Vesper

by Jeff Sampson

  Slowly I rolled over and peered at the clock.

  8:11. 8:12. 8:13.

  I held my breath, waiting. It had happened yesterday at 8:14. The cramps, or the seizure, whatever it was.

  “So,” I said aloud as I watched the clock, “it’s just you and me now, other Emily. Uh, if it is you. It’s probably not, is it?”

  The clock still read 8:13.

  I clenched my fists. “This is stupid. Of course this isn’t you. Ghosts aren’t real.”

  I squinted, making the clock’s number blur before opening my eyes wide again. As before: 8:13.

  “But just in case, if it is you? Try not to get me killed.”

  The room remained silent. Nothing rattled in response to my talking. No ghostly moans, no slamming doors. And then, finally, the clock changed. 8:14.

  Nothing happened.

  8:15. 8:16.

  Still nothing.

  I let out the breath I’d been holding, my body relaxing. It wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to change.

  “Not tonight, huh, other Emily?” I muttered.

  I thought I’d be relieved. It was over. It wasn’t going to happen.

  But I wanted it too. I wanted to be her. I wanted to just escape the dreary, mundane life I’d buried myself in, even if it was only for one more night.

  “No,” I muttered. Holding up Ein so that we were nose to snout, I said, “I can’t think like this. I can’t want to be like—”

  I gasped as the pain tore through my gut. Retching, I grabbed my stomach and curled into a ball on my bed, grinding my teeth and clenching my eyes closed as nausea swirled inside of me, that same poisonous, vomitous feeling I’d had the night before.

  “Oh God,” I wheezed. “Oh God . . .”

  Then it was over. Much quicker than before.

  And as I lay there, surveying my surroundings through glasses that now made my room a blurry mess of beige and black, I said to myself, “Actually, yes to escaping a dreary, mundane life.”

  Sitting up, I reached my arms over my head, stretching. My body felt rigid, tight, like I hadn’t used it correctly in hours. Since last night, at least. I stretched out my legs, kicking Ein to the floor, where he tumbled belly up in the corner.

  As I moved my legs, my pocket crinkled. I reached in and pulled out a crumpled wad of pink paper. Smoothing it open, I took off my glasses so I could read the hideous mishmash of fonts on the invitation Spencer had pressed into my hand earlier that day.

  The show must go on, I read. Mikey’s Third Annual Start of School Bash is what you need to raise your spirits. Come remember and celebrate the life of our friend Emily Cooke with others who knew and miss her.

  Urges flashed in my head, the same ones as the night before: Dominate. Find the one with the right scent. Prepare. I needed to do these things.

  My daytime self had spent so much time, so many years, wasting away in her quiet little shell. A party seemed a perfect place to reach for the limits. Someplace I could take my new self and . . . experiment.

  I scanned the page. The party started at eight and was going on till eleven. Plenty of time for me to be fashionably late.

  “Celebrate life?” I said to myself. “Sounds like a plan.”

  Chapter 8

  Thanks for the PSA

  “Stop whatever boring thing you’re doing. We’re going to a party.”

  Dawn sat at her desk, fingers poised above her laptop, as I burst into her room.

  “Civilized people knock, Emily,” she said. Clicking a few buttons on her computer, she saved whatever she was doing and turned in her chair to face me.

  I strode to her desk and slapped the wrinkled pink invitation on top of it. “Read that,” I said, “and tell me you don’t feel like going to liven it up.”

  Dawn did just that, pushing a loose strand of her perfectly glossy hair behind her ear. She gave the page a withering look as she read.

  “Uh, a high school ‘bash’?” she said. “Not really my scene. And who says ‘bash,’ seriously?”

  I laughed. “Pretentious high school kids who need our awesome selves around to show them how to have a good time. You in?”

  Arching one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows, she turned her withering glance in my direction. “Dude, are you feeling all right?”

