Liz Jasper - Underdead 02

by Underdead in Denial

  Apparently not.

  “You get here at dawn, leave at dusk and spend your weekends sitting alone inside your apartment eating nothing but takeout burgers and chocolate, when you eat at all.”

  She narrowed her dark almond-shaped eyes and delved into my soul. I swallowed convulsively, unable to look away.

  “You’ve got chronic PMS,” she said.

  “What? I do not have—”

  She grinned and then her expression sobered. “I am worried that you’re depressed.”

  I grunted in dismissal.

  “Not that I blame you,” She looked around my classroom at the solar system dioramas, sagging volcano posters, and dusty mineral display and curled her lip. “Teaching eighth grade earth science would depress anyone. But I have a plan.”

  “Oh no.” I knew her plans. It was because of one of them that I now occupied the strange and lonely world between normal human being and vampire. I sank deeper in my chair and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the sharp bite of disappointment. I longed to tell her—tell her what? I couldn’t explain what was really going on. It was too fantastical.

  I was too tired today to make one of my usual excuses. Maybe if I fell asleep she’d go away.

  “Better yet, I’ve already set the wheels in motion.”

  My eyes snapped back open. “Becky, what have you done?”

  Her cheery smile vanished under my glare as if someone had pulled a plug and I felt sick. I must have inadvertently given her the vampire stare. I didn’t have much control over it. I refused to practice it for fear its use would hasten my slide into permanent vampire territory.

  I quickly looked away.

  “I signed us up for a charity event.”

  Becky’s voice sounded strange and I sneaked a glance at her from half-lidded eyes. Her zombified look had disappeared once I broke eye contact, so I knew whatever was going on now wasn’t to do with me. I struggled to identify the odd note in her voice. Uncertainty?

  “We’re going to help the Milverne Theatre with their annual fundraiser.”

  “What?” I sat upright in my chair. “We? Why in the world would I want to do that?”

  “Well, first off, it’ll get you out of your apartment for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, which you desperately need.” The sarcasm was back. I must have imagined the strained note in her voice. “More importantly, it should be fun. It’s—” She stopped abruptly.

  I stopped fiddling with papers and risked another look at her. She didn’t meet my eyes and her cheeks were pink. I forgot about my vampire problems and stared at her in surprise. Then it hit me. Becky, Ms. if-I-believed-in-serious-relationships-I-would-let-my-ultra-traditional-Korean-grandparents-arrange-a-marriage, didn’t just have a crush on Drama Dan. She had fallen. Hard.

  “Oh no,” I groaned. “Not him! Becky!”

  Her delicate pixie face turned hard and mulish. Before she could respond, my classroom door flew open and Carol staggered in, out of breath. Carol was the only other person in our department to give Becky competition for best high school teacher. In her mid-thirties, Carol was a plump, brown-haired mother hen who had taken me under her wing when I’d arrived, fresh out of college, to teach at Bayshore last fall. Such sweetness was typical of Carol. I probably would have detested her after five minutes if she hadn’t had a sharp sense of humor that had slipped out after only three.

  Becky handed Carol the third cup of Peet’s.

  “Why can’t you have a classroom on the ground floor with us?” Carol said between gasps. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Just break,” I said, eyeing the clock. We had about four minutes until the bell rang. I pointed to the tin on the counter. “I brought cookies, if you want some.”

  “Of course I want some.” As her glasses glinted toward the Wicked Witch tin, she clucked her tongue against her teeth. “One of those days, is it?”

  “Where were you last night?” I said, a little too harshly.

  Carol didn’t seem to notice my fishwife impression. She busied herself with the tin. “I’m sorry. I needed to take care of something at home. How was the play?”

  She bit into a cookie, rolled her eyes in ecstasy and passed the tin to Becky, who put the tin down without taking one.

  “The play was unlike anything I’ve seen before,” I said.

  Becky stood half twisted away from us, uncharacteristically quiet and glum, staring unseeingly at the UV-proof blackout blinds over my classroom windows. I chided myself for being such a bad friend. It wasn’t as if I had anything better to do tomorrow afternoon. Except sit inside my apartment with the blinds drawn tight and worry about what Will had in store for me.

