“My favorite,” he says. “Hope you like it. If not, just let me know what you like and I’ll get it for you. Anything you want, no problem.”
I have no idea what we did to deserve the royal treatment, but I have no complaints. We tell him, “Thanks” and “We love it” (which I would have said even if it had liver and onions on it), and dig in. I devour the slice in approximately 2.6 seconds. Serena takes a more ladylike minute or two to get hers down. Nathan runs off to get us some more pizza with a chuckle and a comment about healthy appetites.
Serena leans over to me and whispers, “I always knew he was nice, but this is awesome.”
“I know,” I whisper back. “It’s like heaven. And I loved the look on Bethany’s face. That was priceless. I could live off that for a year.”
Serena looks around a minute at the A-listers gathered around us. “What did we do to get here, anyway?”
I shrug. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. “I guess because I’m working on that English project with him. I dunno.”
Nathan gets back and gallantly passes us two more slices of his favorite. I actually hate banana peppers, but there’s no way I’m bringing that up right now. That’s at least a third-date kind of admission. I don’t want to give him any reason for not being glad he asked us to tag along.
“So,” I say after I’ve devoured the second piece, “you guys come here often?”
Serena rolls her eyes at me behind Nathan’s back. I know it’s a cliché and I also know darn well they come here nearly every weekend, but I’m trying to work up to getting invited again.
Nathan seems oblivious to the corny nature of my question or maybe is just too polite to mention it. “Oh, yeah, we come here every Saturday for lunch. You guys should come again sometime.”
Yes! Open invitation! Not exactly a romantic proposal or anything, but still. I’ll take it.
“Cool,” I say, like I get invitations to hang out with the A-list every day. “Maybe we will.”
Nathan gives a little chuckle. If it had been George, it would have been his how-cute-are-you laugh. “You guys ever do anything separately?”
“We’re a package deal,” I say and give Serena a shoulder squeeze, managing to work my arm around Nathan’s back to do it. If I’m getting an in, I don’t want to leave her behind. I’ve seen that happen to other people, and it sucks. And if they don’t want her too, then I don’t want them. Friendship is more important than being on the A-list or even Nathan. No matter how cool they are. Or think they are. Bethany is so not cool in my book.
“Gotcha.” He nods. “Well, we’re going to my house after to hang out by the pool. You guys want to come along?”
“Oh yeah,” says Serena. She’s in recently un-Gothed popularity nirvana. Her eyes are all sparkly and everything. “I’ll just need to swing by my house to get a suit.”
This day keeps getting better and better. “Absolutely,” I say. “Just let me check with my mom, she’d said to call her after this ’cause she had something for me to do. I’m sure it can wait though.”
I duck outside and give Mom a call. I should have known better. My luck is just not that good and things have been going way too well lately.
“Oh, honey,” she says, “your uncle Mortie’s here already. He says he’s taking you somewhere.”
“On a Saturday night?”
“I’ll ask him if it can wait, but he’s already been waiting about half an hour.” She lowers her voice a little. “And he’s driving me crazy, I tell you. The man can’t entertain himself.”
“Well, he didn’t even tell me he was coming!”
She sighs. “You know your uncle Mortie. I’ll go check with him.”
I can’t believe Uncle Mortie didn’t tell me. Does he think I’ve got nothing better to do on a Saturday night than hang out with my weirdest relative? Okay, yeah, I don’t normally have anything planned, but still. I could have. He should’ve at least asked me first.
Mom comes back to the phone. “Sorry, Mina, but he says it has to be tonight. He said it was something special.”
I groan. “Ok, I’ll be home in just a few.”
Serena takes one look at my face when I go back in and goes, “Oh, no, what is it?”
“I can’t go,” I say glumly. “Have to do a thing with Uncle Mortie.”
“Your weirdo uncle? Why? Can’t it wait?”
“It’s a family thing. I’ve got to go.” Man, I hate not being able to tell her what’s going on.
