They wanted to move us around, split us up, and stuff like that, but your mom wouldn’t back down.”
“Ah,” I say. Well, that explains why Uncle Mortie isn’t exactly Mom’s favorite relative and why I had to spend so much time at Grandma’s back in the day. Though they could have warned me not to open the door to strange tax guys. That would have been useful info.
“Anyway, I think that’s enough confession time for one day. How about I drop you off at home?”
“Sure,” I say. Lord knows I’ve got enough stuff to think about. Like exactly what The Council is capable of doing.
18
Nathan actually comes and sits with Serena, George, and me at lunch for a while, until the restless clamoring of the A-List natives gets to be too much for him to ignore.
“Had a great time this weekend,” he says, for like the third time and gives us a what-can-I-do shrug as he wanders back over to snotty land.
“Nice guy,” says George.
“Oh, yeah.” Serena and I say it in unison and then both blurt out “Jinx!” at the same time. George cracks up.
“You guys really are quite a pair. What are you going to do after … graduation?” I get the feeling that “graduation” wasn’t what he was actually thinking about and I’ve been wondering the same thing. What am I going to do if I turn? How do I not let my best friend in on my little secret? She’d surely notice when I suddenly show up all fit and with bright blue eyes and suddenly I have to wear sunglasses every time I go outside. We’ve been close forever. She notices everything about me, including the stuff I’d rather she didn’t, like pimples and crushes on stupid guys.
“We’re BFF,” Serena says to George, and gives me a big side hug. “Nothing will keep us apart!”
I don’t say anything, but George gives me a sympathetic look. I guess it’s a little easier for him. No parents or family to worry about, and no real best friends from foster-kid life. Not that any of that’s a good thing. But it sure makes a life-changing decision a little easier when you don’t have anyone to worry about other than yourself.
I’m still thinking about it on the way home with Serena. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without her. I’d like to talk to Mom about it, but it’s Girls’ Night, which means Serena is staying over, so I won’t have a chance to get Mom alone.
We’ve been doing Girls’ Night once a month for years. We started doing it just to make sure to get Serena out of the house and away from her mother and little fright-night beauty queen Alexis. It used to be just on weekends, but once Mondays became rehash-the-weekend-beauty-pageant night, we moved it.
It’s generally a lot of fun. We’ve tried on everything in my mom’s closet before (current stuff equals yuck, but her older stuff is very retro) and concocted new hairstyles or makeup styles. The only stuff allowed is girly stuff. Have I mentioned I’m a closet girly-girl? Dad makes sure he’s out of the house most of the night, and Mom sometimes invites over one of her friends too.
Tonight Mom’s friend Rebecca is over. I’ve never actually figured out if Rebecca is a vampire or not and I’ve never bothered asking. She looks like she could be, but I’m not sure. Maybe she’s just healthy. Her eyes are blue, but that’s no guarantee either. It’s not as if she talks incessantly about blood or anything.
Rebecca is a tad partial to wine and almost never has a boyfriend, so Girls’ Nights with her tend to be slightly on the bitchy or hysterical side, depending on her intake. She looks to have gotten an early start today, but seems pretty jovial, though that can change at any moment.
“Girls!” she trills when we troop in. “Isn’t it prom time? I brought magazines! And pictures!”
The pictures, of course, are of Rebecca’s high school prom. She was actually pretty cute, but the dresses were absolutely hideous. When did people actually think that bows the size of your head were okay?
Mom drags out her pictures too, and I’m happy to say that her dress was moderately better than Rebecca’s. At least it was a classic A-line.
“Do you know who you’re going with, Mina? Serena?” Rebecca’s dancing around the room with a couch pillow by this time. I’m guessing she’s made inroads on bottle number two.
“No,” we say in unison again.
“Well, better hurry up,” says Rebecca, “or all the good ones will be taken. Do you at least have your eye on some potentials?”
“Yes,” we say again. Serena adds, “but it isn’t going to happen.” I look at her in surprise. Did she already talk to George? I can’t believe he wouldn’t take her. He seems to like hanging out with us and everything and what’s not to like about post-Goth Serena?
“Why not?” asks Mom.
“Oh, nothing,” says Serena. “I just don’t think the timing is right.” Whatever that means. I’m going to have to talk to George tomorrow. Some guys just need a kick in the rear to get them going. Which reminds me, I need to do some serious hinting and Nathan-prodding myself.
We spend the rest of the night eating pizza and Oreos (not at the same time—that would be incredibly gross) and going through the magazines trying to find the perfect dress. I haven’t been thinking about prom nearly as much as I should have, what with all the vampire stuff. One of the most important nights in my life is taking a definite backseat. I’ll fix that starting tomorrow.
First a heart-to-heart with George and then I’ll see when I can catch Nathan alone.
Mom makes Rebecca take the couch (she’s in no shape to drive) and Serena and I hit the hay in my bedroom.
