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“Or if you prefer something more tropical,” Sandy said, reaching toward a door labeled Greenfield Coastal Time Share Sales.
“Sandy, I’m going to have to stop you right there,” I said. “I am not going to be a good fit here. I’m sorry to have taken up your time. This has been a very enlightening experience. Please don’t call me, ever.”
“But we need a girl like you, Jane. You have the voice. With some practice, you could clear one hundred dollars, two hundred dollars a night,” she said. “We have girls quit without notice all the time because they can ’t stand the work or they just decide they don’t want to come in that night. Someone like you isn’t going to do that. You’re one of those nice, responsible girls.
You’re going to show up on time and ready to work. You won’t call ten minutes before your shift and tell me you can’t come in because you’ve been arrested. And you won’t try to live in your van out in the parking lot. You’ll serve as a good example to the other girls.”
“So, you need me to class up the joint?” I asked, my eyebrow arched. “That’s new.”
“Exactly.” Sandy sighed.
“Thanks, but I’m still going to say no,” I said, hustling toward the nearest fire exit. “After all, working here might interfere with my participation in the antihuman campaign.”
Sandy stared at me in bewilderment, so I flashed my fangs, rolled my eyes, and stalked out of the building. The words
“bloodsucking monsters” and “filthy bastards” rang in my skull, and my cheeks burned as I stomped back to Big Bertha. I swore that if I found blood on her, I was going to go back to River Oaks, pack up, and move to Tibet.
I had one of those out-of-body automatic driving experiences, where I put the keys in the ignition, and the next thing I knew, I was turning Big Bertha around the corner to Gabriel’s road. I pulled into his driveway, climbed the stairs, and stared at the house. My hand froze in midair as I started to knock on his door.
This was nothing new. I’d been to Gabriel’s house before. Of course, I’d behaved like a screaming harridan when I was there before…and here I was, coming to his door with problems again.
I chewed my lip and considered running back to my car. Then again, Gabriel was always going on about his responsibility in leading me through my vampire growing pains. Oh, let’s be honest, I was there to get a few sympathy kisses and maybe an elder-vampire platitude or two. Something like “It’s always darkest before the dawn…and we never really see that, so why worry?”
Before I could knock, the door swung open, and Gabriel was there.
“Jane!” Gabriel exclaimed with a grin that faltered at the sight of my expression. “What’s wrong?”
I tilted my head and have him a long, appraising look. “I know this is a long shot, but did you ever read a book called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day?”
“No, but the title does lend itself to inference.” Gabriel nodded.
“Well, whatever you’re inferring, add cigarette smoke and desperation.”
“That explains the smell,” he said, sniffing my hair. “Where have you been?”
“Working.”
“You found a job? That’s—”
“As a telemarketer.”
He made the “ouch” face. “Oh.”
“For a company that sold, among other sleazy and dubious products, a vitamin tonic they claimed would reverse vampirism.”
Gabriel scoffed. “Well, that’s ridiculous. No one’s ever been able to accomplish that.”
“Not the point.”
“Sorry.”
“I agreed to sell this crap. Well, actually, I agreed to try to ensnare innocent families into booking appointments in questionable locations with complete strangers wielding cameras. But I was just terrible at it, because the customers could apparently smell my fear through the phone and just hung up on me, or they told me to drop dead, and we both know that horse is already out of the barn. It was hell, OK? I took a job in the stinkiest pit of minimum-wage hell.”
Gabriel gave me a blank look. “Why didn’t you ask more questions about the job before you took it?”
“I was just tired of not working. I wanted a job. Any job. Anything to make me feel useful and productive…and not doomed to move back in with my parents.”
“Jane, if it’s a question of money, I could—”
