Deadly Offer (12 page)

The temperature of the wind and the world was lower.

It’s dark in this room, she thought, and I have my back to a vampire. “Ryan!” she screamed.

“Haven’t gone anywhere,” he said, grinning upward.

“Turn on your car radio. Dance for me.”

“Do what? Come again?”

“Turn on your car radio! Hard rock! Rap! Techno! Something that hurts the ears.”

Ryan was affronted. “It doesn’t hurt my ears,” he told her. “I love that kind of music.”

“Good. Turn it up all the way.”

Ryan bent over and leaned inside his father’s car, turning the key halfway to get battery power, and the radio surrounded Ryan in a mist of throbbing drums and pounding rap.

Music to scare vampires by, she thought.

Ryan obeyed her. He was dancing. She loved watching him. He hardly moved his feet, but his hips swayed. “Either I get to come up, or you have to come down,” screamed Ryan over the blaring music.

We’ve never danced together, she thought. We’ll dance, Ryan and I. We’ll dance tonight, and we’ll dance tomorrow, and we’ll dance our lives away.

“I’ll come down,” she yelled to Ryan, and knew that she could. The door would open easily when she touched it. She was not trapped; perhaps she never had been, except by her own fear.

She walked out of the tower room and held its door open and looked back in at the grimy shutters and the window she had left open. Wind and rain would come in now, too. But that was all right. Wind and rain were friends, like the dark.

In the hall, under the lamp, she said to the vampire, “So there.” She could not see him or smell him, but she knew he was around.

His voice materialized, but not his form. “So you’re going dancing?” said the vampire. “Just don’t forget who gave you the chance to dance. You owe me.”

“I owe you nothing. You took more than you should have.”

Althea continued on out of the house, across the porch, down the stairs, and over the gravel. Ryan was still dancing. When Althea reached him, he took her hands and they danced together. Her dancing style was completely different; she flung herself forward, flung herself back, and launched toward him again. They laughed and the music screamed, and he said, “I want to see your tower room.”

“No. It really is haunted, and you can’t go up there.”

Ryan’s face split in a delighted grin. “But you can go up? The haunt doesn’t bother you?”

“It bothers me on a daily basis.”

“Tell you what. I’ll go up there and beat it to death.”

“Tell you what. We’ll drive to Pizza Hut and see everybody.”

“Okay. I’m an agreeable-type person.”

Ryan finished his dance and slipped into the driver’s seat.

Althea finished her dance, circled the car, and put her hand on the shiny chrome handle of the passenger door.

“I like this car,” said the vampire conversationally. “Blood-red. It’s a nice color.”

“Go away,” she whispered.

“You want to dance with Ryan?” the vampire whispered back. “Fine. Dance. But every dance is a debt to me.”

B
ECKY WAS AT PIZZA HUT!

Althea vibrated like a guitar string. How had this happened? “Becky,” cried Althea, “I thought—I mean, when I left this morning, you were—um—”

“Sick as a dog,” said Becky cheerfully. “I was wiped.”

Althea’s head was whirling. She felt like a one-woman roller coaster.

“What do you think was wrong?” asked Kimmie-Jo.

“I don’t know, but I had to get well,” said Becky simply. “Next weekend is the biggest game of the season, and I’m the one that you and Dusty are throwing into the air and catching during the halftime routine. How could I ruin it by coming down with some dumb flu?”

Ryan said, “It was probably too damp and chilly last night in your yard. We shouldn’t have gone outside.”

Althea’s whole soul felt damp and chilly.

Becky said, “Know what? I swear, when I was dancing around trying to get Althea to come out, the shadows felt like liquid moss.”

Kimmie-Jo screamed. “That’s so scary,” Kimmie-Jo whispered. “Green, wet, shadowy stuff closing in on you?”

I foiled him! thought Althea, exulting. I got her inside before anything happened! I am a match for that vampire!

Becky said, “My mother thinks it’s overwork. You wouldn’t believe how she carried on. Too much homework, too many papers, too much cheerleading practice, too many hours on the telephone.”

Kimmie-Jo nodded. “Probably those hours on the phone. Have some nice nutritious snacks while the other person’s talking, to keep your strength up. Cookies or brownies. Then you’ll be fine.”