“You definitely have to get that red dress,” I tell Serena. “I think you’d be stunning in it. I like that kind of retro paisley one for me. You think Nathan would like it?”
“Yeah,” she says, “I’m sure it’ll be fine.” She yawns, a big classic Serena-style flycatcher. “I’m kind of tired now though, you mind if we don’t talk anymore and just go to sleep?”
I agree. It has been a long day. Very unusual for Serena though. I usually have to wrestle her into submission before she goes to sleep. She’s the original night owl. I’d have no idea what was going on in late night television if it wasn’t for her.
19
This time around, George, Lorelai, Linda, and I all arrive at the same time for the vampire lesson. We do our hellos and all sit next to one another in one corner of the room. Works for me, no place for Raven to sit and snipe at me. I’m trying to follow Uncle Mortie’s advice and not get into an actual fight with her.
We’re all pretty quiet, knowing this is one of our last sessions, until Linda, who barely ever even says a word, breaks the silence.
“Are you going to get a tattoo?” she blurts out to no one in particular.
Say what?! Just the mere fact that Linda (meek, mousy, Linda who looks like she might cry if you look at her funny) said the word “tattoo” is enough to wake all of us up. We all turn to stare at her, and she turns bright red.
“You know,” she mumbles, “because you can’t get one after. I think I might get one.”
“You can’t get one after?” This from Lorelai, the second-to-last person I would expect to get a tattoo next to Linda.
“No. It heals up before it takes once you turn. But if you get it before, it stays.” Great. Yet another thing to decide in like a week. I’d toyed with the idea of getting a tattoo before, but now you’d really need to think about it. A tattoo for forever. You can’t just get any old thing. I mean, can you imagine one of those cheesy tribal tattoos three hundred years from now? Or something that seems cool now but would look totally ridiculous later. Yeesh. Three hundred years. That freaks me out just to think about.
“So I guess you can’t get it lasered off then either?” asks George. Huh. I wouldn’t have thought he was a tattoo kind of guy either.
“Probably not.”
“I don’t think I’ll be getting one then,” says George. Yeah, me either. That’s just too much pressure right now. And what if tattoos become really passé? It’s bound to happen
. Everything goes the way of the miniskirt sooner or later.
“I was thinking maybe I’d get just a little one. Like a bumblebee or something,” says Linda. “Or a butterfly. Or maybe both.”
“Cute,” says Lorelai appreciatively. Linda beams. The girl seriously needs some friends or something. She’s like a puppy dog.
“Why both?”
“You know, like Muhammed Ali. Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee?” Well. Yet another thing that I wasn’t expecting to come out of Linda’s mouth. Who knows what else is lurking in the hidden recesses of her mind. Next thing you know, she’s going to tell us about how she does extreme sports in her off time.
Just as I’m getting a good image in my head of Linda on a half-pipe, Grandma Wolfington walks in. She wastes no time in getting started, even though a few people aren’t there, including Aubrey.
“Today we’re going to talk about what happens after you turn. You obviously can’t expect to return to your life as it was before, so I’m going to be talking about how to leave your old life behind as safely and securely as possible with the least amount of disruption to not only yourself, but also to your friends and family.”
Well, I guess this is a relevant session for once, since I just spent the last day or so wondering what to do about Serena. Though G.W. will probably keep her talk on the pro-turning track.
“Once you’ve turned, or perhaps even before, you’ll be assigned a VRA agent. They’ll come up with a plan for faking your death and creating your new identity. They’ll also work with you to get all your affairs in order and the funds transferred to support your new life.”
Say what?
I raise my hand to attract Grandma Wolfington’s attention before she can move on to another topic. She nods at me to go ahead. “But my parents never did any of that when they turned.”
“No, they didn’t,” says Grandma Wolfington darkly. “That was due to the unusual circumstances surrounding your uncle’s turning and your father’s conversion at his hand. However, old mistakes are now going to be rectified. Your parents have agreed to go along with The Council’s recommendation and work with a VRA agent after these sessions are over, whether you decide to turn or not.”
“What?”
“I assumed you knew. I suggest you talk to them about it once you are home,” she says, and then goes back to the lesson as if she hadn’t just completely turned my world upside down.
Hey, now, exactly how is it that no one bothered mentioning to me that, not only do I have to make the biggest decision of my entire life, but that I’d also have to give up everything and everyone I know if I do it? That if I turn, they’re going to make me fake my death and move to who-knows-where? And what’s that about them working with the VRA no matter what? Does that mean they’ll be dead to me too if I don’t turn? I mean, I’d know they were alive … or would I? Would they handily erase my memory? Would I think my parents were dead just like everyone else did?
I had planned on talking to George about the whole Serenaprom thing, but I’m not exactly in the mood for prom-talk. I rush out as soon as the session is over. Luckily or unluckily, I see that both Mom and Dad decided to pick me up tonight.
I get in the car and slam the door shut.
