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“I talked constantly for four hours.”
“Tell me again why this job didn’t suit you?” he asked, making an undignified uhhff sound when I poked his stomach. “I’m sorry you had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Still, knowing you, you’ll turn it into some sort of learning experience.”
“Yes, I’ve learned I’m going to be a lot nicer to telemarketers from now on.” I sniffed as I snuggled into his chest.
“See? There’s a silver lining after all.”
We sat in silence and listened to frogs chirping on his front lawn. Gabriel was slowly but surely leaning his head away from me. After a minute or so, his face was as far away from me as his neck would allow.
“All right, all right,” I grumbled, getting to my feet. “I’ll go home and shower.”
“I’m sorry,” he assured me as he followed me to my car. “Otherwise, I find you irresistible.”
I glared at him halfheartedly as he leaned in for a kiss. Thinking twice when he was hit with my aura of nicotine, he reached out and shook my hand. I laughed.
“You’re laughing. That’s always a good sign,” he said again as I climbed into Big Bertha.
I kept laughing until I stopped at the end of Gabriel’s road. I looked into the rearview mirror and saw a girl with a glint in her eye and a goofy grin on her face.
“Oh, Jane. You’ve got it baaaad.”
14
Vampires can be territorial and possessive creatures. While it makes them passionate and exciting lovers, it can also make them terrifying ex-lovers.
—From The Guide for the Newly Undead
You know how people complain that Christmas has become too crass and commercial? Well, boo-hoo. Have you seen what humans have done to Halloween? It’s all “excuse to dress slutty” witch costumes, chainsaw serial-killer movie marathons, and life-size electronic dancing mummies. And let’s not even talk about how culturally insensitive the whole dang holiday is toward the undead. How would humans feel if we put inflatable versions of them on our lawns?
I didn’t take this all so personally until my first undead Halloween. Believe it or not, vampires tend to hole up on All Hallows Eve and refuse to come out until the last candy corn has been consumed. Part of it is the commercial resentment, but mostly, it’s the hope to avoid a bunch of drunk idiots doing their worst Transylvanian accent.
While explaining the various holiday pitfalls, Gabriel said he usually spent Halloween watching old movies, an incurable Hitchcock fan. And then he invited himself over to my house.
This may sound juvenile, but I was nervous. Then again, our first date involved me being interrogated, so I didn ’t feel this was unwarranted. We were going to have the place to ourselves. Aunt Jettie had a date to go out with Grandpa Fred, walking the earth when the veil between the spirit world and reality was at its thinnest and all that.
It had taken some work, but I’d finally exorcised the offensive eau de Marlboro Man scent that clung to my skin for days after I left Greenfield Studios. I bathed in tomato juice, used four different types of clarifying shampoo, and invested in the economy pack of Listerine. I also took more care with my appearance than usual that night. I wore a gauzy green blouse and my “good”
jeans. I’d actually bothered with earrings, a rare thing for me. And I was wearing makeup. Yes, I did own makeup, blush and powder and Chapstick. But not eyeliner. There was an incident in college. I had to wear an eye patch for two weeks.
I wanted my sire to see that when I wasn’t drunk or freaking out, I wasn’t a total gorgon. And I even wore cute black underwear, because you never knew.
The only real problem was entertainment. I didn’t think building an evening around “Come over and make out with me” was a good way to start a relationship. Then again, “Come over and play canasta” is just lame. My DVD collection did not include the old-fashioned thrillers Gabriel liked but rather an alarming number of romantic comedies that I didn ’t want Gabriel to know I had seen, much less owned. And I never realized what a minefield Halloween television could be. Imagine my horror to find the channels crowded with the Blade trilogy and The Lost Boys. In terms of entertainment value, Lost Boys is a great movie. But it involves the unholy trinity that is Corey Feldman, Corey Haim, and Joel Schumacher, and therefore I cannot claim it as a suitable model for my lifestyle.
We finally settled on Francis Ford Coppola’s version of Dracula, which, unfortunately, Gabriel seemed to think was a comedy. I think it was the combination of Keanu Reeves ’s British accent and Gary Oldman’s elderly Count Dracula hairstyle.
They’re just misleading.
“Why would he arrange his hair into buttocks on top of his head?” Gabriel laughed.
“You’re not the first person to ask that,” I told him.
He was just so darn cute when he laughed. The skin around his eyes crinkled. His face relaxed. It made him seem so alive, so normal, which in itself seemed weird.
“I never realized how funny Dracula could be,” he said. “Most vampires resent Stoker for the public-relations nightmare he visited on us all, but we secretly enjoy the story. It was the first time vampires were portrayed as sensual creatures, as opposed to mindless, reeking ghouls.”
“Mmmm, you know what book talk does to me,” I growled, stopping when I noticed how prim he looked, sitting in the exact center of my sofa with his back ramrod straight. He was sitting almost a foot away from me, with his hands at his sides. “Why are you sitting like that?”
“I know you have a problem with this on occasion, but I was talking just then.”