  I pushed myself away from Dawn’s desk and opened her closet. Digging through her clothes, I said, “I feel great! You said it yourself the other day, I’m finally unleashing the daring side you always knew I had.” Taking out a pink top on its hanger, I held it up to myself and scrutinized its effectiveness in the mirror on Dawn’s closet door. “I’ve been a boring, timid little girl for too long. It’s time the world knows my name, have Webster’s put my picture next to the definition of ‘awesome.’”

  I turned to her and shook the blouse. “What do you think?” I asked.

  Hands pressed together in front of her face as though in prayer, Dawn could hardly hide her smile. She got to her feet and yanked the blouse from my hands.

  “Pink is so not your color.” Holding it up to herself, she said, “But my skin is, like, the perfect shade of tan to pull this off right now.”

  “So you’re going to come with me?”

  She laughed. “Oh, sure, dude. Screw my essay. High school party or no, I am so not missing out on your big public debut. I’ve put far too much work into you!”

  Dawn quickly went all extreme makeover on me, holding up shirts and skirts and shoes. Frowning as she dug through her closet, she muttered about not being able to find these awesome thigh-high stiletto boots she loved. I pursed my lips and said nothing.

  We found me a green tank that showed just enough cleavage. “But not too much,” Dawn said. “You don’t want to look gross and trashy like you did the other night—sorry, but it’s true.” We got changed and put on our makeup and were ready to go by nine. Giving my dad and her mom some excuse about going to see a movie, soon we were in Dawn’s car and on our way.

  Mikey Harris’s house was one of those tall, stately McMansions you usually only see on those MTV faux- reality shows. The long driveway and most of the street in front of his endless lawn were filled with cars: half, the junky eight-hundred-dollar cars most teens get saddled with; the other half shiny sports cars that probably cost more than my dad makes in a year, gifts to the rich kids from their parents. The whole front of the house was lit up, and I could see shadows behind the bay windows. Some guys were hanging out on the porch sipping from red plastic cups.

  I leaped from the car before Dawn even had it in park and headed up the front walkway, Dawn shouting at me to wait up while she got out of the car.

  I sighed and halted for just a moment. As I waited, someone brushed a hand against my arm.

  Recoiling, I turned to face whoever had touched me. It was a boy—or a man, I couldn’t quite tell—wearing a tan Dick Tracy duster and a brimmed hat that hid his face in shadow.

  “Can I help you?” I asked.

  The guy cleared his throat. In a gravelly voice, he said, “Emily Webb? Daughter of—”

  Dawn appeared then and grabbed me by the arm. “No thanks, not interested,” she said to him as she pulled me up the driveway. “You know that guy?” she asked when he was out of earshot.

  I looked back to see him still standing near the street, watching me, his face not visible.

  “No,” I said as I pulled my arm free of her grasp. “No clue. Just some drunk kid, I guess.”

  But he knew your name, some part of me shouted in my brain. He asked whose daughter you were. That’s strange!

  I ignored the voice. I didn’t want to spend time worrying about some random drunk when there was fun to be had. Leaving the weirdo behind us, we reached the guys sitting sentry outside the front door. They ogled us, eyes gleaming.

  “Hey,” I said. “Where’s everyone? I expected more people.”

  One of the guys, a tall, gangly kid with no chin, smiled goofily. “They’re all in the den watching some movie. Yo
u haven’t missed much.”

  “A movie?” Dawn said, disappointed.

  “Awesome,” I said, striding past the guys to the front door.

  As I reached for doorknob, the gangly guy’s friend—squat and round with a shaved head—reached out a hand and brushed my thigh. I swatted him away.

  “Hey,” Dawn said, grabbing his wrist. “Don’t—”

  The guy held up both hands like he was facing off with police. “I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to hang with me inside. You know, get some alone time.”

  I said, “You couldn’t handle me alone. Keep your hands to yourself, Short Round.”

  The gangly kid let out a low “Ooooh,” and Dawn laughed. Then I was opening the front door and stepping into the house’s massive foyer. Dawn whispered in my ear as we passed some kids hanging out on the stairs leading to the second floor, “You handled that like a pro, Em. I don’t know what’s come over you, but I like it.”

  “Get used to it,” I said to her. “No more nice, boring Emily Webb.”

