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“Are you trying to hypnotize me?” I asked, my eye narrowed. “Vampires can do that, right? Control people like puppets? Are you going to make me cluck like a chicken in this foul, crowded restaurant?”
For the first time, he gave me a true, sincere smile. It was as if the clouds parted, the room lit up, and I was able to see what Mr. Sutherland looked like when he was human. Well, human and in a really good mood.
“No, I don’t have that particular gift. I am merely concerned about any tendencies you may have to injure yourself while I’m asleep. Will I wake up tomorrow night to find you have knocked yourself unconscious against the steering wheel and veered into a river?”
“That won’t happen,” I grumbled. “Again.”
His jaw dropped.
“I’m kidding!” I exclaimed, laughing as I held up my hand. “I caught my fingertip in the lock of a bathroom stall. It sort of snipped the tiniest bit of the fingertip off.”
“That cannot possibly be true.”
I held the finger up for his inspection. “There’s a reason we carry a suitcase-sized first-aid kit in the backseat. I manage to injure myself in increasingly inventive ways. I’ve been burned by a peanut salesman with bad aim at a Cubs game. I got a jellyfish stuck in my bikini top in Jamaica, which required some interesting ointment placement. Once my fian—a friend was opening a bottle of champagne in the next room, and the cork ricocheted around a corner, off the ceiling, and hit me right in the eye. I had a shiner for a week. My neighbor slipped brochures for a women’s shelter under my door.”
“You’re exaggerating,” he said.
“Would you like me to show you the scars?”
He grinned. “Where exactly are these scars?”
Was I suffering from a French-fry-induced high, or was Mr. Sutherland flirting with me?
I grinned cheekily, trailing my (uninjured) fingertips along the buttons of my blouse, as if I was considering loosening them. His blue eyes tracked the motion of my hand, up and down, up and down. I stopped abruptly, and he shook his head, as if clearing it from some fog.
“On second thought, a lady needs to keep a bit of mystery about her,” I said, lifting my sandwich from the plate and taking a bite.
Mr. Sutherland seemed deflated at my sudden change in course, which was a balm for my ego. He sighed, toying with a packet of Splenda. “Oh, trust me, Miss Puckett, you are an enigma.”
We came so close to having a pleasant evening. Mr. Sutherland even managed to restrain his comments when I ordered a slice of lemon meringue pie, although I’m sure it smelled awful to him. I stopped badgering him with questions and made light conversation about our schedule for the next night. We walked out of the diner, and he actually opened the door for me with a little smile on his face.
“Isn’t that heavy to cart around with you everywhere we go?” I asked, nudging the silver briefcase with my fingers.
He gently spanked my hand away. “What did we say about touching the case?”
“Did we say, ‘If you smack my hand again, I will wedgie you until your underwear comes up over your head’?”
He gave me an arch look.
“I would try,” I muttered.
I’d parked on the far side of the parking lot, beyond the truckers’ area, because I wanted to give us some space if Mr. Sutherland needed to do something vampire-y. Also, the last thing I needed to do was ding some tourist’s car. But as we walked to the car, I could see from a distance that was the least of my concerns. There was something on the hood. Weird, circular shapes with—
“Oh, for the love of Pete!” I cried.
Someone had spray-painted a pair of neon pink breasts on the hood of the car. Big, round, obscenely realistic breasts that were most likely visible from space. I glanced around the parking lot and saw that ours was not the only vehicle to receive a makeover. A Ryder moving truck, a tractor-trailer, and a minivan were all decorated with twin sets of their very own. I noticed that each was parked in a dimly lit area of the lot, giving the vandals the cover of darkness. I scanned the lot for signs of the kids—please, Lord, let this be the work of teenagers and not grown men—but couldn’t see so much as a mist of spray paint. The phantom graffiti artists were long gone.
“Fuck a duck!” I exclaimed.
“Language,” Mr. Sutherland admonished weakly. He was stricken, trying like hell, but failing, to avoid looking at the “art.” “Was it like this before we went into the diner?”
“No, I would have remembered our car having boobs,” I said, staring down at the Batmobile’s generous triple-Z cups. We were transfixed, caught in the thrall of trompe l’oeil cleavage. That was a first for me.
Several awkward, silent moments passed. As I snapped shots of the hood for Iris’s insurance agent—and Mr. Sutherland’s face, for posterity—I considered several options. Calling Iris and telling her she would need to send the National Guard to retrieve Mr. Sutherland. Going back into the diner to inquire whether they served hard liquor. Attempting to paint over the boobs with black nail polish.
Hey, it worked when I scratched my mom’s car in high school.
I realized that Mr. Sutherland had moved on from staring at the car to watching me intently. “Are you waiting for me to know what to do here? Because this was not covered during my orientation.”