  I told Carol, “You’d better watch Hunchback tonight if you want to join us tomorrow and not feel like an idiot.”

  Carol reached around Becky for another cookie. Her hand paused over the tin and she muttered, “I might as well slap these right on my thighs.” She took one and bit into it. “Damn these are good. What’s tomorrow?”

  “Becky and I are going to a fundraiser meeting at the Milverne. Wanna come?”

  *

  I got home as the sun was going down, feeling as worn as a limp dishrag. I had given my all to teaching orbitals, and while a commendable number of my students had cottoned to the logic, I knew there was more Introduction to Chemistry in my future. Each step up to my apartment seemed six inches higher than the last.

  As I neared the top, a pair of high-heeled shoes came into my line of vision and I looked up to find my mother standing in front of my door. Her suit—made of some silky tweedy material—told me she’d popped by after showing a home. Chances were, she’d sold it too. My mother was a frighteningly good real estate agent.

  As usual, even after what I’m sure was a long hard day, she was impeccably dressed and made up. If I weren’t so obviously the outdoorsy “before” version of her, I would wonder if the stork had delivered the wrong baby.

  I didn’t know why she was there, but I was ridiculously glad to see her. I went over to hug her before I realized I couldn’t because she was holding a large brown box. As I stood there staring stupidly at the box and wondering why she had brought it, she thrust it into my outstretched arms.

  “Here. Your Aunt Bertha would have wanted you to have this.”

  “Aunt Bertha’s dead?” My arms went slack with shock and the box slipped toward the ground.

  “Careful!” My mother stuck a manicured hand under the box and pushed it more securely into my arms. “Of course Bertha’s not dead. Whatever would make you think that?”

  She reached into her huge leather purse and pulled out a key ring that was the duplicate of my own, down to the tiny key to my bike lock. I have no idea how she acquired any of the keys beyond the emergency set I’d given my parents when I’d moved into my apartment. I do know that I’d stolen back every unauthorized key the last time I’d been home.

  She unlocked the door with an expert downward jiggle of the key at just the right time. As if she did it every day. She stepped into my tiny hallway and, aware of the growing fall of night, I followed her inside while I debated which issue to tackle first.

  I had opened my mouth wide to tackle them all at once when the box in my arms moved.

  “Jesus! What the hell is in here?”

  “Josephine Gartner! How dare you take the Lord’s name in vain!”

  I put the box on the floor and squatted next to it. The box hissed. I opened the top flap and a pair of angry green eyes stared back. I quickly closed the box and moved back a respectful number of inches.

  “It’s Fluffy.”

  Fluffy was Aunt Bertha’s long-haired beast of a cat. Fluffy had a well-earned reputation for loathing everyone but my aunt, who was oblivious to the cat’s mean streak. Aunt Bertha doted on her Fluffy-kins.

  “Of course it’s Fluffy,” Mom said.

  The box jerked and swayed. A huge white paw scrabbled through the flaps I’d left gaping.

  “No, Fluffy! Stay!”
I lurched forward and sealed her back in. A box-muffled yowl of frustration filled the air.

  “Bertha wants you to take care of her while she’s away.”

  My mother’s voice was steel grating on steel. I shifted my attention from the box to her and realized Mom was missing a little of her usual polish. Her pale teal blouse, though impeccably color-coordinated with her hair (Currently some shade approaching crimson via the pink family), was saggy and askew. Her lipstick was hanging in there by sheer willpower.

  She still looked gorgeous. Perhaps it was time I took a leaf from her book and tried to dress a little better. Maybe get a haircut that had more than one length to it. I bet Rafael, her beautician, would find a way to fit me if I called him tomorrow morning.

  Fit me in? Hell, he’d show up on my doorstep with makeup, hair dye, and an army of clipper waving minions to hold me down while he re-imagined me.

  The fact that I had considered letting that man within ten feet of my person was disturbing. Obviously, mere proximity to Fluffy addled the brain.

  I backed away from the box as if scalded. “I can’t have a cat here. I’ll get thrown out of my apartment.”