  Off the foyer, a pair of double doors opened onto a massive entertainment room. All the shiny, popular teenagers I saw every day at school were huddled together in pairs on the long couches and plush chairs set around the room. Everyone was silent, their eyes on the fifty-six-inch plasma hanging on the wall. The only sound came from the surround-sound speakers. The video was a home movie of a pretty blond girl dancing like a fool, hanging out around school, and cheering on friends at games.

  Emily Cooke.

  They were watching a movie about tall, pretty, popular, and extremely dead Emily Cooke while through the speakers some whiny chick playing a piano wailed a complete downer of a song. I saw some girls resting their heads against one another, sniffling back tears. A tall, well-built guy with slicked-over brown hair I recognized as our host, Mikey Harris, sat on the long black coffee table in front of the screen, deadly serious as he watched the movie play.

  A bunch of puffy-eyed kids crying over the poor dead girl—not exactly how I expected my first high school party to be, let alone Mikey’s “famous” start-of-school-year bash. This was, in a word, lame. No, “lame” doesn’t even do this party justice. Let’s break out some modifiers: completely lame. Massively lame. Humongously, utterly, humorlessly LAME.

  Dawn and I stood behind everyone under the arch of the open double doors. Dawn muttered, “What is this, some sort of wake?”

  I let out an irritated sigh, then took hold of Dawn’s arm and led her back into the foyer. The people back here were sitting on the steps or in the chairs near the front door, drinking from plastic cups and talking quietly among themselves.

  “Please tell me this isn’t the type of party you always raved about,” I hissed.

  “Hey, don’t look at me,” she said. “I must have missed the part on the flyer where it said to dress in black and put on a mourning veil.” Realization in her eyes, her mouth dropped open. “Wait a sec, they said this was a celebration of someone named Emily Cooke. Was that the girl who died?”

  “Yeah. Even dead, the other Emily overshadows me.”

  Dawn let out a disgruntled sigh. “Well, you could have given me a heads-up, Emily. We’re not exactly dressed appropriately.” She gazed through the doorway at the kids, then turned away in thought. After a moment, she put her arm around my shoulder to guide me down the hall away from the milling teens. “Well, I guess maybe it’s a good thing it’s not so crazy here. It’s your first party, it’s probably good to start slow, maybe talk with some of the others about what happened to your friend. Besides, it’s a school night. Your dad would kill me if I let you get too wild.”

  I grunted. I did not want slow. I wanted to blow these people’s minds, for them to worship at my stylish yet affordable boots, for them to say, “Who’s the cool new girl?” then gawk once they heard it was that quiet girl they never paid any attention to.

  But before I could say anything, someone behind us called out, “Dawn? Dawn Michaels?”

  We turned to see two perfectly pretty, perfectly bland girls by the stairs. I didn’t recognize them, so I figured they were seniors.

  “Oh my God, Emma!” Dawn squealed. “Lindsey!”

  The two girls squealed right back and rushed over to pull Dawn into a bouncy, high-pitched hug.

  “Oh, Dawn, we’ve missed you!” said the leggy one with the slick blond hair.

  “I’m so glad to see you haven’t forgotten us little people,” said the one with the neck and the slick brown hair.

  Both of them had big anime eyes surrounded by dark liner and giant white teeth. They reminded me of cartoon horses.

  “No, of course not!” Dawn said.

  “Are you here about Emily?” the blond one said. “It’s so sad, isn’t it? She was, like, only a year younger than us.”

  “And she was so pretty,” the other one piped up.

  “Actually, I was just bringing my sister to her first high school party.” Dawn put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me over. “This is Emily—another Emily. You guys probably know her from around school.”

  The two girls looked me over, their faces falling slightly though they did their best to keep their perky smiles plastered on their overly bronzered faces. “No, can’t say we do,” Blondie Legs said.

  “Hello,” Necky Brunette said.

  I scrunched my cheeks into a smile I so wasn’t feeling, but said nothing. I was about to beg off and flee this dead party, take Dawn to find something more fun to do, when I heard noises coming from a room down the hall. Heavy thumps and some frat-boy-in-training trademark whoops.

