by Ifè Oshun
These reasons, combined with his ability to bring the truth out of me, made our relationship dangerous. Not only because I wanted to tell him all my secrets, but also because the intense attraction might cause me to lose control and take his life.
Cici agreed with my conclusions the next day as we drove to The Nest. I listened to her insights anxiously while clutching Sawyer’s flowers and another vase Jules and LaLa brought on their way from the choreography rehearsal I’d missed.
“Really, Angel,” she said, “there's no way you can reveal who, and what, you are to him without putting him in danger.” She politely waved another driver on and hung back as the other car merged into the traffic in front of us. “You can't have a real relationship without truth. The only mortals who know what we are are donors, and they’re compelled.” She came to a complete stop at the yellow light. I became impatient with the responsible speed at which we were traveling. I was starving. I zoned out on Cici and focused on not jumping out of the car to run the rest of the way. By the time we got there, Justin was already waiting.
Cici made her way over to the bar and I plopped myself down on our couch next to him. “You got here fast,” I said, noticing his sweaty brow. I reached into the small tableside refrigerator and poured a glass of Gatorade for him. He quickly finished the drink, unbuttoned his shirt, and offered his neck. The muscles in his arms bulged more than last time and his natural scent mixed with the sweat smell. He put his hand on the timer, and that was all I needed. I pushed him back on the couch.
Afterwards, we sat with our arms wrapped around each other. I listened to his blood sing in my veins, and pondered the facts learned about him during this session. “You really love banana pudding that much?”
“I could love you more,” he said in a low voice.
I froze in place. My head was on his shoulder, the place it always rested until we both calmed down from the feeding. But today he wasn’t calming down; his heart was actually beating faster. And he was saying a word I couldn’t wrap my head around. Love? Mom’s warning about the inequity between Shimshana and their donors rang in my head. There was no way I could have a relationship with Justin, even though he was attractive, strong, honest, and the only mortal I didn’t have to hide parts of myself from. I felt safe and comfortable with him. It would seem like the perfect match. But it could never be. He was a donor.
“Justin, I think you’re suffering from something called Blood—”
“Don’t patronize me, Angel,” he interrupted. “Blood Obsession is one of the longest chapters in the donor textbook. I know all about it, and know it can drive you to do and say things you’d never do before the blood tie.” He placed my hand in his and looked into my eyes. “But, I’m not suffering from it,” he asserted, “and I always mean what I say.”
He sunk his nose into my hair for a few seconds before leaving me to wonder if our blood tie was still a good idea.
“That’s a no-brainer, sis,” Cici said later as we made our way home. “I knew a girl who fell for her donor. She said it was like being in love with a loyal house pet. The deeper he got into her, the more he lost himself. They married and had one kid. Mortal. Now he and the kid are dead. Forty years later, she’s still clinically depressed, was even hospitalized for a while after she’d driven herself crazy with guilt.” She shook her head. “The Justin issue almost makes the Sawyer issue look hopeful. By the way, he called the hospital earlier when you were asleep. He wanted to know how your, ahem, injury was healing.”
I was eager to call Sawyer back. After thinking about him all night (I'd finally fallen asleep around 4:19 a.m.), I had a ton of questions: what was his middle name? Did he have any brothers and sisters? How did he occupy his time when he wasn't making music? Did he miss Georgia? Did he even like Boston? Did he think about me as much as I thought about him? As Cici took the right turn at negative five miles per hour, I willed her to drive faster. Safety first, Bighead.
Once I was finally in the privacy of my room, I dialed Sawyer. As usual, he was in the studio. “Feel better?” he asked into the phone. One of our tracks played in the background.
“Nothing a Band Aid couldn't fix.”
“I'm building out a track right now,” he said. “Having a hard time. Can I come over for some vocals? I'll bring a portable recorder and you can sing into it. That is, if you're up to it.”
“I'm fine. It's fine. Come on.” I hung up. Whoa, I'd just invited Sawyer Creed to my house before asking permission. Anxiety caused me to float helplessly down the hallway.
