“I don’t like it. My cleavage was my best feature and now one of them is going to be buried along with my hopes of ever having a husband. It’s not fair.”
“You know what your problem is, Mary? You go after completely unattainable men.” Veronica leaned in closer. “I have news for you. Dr. Dan doesn’t even like women.”
“What are you talking about? He’s been very kind, I might even call it flirtatious, towards me. He’s not that way with all the nurses.”
“Dr. Dan is forty-two years old and a confirmed bachelor for a reason.”
“I see what you’re doing. You’re just trying to change the subject. I’m a dying woman and I deserve to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god, Astrid.” Mary scooted over and playfully patted the bed. “Come sit up here and keep me warm.” She shivered, pulling the blanket up to her chin.
Veronica removed her shoes and sat gingerly next to her friend.
Mary laced her arm into Veronica’s. “I hate to break it to you, Astrid, but you’re about as cuddly as a corpse. Would you be a dear and hand me my Bible?”
Veronica lifted the worn black book from the nightstand and placed it on Mary’s lap. “I am a corpse, but a friendly, helpful corpse. Who else would talk to you about your boobs at three o’clock in the morning?” She brushed a stray hair out of her eyes. “Do you think I look dead? I can’t see myself in a mirror, you know.”
“No, you look nothing at all like the dearly departed. In fact, you look very natural and alive. Very alive.” Mary thumbed through the book in the darkness. “I know this sounds crazy, but I think I want to be dead too, but only your kind of dead. Not the permanent kind. I don’t want Dan crying as my body is placed in a coffin or sealed away in a crypt.” She leaned her head on Astrid’s shoulder. “When you’re dead like you, do you have to sleep in a coffin?”
“No, that would be overkill. Just a very dark room.”
“Good.” Mary lifted a tiny razor from the pages of Genesis and dug the blade vertically into her wrist. Warm blood gushed from the cut and pooled onto the bedsheet. “Help me,” she gasped and lifted her arm towards Veronica’s mouth.
The smell, feel and urgency of her friend’s forced hand was too intoxicating. Veronica latched on to Mary’s wrist like a hungry baby.
“Please don’t let me die,” Mary whispered and patted Veronica’s head.
Veronica nodded frantically. The last thing she needed was spillage or a nosy nurse barging into the room and spoiling her dinner. As Mary’s pulse dimmed, she had to decide which type of death to deliver.
28
Present
After six hours of silence, Veronica lowered the volume of the annoying Top 40 station and placed her hand on Jenny’s knee. “I’m pretty sure I already know the answer to this question, but would it make you feel any better to talk about what happened?”
Jenny remained motionless, her eyes fixed on something in the distance. “No, not really. Can we stop somewhere? I need a shower. I smell and my vagina’s bleeding.”
“Do you need some pads?”
“I don’t know. Do I need pads for this?”
“What do you mean you don’t know? Have you never had a period?” Veronica wanted to swallow the words as soon as she’d said them.
Jenny’s voice remained low and robotic. “It’s not my period.”
“Oh.” Veronica didn’t want to deepen an already seeping wound by inquiring further. Either the bleeding was a result of the rape or it was due to the slight chance that Jenny was still a virgin, at least in the intact hymen sense.
“Why don’t I find us a motel so you can clean up and get some rest.” Her voice sounded as if she were in control, but inside, her nerves were as shot as the gun in Jenny’s backpack. At the first sight of a cheap motel, she turned into the lot, hopped out of the car, and bolted through the door as sweat streamed down the back of her shirt.
“Can I help you?” The desk clerk eyed Veronica as if she were covered in fire ants. Her gaze moved towards the jingling door.
Veronica turned to find Jenny standing behind her. In the glaring fluorescent light, her face looked like an old bruised pear. Veronica turned back to the clerk. “Poor girl was in a car accident yesterday.”
“You don’t need to lie about what happened to me.” Jenny sauntered up to the counter and rested her battered head in her cupped hands. “I got punched in the face by an asshole.”
The clerk’s eyes widened. Veronica nudged Jenny with her foot.