“Do you want me to go with you? I don’t have to go to Nathan’s, if you need me to come along and run interference,” she says. See, that’s how good of a friend she is. But it’s not like I can have her tagging along with me and Uncle Mortie on our little vampire field trip.
“No, you go. You’ll have fun. No reason for you to suffer too. Uncle Mortie is killing my social life, but we won’t let him torch yours too.”
I tell Nathan I can’t come, but Serena can. He nods and tells me he’ll see me Monday. “Maybe next time,” he adds as I walk away.
That cheers me up a little at least. That definitely implies that there will actually be a next time. Whoo-hoo! But I could still kill Uncle Mortie. I’d much rather it was this time rather than next time. He’s got horrible timing.
Serena drops me off on the way to grab her bathing suit. “It better not be black!” I tell her, and she’s still laughing as she drives off.
Seriously, though, I’m totally going to check up on that. I want to make sure this un-Goth-ing thing sticks.
10
I find Uncle Mortie following my mom around the kitchen. It figures he would be, since she’s baking cookies for her monthly Bunco outing. I guess I better get him out of there before she loses all her cookies (from him eating them, I mean, not her like literally losing her cookies. Or whatever. You know what I mean).
“Hey, Uncle Mortie,” I say. “So what’s the deal?”
“Oh, hey, Mina,” he says as he sneaks another chocolate chip. “You ready to motor?”
I shrug. He might as well know I’m not exactly overjoyed at going out with him on a Saturday night. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” He winks at me as Mom rolls her eyes. “C’mon, let’s get going. Lots to do. Lots to see. Lots to eat.” He leads the way to his car.
I hate riding with Uncle Mortie in his car. Not only is it an absolute boat of an automobile, but it’s also bright yellow. Cadillacs should not be that color, ever, and no car in general should be this particularly obnoxious shade of yellow. It’s like the sun threw up on the car.
I have to shove a stack of magazines, coffee cups, and some other unidentifiable stuff out of my way to get into the front seat. “Keep meaning to clean that up,” Uncle Mortie says cheerfully. Yeah, sure. It’s probably been this way since the 1970s when he bought the thing.
“So what have you learned so far in your little vampire lessons?”
“Well, the first one I went to was all about the physical changes. You know, strength, eyesight, blah, blah, blah.”
“Did they tell you about hair?” Uncle Mortie turns onto the freeway and his car lets out an almost human-sounding wheeze of dismay.
Hair? Oh no, is that bit of folklore about vampires growing hair everywhere really true? Or the one about losing your hair? Maybe Mom and Dad have to shave all the time. Or wear wigs. “No, they didn’t mention anything about hair. What about it?” I ask as calmly as I can.
“Oh nothing big, really. Just that it continues to grow. You’ll still have to get it cut.” He rubs his bald spot. “Too bad turning doesn’t make it grow back though.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. I would look hideous bald. Not that my hair is all that great, but it’s still hair. And it would really have sucked to have to wear a wig. Or to have to shave like your whole body. I mean, how much time would that take? And the razor burn? Man.
“You don’t go gray or anything though, right?”
“Not for thousands of years, if
even then,” he says. “So what else?”
“The second session was about vampire rules and regs. Basically don’t ever tell anyone what you are and don’t convert anyone without asking first. Oh, and don’t use your new powers in any way to attract attention.”
Uncle Mortie snorts. “That’s a crock. I know of at least three pro NFL players and a couple of NBA guys that are vampires. Don’t tell me they aren’t putting their power to good use.”
I figure this is a good time to delve into Uncle Mortie’s shady past. No Mom or Dad around to steer the conversation in a safe direction.
“You weren’t exactly a normal conversion though, right?”
Uncle Mortie laughs. “There’s nothing normal about me, Mina my girl. I drove those fuss-budget Council members batty as soon as they got wind of me.” He takes an exit into a part of downtown I’ve never been in. A kind of shady neighborhood, if by “shady” you mean dark, dismal, and deserted. Just the kind of place you’d figure Uncle Mortie would hang out in.