“Bad night?” asks Dad, and Mom turns around in her seat to look at me quizzically. I’m not normally a big tantrum thrower. But I think I’ve got just cause tonight.
“Exactly when were you going to tell me that they are forcing us to move and completely change our lives and we have to be dead too? Or deader. Officially. Whatever.” I lost a little momentum there, but I think they got it.
“Ah,” says Dad, his catchall phrase for conversations gone bad.
“And that I’d never get to see any of my friends ever again or possibly never see you again, depending on whether I turn or not.”
“Well … ” says Mom, her chosen method of delaying the inevitable.
“You guys didn’t think this information just might be useful while making my decision? Just maybe? Just a little bit?” I can’t remember the last time I was this mad. Maybe never. I would not be at all surprised if steam started coming out of my ears.
Mom and Dad look at each other while I glare at them from the backseat. I am so-o-o-o not letting them off the hook on this one.
“Well?” I manage to wring just a little more anger out of the word than normal. My old drama teacher would have been proud. She said I wasn’t very convincing.
“We’re sorry.”
I can’t believe it. “That’s all you can say?”
“We don’t have an excuse,” says Dad. “I guess we just didn’t want to unduly influence you one way or another, but we can see now that it was a bad choice.”
“We’re really sorry, honey,” Mom adds.
I let out a huge breath and fall back against the seat. “Let’s just go home. I have to think a minute.” Dad starts driving without another word.
So, it basically comes down to losing my family or losing everything else. My friends. My home town. Everyone I know. My whole life. It was bad enough when I thought we’d have to maybe change neighborhoods. There’s no way I could write to Serena after I was dead. I mean, what, letters from the beyond?
I can’t imagine my life without her. But I can’t imagine it without my family either. I’d be all alone and probably have no memory of them at all. Like George has been all these years.
I don’t see how the Vampire Goon Squad could “condition” me otherwise.
All I can say is that this really, really sucks.
Hours later and I’m no closer to a solution than I was before. Morbid curiosity drives me to the Internet, where I look up the various ways a person can die. There’s quite a few. You know, car wrecks, train wrecks, a horse falling on top of you, bad sushi, trying to be a hero in a bank robbery. Then my IM beeps.
9:33 P.M.
Luv&SqzMe: Mina?
MinaMonster: who’re u?
Luv&SqzMe: George
MinaMonster: hey. wassup with ur scrn nm??
Luv&SqzMe: oh, like tht old bugs bunny cartoon. hug & squeeze him n call him george?
Luv&SqzMe: anywy, i got the feeling u weren’t paying much attention tonight in session
MinaMonster: u could say tht
Luv&SqzMe: yah, anywy, thought u might’ve missed the homework assignment.
MinaMonster: homework?
Luv&SqzMe: y- make a list of pros and cons for turning. evryone has to do 1
MinaMonster: gr8.
Luv&SqzMe: anything i can help w/?
MinaMonster: no.
MinaMonster: thx tho
Luv&SqzMe: k call if u need something
MinaMonster: w8
MinaMonster: wht about prom?
The little prompt sits there blinking for so long that I think he must have left after all, but I figure I’ll try again. Maybe he’s just across the room and didn’t hear the little ding.
MinaMonster: u going to ask s or wht?
I’m about to give up when his response finally appears.
Luv&SqzMe: u want me to?
MinaMonster: duh!! she’s been w8ing!
Another long pause. What, has he got carpal tunnel all of a sudden?
Luv&SqzMe: OK
MinaMonster: gr8 thx got 2 go yell at the ’rents again
Luv&SqzMe: K, night
I stalk off to the living room, where Mom and Dad are watching another stupid documentary. Or trying to. They both look up as I come in the room. They’ve been waiting for me. I just know it.
“I just want to know one thing. And no excuses this time. I mean it. You owe me this much.” I glare at them so they know I really mean business. “What do you guys want me to do?”
“I—” Dad looks at Mom, and she nods at him. She knows I mean it. “We, that is … We would like you to turn. We don’t want to chance losing you.” He lets out a big whoosh of breath like a weight has been lifted off of him.
“Thanks,” I
say and go back to my room. Might as well leave them hanging. It’s not as if I know what I’m going to do yet anyway. These people are talking about my life here.
I decide to go ahead and do G.W.’s homework. Might as well. Maybe it’ll actually help. The first item on both sides of my list is easy:
Serena is the thing I keep coming back to on the con side. The plusses outweigh the cons for the most part, as I kind of suspected. I guess I just have to decide whether or not my best friend or my family is more important. I wish I knew what I’d think thirty years from now. Or three hundred.
20
I hardly sleep at all Tuesday night and by Wednesday morning, I feel like something has run me over. Something approximately the size of a semi and with the compassion of a bulldozer.
Serena is like a sister to me. Doesn’t that count as family too? We know everything—well, like I said, almost everything—about each other. I’ve never even really kept a secret from her before. Okay, except for my parents being vampires. But other than that, nothing.
Sucks to Be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (maybe) Page 15