“He thought buying me a couple of drinks…”
Veronica coughed “shut up” into her upper arm and shot Jenny a look that could melt a glacier.
“So, anyway. Can we get a room? I need a shower like yesterday.” Jenny smiled at the lady behind the counter, revealing a chipped front tooth, but the clerk’s eyes were fixed on the computer screen.
As soon as the green entry light flashed, Jenny pushed through the door and sprinted towards the bathroom. The click of the lock resounded in the small room. Veronica collapsed onto the heavily patterned bedspread as catastrophic thoughts pierced her mind like bullets. Jenny. Rape. Jim Pearson. Ingrid. The cops. Frank. Blood. Hunger. Money.
At last count, Veronica had less than a thousand dollars and was driving half way across the country on a sliver of hope that Mary might still be hanging around Danvers. Despite these wishful thoughts, she knew from experience that the undead didn’t stick around a place for too long. And Mary’s messy foray into vampirism was riddled with mistakes.
As Veronica knew too well, it was easy to get away with killing a prostitute, an addict or a homeless person—but when you offed ten of them in a three-week period, the townsfolk became a little more cautious about where they walked at night and with whom. Veronica remembered cringing in horror as her former friend decided to carpe-diem all over the local population. After Dr. Dan made the fatal mistake of refusing her advances, Mary left a blood-spattered trail of carnally motivated consumption. Irritated and disgusted by her friend’s obnoxious behavior, Veronica fled the comfort of Massachusetts for Michigan, leaving Mary to recreate the vampire wheel on her own. She never said goodbye.
“Hello?” Jenny peeked her head out of the bathroom. “Do you think you could go get me something to wear? I can’t put these things back on.”
Alarmed by the vulnerability in Jenny’s voice, Veronica rose from the bed and grabbed her purse. “Sure, there was a Target down the road a couple miles. What size?”
“I don’t know. I’m like a four in jeans. Small t-shirt. Maybe a hoodie and some new underwear.”
“Do you need anything else? Shampoo, cleanser, pads?”
“No. I’m good. There’s some free shit in the bathroom.” She closed the door and opened it back up. “On second thought. Would you get me some hair dye? I want to go red.”
Picking out clothes for Jenny was simple enough. But without a phone number, a last-sighting, or any idea of what alias she might be using these days, finding Mary Katherine was going to be all but impossible. As Veronica perused aisle six and the multitude of red-hued coloring options, she stuck her hand in the depths of her purse to retrieve her wallet. Although credit would be convenient, it was too risky. She thumbed through the crisp twenties. Nestled in the stacks of Jackson was the glossy crimson card from Ingrid. In black print was simply a name—Seamus Sansbury—and a phone number with a 539 area code. Without much contemplation or care, she grabbed a box of Vidal Sassoon “Runway Red” from the shelf, dropped it in her cart and dialed the number with paranoid precision. He answered on the first ring.
“This is Seamus. What can I possibly do for you today?” His voice rose and fell like a teenage boy in the throes of puberty.
“Um, hi. My daughter gave me your card a few weeks ago. She said you might be able to help me.” Veronica pushed her cart towards checkout, feeling dumb and unsure of how to proceed with this irritating man. “My daughter’s name is Ingrid.”
“Is this Veronica?” His voice cracked at the I in her name.
“Yes.” Suspicious, she looked at the phone, then placed it back to her ear.
“What took you so long? I was beginning to worry.”
“I didn’t need your help.” Irritated by the familiarity in his tone, she parked the cart next to a DVD display and wiped her upper lip. “But now I do. So, how do we do this? And before you answer that, how did you know it was me?”
“I have my ways. Nice flip phone by the way. Ingrid said you were old, but I didn’t expect geriatric.”
Veronica scanned the store to see if anyone was watching her. “Mr. Sansbury, I don’t have time for this. Can you help me find someone or not?”
“Of course, I can. Who exactly are you looking for?”
“Mary Katherine Malone. She’s from Massachusetts.”
