“Where is it now?”
“Gigi broke it when she was five.”
“When did Gigi start living with you?” he asked.
“We went from favorite color to custodial issues?”
“I’ve wanted to ask for days but couldn’t find a way without sounding inquisitorial. How is it that you’re raising Gigi?” he asked as I turned onto County Line Road. “Where are your parents?”
“They died a few years ago. Gigi was twelve. They were coming back from a New Year’s Eve party, and they were struck by a drunk driver.”
He said, “I’m sorry.” And for once, I was sure he was sincere. “What were they like?”
“My dad worked at the phone company. He loved York Peppermint Patties and Conway Twitty. Mom was a teacher. She was all about her garden. You’d probably figured that out already, since she named us Iris and Gladiola. Even now, something happens every day—whether it’s Gigi saying something really funny or some crisis with the house—and my first instinct is that I should call them and talk to them about it. And then I remember that I can’t, and it’s like losing them all over again.”
“I’m sorry that they passed when you were so young.”
I shrugged. “We were lucky that Gigi wasn’t with them. She was staying with a friend that night.”
“Where were you?”
“I was home for the holidays, sleeping off stress from finals. I had just finished my degree in biology, a semester early, and started a graduate program, plant biology at Washington University in St. Louis.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” he said. “Why plants?”
“Why not plants?” I shot back.
“It just seems like a sheltered, lonely field, especially when you consider that you clearly have a gift for customer service. You know what someone wants and how to get it to them. What did you plan on doing with your education?”
“I was torn between research and commerce. I didn’t know whether I wanted to find new uses for plants in pharmaceuticals or open a shop where I sold herbal shampoo. I thought I had time to figure it out.”
Talking helped me focus. I managed to slow down to a safe speed, remember to use turn signals, and not follow other drivers so closely that I could read which brand of pine-tree air freshener they were using.
“Somehow I thought it would be easier, better for Gigi, for her to leave the memories behind and come stay with me in St. Louis. I don’t know what I was thinking, believing I could work, go to school, and take care of a teenager. Gigi was my parents’ late-in-life surprise. She was used to being the center of their world. She missed her friends. And she was used to a smaller, rural school environment. She didn’t adjust very well. She made friends with the wrong kids and started getting into trouble—fights at school, skipping classes, that sort of thing. I realized that what I was doing wasn’t working and wouldn’t work, no matter how much I wanted it to. So I made a change, quit school, moved back here, and made her needs my priority.
“We tried to rent or sell the house, but we never found a buyer. A few months after we moved back here, I was still looking for a permanent ‘breadwinner’ sort of job and failing miserably. A high-school friend’s sister had been turned into a vampire and asked me to take care of the flowers for her wedding. Beautiful sprays of gardenias, very dramatic without the cliché of using calla lilies. She liked the way I organized the flowers. And since she couldn’t go out during the day and didn’t trust her mother with the other details, I ended up taking care of the cake, the bar order, the tuxes. Before I knew it, I’d planned her whole wedding for her. That’s how I got my start working with the undead.”
“You didn’t think to work in a nursery or for a landscaper?” he asked.
“It was a while before I could work out in the garden and not get weighed down, I guess, by memories of my mom. And in the long run, I think I’m better suited to not working with plants, because it would have become a job instead of something I loved. Working with vampires was a perfect solution for me. I needed a job that was daytime-oriented and flexible, for Gigi. I wasn’t qualified for much. I couldn’t sell a life vest to a drowning man. But I’m organized. I’m a multitasker, and I knew a few people who worked at the courthouse. Vampires had come out of the closet a few years before, and they still were having trouble setting up hours so the newly declared undead citizens could come in and pick up the paperwork they needed to straighten out taxes and property. I figured vampires are busy, just like everybody else. And they have an even smaller window of time to get out and about … and frankly, some of you are kind of lazy when it comes to the details of everyday life.”
“Undeadist,” he muttered.
I ignored him. “I volunteered to run the paperwork out to their houses during the day, while they were sleeping. I built up a list of contacts, got to know the vampires at the local Council office, and everything just sort of went from there. I’m thinking about adding a transport service. You know, for vampires who don’t like to fly? It will be a while yet before I can afford it. But it’s nice to have a plan.”
There was a long pause from the other end of the line. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “You are a very clever girl.”
I snorted. “I know.”
Han Solo, eat your heart out.
7
Remember that after endless years, some vampires are immune to emotional responses such as sympathy or affection.
—The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires
Cal kept me talking, asking mindless little questions about my parents, Gigi, birthdays and holidays and vacations. I told Cal about spending weekends and summers in the garden with my mom when I was a kid, about my pride in transplanting my first windowsill bean plants grown in a plastic cup to the sacrosanct backyard soil. I talked about my pseudo-naturalist phase, which ended after I gave myself a homemade facial and got a horrible rash in reaction to turmeric. Mom had told me she loved me, but from then on, I had to buy Noxzema at the drugstore like a normal girl.