“Breathe Angel, jeez,” Cici said from the top of the stairs. I did, and came back to the floor.
“He’s coming over to work on a track.”
“No!”
“I know! I didn't even ask Mom and Dad.”
“No, I'm saying you need to get ready. You look like a hot mess.”
Mom was at the office. Down in the basement, Dad arched an eyebrow when I told him. “Angel, we always have an open-door policy for your friends. Just make sure you keep the door open to whatever room you two are in.” He went back to the piece of furniture he was building.
Angel, come up quickly, Cici transmitted.
I raced up to her room, and was standing there before she finished the word “quickly.”
“What's wrong?”
“Put these on,” she said urgently while pressing clothes into my arms.
“I’m not getting dressed up. That's just lame.”
“This is not dressing up. But to you anything that doesn't involve flannel, denim and/or fleece is formal. I'm just saying something a little bit more feminine might be in order.”
“No,” I repeated before jetting through the walls and back to my room to put on jeans and a designer t-shirt.
But, I did take time to attend to my hair. It grew thicker and faster since my change and now it surrounded my face like a zigzagged mass. Cici appeared behind me in the mirror.
“Help,” was all I could say.
She immediately began, at an immortal speed, creating a French braid from the crown of my head to the nape of my neck. I sighed with the pleasure I always felt when Cici braided my hair. In a few seconds, the braid was done. I handed her a scrunchie. “You've got to be kidding,” she said before tossing it in the wastebasket and disappearing.
She came back with a hair claw covered with pink crystals and intricate patterns. She affixed it onto the braid and transmitted what she saw so I could see the back of my head in my mind. “Pretty, right?” I nodded in agreement.
“Angel, have lunch before your guest arrives,” Dad boomed from below.
I jetted through the floor to the kitchen and chucked down some stored Justin, which Mom had warmed for me before heading off to work. I went back to my room and sat on the bed to wait. It wasn't long before I heard his footsteps outside.
“Such confident footfalls,” Cici joked from within her room. Dad cleared his throat in the basement before heading up to open the door.
I was confused, and unsure if I should wait until Dad called me, then casually saunter down to greet him, or go now and eagerly welcome him into our home.
This is what you do. Take a few extra seconds to check your makeup. Well, in your case, since you don't wear makeup, just make sure your face looks okay, there's nothing in your nose, no splatters of blood on your mouth, etc.
I looked in the mirror. I seemed a little too wild-eyed... Deep breath, and then another...
“Angel, your guest is here,” Dad yelled.
By the time I made my way, mortally, down the stairs to the main level, Dad and Sawyer were sitting in the family room. Their conversation revolved around the Sox, the Celts, and the Pats. They both turned to me.
“Hi,” I said while chewing the inside of my cheek.
Was it my imagination or did Sawyer’s eyes light up? “Hi.”
Dad tugged at his earlobe and scowled at us for a second. He then unfolded his long frame and headed back to his shop.
“You look like you were never in the hospital.”
“Told you it was nada. Want something to drink?”
He accepted a bottle of mineral water before following me down the hall. I was aware of him quietly walking behind me as I entered the living room, and because I was embarrassed at what my eyes would give away, avoided his gaze for as long as I could. When I finally turned to face him, he was sitting at the grand, flipping through the sheet music on the stand.
“Pucinni. La Bohème,” he read out loud. It was one of my favorite pieces, and was still unfolded on the stand as it had been since the last session with Mr. C.
“O Soave Fancìulla,” I responded. “It's a duet.”
“I know,” he said. “It's my favorite opera.”
I felt my face frown at his subtle admonishment, and felt guilty, yet again, for underestimating him. His fingers tinkled with the piano keys. And then he started to play. And I could say nothing, do nothing except helplessly listen to him sing in a soft tenor:
“The dream that I see in you/
is the dream I’ll always dream”
His voice was pop, but his pronunciation of the Italian was perfect. My knees trembled and I leaned against the piano for support. I joined him in the duet, my heart hammering against my ribcage like a songbird on fast-forward. My voice tailored itself to his and complemented his husky delivery.