“Hmmmm. Very interesting. Ms. Malone has been frantically searching for you as well. This type of synchronicity generally happens when one of our kind becomes hip to the way things really are.” He sighed into the phone. “Anyway, long story short, Ms. Malone wants her soul back. Like today. But if you ask me, I think she really just wants to reconnect with an old friend.”
Veronica resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “So, how do we do this?”
“I take cash or plasma. Whatever’s easiest for you.”
Veronica lowered her voice. “How in the world am I supposed to get blood to you?”
“You’re not. I’m joking, Veronica. It’s five-hundred. I prefer PayPal. I’ll text you the particulars. You do know how to text, right?”
Veronica wanted to rip his throat out. “I’m a little cash poor right now. Is Mary paying you to find me?”
He laughed. “She is now. Stay where you are. Not at the Target, but at your motel. She’s on her way.”
“How is that possible?” Veronica stuttered.
The line went dead. A text appeared. “There are others looking for you too. Bye.”
29
Veronica felt the weight of dread as she drove back to the motel. Mary would be pounding on their door any minute expecting an apology—and neither she nor Jenny were in any state for company. Some plans were much easier to work out in the realm of possibility rather than in the harsh ticking clock that was now her reality. There was nothing worse than having to make amends to a person when you weren’t that sorry for the things you’d done. It was in these confounding moments that Veronica needed a meeting, but leaving Jenny alone for more than forty-five minutes was not in the plan.
With the squirrel cage spinning in her head, Veronica sat in the motel’s parking lot searching for a quick fix. On the end page of Courage to Change, she found it. The words were scrawled decades ago in blue ballpoint. “HALT! Are you hungry? Are you angry? Are you lonely? Are you tired?” In the detritus of the dirty car, Veronica nodded. She was starving, she was livid, she was yearning for Frank, and even though she hadn’t felt tired in ages, she still felt a weariness that was akin to exhaustion. The only thing she could control at this exact moment was her hunger… and that in itself produced a sick combination of shame and guilt in the pit of her empty stomach.
With awareness and acceptance crossed off her mental list, she opted for action. Quietly she crept into room 133 and bolted the lock behind her. Jenny, her only food source, was still cloistered in the locked bathroom. An erectile dysfunction commercial blared from the ancient TV. Veronica knocked gently and placed the new bag of clothes on the floor.
“I got you the hair dye, a couple of outfits and some pajamas.”
“I’m almost done,” Jenny shouted.
Veronica picked up the germ-riddled remote and scanned the local stations. The evening news was in full swing. A picture of Jenny’s father riding a horse appeared on the screen. Veronica cringed and braced herself for breaking news about his missing daughter.
“Jimbo Pearson, the Governor of Texas, announced today that he is throwing his Stetson into the presidential ring. Pearson, known for his staunch support of the death penalty…” Veronica powered off the TV and collapsed onto the bed.
Jenny, clutching a skimpy towel around her equally scrawny orange body, grabbed the bag from the floor. “Did I just hear that my dad is running for president?”
“I think that’s what the TV said, so it must be true. Are you hungry? There’s a couple of restaurants that deliver. How about pizza?” Veronica was fully aware that she was forcing her will. The hopeful insistence in her tone was a dead giveaway.
“I’m not really hungry.” Jenny stepped back into the bathroom.
“Well, I am. And you’re beginning to look like a wilted carrot,” Veronica muttered under her breath. The way things were going, she could either quickly sneak into a hospital and drain a patient or maybe just relieve Jenny of a pint while she slept. Neither option was ideal: Mary could arrive any minute, and god only knew what Jenny would do if she woke up in the middle of a second, more surreptitious assault.
Jenny reemerged in pink pajamas looking like a wet cat. “These are absolutely ridiculous. Why would you pick these?”
“You look good in pink. Besides, they were plum out of black pajamas covered in skulls and cat hair.” Veronica sighed and reached for a menu from the nightstand. “Are you sure you don’t want something? I know this is really bad timing on my part, but I’m starving and either I need to take a pint from you or I need to go find a willing victim to tide me over.”