  “Don’t exaggerate. Trust me, it would take more hassle than it’s worth for your landlord to evict you.”

  “Why can’t Fluffy stay at your place?”

  “Really, Jo, you know how your father is about cats.”

  My father probably wouldn’t notice if Fluffy hawked up hairballs on his lap as long as she didn’t interfere with his reading of the newspaper.

  “If Aunt Bertha wanted me to take care of her cat, why didn’t she ask?”

  “I’m sure she tried, but you’re never around.”

  “Exactly! I am never around. What kind of life is that for a cat?”

  “It’s certainly preferable to spending a month in a kennel.”

  I opened my mouth to protest but I couldn’t think of a good rebuttal to that.

  A few seconds ticked by and my mother said, “Come down to my car and help me with her things.”

  Replaying the conversation in my head to try to figure out where I’d gone wrong, I followed as she clicked down the stairs in her three-inch heels without a wobble.

  Three trips later, the floor of my tiny living room had disappeared under Fluffy’s things. As I dragged an alarmingly heavy bag of cat food into the kitchen and saw how tiny was the bowl Mom was placing on Fluffy’s placemat next to my fridge, I started to wonder exactly what she’d roped me into.

  “Twenty-five pounds is a lot of cat food. How long did you say Aunt Bertha’s going to be gone?”

  “Oh, just five or six weeks.”

  “I thought you said a month!”

  My mother’s purse vibrated with sudden abandon. She pulled out a sleek phone, looked at the suspiciously dark screen and clucked her tongue in disapproval.

  “That offer is far too low. I’d better talk to him in person.” She turned and gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek. “Sorry, dear, but I’ve got to run.”

  “But…”

  She gave me an extra squeeze before letting me go. “I’m so pleased you’ll have some company, Joey dear. I do worry about you being so alone.”

  She disappeared like the wind, leaving me with the cat. I let out a loud sigh. “Damn.”

  I went back to find a better place for the giant carpeted cat condo than the exact center of the living room, but found I couldn’t move it. The cat had parked herself inside and somehow managed to make her fifteen pounds feel like fifty.

  Fluffy, it seemed, had moved in.

  Great.

  *

  At four o’clock Saturday afternoon, I prepared to head out to meet Becky. The Milverne Theater is a short drive from my apartment, but even so, I was going to be late. It had nothing to do with my new roommate, who didn’t appear to have moved in the past twenty-three hours. I might have worried a little had I not noticed a decided dent in the mound of kitty kibbles I’d put in her bowl.

  My tardiness was deliberate as, thanks to Will, I no longer had the luxury of spontaneity. I couldn’t just walk into a place I’d never been before—not during the day. I had to check it first for perilous health hazards, such as skylights and floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Or worse, mirrors. I lived in dread of mirrors. Most people take their reflections for granted. Mine is about as clear as one of those hitchhiking ghosts in the Haunted House ride at Disneyland.

  So far, a combination of deception and luck had enabled me to keep my Undead vampire traits a secret. Beyond the occasional weak joke, no one had connected my new “sun allergy” with vampires.

  Some of my luck was doubtlessly due to our current hyper litigious, politically correct culture. No one wanted to risk a lawsuit by disrespecting my “disability”, so they pretty much turned a blind eye to it. And yet…

  If I walked into a room of a thousand people and announced I was turning into a vampire, nine hundred and ninety-nine of them would roll their eyes and keep talking. But that last person might believe me. They’d wonder and ask questions and dig for answers. And when they learned the truth, which they would eventually, I would have no choice but to find Will and beg him to finish the job. My life would be a living hell anyway and at least Will would know where to hide when the people with pointy sticks started after me.

  As I tugged on gloves and donned one of my less dorky oversized sunhats, I became aware of an odd, rhythmic grating noise. I stopped dead and listened for the source of the sound before I realized it was emanating from me. Thinking about Will had me grinding my teeth.

  After five months of silence, he reappears back into my life, all cryptic warnings and hormone-fanning kisses, and then—nothing. For two nights I’d huddled inside my apartment with all the lights on, eyes and ears trained on the front door. Listening for his footsteps. Waiting for his knock…

  “Oh my God!” I said aloud. “He has me waiting by the phone!”

