“I might not hate this guy,” he says.
His excitement softens me. I let go of some of my lingering tension.
“You first,” I say.
“Together.” He picks one up and bites his lower lip as if he’s stopping himself from diving right in.
“Fine.” Doing something fun together doesn’t make it any easier. Perhaps it makes it harder. It makes me want to be the carefree kid I was before. Still, I pick up one of my beignets, balancing the pile of sugar creating the two-inch mountain on top.
“One, two, three,” he says, and closes his mouth over it. His eyes widen as he chews, and he gestures for me to take a bite. When he pulls his beignet away from his mouth, a trail of powdered sugar sticks to his upper lip.
I snort and send my powdered sugar flying, covering the table and my shorts.
Which makes Henry crack up. A spray of delicious white dust billows off his pastry and into my face. I cough as I inhale, and Henry laughs harder.
“Not funny,” I choke out, but he only gets louder, and pretty soon my coughing morphs into a hard, deep laugh that burns the muscles of my stomach. Eventually, I gulp a breath, lick sugar from my lips, and brush at my black clothes now covered in white.
“Serves you right,” Henry says.
“Hey, you never said to go on three.”
“Try it.” He waves his bald beignet at my bald beignet. At least it will be easier to eat without the loads of sugar. I bite into it, thicker than a doughnut and a little more fried. The pastry itself isn’t sweet and perfectly complements the heavy dose of powdered sugar. I cannot lie—it’s glorious. We fall into a pattern of sweet silence. So easy—too easy.
Henry finishes his first and then watches me chew with his arms folded across the table. “Remember that time my mom bought us a bag of powdered doughnuts and you ate all of them while I was in the kitchen getting milk?” he asks.
“No way. That’s a gross exaggeration.”
“You looked an awful lot like you do now.” His long arm stretches easily across the table and brushes uselessly at some of the powder on my shoulders.
My all-black attire looks like I lost a fight with a bag of those powdered doughnuts. A little ache burrows into the moment, but I don’t close myself off. The trade feels okay because Henry is laughing, and I love the boyishness in it. It’s like we’re kids and anything that happened past that point doesn’t exist.
“Take a picture so you can stop staring,” I say, digging the camera out of my purse and handing it to him. Our fingers touch, and if this were a real date, I’d meet his eyes and we’d share an awkward moment acknowledging we maybe liked it, but instead, I stare down at my plate and reach for my last sad bite of pastry that doesn’t even have much sugar on it.
Henry takes the shot as I pop it in my mouth, surprised it still tastes good cold and sugarless.
“That should do the trick.” He hands me the still undeveloped picture. “I think I caught a piece of the old you.”
The old me—the me before my dad got cancer—who laughed at silly things and never thought beyond the moment. The old me shouldn’t be possible.
Last night was one thing—I got lost in feeling nothing. But this easy happiness with Henry feels like betrayal. It’s just as bad as grieving while he’s still alive.
The sweetness of my last bite turns heavy in my belly, weighing me down until I fear the chair won’t be able to hold me any longer, and I welcome it. Being sick is such a concrete desire that it overrides my guilt and, most importantly, any lingering happiness.
Henry wipes his fingers on his napkin one at a time. “I could go for another three.”
“I’m going to puke.”
“Dang,” he says, pushing his chair back and coming to my side. With one arm wrapped tightly around me, he weaves us through the tables to the open sidewalk. I bend at the waist and take in several deep breaths while Henry keeps a hand on my back.
“Can I get you anything? A water? Coke?”
I shake my head. He believes my sickness is from the sugar alone, and I don’t correct him.
I stand up straight again, nausea in check. Everything else inside me roils unchecked and dangerously close to bursting.
The smell of fresh, hot dough and sugar makes my throat burn. Dad’s probably waking up and eating scrambled eggs if he’s up for it—sometimes he only eats half an apple. Sometimes he eats nothing at all.
“It’s okay to cry,” Henry says.
His words pull me back, away from my dad, to this uneven sidewalk.
“What?” I shake myself, blinking away the sting in my eyes.
Henry bites his lip. His hands tighten on my shoulders, and I’m not sure if it’s to comfort me or to steady himself—he doesn’t look totally in control either. “When my grandma died, my mom did the same thing you’re doing. She never cried. Not a single time that I saw anyway, and now she walks around like all those unshed tears are weighing her down.” He looks away and takes a deep breath before turning back to me. “At first I thought she was strong for not crying. But I don’t know, Victoria. I think she’d be better now if she had let everything out then.”
The darkest blue, a mixture of pity and sadness for my friend, trickles out, and then an angry red follows, chasing away the sadness and leaving me a confused, hazy purple. I hurt for him, but I don’t need someone to tell me how to feel.
Crying won’t help. Nobody ever got anything done while crying—and this is not the same. My Dad’s alive, even if he barely looks like it.
I step backward, out of his grip. “I’m not your mom. I don’t need you to save me from her mistakes. I’m fine. I can do this.”