  Sounded like a place I could have some fun.

  “Oh, you have to come tell us all about college,” Blondie said, grabbing Dawn’s hands.

  Dawn bit her lip and looked between me and the two senior girls. “Do you mind, Em? I don’t want you to feel like I’m ditching you, but there’s nothing much going on, party-wise. . . .”

  I waved my hand. “Nah, it’s cool, go chat. I’ll . . . mingle. Uh, talk about my friend, reminisce, and all that.”

  Shrugging apologetically, Dawn let herself be pulled up the stairs.

  The whoops from down the hall were joined now by loud, deep laughter. Following the sounds, I left behind the slow memorial music wafting from the main room and found myself at the entrance to Mikey Harris’s giant kitchen.

  Half a dozen guys stood around the island in the center of the kitchen surrounded by stacks and stacks of twelve-packs. One was ripped open and sat on the counter beneath the dangling pots and pans. Crushed, empty cans littered the countertop, some scattered across the black-and-white tiled floor.

  I recognized several guys from the football team. The tallest and by far the hottest was Dalton McKinney, the star quarterback and one of the many princes of the Carver High campus. Clean-cut good looks, slender yet muscular build, close-cropped red hair, friendly green eyes, boyish freckles—he was the face of good ol’ boy football and the unofficial leader of the team. I’d had a few classes with him, and he just seemed sickeningly nice, especially for a jock. He was always offering to help teachers after class and was tirelessly kind toward nerds and jocks alike. He probably even assisted old ladies across the street and spent his weekends volunteering at the hospital as a candy striper.

  I’d more or less written him off as practically perfect and intensely dull. So I felt a thrill seeing him here with his letterman jacket half hanging off, his hair a tousled mess, and letting out the loudest whoops of the gathered guys while he banged back two beers in quick succession.

  With a satisfied gasp, he slammed the can down against the counter, crushing it with the top of his hand. The other guys cheered.

  I leaned against the doorjamb and applauded.

  With glazed eyes, all the guys turned in my direction. Their expressions immediately took on lecherous little twinkles. Deep down, I felt my daytime side’s brief rush of embarrassment and then a surge of elation. She’d never before felt what it was like
to be looked at like this.

  Which is why I was around.

  I strode into the room. “Looks like the real party’s in here,” I said. Reaching the island, I leaped to sit atop it, my butt hitting a pile of crushed cans and sending them clattering to the floor. “Mind if I join?”

  One of the football players, a short, barrel-chested guy I recognized as Zach Nickerson, bent over the counter so that his head hovered above my lap, his eyes locked on mine.

  “Baby, I’ve been waiting for you to join us all my life,” he said. “What’s your name? You new around here?”

  I tilted my head back and laughed. “Are you kidding? I’ve gone to school with you since fifth grade. It’s Emily.”

  Zach jerked back, scowling. “Not cool,” he said. “Emily is—”

  “Not Emily Cooke, doofus. Emily Webb. This is what I look like without the glasses. Take ’em off, I look hot. It’s like magic.”

  Zach didn’t seem to pay attention. Moments before he’d been whooping it up, but now he seemed immediately sobered. Muttering, “Not cool,” under his breath once more, he grabbed the last can of beer from the twelve-pack on the counter and headed out into the hallway, one of the other guys following behind.

  I jerked my thumb at Zach’s retreating back and asked, “What’s his problem?”

  Dalton burst into a deep laugh. “He’s drunk. Doesn’t know how to handle someone out of his league like your fine self.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the stink of beer on his breath. But then I smelled something else. The musky, masculine, completely alluring cologne I’d caught scent of earlier in the cafeteria, coming from the new guy.

  No—it wasn’t the same smell, not exactly. It was close enough to make a weirdly awesome tingling sensation happen in my stomach, but it was different enough that I knew it wasn’t what I’d smelled earlier. It felt off—enough so that the still mysterious, unknown part of my brain whispered, Not the one even as it also whispered, Keep him close.