The guy I'd once dismissed as a musical fraud was now in my home playing my heartstrings in a way I never knew could be so beautiful. He held my gaze through the rest of the song. The room glowed with the gorgeous notes, and there was nothing except music and him.
We reached the final notes, where he humbly deferred to me.
“Amore!”
I sang full out. His lips stretched into a smile as he pressed the final notes and watched me deliver the last vocals. The music came to a climatic end as his smile burned a brilliant pattern into my brain.
My feet were nowhere near the ground. He gasped, and abruptly stood up. We were almost face-to-face. “Wow,” he whispered, wide-eyed, as he cupped my face in his hands and leaned his lips toward mine. As if in a dream, I breathed in his scent.
Angel!
My face fell when Dad appeared in the doorway behind Sawyer.
He’s seen you levitate. Dad has to glamour him, Cici transmitted as Dad silently approached Sawyer from behind. I'm so sorry, Angel.
“No, Daddy!” Unwilling to watch, I turned away.
There was a brief silence, then I turned back around. Dad was gone, and Sawyer sat at the grand again, flipping through the sheet music as he had before.
It was as if the duet never happened.
“Perhaps we should get started on the track,” he said, seemingly unaware of the magic that had happened between us just minutes ago and how it changed my life forever. I nodded and refused to cry, since surely the sight of my bloody tears would warrant another glamouring.
We went to work. I sang a few takes as he played the track. As soon as he recorded what he needed, he rose to leave. His brow knitted into a frown as he tersely thanked me for my time.
Cici squatted next to where I had thrown myself on the floor after closing the door behind Sawyer. “Don't make that mistake again, sis. Forget about him.”
She reached out to comfort me, but I pushed her hand away and pressed my lips together to swallow the devastating sound rising up from my shattered heart.
19. THE GARDEN
Since I was the one “recovering,” the girls came over to my house a couple times to work on the tracks, teach me Redd’s choreography, and practice the song we were going to perform at the Garden gig. Although we had performed “Get Out Of Here” numerous times over the past year, Julietta had some ideas for adding spice to the existing harmonies. Thanks to Mr. C.’s “love” technique, the passionate emotions the song always evoked in me were channeled through my voice, and seemed to affect the girls, too. As a result, our collective delivery sounded better than ever.
After rehearsing, we were sprawled about the family room writing lyrics, and drinking tea and hot chocolate. A fire roared in the fireplace, and outside, the snow was coming down in a torrent. Mom called from the kitchen. “Would you girls like some cookies?”
“Yes!” they yelled back enthusiastically. They always loved Mom’s holiday cookies. I, on the other hand, would never again enjoy those miniature snowmen, reindeer, and elves.
“Mmmm…so good,” LaLa said as she dunked one into the hot chocolate. I watched her, jealously sipping my “hot chocolate” which really wasn’t hot chocolate at all. Cici had finally perfected a drink glamour that allowed me to drink blood that looked and smelled to mortals like anything I announced it to be. Dad deemed it brilliant.
“I’m not going to eat anything else today,” Julietta said as she stuffed another cookie into her mouth. She was back on her diet.
“Giiirrrl, you better stop that crazy bulimia thing or you’ll end up with osteoporosis,” LaLa said with crumbs flying out of her mouth.
“Whatever. Did he really take the blame for you getting shot?” Julietta asked me.
They both waited for an answer.
“He said it was because he’d asked me to look at houses with him.” Their eyes opened wide before they burst into giggles.
“Has he kissed you yet?” LaLa probed.
Weird. That was the sort of thing Julietta would ask. I felt my face frown. “It’s not like that.”
“Yeah, right,” Julietta said with an uncharacteristically cynical tone.
The idea of kissing Sawyer was almost too much to bear. To be so close to him, to actually taste him…the thought alone was almost enough to send me over the edge. I bit into a cookie. It tasted like what I imagined kitty litter might, but it distracted me from fantasizing about tasting Sawyer. Masochistically, I continued to chew.
