by Marta Acosta
“He’s got a place in town that does that for an astronomical fee. You know I have Major Issues with thralls. It seems so exploitive. You should have seen them kissing his ass.” I saw Gabriel’s expression and said, “No, hold that thought.”
We laughed and he said, “It sounds as if your problem is with their desire to please, not the work they do. Most people don’t want to be in charge.”
Gabriel pulled a vintage-style slate blue polo off a rack and showed it to me.
“Love it,” I said. “Ian told me it’s insulting to assume that the thralls aren’t capable of self-determination.” I considered my ex’s ranch hand, Ernesto. “I always thought of Ernesto as Oswald’s buddy, but … but is there an emotional master-servant component to their relationship that I didn’t see?”
“If you asked Ernie that question, he’d laugh in your face. Did you hear that he just bought twenty acres of old cabernet vines?”
“Ernesto’s going into winemaking? I feel so left out of family news.” I sorted through a pile of graphic print Ts so Gabriel wouldn’t catch my expression.
“Sorry, babe, I’ll try to share more.” While we chose two more shirts, he filled me in on the health of the horses, his niece’s tumbling class, and his grandmother’s latest cookbook project, recipes that used local wines.
“Do you know that your grandmother hasn’t answered my last phone call?”
“She’s in a tizzy.”
“Edna? She is the most tizzyless person I’ve ever met.” I loved his snarky grandmother so madly that Ian had accused me of wanting to marry Oswald just to be near her.
“Well, you should see her now. Oswald has been in contact with our grandfather and he’s coming out to visit. He’s spending time with all the grandkids and then he’s going to stay at the ranch.”
“What! What!” I said, and grabbed Gabriel’s arm. “That’s what you should have opened with, Gabriel. The mysterious AG Grant at Casa Dracula,” I said. “Spill the frijoles. What’s he like?”
“I’ve only met him twice in the last ten years. He’s …” Gabriel squinted and thought. “He’s a cool old dude. Old-school, for sure, obsessed with all of us producing children, and he looks, um …”
“Like Oswald. I know. Why is everyone so afraid to mention Oswald in front of me?”
“Because you don’t seem to be over him. You idealize your life at the ranch and you’ve always idealized Oswald. I don’t want to feed the delusion.”
“It’s not a delusion. It’s the realization that we could have done better. We should never have let the Council dictate the conditions of our marriage.”
Gabriel gave me a skeptical look and then said, “But were you two ever such a terrific match, Mil?”
“It’s normal for couples to have problems, isn’t it? We could have worked them out if only so many people hadn’t interfered with us.”
“Oswald blames in large part, as he puts it, goddamn Ian Ducharme.”
“Ian didn’t break us apart,” I said uneasily.
Gabriel touched his fingers to my hand and said gently, “Word got around that you and Ian were seen leaving Bar None together when you went by yourself to check out the hotel for the wedding.”
Guilt squeezed me harder than a vise. Bar None was a vampire bar in the foggy coastal resort town where Oswald and I were going to be married. “Does Oswald know that I ran into Ian there?”
“If by ‘ran into’ you mean ‘spent the night with,’ Oz suspects, but he doesn’t ask directly, and we don’t say anything. I’m not judging you, babe, but wasn’t that a sign that you weren’t ready to get married?”
It was too complicated to explain that I’d slept with Ian to get him out of my system and to prove that I would be able to do for Oswald what a vampire expected his wife to do: to exchange blood while making love. I asked, “Is Oswald dating anyone?”
“He isn’t interested in dating. He wanted to be married by now,” Gabriel said. “I don’t think he’s gotten over you either. He still feels guilty about bringing you into our world. He worries about you.”
“I kept telling him not to feel guilty—if it wasn’t for the infection, I wouldn’t have met all of you,” I said, but I was relieved Oswald wasn’t seeing anyone yet. “Back to your grandfather. Think of all the things he could tell us about Edna when she was young and behaved badly.”
“I think she’s afraid of just that. Granddad and Oz are talking all the time. They’ve bonded over being workaholics who fell for party girls.”
