Sweetblood (9781439108741)

by Hautman, Pete

  I walk past Gruber and Buttface, talking in the hall. Probably talking about me. Buttface says something but I ignore her. I see Mark coming down the hall, but I don’t want to embarrass him by engaging him in public conversation, so I turn away before he spots me.

  I trudge through the day. After my last class I am heading for the door when Marquissa catches up to me.

  “Hear you had a scary Halloween,” she says.

  “It wasn’t so bad.”

  “I rode home with Dylan. That was really scary. He was so drunk.”

  “You’re lucky you’re not dead.”

  “I hear he’s got a thing for you,” Marquissa says, smirking.

  “Dylan?”

  “No. Wayne,” Marquissa says, showing her teeth. How can a smile be so nasty?

  Fiona comes up looking very stripy in candy cane socks and a jacket made out of some sort of crinkly gold plastic. “Who’s got a thing for who?” she says, inserting herself into the conversation.

  “Lucy’s got a boyfriend old enough to be her dad,” Marquissa says.

  “He is not my boyfriend,” I say.

  “Who?” Fiona asks.

  “Weird Wayne,” Marquissa says.

  “That guy?” Fiona looks horrified. “Really?”

  “You guys are sick.” I roll my eyes and walk away.

  “So,” says Dr. Rick, “how is the plan coming along?”

  “Plan?”

  “Yes. Your strategy for getting your computer back?”

  “Oh. That plan.” I laugh.

  “Is something wrong?” he asks, eyebrows bobbing in eager anticipation. I guess nobody told him about my stroll in the snail.

  “No, no, everything is fine,” I say. “Actually, I’ve been making some important decisions.”

  “Such as?”

  “Respect my elders, avoid drugs and alcohol, do my homework, quit smoking, don’t hang around with vampires. You know. All the usual stuff.”

  “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “I don’t.”

  Dr. Rick is blinking rapidly. “I can’t always tell when you’re kidding,” he says.

  “Neither can I.”

  “I see.” He gives me a careful look. “You seem… more relaxed today.”

  “I’ve had an interesting week.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  I consider telling him everything—it would feel so good to let it all spill out—but the hungry look on his face creeps me out. I realize that he does not truly want me to get my life together. His patients are his entertainment. Dr. Rick is just another vampire, sucking up the twisted energy of his patients.

  I decide to load him up with empty calories.

  “We’re studying acids and bases in chemistry. And reading The Little Prince in French class. And I’m rewriting my essay for Mrs. Graham. I’ve decided to become a personal banker. Personal banking is actually very interesting. Have you ever seen the movie It’s a Wonderful Life?”

  “Of course.” He can’t hide his disappointment. He wants angst and wickedness, and I’m giving him Jimmy Stewart.

  “That’s what inspired me to become a personal banker. Either that or a chemist. Did you know that if you mix an acid with a base you get water?”

  “How fascinating.”

  I prattle on about acids and bases and personal banking for another twenty minutes. Dr. Rick, nearly comatose, finally looks at his watch and tells me our time is up.

  I am out the door, on my way back to my computerless cell, when my sore toes make a wrong turn and take me toward Harker Village. Antoinette has nothing new in her window display. Bugs Bunny, bleeding heart, fire-breathing dragon, knives, swords, and chains. Lame, lame, triple lame. How about a big red X on one cheek? Everybody would ask me what it means. I’d glare at them and walk away. Would that make me feel better?

  I push through the door and enter the shop. Antoinette is behind the counter, bent over her left foot. At first I think she is clipping her toenails, then I realize that she is tattooing her middle toe.

  “Be with you in a sec,” she says, not looking up.

  “Take your time.”

  “Is that angry, indecisive Lucy I hear?”

  “I’m not angry. I’m pissed off.”

  Antoinette sets down her tattoo machine, spreads her toes, and admires her work. The first three toes read A-N-T.

  “Ant?” I say.

  “I’m doing my name. One letter per toe.”

  “Just in case you forget who you are?”

  “Don’t laugh, girl. It happens. My mother had Alzheimer’s. Doesn’t hurt to plan for the future. So what’s up with you, kid? Wanna get inked today?”

  “I’m thinking of something for my forehead.”

  “Very painful, but we aim to please. What have you got in mind? Lightning bolt? Scarlet letter? Third eye?”

  “How about a window.”

  “For looking in or out?”

  “In. If people could see what I’m thinking then I wouldn’t have to explain myself all the time.”

  She gives me one of her X-ray-eye looks. Antoinette doesn’t need a window.

  “Could get you in trouble.”

  “I’m already in trouble.”

  “What happened?”

  “I died.”