By the time I pulled into the driveway, my breathing was even and my hands steady. I walked up the porch stairs, the strong rays of the late-afternoon sun warming my back.
As I approached the darkened door, my stomach tumbled. Outside was safe. The sunlight was safe. The idea of trapping myself in another house with a vampire, even if it was my own house, made me want to retch. I took a deep breath and turned the doorknob. The door lurched forward, dragging me inside the house with its momentum. My stomach pitched, and I lost all sense of up or down. I was plummeting, falling through space. Steely arms closed around me, pulling me into the darkness of the shaded foyer. Instead of fighting Cal’s grip, I sank into it, my breath rippling out of my lungs in racking little sobs.
I opened my eyes. Cal was leaning against the hallway wall, his face drawn and tired as he looked me over. He lifted my hair from my neck and growled when he saw the bite mark. The silver on my sweater made contact with his skin, but he didn’t flinch from the sizzle and smoke as he pulled me to the floor and cradled me in his lap.
“Why are you covered in silver?” he asked, his voice low and hoarse as he unbuttoned my sweater. He pushed the offending cardigan from my shoulders, leaving me in a slate-blue camisole and a pencil skirt. “And what’s that smell?”
“It’s a new perfume,” I retorted. “It’s called Residue of an Icky Groper. Do you like it?”
“You’re going to tell me what happened,” he said sternly. “Every detail.”
“I talked too much already on the drive over here. I just want to sit here and be quiet for a while.”
Cal nodded, holding me until the sun shifted in its descent, sending a beam of dying sunlight across the maple floor toward us. It was a struggle for us to get to our feet. He was still weak, and I was shaky. But we finally untwisted ourselves from our person pretzel and pushed ourselves up along the wall, out of danger. Cal pulled me down the hallway toward the master bedroom. He pushed me down to the mattress, yanking off my shoes and pulling the clean sheets under my chin. He loped around the bed, silently sliding under the sheet next to me. He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me close, tucking his chin over my shoulder.
For the first time since walking through his door, I felt safe. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, on the sensation of his hands rubbing circles on my back. After a long while, I was able to speak again.
“So, clearly, there were some unexpected developments at your house,” I said into his shirt. “There was a vampire in your closet. He seemed to think he could chew your whereabouts out of me.” He nodded, pulling my hair away from my neck to inspect the wound again.
“I didn’t tell him anything,” I added quickly.
“I knew you wouldn’t,” he assured me. “I’m sorry this was done to you. I wouldn’t have asked if I thought you would be hurt. Do you think he could have followed you home?”
“I don’t think so,” I told him. “It was still broad daylight when I left, and I took a pretty good chunk out of him with a pie server. It slowed him down.”
“Do you think he’s still there?” he asked, a dangerous glimmer of anger lighting his dark eyes.
“You’re not going back there,” I told him, gripping his arm. “Besides ruining your ‘cover,’ you’re not quite at full strength yourself. You have no business getting into vampire fistfights right now, even if I did soften him up for you.”
His eyes widened as he caught my meaning. “Why would you take the risk of fighting back? There’s no way you could win a close-contact fight with a vampire.”
“I kind of did win, since I walked away without a pie server sticking out of my person.”
“Good point.”
“Besides, what happened to ‘no emotional attachments’?” I asked him pointedly, though I didn’t pull away. “I’m just a human, after all.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.” He hesitated. “I find myself … more attached to you than I previously believed. It’s particularly strange considering I’ve only known you a few days. Perhaps it’s like Stockholm syndrome.”
“I don’t think that’s the way Stockholm syndrome works.”
“Well, I can’t explain it. It’s been so long since I was human. I can’t ever remember being sick or weak. But when I was ill and miserable, it was your scent, your voice, that drew me out. I can’t lose that right now.”
That would have been such a sweet moment if he hadn’t added “right now.”
“I knew the moment the door closed that I shouldn’t have asked you to go,” he said, shifting my weight against him and running his fingers along my spine. “I could hardly sleep today. And when I heard you scream over the phone … You have wormed your way under my skin, Iris. I find myself very concerned about your well-being. I want to be near you, to listen to you speak, because I need it somehow. It’s uncomfortable.”
“I’m sorry to put you out,” I muttered, leaning my head against his collarbone. I felt him drag the clips from my hair, letting it fall loose over my shoulders. My fingers curled around the fabric of his shirt, twisting it, pulling him closer and giving me something to concentrate on other than the effort not to cry. I closed my eyes, willing myself to take deep breaths, to relax, starting with my toes, then my legs, and working my way up to my arms and shoulders. The scent of his skin, that mellow woodsy aura, helped considerably.
His fingers slid down the length of my spine, settling over my hip. I could feel his eyelashes fluttering against my temple. I could hear him swallowing, over and over, and I wondered if the scent of my blood was bothering him—and whether he was going to yark on me again. He pressed his face to my hair and breathed deeply. The tip of his nose slipped down the curve of my cheek, along the skin of my neck, settling just over the bite wound.