Henry cringes, and I soften my expression, reaching for his hand.
“I can do this if you’re with me,” I say. I could do it alone if I had to, but friends make each other feel needed.
* * *
On the way back to the bookstore, Henry keeps glancing at my powder-drenched black clothes and chuckling until he catches my mood and turns silent. He doesn’t ask me if I’m okay, and I appreciate him for it. It’s good to be with someone who knows what not to ask.
When we get back to the bookstore, more people are browsing the shelves, and Ruth is helping another customer, but she turns in our direction and winks as we pass by on our way to the poetry section. I nod in return.
I pull the book off the shelf and tuck the picture inside without looking at it. If Henry did catch the old me in that picture, then I don’t want to see it. It will only make me feel worse.
I head to the bathroom and change, tossing the evidence of my sin in the trash and putting on my old, safe clothing.
When I come back out, Ruth is alone at her desk again, and Henry waits by the front door.
“How long until the next one?” I ask her.
“I’d give it a couple of walks around the Quarter,” she says, checking her large gold watch with a cat’s head decorating the center.
“But it’s daylight out. How would he get here?” I lean one hand on her desk, leaning forward and lowering my voice as a few customers drift toward us. “You know, if you’re leaving the notes for him, you could just hand it over now. I won’t tell.”
She opens a book and slowly flips through the pages. After a second, she looks up over the top of her glasses. “Oh, are you still here?”
I groan and head for the door that Henry’s already pulling open.
With all the cracks in the sidewalks, walking around the French Quarter is an exercise in remaining on your feet. I like it though. The sheer concentration it takes to avoid stumbling pulls me out of my mind so I can go back to carefully feeling nothing.
I don’t bother looking in any shop windows. The only thing I stop for is to put five dollars in a sleeping homeless man’s cup with ANYTHING HELPS written in faded ink on the front. Henry frowns at me but doesn’t say anything. Dad always kept care packages with food and money in his car in case he saw anyone in need. Mom frowned at him, t
oo, but never asked him to stop. Dad’s a person who helps anyone. He always has been. I want to be that too, but I’m sometimes a bit more selfish than he is. He definitely has more to teach me.
When I push through the bookstore door again, I’m determined to do whatever Nicholas has set out for me even if I need to fake joy and excitement to do it. Feeling it for real is too much—too risky when Dad’s still sick. If this all goes wrong and I spent my dad’s last days sucking down sugar and laughing until it hurt, the guilt alone will end me.
Nicholas might control the task, but I control what I feel. No more slipups.
Ruth’s chowing down on a bowl of something that smells spicy and delicious when we come in.
Henry stops and takes a dramatic breath. “That smells amazing. What is that?”
My mouth waters too, but I plow through to the poetry section, find my book, and pull it off the shelf as they chatter out front.
The picture’s gone, replaced by another note next to a marked-up poem. I take a picture of the poem with my phone.
Because I could not stop for Death
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward Eternity.
—Emily Dickinson
I’ve read this one before in freshman English. I should have paid better attention. Then again, maybe the interpretation is obvious. Nicholas, the gentlemanly death, will stop for me and lead me toward eternity. For a moment, I close my eyes and cling to this promise. No matter what his trials entail, or how hard it is to complete them the way he wants, this will all be worth it.
I read the note, grab Henry, and say goodbye to Ruth.
“What have we got this time?” Henry asks. “Dancing to street music?”
“Um, not quite.”
“What then?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
You do know that it’s very bad luck
to cross a threshold without being invited.
—Only Lovers Left Alive
Nine
Henry and I ride the St. Charles Streetcar line. It’s the oldest streetcar line in Northern America. The trolley is painted puke green with red-accented windows and doors, yet somehow manages to be quaint and charming. We sit together on a small wooden bench that isn’t quite comfortable for two with the window down beside us so the breeze will occasionally wipe the sweat from our faces. Of course the oldest streetcar line does not have air-conditioning. Some of the trees growing along the line need trimming and occasionally scratch along the side of the tram and make me jump back, pushing harder into Henry.
One actually comes all the way in and nips my upper arm.
“Ouch.” I rub my skin a little dramatically. “Who’s in charge of trimming those things?”
“I’ll switch places with you,” Henry says for the third time.
“It’s okay. I like the window seat.” And I do. The threatening trees are worth putting up with for the view. This street is full of huge mansions with grand columns and gigantic porches and balconies. Each one is unique and special in its own way. One is pure white with delicate Victorian details, another is over-the-top with columns the size of ancient tree trunks, and another is all uneven stones and curved archways.
I unfold the note, now damp with sweat, to read it one more time.
It contains an address on St. Charles Avenue with instructions below it.
Break into this house. Steal a cross and a clove of garlic.
I’ll admit the last part is kind of funny. Breaking and entering is not.
I gulp as we pass a smaller house that’s no less exquisite in its quaint storybook details, like shuttered windows painted teal and a double staircase leading up to the porch.