“What’s he going to think about your grandmother’s addled young lover?” I asked, referring to the actor Thomas Cook, who adored Edna almost as much as he adored himself.
“Thomas is hanging around Grandmama so close that he’s crowding out her shadow. I think she’s looking forward to his next movie, when he’ll be on location in Miami.”
As we talked, I felt an aching homesickness.
“I’m making you sad,” Gabriel said.
“I just miss it all. Oswald and the whole family gathering in the evenings as the sun set. Our conversations, the laughter, the warmth …”
“What you used to call espíritu de los cocteles,” he said, “the spirit of cocktail hour.”
“Yes, that,” I said. “And I think about my dog being buried in the field with no one to visit her grave.”
“I’ll put some flowers on Daisy’s grave the next time I visit,” he said. “Let’s play a surveillance game. Ten points for spotting shoplifters and fifteen points for store dicks, and the first one to fifty points pays for dinner. I’ll spot you twenty points to start.”
“Then all I need is two dicks to win.”
“If only. We’ll rendezvous here in thirty minutes.”
I raced across the mall to a teen shop and right away I saw two kids switch out their old shoes with new ones. I surreptitiously snapped a photo of them with my phone. Only ten points to go.
I went to a department store’s perfume department and followed a customer for ten minutes as she walked around with a sample bottle of expensive eau de parfum half hidden behind her Hermès handbag.
I was crushed when she returned to the counter and told the clerk that she wanted to buy a bottle.
My phone rang and when I answered, Gabriel said “I just scored fifty points” at the same time that a man’s hand came on my arm and the man said, “Miss, may I have a word?”
The man was dressed in a track jacket and jeans.
“Are you a store dick?” I asked him, and held the phone out for his answer.
“I work for the store,” he said grimly. “Can you step aside with me for a moment?”
I put the phone back to my ear and said, “Store dick! Fifty-five points. I win!”
Gabriel met me in the hallway outside the mall’s security office. After briefly arguing my case, I finally conceded that he had won on time, if not on points.
We meandered until we found a bistro with a dark, empty section. We asked for a table in the corner.
“You should have noticed the dick tailing you.”
“I was focused on the potential Mommy-is-a-klepto. Generally I’m hyperaware of dicks.”
“Don’t I know it,” Gabriel said. “Seriously, Young Lady, girls are raised to ignore attention, and you’re not just any girl. Keep an eye on your surroundings.”
“I’m practicing holding my breath underwater.”
“That’s good. I’d like you to take self-defense classes.”
“Ian suggested the same thing, but I can kick anyone’s ass. Well, except his, even though I frequently want to.”
“There’s more to self-defense than physical strength. It also teaches you awareness, taking the time to think, and knowing how to take and keep control of a situation.”
“I’ve learned all I need to know from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Don’t panic.” I was all set to tell Gabriel about Ford and Cricket Poindexter when a heavenly waiter came over and it became urgent to ask, “Do you
have anything sizzling on your menu?” while Gabriel said, “I want something saucy. What are your sauciest suggestions?”
When we both were sipping spicy tequila cocktails, I said, “Ooh, this is a party in my mouth.”
“Speaking of which, how are things going with Ian?”
“Oh, you know. He asks me to move in with him, but he still won’t tell me what he actually does for the Council. I want to know, but on the other hand, I may run away screaming.”
“But how do you feel about him?”
“Like I’m fighting an addiction, but still want one last high,” I said. “How did you know that Charlie was the one for you?”
“He fit all my requirements—hefty, hairy, gay, and having the family condition,” Gabriel said. The Grant family avoided the V word as if terrified it would bite them. “But he’s also very sweet.”
“He’s the whole hefty, hairy package,” I said. “I never told anyone else this, but do you know that when I was engaged to Oswald, Ian tricked me into reciting the vows of an ancient wedding ceremony? The words were in that awful language of yours and I didn’t know what I was saying.”
