That’s why I stick to fictional romance. Much less painful, and you can kill or maim the dirty rotten scoundrels at will. Would you like me to kill him for you—fictionally speaking?”

“Thanks—that would be lovely, if you can work him into the book.”

“This book is nearly done, but I’ll make it a point to arrange a bloody death for someone suspiciously like Hal in the next book. I’m going to the store this morning—do you want anything? Ice cream, chicken soup, hard liquor?”

“No, thanks. I’m just disappointed in love, not stricken with a cold.”

“You should still keep warm. When you’re all stressed out, you’re vulnerable to germs.”

After Violet left I logged onto eBay and indulged in some therapeutic Windows shopping. It soothed me to search for the speckled Bob White pattern of my mother’s china—a very modest pattern with a little bird mother and chick.

My own mother had a set of much used dishes like that, and I inherited a few chipped pieces that I’m too afraid of breaking to use. Looking at images of strange 1950s relish dishes shaped like boomerangs and deviled egg plates with little hollows for each egg comforted me.

My mother had been like the brown, speckled birds painted on the dishes, with modest feathers and a bright, fast-moving energy about her. I only had one picture of her—in a silver frame, on a table just inside my line of vision as I sat at the computer. The rest had been lost in a fire at my parents’ house, along with all the china, photo albums—everything material. I kept meaning to have the picture duplicated, but I didn’t like to have it out of my sight. I knew it was irrational, but I feared it might be damaged or lost, and then I would have no image of her at all.

I marked a few online bargains to be watched, but I never bought anything. What’s the point? My mother had the whole set and it couldn’t save her.

In a flash of anger and rebellion, I abandoned all pretense of shopping and moved over to search out a few online dating sites and put up a profile. Gay or not, Larry’s houseguest got your motor going, I told myself. Computer dating hadn’t worked for me when I tried it after Mark died. I hastily posted the ad and logged off the computer. Too soon. Technically Hal and I hadn’t even had the obligatory “we’re breaking up” discussion, and even though I’d warmed up to Bram Van Helsing, if my perfect soul mate had knocked on my door that very moment, I’d have told him to shove off.

Hal had been a guilty pleasure
for me, and now I was paying for it.

I met Hal at a hearing in the neighborhood over tree cutting in one of the parks. He was highly distracting, sitting one seat away, tall and lean with brown hair and eyes and a mischievous face. Cute, but way too young. I put him out of my mind and concentrated on the tree debate—which involved picketing and shouting matches. People take their trees very seriously in San Francisco. The arguments grew heated and the egos were so titanic that I almost wished I could have brought some popcorn and a cold drink to sit back and better enjoy the drama.

In one corner, the All Trees Are Good faction that used the word “murder” to refer to the removal of any tree. In the other corner the Native Plant Restorationists, who wanted to root out every eucalyptus in the city and send the pieces back to Australia as bags of wood chips.

Halfway through the debate, Hal leaned over the empty chair between us, his leather-clad shoulder touching mine, and whispered, “Some people need to cut down on their shade-grown, eco-friendly, family-farmed coffee intake.”

I smothered a laugh that provoked disapproving stares from others around us. Our eyes met. He leaned toward me again, eyes slightly closed as if savoring my perfume. I could smell his leather jacket and a complicated musky aftershave. I took in the depth of his brown eyes, pale complexion and artfully rumpled hair, so dark brown it was nearly black. I sat back in my chair, breathless, overcome by the kind of instant, simple lust I hadn’t felt in years. Too young. Don’t be a fool.

I forced myself to turn away. But when I sneaked a glance at him, he was looking at me. Did he wink? Did I imagine that?

I ducked out of the meeting with the first wave of escapees, half afraid he would follow and half afraid he wouldn’t. He was right behind me. When the early exit crowd crammed into the elevator ahead of us, he tapped my shoulder. “I know where the stairs are. Come on.”

He didn’t look back. Of course I followed, admiring the view—blue jeans, and that black leather jacket. A bad boy, dangerous but somehow sophisticated. He held the Exit door open for me but stood close enough that I had to brush past him. He walked down the stairs with slow steps, as if teasing me to watch him as I followed. On the next landing he stopped so suddenly that I ran into him. He turned back and put his hand on my arm in a gesture that might have been concern for my footing. Or something more intimate.

“Sorry.” His hand on my elbow kept me from backing away, but I didn’t want to move.

Wildly inappropriate,
my internal shrink shouted at me. But my blood was pounding in my ears loud enough to drown out any thought of common sense.

His face was close to mine, with those deep brown eyes a few inches away. “I know this is out of line, but you are such a goddess, I would like to get to know you better. Any chance of that?”

My body answered for me with a tremendous sigh of longing that startled me and caused him to nearly smile, but he kept his face solemn, so close to mine. “If you say ‘no,’ I promise I won’t bother you again.”

But he knew.

I took another breath, barely trusting myself to whisper, “I’d like that.”

“You’d like me not to bother you, or you’d like to get to know me better?”

“Now you’re teasing me.”

We both smiled. I took a deep breath. “Don’t let go of me. For some reason my knees feet a little weak just now.” No one had had this strong of an effect on me since the day I met my husband.

“Okay.” He put his arms around me in a chaste bear hug. Just a hug. It felt good, affectionate. It wasn’t only sex but human contact I’d been starved for. The smell of the leather coat, a very faint whiff of sweat under the aftershave, something else my mind was too lost to classify. I felt warm all over. Lust or an early hot flash? Both?

A man and woman brushed past us on the stairwell, and everything suddenly congealed to remind me how much younger he was. I tried to pull back in confusion.