  Well, no longer. Grabbing my keys from their dish, I wrenched open the front door and strode out to my car. Ten minutes later, I pulled open one of the thick wood doors of the theater and stepped into the cavernous lobby.

  The Milverne was the sort of second-tier landmark that made it onto Long Beach postcards but wasn’t quite important enough for the Los Angeles ones. It goes without saying that as a local, I’d driven by the theater a hundred times but never been inside.

  I pulled off my hat and sunglasses with a defiant yank and then looked around to assure myself there were no mirrors. (The lobby was empty of people, but that was beside the point.)

  As I took in the chipping gilt paint, velvet-papered walls and yellowing posters of Hollywood luminaries who’d gotten their start on this very stage, I realized how popular the Milverne must have been in its heyday.

  Following the murmur of voices I headed across the faded red carpet to a set of double doors on the right and stepped into the theater. It was smaller than I’d expected, with seating for about five hundred.

  The front few rows of the center aisle were filled with attentive volunteers. Becky’s spiky silver hair made her easy to spot in the crowd.

  “What did I miss?” I whispered as I sank into the plush red seat she’d saved for me.

  “Shhh!”

  Her attention was riveted on Drama Dan’s compact form as he paced the stage soliciting fundraising ideas from the group. A man who looked like a faded copy of Dan was taking notes on a giant pad of paper. If not for the occasional squeak of his marker as he wrote, I would have forgotten he was there.

  As I watched Dan, I began to realize that Becky’s ridiculous crush might not be so ridiculous after all. Dan Sterling was worth a drool.

  I gave myself a mental shake. Evidently my lack of sleep was getting to me.

  No. Something about him was different. I studied him critically. He looked the same as he’d looked every day at school for the past month and a half. Same yellow hair, same sky-blue eyes. And yet, there was an undeniable new magneti
sm to him…

  “That’s an awesome idea, Shelley! You got that, Tom?”

  The guy wielding the marker looked as if the better part of his brain was engaged elsewhere. “Yup. Carnival in the parking lot. Got it right here, next to bake sale in the parking lot.”

  Dan beamed at the teenage savant in the front row, who blushed crimson with pleasure, and then spun on his heel and headed toward the other end of the stage, arms wide.

  “C’mon people, I know each one of you has a good idea. Let’s hear ’em all.”

  I realized that I’d seen Dan in the coffee line at break and Dan at lunch, but never Dan on stage. Today his natural charisma was set to eleven, the better to pull money out of pockets and time out of schedules. And Dan fully “on” was pretty impressive. He was a man made for the stage, the sort of man who could read the back of the cereal box and have women falling at his feet. Men too, if the doglike expression of adoration on the face of the guy sitting next to me was any indication.

  I leaned toward Becky. “Are you sure Dan’s straight?”

  Becky tore her eyes away from the stage long enough to shoot me a look of disgust.

  “Right,” I said, barely managing to hide my grin.

  My interest in the theater’s fundraising plans hovered around zero. Tilting back in my seat, I entertained myself by checking out all the junk tucked in the metal scaffolding overhead. The house lights were up, giving me a new appreciation for the nuts and bolts of putting on a play. There were all sorts of fascinating plugs and lights attached to the bottom of the scaffolding. The scaffolding itself was crammed with what I can only assume were props that didn’t fit in the other storage areas—a pair of Doric columns, a pretty good rendition of a larch tree, an anatomically correct David. Directly up over my head were a pair of canoes. The scaffolding must be stronger than it looked.

  “There was a canoe in Tom Sawyer, wasn’t there?”

  “Shhh!” Becky said.

  The meeting ended a short time later. Becky popped up from her seat like a Jack-in-the-box.

  With a quick, “I’ll be back,” she took off toward the stage. Or, to be precise, toward Dan. Her small form wound quickly through the crowd and when she reached the stage, she somehow displaced the other hangers-on to stand to stand by his side. There was some further conversation and then the whole group tramped off somewhere backstage.