“Well,” said Gabriel. He nervously played with his cocktail napkin, folding it into a tiny diamond shape. “Don’t toy with him, Milagro. You know what he did to someone who hurt you—what would he do to someone, even you, who hurt him?”
I cringed as I thought about the vampire that Ian had cut one hundred times for the one cut I’d received.
Gabriel said, “He’s not called the Dark Lord because of his hereditary title, Mil. The Council sends him to deal with intractable problems and people have mysteriously vanished, their bodies never found.”
“I know. I heard that Ian was supposed to get rid of me.”
“That may not be true at all. Besides, he wouldn’t have done anything while you were at the ranch with us.”
“It’s a comfort knowing that one’s boyfriend/lover/whatever wouldn’t have disrespected your family by killing me on your property,” I said. “I could never care for someone who’s capable of terrible things.”
“Milagro, you’re capable of terrible things, but you don’t do them,” Gabriel said. “Are you sure you don’t feel something more for Ian?”
“I don’t know. My hormones always hijack my brain every time I’m around him,” I said. “Enough about me. How are things going with you and Charlie and your parents?”
Gabriel raised his eyebrows and looked up, an expression that reminded me of his grandmother. “His mom and mine have bonded over the fact that we won’t produce grandchildren. We’re both feeling the burden of our kind’s crappy fertility rates.”
By “our kind” Gabriel meant vampires, who had such low birth rates that they used dating services to make matches that had better chances of bearing children.
I said, “Let’s go out to My Dive on Friday.”
My friend Mercedes owned the club where I spent many of my evenings. She was the only one who knew about my vampire associations and she’d become friends with the vamps.
“Wish I could club it with you,” Gabriel said. “But I’ve got to head to HQ for a confab. The Council’s riled up about an activist in England, Wilcox Spiggott, who’s trying to organize a movement for our kind to come out.”
“Wilcox Spiggott,” I said. “Wil-cox Spiggott.”
“I know—it’s so fun to say. Wil-cox. But the Council isn’t laughing, especially since he’s never gone to them for approval.”
“Shouldn’t someone be setting the groundwork for eventually coming out? Like sometime in the next century.”
“You’re still hopeful that we’ll be accepted despite all you’ve been through,” Gabriel said with a grin. “The Council is happy in their dark coffins, and I’m concerned that Spiggott might be a loose cannon.”
“It would be nice not to have to be careful all the time.”
“We’ll get there eventually, chica.”
When I went home, I got online and tried to find information on Wilcox Spiggott. The name came up only once in the UK. I cross-referenced the address and found dozens of businesses at the location, including something called Crimson Leasing Agents & Realty.
Vampires were wild about real estate. I wrote down the address and the phone number.
The next day, I awoke to my phone ringing. The Paws to Reflect editor wanted a special issue dedicated to an upcoming public meeting about dog park restrictions after a child had been bitten by a bad-natured sharjackanoodlese (shar-pei, Jack Russell, poodle, and Havanese).
I became caught up in interviewing the yapping factions and wasn’t able to see Ian before he left on one of his mysterious trips.
“I’m quite disappointed,” he said when I called him.
“Gabriel said he’s going to a meeting with the Council about Wilcox Spiggott’s vampire rights movement. Is that where you’re going?”
“Milagro, if you want to know where I’m going, come with me.”
“You’re trying to manipulate me by baiting my curiosity. Promise me that you won’t let those vipers lock up Spiggott. I still have nightmares about their underground lair.”
“No doubt you’re terrified of being forced to attend another tedious meeting there,” he said. “Why are you interested in Spiggott? Attractive young fellow, but insubstantial.”
“How can someone organizing a liberation movement not be substantial? It is by its very nature a serious activity.”
“My meeting shouldn’t take long. If you come, I’ll spend most of my time with you. We can get married all over again.”
“Ha, ha, and ha,” I said. “How’s everything working out with your serfs and your new neighbors?”
“Splendidly. Mrs. K’s cooking is as delectable as promised, and Cricket is especially attentive to me.”
