“Shelby belongs to the Vampire Club at school,” I say. “Those Goths and Emos might join me in the cause.”
“Surround yourself with people like that,” Jack says. “The more Goths and Emos on your side, the better. Remember what I told you earlier, that the Blood Orange Soda is only for you. Don’t give it to Shelby or any students, because that would be a disaster.”
He doesn’t want a group of kids buzzing on Soda, running and leaping down the hallways. “I understand.”
“Now that Kira is downstairs, I want to talk to you about your mother. What I gave her tonight isn’t enough to make much of a difference. She’ll feel better for a few weeks, but then she’ll likely deteriorate more quickly after that time.”
“I started looking for Jonathan online. I know you said it’s not a good idea, but I have to try everything for Mom.”
“Were you able to find him?”
“No, I can’t find anybody with that name on Mom’s Facebook account. I could search each of her friends’ accounts, but that could take weeks, and—”
“Your mom isn’t linked to Jonathan on Facebook anymore. But I am.”
“You are?! Why didn’t you mention it?” I ask.
“I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”
“How come you’re linked to him?”
“I met Jonathan a few times when he and your mom dated. He was a nice guy, and your mom later told me that he was her First Bitten. So when she received her diagnosis years ago, and after your dad died, I started looking for Jonathan for the same reason you’re looking for him now. Once I studied his Facebook profile and followed his updates, I realized there was no way I could ask him to help, and I knew your mom would never approve of me contacting him,” Jack says.
“You and I could contact him now and at least let him know about Mom, and Jonathan could decide for himself if he wants to help,” I say. “If he turns us down, Mom doesn’t need to know.”
“It would certainly take some of the pressure off him. But we’d still be asking a lot of him.”
I hear Kira climbing the staircase and I lower my voice. “I don’t mind asking. Can you forward me his profile and I’ll contact him tomorrow?”
Sunday, October 19
My phone vibrates across the coffee table and I hit the snooze button. Drowsy, I remember we’ve all spent the night at Jack’s. I’m on the couch. It’s five in the morning, and Jack wants me to start my new workout routine today. Rolling off the leather couch, I stand on the cold wood floor. There’s no morning sunrise to greet me. It’s too early even for the sun, and I walk to the kitchen and open the fridge, the harsh white light from inside blinding me. Jack has left me a bottle of Soda. I set it on the center island and stare at it. Am I really going to guzzle this Vampire juice and go for a run in the dark, by myself?
Yes, and I twist off the top and chug it down, gulp after gulp, burping as I walk back to the couch and tie on Jack’s running shoes. He’s left me a sweatshirt on the coffee table, too, which I pull over my head, and shuffle to the door, with a buzz.
Outside, the air is cold enough for me to see my breath, and I’m floating as I step off the curb. The warehouse district is deserted except for a few random zombie-joggers like me staggering toward the running paths along the Mississippi River. Shuffling along the sidewalk, shivering in the October breeze, I curse Jack with each step. How come I’m so out of shape? Or maybe I was never in shape to begin with because I’ve been more of a musician than an athlete. I’ve never had a role model or parent who pushed me into sports, so I’ve gravitated to what I like best, lying around the house, writing music.
My lungs burn and I slow to a walk-jog or a jog-walk until I reach the path along the river, jogging again so I don’t look like a total lazy ass to my fellow runners. Damn, this fitness thing is taxing. This fight training could kill me before Bao gets a chance to!
Despite the fact that my mom looked as if she was at death’s door last night, with blood flowing in and out of her veins, today she’s healthy enough to drag Kira and me to Mass on the way home from Jack’s. No rest for the weary.
We sit through an hour and ten minutes of rituals and a boring homily. The priest never mentions Jesus curing lepers or how the Messiah healed the blind. I’m sitting there waiting for some of the same inspiration that my mom gets from the scriptures, but nothing lands where I can grasp it spiritually. There’s a scripture verse from Romans about how we’re all saved by hope, and with hope we need endurance. Really? Because I’m hoping you’ll wrap it up!