# # #
Days later not even our annual family Christmas activities could take my mind off of kissing Sawyer. While we shopped for and decorated the tree, the idea of what would happen if I ever got that close to him tormented me. Singing happy carols couldn’t make me forget that I’d literally eat him alive.
Our first family ski break of the year, scheduled earlier to accommodate the weekend’s Garden gig, couldn’t take away the dreadful thoughts. You’d think I’d be enjoying my new immortal prowess on the slopes, but no. All I could think about was whether Sawyer liked to ski. I was obsessed. Mom and Dad kept looking at me as if I’d lost my mind. Cici’s telepathic silence on the topic was louder than an “I told you so.” They all knew what I knew. That if I’d manage to keep Sawyer alive after the first taste, there would be no hope of him living much longer.
These thoughts were still in the back of my mind a couple days later when the stretch Hummer, sent by Quake Records, showed up at the door.
“Sure beats the Green Line,” LaLa said, referring to Boston’s mass transit system. She ran her hands over the leather seats. There was a pop-music mix pumping through the speakers, and we hummed along to the tunes to warm up our vocal chords. It was more of an attempt, on my part, to continue to look “normal” since I no longer needed to warm up. My voice was now capable of going from zero to one-sixty in a matter of seconds.
Julietta, the first to get picked up, nursed a cup of hot water and lemon. She pointed to the hot water dispenser, and I leaned forward to fix myself a cup before locating some honey, stirring and staring out the window at the city. Outside, a fresh top layer of snow was being whipped into mini tornadoes by gusts of freezing wind; a quantum leap from the vehicle’s warm luxury.
I caught the look of disbelief on LaLa's face. “It's like a too-good-to-be-true dream,” she said, gesturing to our surroundings. “One part of my mind says something bad’s going to happen.”
“Yep,” Jules chimed in. “It's surreal. But we worked for this. It's been four years and a thousand gigs. And did we rock rehearsal or what?”
Earlier, we had a technical rehearsal on the Garden st
age. And the effect my emotions had on others while singing, what I had sensed during my rehearsals with the girls, was confirmed. I’d felt excited. Excited about being in control of my voice, excited to be on the stage, and excited just to be alive. Through my voice, my excitement was transferred to everyone around me—stagehands, producers, stage managers, assistants, the girls; everybody was amped up, too.
This confirmation made me wonder, though…were Sawyer’s feelings during our duet real…or a result of transferring my own emotions through my voice?
I still pondered that question as the Hummer pulled into the backstage entrance to the Garden. Nina, dressed in a sharp black suit and heels, waited by the entrance. She led us through a maze of corridors and access-restricted areas until we got to our dressing room.
It was two hours before we were due on stage. Nina left us to our own devices, promising she'd see us backstage after we were done. We hardly noticed she’d left because the sight of our outfits took all our attention.
They were awesome.
All three were silver, pink and white, but each one reflected the personality of the wearer. LaLa’s consisted of skin-tight pants, a tank, and a glistening baseball cap, while both Jules and I got miniskirts. I got stilettos and angel wings and Jules had the knee-high platform boots and beaded headgear. I sashayed around with the wings on. They were surprisingly comfortable. “Good,” stone-faced Risa said, detaching the wings to allow me to sit for makeup and hair.
“Not so good,” LaLa said as we all took in the way Jules’ outfit hung on her.
“How much weight did you lose this time?” I asked. Julietta looked down at her body as if she was seeing it for the first time.
“About twelve pounds,” she answered.
As LaLa and I voiced our disapproval of Jules’ crash-dieting, an emotionless Risa sat down at her portable sewing machine and started taking in material without a word. Meanwhile, we practiced our harmonies until the makeup artist kept our lips too busy. The hairstylist worked until my face, neck, and shoulders were framed by a mass of silky spirals. Soon, Julietta's costume was ready. I didn't know much about sewing, but was impressed by Risa’s quickness with the alterations. Jules’ outfit fit her perfectly.