Kimmie-Jo seemed completely serious.

“In my family,” said Becky, “a nutritious snack is a banana or an apple.”

Kimmie-Jo was appalled. “I don’t do fruit,” she said. “Or vegetables, either.”

“But do you do pizza?” said Ryan. “Pizza is always the final solution.”

They all cheered for pizza. Althea cheered loudest and longest and she thought: I won. How intrepid I am! I got out of the tower room in spite of the vampire. I saved Becky after all. What power I have. How incredible I am!

Somebody put coins in the jukebox.

“They’re playing my favorite song this week,” exclaimed Ryan. “Althea, dance with me.”

“You can’t dance in Pizza Hut,” said Althea.

“Why not? They put music on, don’t they? Do they expect us just to sit here? Of course not.” Ryan stood up. Held out his hand.

Before I was popular, thought Althea, I would never have done this. I would have felt like a weirdo and a jerk. I would have been embarrassed. I would have died first.

She and Ryan began dancing between the dark glossy tables while other patrons laughed and watched. She began showing off, which was not natural to her. Ryan was a born show-off.

No, she thought, it’s that he was born popular. Popularity all your life makes it possible to dance in the aisles.

Her eyes examined every patron in the restaurant. She saw that popularity, or lack of it, knew no age barrier. There was a little girl, maybe six years old, dancing next to her parents, and that little girl was blond and beautiful, and Althea knew this girl’s destiny was to be popular. At another table, children stared enviously but never dreamed of leaving their seats. Two elderly women, alone with their gray hair and wrinkled hands, watched Althea with such sadness that Althea knew they were not remembering their youth when they danced with abandon; they were remembering a youth in which nobody asked them to dance.

I, thought Althea fiercely, will be the one who dances, not the one who yearns. I’m sorry about Celeste and Jennie, but I won’t let that happen again, and I’m not giving up what I have.

So there, vampire!

The football team sat in the front of the bus. Every boy wore a jacket and tie and looked both distinguished and uncomfortable.

Ryan’s energy overflowed. Twisting in his seat, Ryan yelled back to Althea, lustily sang verses of bus songs, and threw paper airplanes at the coach.

“Ryan,” the coach kept saying tiredly, “save it for the game.”

“I have more than the game needs.”

“Say that when we’ve won,” said the coach.

Althea loved watching the boys when they were apprehensive. Somehow boys never looked as if they got scared. Certainly not football players. It was rather satisfying to know that, yes, they, too, got anxious and tense and tied in knots.

Michael, the best of them, the most athletic, the most capable, was certainly the most nervous.

Since it was an away game, a whole new school’s worth of girls would shortly see Michael for the first time. Althea knew well how their eyes would caress and memorize him.

I’ve always wanted Michael, thought Althea, but now I don’t. Isn’t that amazing? Michael is such perfection: Every inch of him is splendid. I have had Michael memorized for years. I’ll keep him tucked in my mind, something to observe and admire. But not to have.

I like it that he and Constance are a pair.

She looked out the back of the bus. The fan bus was behind them, and she knew Constance was on it; she knew Constance would sit directly behind the cheerleaders, four bleachers up, so that the cheerleaders did not block her view of Michael playing, but so she was still in the thick of the action.

Ryan sent Althea a paper airplane and she sent it back.

How lovely popularity is, Althea thought. It gives you choices. If you don’t feel like talking, nobody thinks it’s because you’re such a loser nobody would talk to you, anyway.

You can sort through the boys and girls around you and pick exactly who you want. And with popularity, you have time to know what you want. You aren’t taking the dregs or the leftovers. You have the winners, and it’s a matter of choosing your own particular winner.

Ryan and two other boys began throwing a pair of sneakers around. The bus driver and the coach yelled, and momentarily the bus stopped by the side of the road while Ryan was informed that responsible young men his age did not behave like that. Ryan seemed, interested, but it did not affect him particularly, and the moment the bus was back in traffic, the sneakers were back in the air.

I love him, thought Althea.

The sentence was astounding.

She felt that she must have shouted it out loud, turned it into a cheerleader’s cheer, and done it to claps and jumps.