I’ve arranged a night out with Shelby, Weezer, and Angel after dinner. When Shelby arrives at my house, I open the door and greet an exquisite Goth girl. Of course she’s dressed in black, and also has bright purple highlights in her hair, matching her purple eye shadow. Her jacket is open, and her top hangs low enough to show her cleavage beneath a silver cross.
Heavenly!
“Are you going to introduce me to your friend?” my mom asks, standing behind me.
Before I say anything, Shelby reaches out her hand. “Hi, Mrs. Hunter, I’m Shelby.”
I steal a glance at my mom’s eyes. I can always read her moods by how intensely she stares, or if she rolls her eyes. She’s studies Shelby, soaking in the details of her clothing as if she’s in a police lineup.
“Nice to meet you, Shelby. Darius has told me nice things about you,” my mom says with dagger eyes.
Have I? I don’t recall telling my mom very much about Shelby. And what’s with the tough parental attitude?
“We’re picking up Angel and Weezer, and then driving to Starbucks to hang out and do homework,” I say, grabbing my laptop bag by the door.
“What time will you be home?” Mom asks.
“How about eleven?”
“No later.”
Shelby smiles, but I know she’s unsure about my mom. And my mom is obviously nervous about how I’ll behave with this new girl in my life.
We step outside and I close the door and breathe a sigh of relief. That meet and greet wasn’t as awkward as it could’ve been.
“I like your mom, Darius. She seems…nice,” Shelby says politely, as we walk toward a BMW in my driveway.
“She’s not in a great mood. She’s got V2, and sometimes she’s not herself.”
“Ohmygod, Darius, I’m sorry to hear that.” Shelby opens her door.
“It’s been pretty rough,” I say, opening the passenger door before I change the subject. “Nice car!”
“It’s my dad’s. I prefer the MINI,” Shelby says.
The leather seat is warm, and Shelby is next to me at the wheel. This new BMW looks out of place in the driveway of my family’s 1930s railroad ranch home. She obviously comes from money. She starts the engine, and the heated vents waft her perfume through the vehicle.
“You look different tonight,” she says.
“Really? Different how?”
“You look older tonight. You growing a beard?” she asks, touching my left cheek.
“Oh, I use a dull razor.” I pull down the visor, acting as if I’m noticing my five o’clock shadow for the first time.
“I love it,” Shelby says, as we back down the driveway.
This is how many of our greetings will be as we both transform into Vampires. We’ll notice changes and new details that weren’t there before. Every date has the potential to reveal something dramatically new about each other.
“Who should we pick up next?” she asks.
“Angel lives around the corner,” I say. “But before we get to Angel’s, I want to ask you a couple of questions.”
She slows the car and looks at me. “Sure...”
“Would it be okay if I went to the Vampire Club meetings with you?”
“Of course, why not?”
“I dunno, I want to make sure you’re cool with it, since we’re going out. It might get weird. And I want to make more friends before my fight with Bao. My uncle Jack says I should have a crew with me.”
“Thanks, and now the other question: Are you okay with me telling Angel tonight that I’m transforming? Weezer already knows.”
“Sure, I guess so. Are you expecting she’ll be disappointed?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Once my closest friends know I’m transforming, I’ll feel better that I’m not keeping secrets from them, except for the fact that I’m speeding up the process with Blood Orange Soda. That detail will remain confidential for a while longer.
“This is Angel’s house up here on the left,” I say to Shelby.
She slows the car and turns into the driveway, with the headlights shining onto the garage. Angel’s house has a large white porch and she’s sitting closely with Weezer on the porch swing. They stand and walk down the steps, and Weezer looks different tonight. His hair isn’t as wild and teased, and he’s not wearing leather, but a jean jacket instead. They both climb into the back seat, laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Shelby asks.
“Ah, it’s an inside joke,” Angel says. “Sorry.”
I turn from the front seat, cranking my neck to look at Weezer. He’s far less Goth and more like a Normal, with his hair tamed and no guyliner. What happened to the anarchist?