“My blood is the only reason you’re keeping me around. Isn’t it?” Jenny hopped up on the bed as if a monster might take a swipe at her ankles. She hugged a thin white pillow to her chest. “Are you good with a needle?”
“Are you kidding me? I’m like the Michael Jordan of phlebotomy.” Veronica handed Jenny the menu. “And no, I’m not just keeping you around for your blood. I find you highly entertaining.” She patted Jenny on the leg and sat up. “Let’s get you something to eat. If we’re going to do this, I don’t want you to pass out on me.”
“Are you kidding me? Passing out sounds awesome.” She scanned one of the menus, her lips moving slightly as she read. “I think I’ll get the meat lover’s pizza with a Coke. Wait. Can I get a couple of beers?”
“Not only no”—the two lines between Veronica’s brows deepened as her gray eyes narrowed into angry slits—“but, hell no. If you want to buy your own beer with your own hard-earned money, that’s one thing, but I won’t enable your behavior with my own dwindling resources.”
Nervously, she returned her gaze to the safety of the extensive menu. “Whatever. I don’t really want one anyway. I just wanted to see how quickly you’d cave to my whims.”
Jenny jumped at the sound of three knocks.
“Simmer down, girl. It’s just one of those people I have to suck up to. I can’t believe she got here so fast.” Veronica stood in front of the mirror and fluffed her hair. “She’s a little on the odd side, but I have to talk with her and apologize and blah, blah, blah. Hopefully this won’t take too long. Why don’t you order the pizza?” Veronica took a deep breath and walked towards the door as if she were on her way to the gas chamber.
She hadn’t even turned the knob before the breathy, perfumed whisper seeped around the deadbolt. “Can you spare a pint for a very naughty Catholic?”
Veronica unbolted the lock and braced herself.
“I can hear you breathing, Astrid. Are you going to open the door or am I…?”
Veronica attempted a look more welcoming than resting bitch face as she swung open the door. “Mary! Oh, my goodness. Look at you in that outfit.”
Timid good-girl nurse Mary Katherine Malone now leaned into the door-frame, flaunting a tiny black skirt, fishnet stockings and five-inch fuck-me pumps. She pursed her oil-slick cherry lips. “I know, right. Pretty damn hot for one hundred.” She moved in towards Veronica and kissed her on the cheek. “You look pretty good too, old lady.” She glided into the tacky room as if it were her second home. Her drugstore perfume followed, ove
rwhelming the small space as much as her outfit. She cast a glance toward Jenny. “And who have we here? Is this your daughter?”
“No. That’s Jenny. It’s a long story better saved for another time.” Veronica wiped at the thick remnant of lipstick on her cheek and turned towards Jenny. “Are you going to order the pizza?”
“Yeah.” Jenny stared at the painted lady who was a lot more interesting than the Pizza Shack’s menu.
Mary stuck out her bejeweled hand. “Hello there, little lady. I’m Porsche.”
“For real?” Jenny grinned as her eyes narrowed in disbelief.
“Of course not. Who in their right mind would name their kid after a sports car?” Mary plopped down on the bed and kicked off her shoes.
“So, is that like your stripper name?” Jenny moved closer to the edge of the bed, letting her feet dangle off the side.
“Close, but no cigar, sweetie. Stripping is too much work with all that dancing. Plus, who wants to touch all those nasty dollar bills?”
“So, you’d rather touch all those nasty—”
“How was your flight?” Veronica interjected.
“Fabulous. One of my favorite clients purchased the ticket for me. He’s a pilot. And a masochist. All I had to do was yell at him, make him wear these shoes and voila, an upgrade to first class.”
“Nice. You must be very pleased with yourself.” Veronica sat down at the dilapidated desk and attempted to control her increasingly rapid breathing. “So, do you know this Seamus character?”
“I don’t know him personally, but I’ve used his services a few times. He’s a peach and very helpful in a pinch.” Mary rummaged through her purse, removed a tube of gloss and applied a thick coat to her lips. “He helped me find you, which I’d never been able to do after you changed your name.”
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