Liz Jasper - Underdead 02

by Underdead in Denial

  I blinked a few times, trying to keep my head, as a surreal mist settled around my brain like a stupefying fog. This was turning into a bad dream I couldn’t quite wake from.

  As I scanned the restaurant for a back exit, I couldn’t help but notice the people at the other tables were carefully not watching us. The couple seated closest to us, whose space Natasha and Lenny were clearly invading, looked as if they were thrilled to tilt awkwardly in their chairs to keep out of the way.

  What was this? Vampire Central? Was I next on the menu?

  I let out a faint whimper.

  Will turned to me in concern and motioned for Natasha and Lenny to leave us. A look of fury flashed on Natasha’s lovely face, but she followed his command. As she turned to leave, she sent me a look that clearly said, “it’s only a matter of time”.

  My hands and feet turned to ice as she walked slowly away. Boom-shiska-boom-shiska-boom.

  “How is your dessert?” Will asked.

  “What?” I wrenched my attention from Natasha.

  He was pointing at the table in front of me. I looked down and saw not only had the waiter delivered my chocolate pot, but I’d taken a bite. I put the spoon down, unable to take another.

  “I’m sure it’s delicious.” More words tumbled out. I was unable to stop them. “Don’t you see that Natasha really does not like me?”

  “Are you jealous?”

  The look he sent me swung my internal thermometer in the other direction. He threw a couple of bills on the table, stood and held a hand out to me. “Come.”

  We left the restaurant. The cool night air felt good on my flushed skin. I suppose I could have tried to make a run for it, but it seemed futile. I got back in the car without a fight.

  We were halfway back to my apartment, or, for all I knew, on the way to a moldy castle, a bat cave or the coffin Will called home, when he broke the silence.

  “Did Tom share details about the Solaire play or did he mostly bore you senseless with his own life story?”

  The mundanity of Will’s question shocked me into a brief laugh. “No. You have it in one. Tom didn’t talk about the play so much as his delight in stealing it from Solaire’s grandson.”

  “Tom bought it at a garage sale. That’s hardly stealing.”

  “Solaire’s grandson thought he was selling a box of gently used office supplies!”

  “It was his responsibility, don’t you think, to have checked it for valuables before putting it for sale?”

  I shifted in my seat to face him. “Of course it was his responsibility. But before you start quoting the Latin companion phrase to caveat emptor that implores the seller to beware, let me remind you that what Tom did was unconscionably sneaky. It’s one thing to pay a nickel for something that turns out to be a Ming vase, but quite another to pay a nickel for a cheap knockoff because you’ve noticed it has a diamond ring rolling around the bottom of it.”

  For a moment, Will was silent.

  “Fairness is important to you.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I…” My outrage fizzled as quickly as it had come. I blew out a sigh. “Probably comes with teaching middle schoolers.”

  Will said softly, “I don’t think so.”

  He got out of the car and I realized we were parked in front of my apartment building. By the time I undid my seat belt, he had opened my door. Usually, I lacked the patience to wait for such old-fashioned chivalry. But Will did it in such a natural, unobtrusive way, that for the first time, I understood how very nice it could be.

  We walked slowly past the mailboxes toward the stairs and up to my apartment. “I also don’t think you dislike middle schoolers quite as much as you profess. Which is a little disturbing.”

  “Disturbing?”

  “I have spent time with thirteen-year-olds,” he said darkly. “I can’t say I liked it, even when I was thirteen.”

  And how long ago was that? I wondered.

  We were in front of my door. He had brought me home, unmolested. Beyond all expectations, I was safe.

  “You’re the one who’s hard to understand,” I said almost peevishly.

  The yellowish light from the street light was blocked out as Will bent his head and kissed me.

  “I thought you said you were going to bring me back safely.”

  “I am.”

  “This isn’t safe,” I said as Will leaned in for another kiss.

  “Nothing in life is really safe, is it?”

  A short time later (Or maybe it was a long time, I lost track.) Will left. I collapsed bonelessly against the door, vaguely aware of a dull pain digging into my side. The door key I didn’t remember fitting into the lock. I gave it a twist and stumbled inside.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning I woke up before sunrise and went for a long run on the beach while dawn slowly turned the sky orange. The scrapes and bruises I’d collected the past few nights made the run more like a rhythmic hobble until my muscles finally loosened up and the endorphins kicked in. By the time I returned home, pleasantly tired and sweating, the exercise had done its job of helping me sort through things. And what it had sorted was that hopping into a car with Will because I’d been pissed at Gavin was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Never again.

  I showered, dressed and was tossing my sock drawer for the mate to a black trouser sock when I heard someone knocking loudly on a neighbor’s door. “Self-important idiot,” I muttered. Didn’t people realize how well sound carried at 6:30 a.m.? After a brief silence, the serious pounding started up again and I realized it was coming from my front door.

  I ran to unlock it, nearly killing myself maneuvering around the cat condo in my bunny slippers.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

  I opened the tiny eyelevel peephole door. Green spikes. Becky. I flipped the deadbolt and opened the door wide.

  “Hey, Becks. What are you doing?”

  “You hit on Dan.”