“Hey, Darius,” he says, but I notice a trace of faux cool in his greeting.
“Hey, man,” I reply, and turn around to look out the windshield as Shelby drives up the street. Some of the houses on Angel’s block have Halloween decorations, pumpkins and orange lights wrapped around bushes. For me, all of these colors blur into comet streaks of orange and red as we drive through the night. I chugged my nightly dose of Blood Orange Soda just before Shelby arrived, and the buzz is really starting to hit me. Not sure why I decided to drink it before our date, because I could’ve or should’ve taken my dose at bedtime; but I noticed I feel more confident and loose with a little Soda onboard.
Usually Vampires hate how Normals celebrate and commercialize Halloween with all their candy and lawn art. Tonight, for some reason, I’m enjoying the light show. While Shelby, Angel, and Weezer gab about school, I’m soaring weightless in an orange haze.
“Want to, Darius?” Weezer asks, grabbing my shoulder.
“Want to what?”
“You been daydreaming this entire time?” Shelby asks. “Would your band, Two True, play at my T-Party?”
“Ah, I don’t know,” I say. “We’re not ready, are we, Weezer?”
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” he says. “If Haters despise our music, screw ‘em! Haters are gonna hate!”
“Weezer!” Angel howls.
In the mirror on my visor, I see Angel snuggling tighter to him, shoulder to shoulder, her hand on his knee.
“What? We’re a band, we’re artists,” Weezer says. “Most of what we play is punk, it’s dark stuff. And as Darius transforms, our original songs will get even darker, right, bro?”
“As Darius transforms?” Angel repeats. I feel her leaning on the back of my seat. “You’re off the Reds?”
Leave it to Weezer to open his big mouth! Why am I surprised?
“Yeah, several days ago I stopped taking them. It’s no big thing. I was going to tell you tonight.”
“Congratulations, Darius. This is a huge step,” Angel says. “I’m happy for you. That’s exciting.”
“Thanks, Angel,” I say.
I look back at her to see if she’s genuinely happy for me. She moves her hand from Weezer’s knee and pats me on the shoulder. Even though she’s grinning, there’s pain in there somewhere. Maybe I should’ve told her myself when we were alone. I feel terrible that she, of all people, is the last to know about my decision.
The four of us are crowded around a small table at Starbucks, and the coffee grinder drowns out our words. Shelby points out a Popular girl, Chelsea, who she knows from St. Cloud Apollo. She describes her as a “frenemy,” which is really an enemy disguised as a friend—the kind of girl who is nice to you while stabbing you in the back. Angel nods as we listen to Shelby’s gossip, but I know Angel doesn’t like how Shelby labels people from Apollo. Even I wonder if Chelsea would use the same frenemy label for Shelby. Keep your friends close and keep your frenemies even closer.
To lighten the mood I take my Mac out of my backpack and set it on the table, moving everyone’s drinks aside.
“What’s with the laptop? We writing lyrics tonight?” Weezer asks.
“No, we’re surfing Facebook.”
“BORING!” Weezer says, sipping his café mocha. “Facebook is dead. Nobody uses Facebook anymore.”
“Yeah, put it away, Darius,” Shelby says.
“Our parents use Facebook. We’re creeping on a page of one my mom’s former boyfriends,” I explain.
“Even more BORING!” Weezer says again.
“Why would you care about your mom’s old boyfriend?” Angel asks.
Logging into Facebook, I say, “The man’s name is Jonathan Wurtz, and he’s my mom’s First Bitten.”
“Ohmygod, let me see what he looks like,” Shelby says.
She grabs the laptop and we see Jonathan has a baseball cap on, so we can’t see if he’s balding, but he has blond sideburns.
“Looks like he lives in Chicago. Click on his photo album,” Shelby says.
“What’s so important about your mom’s First Bitten?” Angel asks.
“Oh, God, here we go!” Weezer says, folding his arms. “Vampire minutia.”
“A first bite is a big thing for Vampires?” Shelby says to Angel, with a smidge of condescending up-talk.