  She stares at me, blinking, and my mouth opens and I gush. I tell her everything. Antoinette is a good listener. She never says a word, her eyes never leave my face, and she has no notebook.

  “And now,” I say, “I’ll probably never get my computer back, and everybody at school thinks I’m a time bomb, and I wish I was somebody else.”

  Antoinette waits a few seconds to make sure I’m done talking, then says, “So what’s the problem?”

  “Did you hear anything I said?”

  “Yeah. You said you wanted to be somebody else. So what’s the problem?”

  “My problem is I am who I am.”

  “No you aren’t. Tell me something, when you get up in the morning what do you do? Do you look in the mirror?”

  “At some point.”

  “Why?”

  “To see myself.”

  “Exactly. Every morning you check the mirror to see who you are. And every morning you see somebody new. You don’t like what you see? Change. You’ve done it before. Don’t tell me you were born with that scowl. Or that hair. Your roots are starting to show, girl.”

  “But I’m always the same person inside.”

  “I sure hope that’s not true. Are you the same person today as that stupid little twit who spent Halloween night guzzling port wine with that middle-age cradle-robbing nut-job Wayne Smith?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You see these tattoos?” She thrusts out her thick arms. “Every one of them symbolizes a change in my life, and I’ve had a lot of change, kid. It’s how I keep track. Every tat was for a different Antoinette. Check this out.” She points at a red heart on her shoulder with the name Gerry written across it in Old English script. “One of my biggest mistakes. The five months I was with Gerry were heaven and hell on earth, but it’s part of who I am.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He died. I know a lot of dead people. You see this?” She pulls up her top. On either side of her navel are the words Ride Hard, Die Young. “That’s from my biker days. We tore up every highway from Key West to Anchorage. Those were some wild years. Half the bunch I rode with are dead now. Wouldn’t do it again for anything, but I never want to forget it. I was somebody else then. I’m not so interested in dying young anymore.”

  “Me neither.”

  “That’s good.”

  “So which one are you now?”

  “You mean which tat?” Antoinette smiles and points at her toes. “Today,” she says, “I’m Antoinette.”

  I order a double espresso at the Sacred Bean and find a table in the corner and put my sunglasses on and pretend to be dead again. I turn my mind to stone. Not thinking is hard. I shift gears and try to
think about what I’m thinking, but I can’t tell the difference between thinking and remembering. Am I having another insulin reaction? I take out my glucose meter and prick my finger and do a test right there at my table. No one is watching; no one cares. A number appears: 112. A good, normal, nondiabetic number.

  “Hey, Luce.” It’s Dylan. He sits down across from me. “How are you doing?”

  I shrug.

  He tips his head and looks at me. Those blue eyes that once made my heart stutter now look vacant and pale. “Don’t you like me anymore?” he asks.

  “I liked you better before I knew who you were.”

  He starts to laugh, then sees I’m not joking.

  “Wayne’s little errand boy,” I say.

  “I’m not his errand boy. I just thought you’d, you know, like to meet him. He’s a cool guy.”

  “Wayne? Cool? I don’t think so.”

  “I know he’s kind of dorky, but he throws a great party.”

  “Yeah, real great. Getting a bunch of kids drunk.”

  “So? It beats sitting around the house watching TV.”

  “Are those your two choices? TV or drinking? I feel sorry for you. You and all your pathetic friends.”

  He sits there for a few seconds with his brow wrinkled, then shrugs and stands up and walks away.

  Suddenly I feel awful. Now I’m being just as judgmental and self-righteous as Dr. Rick. One day I’m guzzling port and hanging out with Butterfly Wayne, and a few days later I’m berating Dylan for doing the same thing.

  I catch up with him outside.

  “Hey, Dylan.”

  He turns and gives me a cold look.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “What did you mean?”

  “I meant… I guess I’ve changed. I’m somebody else now.”

  He gives me a long, scathing look. “Congratulations,” he says, then turns and walks away.

  29

  Blue Sky

  Color stripper is possibly the most noxious substance you can buy without being investigated by the FBI. I’m surprised they sell it to minors. I follow the directions carefully, wearing green plastic gloves and breathing as little as possible. It takes two bottles and almost three hours to do the job.

  At one point my mother knocks on the door to tell me I have a phone call. “I’m not home,” I yell back.

  “What are you doing in there?”

  “Nothing!” I shout. Then I breathe in a bunch of fumes and start coughing.

  I hope I haven’t bleached my lungs.

  I show up at the dinner table in a towel turban. I am Lucy, I am Sweetblood, I am Swamirama. My father doesn’t seem to notice my headgear, but my mother keeps looking at me, curious. Finally she can’t stand it anymore. She has to ask.