“So what happened exactly? I’ve only ever gotten the way-edited version from Dad.”
He looks over at me with what passes for a serious expression for Uncle Mortie. I try to ignore the fact that he’s still driving even though he isn’t even remotely looking at the road and keep a polite but interested look on my face. He finally turns back to the road. I remember to breathe again.
“Well, I suppose you’re old enough to hear the real story now. But we’re almost there. Remind me later and I’ll tell you the whole sordid thing.”
“Deal.” I just know there has to be more to the story than what I’ve been able to piece together.
Uncle Mortie parks the car next to a rundown warehouse-type building. Other than a few beat-up cars, and a stray pigeon, there’s nothing around.
“Where exactly are we?” This is exactly the kind of place Dad is always telling me not to go.
“We’re going to a blood bar. They’re hosting a turning tonight and I thought you’d be interested in seeing it. It’s an open one. Some people like to do it privately, but a lot of folks hold open ones and it’s like a big party.”
I look around the empty street with the overflowing dumpsters, missing street signs, and broken down buildings. Lovely. “The blood bar is here?”
Uncle Mortie looks around like he’s seeing the neighborhood for the first time. I guess my tone of voice tipped him off that I wasn’t exactly wowed by the scenery. “Yeah. They aren’t all in locations like this, you know. I guess this neighborhood is a little seedier than most. But it’s very safe. No one comes here, so you don’t have to worry about anything.”
No wonder. I wouldn’t come here either.
He leads me to a side door on the big warehouse place. An ancient-looking sign above the door says, Harker Brothers Supply Company.
“Funny,” I say.
“What?” Uncle Mortie looks up and down the block like he’s looking for a clown on a unicycle or something.
“Harker Brothers,” I say, pointing to the sign. “You know, Jonathan Harker?”
“Never heard of him.”
“From Dracula.” Does nobody read anymore? Sheesh.
“Oh,” says Uncle Mortie. “Never read it. But I do love that Bela Lugosi.” He knocks three times on the door. After a few minutes of utter silence, the door creaks open. No one is standing there, but Uncle Mortie just walks right in, so I follow him. The door closes behind us all by itself.
It’s still eerily quiet and the inside of the place doesn’t look much better than the outside. Cobwebs everywhere and the only light (from one bare bulb hanging on by a string above the door) is dim at best. And I still can’t hear anything or anyone.
“They could totally hold a horror movie here,” I whisper to Uncle Mortie.
He laughs and it sounds particularly loud in the small space. “C’mon,” he chuckles, “it’s not that bad. Just wait until we’re in the bar itself. It’s up this way.”
He leads me up a flight of stairs, down a long hall, up another flight of stairs and to a huge metal door. I guess they don’t have any such thing as handicap accessible laws in the vampire world. Hmmm. But I guess there wouldn’t be any handicapped vampires, would there? What with all the body changes and things? I don’t know.
Uncle Mortie presses a button next to the big metal door and waves to a surveillance camera installed just above it. “My niece,” he mouths to the camera. The door opens excruciatingly slowly. The wider it opens the more strange noises and smells assault me. Once the opening is wide enough to fit through, Uncle Mortie pulls me through.
We stop just inside and the door closes behind us. There’s pretty much just one mammoth room and it is absolutely packed with people. I mean, vampires. Whatever. It’s almost as dimly lit as the rest of the building, but in a much more artsy-fartsy way with these cool-looking blown glass lights in all different colors. I can barely see to the other side of the room.
“You can close your mouth,” Uncle Mortie jokes. “I don’t think there’re any flies in here, but you never know.” I snap my mouth shut. I hadn’t even realized it was open.
He leads me through the crowd to a bar on one wall that runs almost the entire length of the place and amazingly, finds two empty seats for us to sit on. Dad’s always saying that Uncle Mortie is a partying pro. I can see what he means now.
“What’ll you have?” A bartender—or a bloodtender?—suddenly appears in front of us.
“I’ll have an O negative, straight up,” says Uncle Mortie. The bartender looks at me next.