  She didn’t come in. Her voice was cold, condemning, certain. Judge, jury and executioner. Too horrified to respond, I was silent a beat too long.

  “No! I—”

  “The rehearsal room door was open. I saw it.” Her dark eyes were hollow orbs. She started to say something else, but turned and jogged down the stairs. A moment later, she peeled off in her car.

  A neighbor across the street yelled, “Shut up!” and slammed his window shut.

  I stood there a long time staring after her, seeing only the crumpled ruin of Becky’s face as she had turned away.

  Clumsily, as if my hands were made of lead, I backed into my apartment and rebolted the door. I forgot about my trouser socks and getting ready for work and sat on the edge of my ugly old couch and put my head in my hands. What had I done?

  In truth, I’d done nothing. Dan didn’t even remember it. But Becky would never see it that way.

  I knew that someday when I fully turned, I would lose my friends and family. For their own safety, it would have to be that way. But I never thought (How could I have?) that I could lose my friends now. Like this.

  I managed to pull myself together enough to get to work on time. If I was worried about any uncomfortable confrontations from Becky, I needn’t have been. She was little more than a green streak. I entered the faculty room from the back door and Becky left out the front. At morning break, I thought to try talking to her, but her classroom door was locked. I continued on to the terrace, and found her getting coffee. As soon as I stepped out under the ledge, she popped the lid on her stainless steel coffee mug and stepped out into the bright morning sun to chat and giggle with other people. Several of my colleagues, scenting trouble, turned to stare at me.

  I was alone, and felt it.

  About midway through my class, just before lunch, I wasn’t sure I could take any more. Teaching, especially middle schoolers, is not for the thin of skin. If they see you unraveling, they’ll pick at the threads until you’re naked before them. And today, I was dripping with lo
ose threads. I could practically hear the lip smacking as the more brazen troublemakers mocked my classroom control by talking out of turn and tossing notes in full view.

  I could have used my vampire glare to ensnare them into obedience. But I didn’t. No matter what anyone thought, I was still human, still their teacher. If I wanted to get them to stop acting out, I would do it as an educator. I would instill in them the fascination that was the Doppler shift.

  Right.

  There were always those dusty Carl Sagan VHS tapes that had come with my classroom.

  Coward.

  “Okay.” I drew a car on the board and sketched in a road. “Imagine this Porsche…” There were a few giggles. I was possibly the worst artist ever and my sports car looked like a dumpling on wheels. “Is at a stop sign. Not moving. You’re nearby on the sidewalk.” I added a stick figure on what would be the side of the road. “What do you hear?”

  Every boy in the class and some of the girls made rrrmmm sounds.

  “Right. That’s the sound the stationary idling Porsche makes. Now. What does it sound like when it blows by you?”

  “Neerww.”

  “Can someone tell me the difference between the two sounds?”

  At the back of the room, Lindsay Park raised her hand. “I don’t get it.”

  Teddy Tomkins swiveled on his stool to face her. “One goes rrmmm, the other goes neerrww.”

  She nodded. “Oh.”

  I said diplomatically, “Teddy gave us a good demonstration of the two sounds. Can anyone tell me how one is different from the other?”

  Total silence. Maybe that was the real genius of the Socratic method. You ask a hard question and they shut up. “Can anyone give me another example of something that sounds different when it’s just sitting there as opposed to when it’s moving toward you or away from you?”

  A hand shot up in the front. “A train.”

  “Good example, Dana.” It was the one in the textbook. “Can you tell me how the noise changes when the train is moving?”

  She glanced at her textbook. “It rises in pitch as it approaches the station.”

  I’d bet my next paycheck she had no idea what pitch was.

  I picked up the desk chime one of my students had given me for Christmas last year and waved my hands toward the door. “All right. Everyone in the hall. Quietly. No, leave your stuff. Quietly! Ms. O’Neal’s class is in session. Stand by the water fountain. Two lines.” I poked my head into the biology classroom. “This will just be a minute,” I mouthed. Leah O’Neal nodded without a break in her lecture and I closed the door.

  I headed down to my students. Any attempt at being quiet had gone by the wayside and one of the boys had another in a headlock. “We have to do this quietly so we don’t disturb the upper-school classes, okay?” They settled down. They were so good that I might have suspected I’d inadvertently brought out the vampire glare, but I knew it wasn’t me, even supernatural me, they’d responded to, but the threat of a well-respected high school teacher taking a dislike to them. My good opinion might be expendable on the road to Ivy League collegedom, but the high school teachers’ opinions were everything.

  I picked up the tiny hammer and whacked the chime. A pure, clear tone sang through the hall. I pressed myself against the wall. “Okay. I’m going to strike the chime again and I want you to run by me. Stop when you get to the door of my classroom. As you run, listen to the chime. Tell me if you hear it change or not.”

  I whacked the chime and they ran past, giggling and thumping. I jogged the few yards over to them.

  “What did you hear?” I asked.

  “Everyone running.”

  “Besides that.” I said.

  They looked at each other.

  “Let’s try again. Three at a time. Pay close attention to the sound of the chime as you get close to me and then as you move away from me.”