He didn’t let me break away. I looked into those dark eyes. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Hal. Short for Henry. My father was the fourth in a long line of stuffy Henries. It didn’t fit me, so I’ve been called Hal from a very early age.” He smiled. Devastating. “What’s your name?”

“Kristin Marlowe.”

“Kristin Marlowe.” He murmured as if he were tasting the flavor of it. “When can I see you again?” He explained that he was staying with an aunt in the city on a leave of absence from a job with the State Department.

A warning bell went off in my head. He was lying about something, but I didn’t want to know. I told myself it could never last. In the expert opinion of my friends, most of whom were shrinks, I was crazy. But I could tell some of them also envied me.

Now it was over.
Ended in my predictable humiliation—dumped for a younger woman.

I went to bed, totally drained and hurting, half expecting to toss and turn for hours. But exhaustion did its work and I slept, and did not wake until Hal slipped into the room.

Chapter 11

Mina Murray’s journal

red digital voice recorder

August 5th

Hal got up so stealthily in the dark
that I could tell he was trying not to wake me. I pretended to sleep. The minute the door closed behind him, I sat up and looked at the clock. Two-thirty. I got up and got dressed too. I watched from the window to see if he would go down to the shed in the back yard. He did. He came back out again a moment later with his motorcycle.

I ran downstairs and grabbed Lucy’s trail bike from the inside hallway. She left it there behind the stairs, although she usually drove her car. By the time I quietly opened the door he was in the street, starting his engine. He never looked back and didn’t seem to notice me pedaling about a block behind him.

I’d ridden a trail bike in high school and Lucy’s bike was just like the one gathering dust in my dad’s garage. They were right—it does come back to you.

I wasn’t wearing any of the reflective gear Lucy wore when she rode at night. If there was any traffic out there, I would have been invisible. But even when he turned onto Geary, Hal and I were the only traffic on the road. The noise of the motorcycle covered the quiet sound of the pedals and creak of the frame. I half expected to lose him when he speeded up on Geary. But he only went about 18 blocks to 30th Avenue, turned left, then right, and parked on Clement Street.

I coasted to a stop, still a block away. I couldn’t believe where he was going, but there was no mistaking it. I went through the doorway next to the house every week. But I rang the bell so Kristin could buzz me in. Hal had a key. He had a key to my therapist’s house.

The door slammed shut. Hal never noticed me.

Chapter 12

Kristin Marlowe’s typed notes

August 5th

I woke up when Hal came in.
The red digits on the clock showed nearly three a.m. He left the light off. For a few seconds my body thrilled with anticipation as he stood there, peeling off his clothes with his usual speed and no doubt his usual grace, though it was too dark to see. Then the truth crashed down on me.

“Hal?”

“Yes, baby.”

“When were you going to tell me about Mina?”

He stopped in the middle of taking off his pants, dimly visible in the darkened room, standing on one leg. Then he pulled his pants back on and sat on the bed.

Naked from the waist up, only a few feet away. I could have sworn I could smell Mina’s White Musk perfume on him.

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“So you knew I was treating Mina?”

“Yes.”

“And you two are getting married?”

“Yes.”

I turned on the light, wanting to see his face, until I did see it. He stared down at the carpet, as if measuring the distance to where he had dropped his shoes.

I took a deep breath. “How long have you been seeing her?”

“Six months.”

Hurt and rage flared up, and made me reckless. “Did you know that she thinks you’re—” I stopped myself in time.

“Thinks I’m what?” Now he did meet my eyes. His expression of contented bemusement made me want to slap him.

“Never mind.” I could have bit my tongue for saying even that much. But I couldn’t stop looking at Hal. I had to hold back. My body seemed to have a will of its own, leaning toward him, wanting to reach out to him and beg him to stay.

His eyes were too dark in the lamplight, unreadable. “You must know better than anyone that Mina gets some strange ideas.”

I didn’t say anything. When he said Mina’s name, I felt myself grow deadly still.

“Are you going to keep her as a patient?”

“I’m not going to discuss it with you.”

He reached out his hand, as if he wanted to touch me. Our eyes locked for several seconds. I couldn’t look away—or move. His hand fell back down to his side. He stood, retrieved his shoes and socks from the floor and sat on the chair at the foot of the bed to put them on. He picked up his shirt last of all, and buttoned it up again. I hated him. Yet in that moment all I could think was that I would never be able to touch him again.

Then he was gone. I heard the front door close. I got up, put on a robe and went out into the hall. I wasn’t going to be sleeping anytime soon.

Chapter 13

Mina Murray’s journal

red digital voice recorder

August 5th continued

Somehow I rode the bike back
to Hal’s without crashing it, crying all the way. It’s a wonder I didn’t run off the road.

I wheeled the bike back behind the stairwell and went up the red stone stairs to Hal’s apartment. In the bedroom I jammed the few things I kept there into my tote bag. Then I stood in front of the mirror above the antique dresser and took off the engagement ring he had given me. I left it in on top of the dresser. It seemed so lonely in the middle of the bare wood. I pulled a silk scarf out of my bag and folded it and put it under the ring as if to keep it warm, I guess. I didn’t leave a note. I didn’t know what to say.

Closing the door, I realized I would probably never come back here again. I walked down the red stairs and through the shadows of the foyer. At least I wouldn’t miss this creepy place.

I got as far as the sidewalk in front of the house and stopped, stood still, and wondered where I should go. I hadn’t given up my own apartment, even though I’d been spending most nights with Hal. But that would be the first place he would look. I didn’t want to talk to Hal right now. I didn’t want to see anyone. I hated everyone.