But nobody was looking at her. Not even Ryan.

I love him.

He’s mine, and I love him.

O! the life that had been so dark and dreary. Only weeks later, and Althea’s life sparkled and glittered like a tiara at a royal dance. She felt that, she was composed of diamonds and emeralds, and that Ryan was rubies and sapphires.

Her imagination ran into the future of high school, coursing through dances and yearbooks, committees and clubs. She saw herself with Ryan, wearing jeans and prom gowns, short skirts and Halloween costumes. She saw herself in the cafeteria and -the front lobby and the art rooms and at graduation.

Popular.

The boys got off the bus in a unit, sternly ordered (in fact, rudely ordered; the coach had a-limited vocabulary and used it often) not to distract themselves by looking at girls. Ryan said, “I’m not going to look at
girls.
I’m just going to look at one. Althea.”

He grinned at her, and she laughed back, and the entire cheerleading squad circled her, whispering and giggling and delighted and envious.

Popular.

The game was long and difficult. Once Ryan was thrown into the mud where he lay twisted and motionless. The coach and the ref ran out to him. But he got up, limped briefly, and was fine. Althea breathed again.

Michael was brilliant.

The sky was blue, the stands packed. The fans had stadium blankets over their legs and scarves around their throats. Pompoms rustled, and hands clap-clap-clapped. The smell of hot dogs and popcorn filled the air.

Mrs. Roundman said, “You have the right spirit for cheerleading, Althea. That smile never leaves your face. That laugh is so infectious. I. would not be surprised if you become captain. You have what it takes.”

T
HE VAMPIRE DID NOT
appear that night.

He did not appear the following night, nor the night after that.

I got rid of him, thought Althea. I really did it. Oh, wow! I didn’t even have to shut the shutters all the way. I just had to get powerful and knock him off the planet.

Althea swaggered a little, laughed some, paraded through the house, and circled the yard, kicking autumn leaves. No laughter like broken glass shattered the peaceful night. Her breath swirled like a dragon’s in the cold winter air.

She spent a night at Kimmie-Jo’s and went to a party at Dusty’s. She and Ryan went to a movie alone together, and another night went with Michael and Constance.

Constance was such a wonderful person. Althea decided to model herself on Constance.

Homework was easy. Quizzes a snap. Teachers admired every word Althea contributed to discussions. Younger girls chose Althea as their favorite cheerleader, and the team won the next game.

The first snow fell.

The dark bleak valley where Althea’s house lay turned sparkling white—pure as true love.

She swept the porch and the steps. The snow was dry and tossed in the air like miniature blizzards. The wind blew it back in her face, and she laughed with the joy of living.

It was a night without stars or moon. It was very, very cold.

Ryan, Michael, and Constance dropped her off, and Ryan kissed her good-bye even in front of the others, and Constance said, “See you tomorrow, Althea.” Michael tapped his horn good-bye.

Althea stood on the bottom step watching the red glow of their car lights disappear behind the hedge. Ryan was right, she thought. The dark is a friend. When you have friends like I do—like Constance, and Michael, and Ryan, and Becky, and all the rest—all the world is a friend, too.

Through the night came a laugh like sandpaper scraping over skin.

The vampire did not go through the crust. He walked over it, leaving no footprints. The winter wind grabbed his black cape and flung it around him one way and then another, so that he kept wrapping and unwrapping.

The only things that gleamed in the dark night were his eyes and his fingernails. She knew that when he smiled, his teeth would also shine. The crisp clean air turned foul.

The silent night filled with the creaking of shutters, as if they were craning their necks to see the action.

When she shifted position, the snow crackled beneath her boots, as if something were chewing on her ankles.

She was cold, terribly cold, right to the marrow of her bones.

But she said, “I thought you left.”

“Briefly. Now I’m back.”

“I don’t need you,” she said. “Go away and stay away.”

The vampire stared at her. His jaw dropped in disbelief, and for the first time she saw his tongue. It was pointed and curled up as if rolled in a can. Then he laughed. The pitch of laughter broke the ice that lined the bare branches; the ice fell into the snow below. He said, “You don’t need me, Althea? Think again.”