None of these houses look like a place you should break into. If you can afford a mansion, you can probably afford a security system or at least a big dog.
Henry runs his hand through his hair for the ninety-seventh time, bumping me with his elbow as he does. My arm will bruise if we don’t arrive soon.
“At least it’s not a convent.” My fake cheeriness turns my voice tight and awkward.
I wait for him to laugh. He doesn’t. At least I don’t have to worry about feeling any kind of joy with this challenge. I wish he’d give me something though.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say.
“Neither do you.”
“I wish that were true.”
“Victoria.” He turns to me, trying to get me to look straight at him, but I can tell by the way he says my name that I don’t want to. I stare out the window instead. “Victoria,” he tries again, but I don’t take the bait. He sighs but keeps going despite my ignoring him. “Eating beignets was harmless. I didn’t like him ordering you around, but it didn’t cost us anything. This is different. This is… wrong. Who knows how far he’s going to push you, and for what? You don’t know anything about him.”
I turn to him so I can lower my voice. “I know he drinks blood.”
“You think you do. It was dark. Fake blood’s easy to make.”
“I smelled it.” How do you fake that smell? My stomach rolls just from remembering it.
“You could have imagined it. You want this so badly.” He tries to reach out for my hand, and I yank it away. Am I supposed to kind of want this? Like, just be here to have a good time, and if I happen to save my dad, then that would be a cool bonus?
So much for the support he promised earlier.
“Henry.” This time I say his name in a way that makes him refuse to look at me.
He rubs his hands on his jeans, then runs his damn hand through his hair again. We’ve already played this conversation out three times since I read the challenge to him, and it always ends with him going silent and adjusting his hair one more time and me fuming silently beside him.
We both turn to watch a jogger running down the center of the opposite track. A tram’s coming, and the woman waits an obscene amount of time before moving over. The tram never slows for a second.
“Close one,” Henry says.
Maybe the joggers are making him more nervous than the task before us, but everyone runs on the tracks here, moving over only when the tram’s a real threat. I admire their boldness. I’m going to need some of it.
We jerk to another stop.
“This is us,” Henry says. “Are you sure you want to do this?” He sounds hopeful, like now is the time he’s going to ask this and get the answer he wants.
“Of course not.” I stand anyway and walk down the center aisle, and Henry thankfully follows. As we exit, I reach back and squeeze his forearm, trying to thank him, but his eyes are already drifting past me, taking in the street.
It’s noon and hotter than ever. Without the breeze from the tram, my shirt sticks to my skin as we walk. Thank goodness for the large trees giving the sidewalks a heavy cover of greenery. Faded beads leftover from years of Mardi Gras parades dangle from the branches, the cheap plastic at odds with the old-world elegance of the mansions.
Henry tries to leap up and grab one but misses.
“Don’t draw attention to us,” I hiss.
“Right.”
He straightens and walks beside me as I read the addresses.
I stop.
“No way,” Henry says.
“Yep,” I say.
“People who try to rob houses like these don’t make it out alive.”
“Or they become vampires.”
“Dead either way,” he counters.
No comeback to that. It is a kind of death, but I’ve only been thinking of it as a way for Dad to live. But I’m not the one dying already, so it’s different for me. I am giving up what might have been a long human life. The thought freezes me for a moment. My mouth dries out, and I stare at Henry’s profile as he scans the house. I thought I’d grow old with Henry. Even though we were on the outs, deep in my bones I still knew we’d come back to each other—that one day we’d be sitting on the back porch on our tenth wedding anniversary, watching our kids play the same games in the woods we used to. I’m taking all of that away from myself and maybe from him, too. Did he have the same dreams? I thought he did—before Bailey. But maybe part of him still does, and that’s what keeps pushing him to try to make me doubt this. Bringing him into this was selfish.
The realization guts me.
“We’re still going through with it, aren’t we?” Henry asks as he continues to scan the house.
“No,” I say.
He turns to me, looking surprised that I’ve come to my senses.
“I am. I want you to sit this one out.”
“No way.” He doesn’t even look a little bit tempted. “I go where you go.”
Until I actually become a vampire—he won’t follow me into that.
I swallow. “Okay.” My voice is weak. I don’t want to push him away yet. I want more memories of him to cling to when this is finished, but I need to stop thinking about a future that doesn’t belong to me anymore. I need to focus. I pull myself out of my head and stare at the house in question. It’s easily one of the most impressive on the street, composed entirely of large dark-gray stones and accented with curved windows and stone arches that lead into a shadowed front porch. Multiple stone birdbaths all in varying states of decay and rusted wrought-iron lawn furniture, none of which matches, cover the front lawn. Everything about it is haphazard and ancient and suggests someone inside is too. Probably someone who never leaves the house. To make matters worse, a beat-up chain wraps around the black gate leading up the hedged walkway to the house.
Vampires, Hearts & Other Dead Things Page 12