Angel rolls her eyes and looks over at Weezer as I click on one of Jonathan’s photo albums, searching for a good close-up of him. Most of his photos are group shots with family and friends. And it looks as if he has two sons that are a couple of years older than me.
“If that’s his wife, she’s beautiful,” I say, pointing to a photo of a woman standing next to Jonathan. They’re both on mountain bikes in a forest.
“Not so BORING; let me see the cougar,” Weezer says, reaching for my laptop, spinning it around so he and Angel can see the photo. “Yeah, that guy married a hottie. Although, I would like to officially state that Darius’ mom is also in the hot category.”
“You’re gross,” Angel says to Weezer.
“Thanks, man,” I say, as he and I pound fists. “Wish I could say the same thing about your mom.”
Shelby squeezes my arm. “Hey, be nice?”
“Why is it such a big deal to be a First Bitten?” Angel asks me.
Before I can answer, Shelby explains to Angel how and why Vampires bite. Because Shelby grew up in a Vampire home like me, she understands the sensitivity of biting someone. It’s interesting to hear this from a girl my age instead of as a dire warning from my mom or Jack. When Shelby gets to the part about true love and submission, I notice tears welling in Angel’s eyes.
“Your mom bit this man, but he never transformed,” she says. “He wasn’t in love with her?”
“He was in love with her,” I explain. “But he wasn’t ready to transform, and so he’s lived all these years on the Reds.”
“And he went on to marry somebody else and start his own family?” Shelby says. “Why are we creeping on his page?”
“My mom’s dying. There’s nothing left to do at this point.”
“Your mom wants to say a final goodbye to Jonathan?” Shelby asks.
Now, to my surprise, Weezer sits up and starts lecturing Shelby and Angel.
“No, he’s trying to save his mom’s life. If a Vampire with V2 receives a bite from his or her First Bitten, there’s a chance of permanent remission of the disease. Am I right, Darius?”
“Yes, Jonathan might be able to save her,” I confirm.
“That’s amazing,” Shelby says.
“If it’s true,” Weezer says.
“Of course it’s true; right, Darius?” Angel asks.
�
��There are all kinds of myths and potions created around curing V2. But that’s bat crap,” Weezer says. “Sorry, Darius, don’t get your hopes up for nothing.”
What’s with Weezer tonight? He’s dressed like a Normal and he has a condescending attitude about anything Vampire tonight. It’s possible he really cares about me and doesn’t want me to get my hopes up, but he’d be more believable if he dressed Goth and quit the whole Normal kid persona.
“My uncle Jack says it doesn’t always work. It’s not foolproof,” I admit. “There’s a chance, though.”
“You’re contacting Jonathan to ask him if he’ll transform into a Vampire so he can bite your mom and save her?” Shelby asks.
“Yeah, I have to try.”
Weezer sighs. “Come on, man—”
“What? I think this is romantic, uniting two long-lost lovers for one more bite,” Shelby says to Weezer. “What do you think, Angel?”
“I don’t see why he shouldn’t at least try,” she says. “But I need to use the restroom, so don’t do anything until I get back.”
“I need to call home,” Shelby says.
Angel walks back to the restroom and Shelby follows behind her before she steps outside to make her phone call. There’s distance between them; they’re not instant best friends.
“What’s with Shelby’s attitude?” Weezer asks.
“Shelby’s attitude?”
“The all-superior Goth princess. Fuggar, please.”
“She’s nervous around Angel, that’s all,” I say. “What’s with the Normal costume?”
“This? Oh, it’s not that Normal,” he says, adjusting his collar.
“It’s extremely Normal! You look like you stepped out of a J. Crew store window. You don’t look Goth at all, mother fuggar!!”
“I’m on a date with Angel, so I toned it down a bit,” Weezer says. “Be chill.”
“You two are dating?” I say with doubt.
“What? You have a girlfriend, why shouldn’t I?”
Blood Orange Soda: Paranormal Romance Page 11