  I rang the chime and the first group went. I went through the rest of the class. “Okay. Back in the classroom. Now, write down how the chime sounded. You have thirty seconds. Go.”

  “How many of you heard the sound change?” About half the hands went up. “How did it change when you were running toward me?”

  “It got louder!”

  Someone snorted in disgust and corrected, “It got higher!”

  “Exactly.” I began drawing concentric circles around the Porsche. “Here’s why. When the Porsche is at the stop sign, the sound waves travel evenly like waves when you drop a rock in a pond.” I flicked on my overhead projector, stuck a fat glass beaker half-full of water on top and dropped a marble in it. Waves rippled in concentric circles from where I’d dumped the marble. “Like this. When the object moves, it still gives out sound in concentric circles, but…”

  Ten minutes later, as the bell rang, almost everyone had gotten it. I told them, “Not all of you heard the sound change when I rang the chime, and not all of you have really noticed how a car sounds as it passes you on the freeway. But as you go home today, ask your parents to drive in the slow lane and pay attention. If you take the bus, you don’t have to ask the bus drivers. They drive slowly enough already.”

  They left, chatting and excited. It was a miracle. I was giddy with accomplishment. Humming, I erased my diagrams off the white board.

  “What the hell were you doing? It sounded like a herd of elephants running around up here.” Roger stomped into my classroom, doing a good imitation of an elephant himself.

  “Doppler effect. I had them move around to see how pitch changes.”

  I wasn’t sure if the tone had audibly changed at the speed they were moving, but it had been enough to help them grasp the idea behind it.

  “Ridiculous and unnecessary. There’s a very good explanation in the text. Unless you’re letting them off the hook in their homework? Perhaps if you spent more time on mastering basic skills, you wouldn’t need to disrupt others’ class time with stupid stunts.”

  He turned and left, taking my enthusiasm with him. Deflated, I left the board half-erased and went gloomily to lunch. It was a nice warm fall day and almost everybody else was taking advantage of it at the outdoor tables. I caught sight of Carol sitting alone at an inside table. I grabbed a tray of whatever they were serving and went to her like a dumped woman to a box of chocolates.

  As I reached the table, she glanced up from her dressingless salad. Her eyes flashed with confusion and there was hesitancy in her greeting that made me stop in the process of putting down my tray.

  “Not you too,” I said.

  She was slow in responding, which made my temper, barely checked after Roger’s pigheadedness, soar.

  No one was near us, but I lowered my voice anyway. “Oh, for crying out loud. I know Becky’s brains are addled, but I thought you at least would have some sense. I didn’t do it. I would never hurt Becky like that, especially with someone I’m not remotely interested in.”

  Her sweet round face pinched with remorse. “Jo, I didn’t—”

  “You know what? Never mind.”

  I slapped a benign smile on my face for anyone who was watching and left through the side door. We weren’t really supposed to take trays out of the eating area but the cafeteria staff cut the teachers some slack, providing we brought the dishes back when we were done. I carted lunch all the way back to my classroom, slid the tray on a counter then locked the classroom door. I had a terrible, overwhelming urge to put my head down on my desk and cry. Until I saw what lunch was.

  The cafeteria staff often made small batches of gourmet “adult” meals for the faculty. For instance, we got grilled shark when the students got fishwiches.

  Today was one of the special days. I had a gorgeous plateful of Forty Cloves of Garlic Chicken with a side of garlic bread. I couldn’t eat a bite of it. The smell alone was making me nauseous. Instead of crying, I laughed and laughed until the tears streamed down my face.

  *

  A hundred long years later, the school day eventually ended. It had been r
elentlessly miserable from start to finish. The sort of day that made me want to slink home, crawl under the covers with a family-size bag of mini chocolate bars and not come out until I’d received word that the headmaster had finally opened himself to telepathy and accepted my resignation.

  And yet, I lingered. I sat at my desk, working diligently through the “to grade” pile, my classroom door propped open. No one came. At six, after three hours of nonstop grading, my hand was cramped, my eyes swam and my stomach growled with the pain of emptiness. Eleven hours was long enough to spend at work, even if I still had two classes’ worth of tests to grade. I stacked them in my book bag and headed out for a burger.

  I forcibly stifled the little voice in my head. It was loud, actually, as if my mother and grandmother were in there together chiding me about eating yet another red meat takeout meal.

  I’d been eating out a lot lately, but why should I cook? I couldn’t eat half the stuff I liked. My famous spaghetti sauce had garlic. My favorite green chili chicken had tons of it.

  Sure I could take the evil garlic out. The dishes wouldn’t be the same but they would still be good to someone whose taste buds weren’t freakishly skewed to raw meat. I didn’t understand why everything else (Except sugar and caffeine, it seemed.) tasted like bitter poison to me. But it did.

  Anyway, it was a moot point. Regardless of what I had or didn’t have in my fridge, I was going to eat out tonight because I didn’t want to go home. My apartment held too many uncomfortable memories. And my usual way of dealing with crappy days—baking—held no appeal. I didn’t want to be inside. I was tired of having to be inside. I wanted to go out. Be outside breathing in the crisp night air instead of huddling inside.