Jealousy embraced me with the excessive enthusiasm of a drunken frat boy. “I bet she is. She’s probably talking to her divorce attorney and ordering new monogrammed linens so she can trade up. Too bad Ford seems to be in love with her.”
“Ah, but we all choose the partner who gives us what we need, not what we think we need, or want to need.”
“While that sounds insightful, it may just be glib, so I’m not going to read anything into it.”
But after we said good-bye, I did think about it.
I’d believed that Oswald was the right person for me, and I wanted to be the right person for him. Our breakup had been engineered by others: Ian’s crafty sister, who’d been assigned as our vampire wedding consultant; the vampires’ Council, who would have preferred me dead; and Oswald’s parents, who detested me. There was also a friend’s bat-shit-crazy jealous ex-girlfriend, who’d mistaken me for a romantic rival.
And there was me, too. When I remembered how I’d betrayed Oswald, I felt sick with shame and remorse. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t make the same mistakes.
three
Once Bitten, Twice Snide
I finished the story for Paws to Reflect in time to go to Mercedes’s nightclub, arriving before the small red neon my dive sign was turned on. Ian had invested in my friend’s business, allowing her to do a remodel and add the My Dive Annex, a tiny shop that sold cafecitos and Cuban sandwiches.
Lenny, the house manager, was hurrying through the lobby as I came in. He gave me a pat on my bottom and said, “Sugar, do me a favor and help the bartenders. One of the girls is running late tonight.”
“Sure, Lenny. I could waitress if you need me.”
That sent him into convulsions of laughter, bending his skinny torso over and holding his arm across his waist. After he’d finished, he gasped, “I remember when Mercedes hired you.”
Chagrined, I said, “Who knew that balancing a tray of glasses was so hard?”
After helping the bartenders stack barware and tote supplies from the storeroom, I went to Mercedes’s office and stretched out on the grubby brown sofa that had survived the remodeling.
We could hear the new
house band, Juanita and the Rat Dogs, rehearsing. Oswald hadn’t liked their klezmer-Cuban music, but Mercedes and I agreed that they were brilliant. “I love Juanita’s percussive right hand,” I said as the musician ripped through a piano solo.
“Me, too,” Mercedes said, turning her head from her computer screen to listen.
My friend was a sturdy woman who’d inherited her Cuban mother’s cocoa complexion, her Scottish father’s freckles, and both parents’ immigrant work ethic. She’d shared her passion for music with me, introducing me to dazzling bands and genres, and she’d taught me how to salsa dance.
Her short dreads were pulled back with a headband and she wore a black T-shirt with a purple graphic that said Attack of the Rat Dogs, the title of the album she was producing with the band.
“Can I have a few of those T-shirts?” I asked. Oswald had always liked funny T-shirts. Maybe I could give Gabriel one to pass on to him.
“You have to pay for them.”
“Serio, Mercedes, I work here for free all the time.”
“You drink and watch shows here for free all the time.” She wasn’t smiling, but her brown face had an affable, intelligent expression that I loved. She kept pulling off her new glasses, rubbing the bridge of her nose, and putting them on again.
“I contribute substantially to the ambiance,” I said. “I just got hit with a monster fee from my co-op. They’ve got to do electrical work.”
“¿Cuanto cuesta?”
When I told her the amount, she let out a whistle and then said, “You can’t keep living off payoffs for failed murder attempts. What would you do if no one ever tried to kill you again? No cojes los mangos bajitos. If you had a regular job, you’d qualify for loans to pay for the assessment.”
“I love that so many Cuban aphorisms involve food. Now I want a mango daiquiri. Anyway, writing takes up all my time.”
“I have a problem believing that you’re slaving away in front of your laptop when you’re so tan in April. You should consider writing something marketable.”
“Like stupid stories about stupid girls and their stupid obsessions with stupid boyfriends and stupid handbags? Bitch, puhleeze. I’m dedicated to my craft, to literature.” I lifted my leg to show Mercedes my rocker-girl heels with silver stud details. “Do you like my new shoes? They make me four inches taller. I’m practically Amazonian.”