  “Sweetie, did you do something to your hair?” She looks so pathetically anxious that I take pity on her. I stand up and slowly unwind the towel from my head.

  My father says, “Good Lord, Sport.”

  My mother says, “Oh my!”

  I run my fingers through my new hair. It’s pretty much back to its original cornsilk blond, a color I haven’t seen for almost three years. Of course, the stripper turned the hairs stiff as broomstraw, so I had to cut it back a bit. Quite a lot, actually. The fact is, I’ve got eyebrow hairs that are longer. I am Sinéad O’Connor, I am Captain Picard, I am Charlie Brown.

  I sit back down and help myself to some “vegetarian zucchini casserole,” a recipe my mother clipped from Diabetes Forecast magazine. I eat a few bites—it’s not bad—then look up. They are still gaping at me.

  “Maybe this would be a good time to show you my tattoo,” I say.

  My father’s eyes protrude and a vein on his forehead pulses visibly. My mother’s hands flutter like wounded birds.

  “Just kidding,” I say quickly. “No tattoos today.” I grin to show them I’m joking. My mother’s hands settle into her lap, and my father slowly smiles. I wink at him. He winks back.

  Saturday arrives bright blue and unseasonably warm. Bizarro weather. The snail has melted. They say it will get up to eighty degrees—a new record high for November. I am sitting on the chaise longue in the backyard with my red toes and my white head soaking up sunlight—the ultimate test for a vampire. So far, I have observed no signs of meltdown.

  I am reading my chemistry textbook. Acids and bases. Fascinating stuff. Utterly compelling. They should teach this stuff in kindergarten. A roomful of five-year-olds playing with hydrochloric acid. Hydrogen ions everywhere. The chemistry book is getting heavier. My hands slowly lose their grip and it plops down onto my thighs. The clouds are high and wispy today; I see angels and ghosts. I rise to join them. It’s nice up there. I am doing loops around a cirrus cloud when my mother’s voice reels me back to Earth.

  “You have a phone call, Sweetie.” Apparently, telephone privileges have been reinstated. She hands me the phone.

  I cover the mouthpiece with my hand. “Who is it?”

  “He didn’t say.” She heads back into the house.

  I put the phone to my ear. I hear faint music, and breathing.

  After a time, he speaks. “Sweetblood? Are you there?”

  I say nothing.

  “I missed you at dinner last night,” he says.

  I set the phone on the grass and return my attention to the clouds. As I rise up past the clouds and into the endless blue sky I can still hear his voice, tinny, distant, and inconsequential.

  Scott’s Sports Central has one extra-large orange and blue Seward jacket left in stock. I put it on over my black everything—a fashion statement of the utmost variety—and walk over to Mark’s. I bang on the back door with my fist. Mark answers the door all groggy with his hair sticking out every which way.

  “I wake you up from a nap?” I say.

  He nods, his eyes taking in my getup.

  “I got you a new jacket.” I shrug it off and hold it out. “You’ll have to take the letter off your old one and sew it on.”

  Mark doesn’t take the jacket. He is too busy staring at my hair.

  “Here.” I throw the jacket over his head and walk away.

  A few seconds later he comes running after me. “You didn’t have to get me a new jacket.”

  “I didn’t want you to walk around with puke stains on your sleeve all year.”

  “Well… thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. Thanks for saving my life.”

  “No problem. I owed you one.”

  My boot heels are going tock tock tock on the sidewalk. Mark is wearing running shoes, which make a sound like scrish scrish scrish. His new jacket is hanging over his right shoulder.

  “I don’t know why you’re wearing that,” I say. “It’s almost eighty degrees out.”

  “It’s November. Could snow any second.”

  “Snail. It might snail anytime.” Tock scrish tock tock scrish tock tock…

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. I’m delirious.”

  “Having more of that keto-whatchacallit?”

  “Yes. About to keel over any second now.”

  “I’ll catch you.”

  “How do you like my hair?”

  “Can I touch it?”

  “At your own risk, Monkey Boy.”

  His big hand cups the top of my head and gently wriggles the little hairlets. Tock tock scrish tock tock scrish…

  “That is so cool,” he says, lifting his hand away.

  “I’m still the same twisted individual. Just different.”

  “You still Skeeter?”

  “Still Skeeter, still Lucy, still Sweetblood, still all of them.”

  “Good. I like you that way.”

  “Which way?”

  “I like you all those ways.”

  Scrish tock tock… We walk for a wordless while with the autumn sun warm on our backs, and every now and then his arm brushes mine.

  p; Hautman, Pete, Sweetblood (9781439108741)