Oh God.
I am not prepared to drink blood at this time. No way. No how. I don’t care if you’re supposed to do as Romans do in Rome or whatever. There is no way I’m touching blood. I think I’m going to throw up.
Uncle Mortie takes pity on me and jumps in. “My niece’ll have a regular lemonade, please. She’s a new prospect.”
“Sure thing,” says the bartender and disappears to go do whatever you do to make drinks at a blood bar. I start breathing again.
“They carry normal stuff too. And mixers. A lot of first-timers start off with a blood and Coke or a real Bloody Mary. The really authentic places actually guarantee the blood is from a Mary.”
I start turning green.
“But, uh, don’t think about any of that right now,” says Uncle Mortie, like I’ll ever be able to get the image out of my head. I may never drink Coke again. “It’s not good for you until you turn. Humans can get sick off of blood.”
Yep. Like me. Right now.
“Bathroom.” I manage to croak out.
Uncle Mortie points to the opposite side of the room. “I’ll just wait here for you, okay?” I nod and dart in the direction he pointed.
Luckily, the bathrooms turn out to be the only well-lit area in the place. And whoo-hoo! No line. I dash inside and duck into a stall, breathing a little heavy.
I don’t actually throw up, but it does take me a good five minutes to calm my stomach down. I try to think of as many boring non-food-related things as I can but I keep coming back to my big dilemma.
Am I crazy to be even considering turning? What if I wound up starving because I couldn’t bring myself to drink blood? Like some kind of anorexic vampire or something. How sick would that be? Literally. I finally push out of the stall and splash some water on my face.
“You’re not looking too good, kid.”
I jump like at least a mile in the air. This vampire lady in a slinky black dress and stiletto heels is next to me putting on lipstick. Blood red, of course. I didn’t hear her come in at all.
“First time?” she asks sympathetically.
I nod, not quite trusting myself to speak yet.
“I remember my first time in a blood bar,” she says, looking off somewhere into the distance. “It was exciting. Stimulating. All the beautiful vampires dancing to weird and wonderful music, drinking strange concoctions, exotic smells floating in the air.” She looks back at me, a little wis
tfully. “And also completely gross, right?”
I nod again and try to smile at her.
“Don’t worry.” She pats my arm with a well-manicured hand. “It gets better. And once you turn, you never look back.”
“Is it worth it?” I ask her. Somehow, it feels easier to ask a stranger.
She thinks a minute, reapplying the lipstick. “Yes,” she says finally, so softly I can barely hear her. “It is. But it isn’t for everyone.” She puts a hand on either side of my face and looks deep into my eyes, as intense as G.W. but not nearly as threatening. “You think about it long and hard and don’t let anyone talk you into anything either way. It’s your choice. My boyfriend pressured me into it and I’m glad I did it now, but I didn’t do it for the right reasons back then.”
“What are the right reasons?” Could someone, anyone, give me a clue here?
She drops her hands and turns back to the mirror. “Everyone’s reasons are different. What’s right for me wouldn’t be right for you. You’ll have to figure that out on your own, I’m afraid. But I can tell you that doing it or not doing it to please someone else is the wrong reason.”
Ugh. I knew she was going to say something like that. Something all afterschool special.
“Good luck,” she says and walks out the door. I give it a second or two, take a deep breath, and then leave the bathroom. No sign of the woman at all. These vampires have a serious disappearing habit. Or talent, I guess.
On my way back to Uncle Mortie and the bar, someone grabs my elbow and swings me around. I nearly freak before I realize that it’s Aubrey. And Raven right behind him. Seeing him makes my heart skip a beat, even with Raven there with him. How can he hang out with her?
“Mina,” yells Aubrey over the music. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.” He gives me one of his flashbulb smiles.
“Me either,” I yell back. “My uncle surprised me.”
“Nice,” he says and waves to Raven. “You know Raven, right? She told me about the turning. It sounds like it will be really cool. I can’t wait to see it.”
Sucks to Be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (maybe) Page 7