Nightlight (7 page)

“That’s better,” I said, releasing his collar. “Get nice and angry.”

“Can you please hold my nose for me? I don’t want to take my hands off the steering wheel.”

“Sure.” I plugged his nose. “Little vampire punk,” I added beneath my breath before I lost the adrenaline. “Whoa! Look at that palace!”

Edwart pulled alongside the curb. We were parking next to what I can only describe as a modern day pantheon.
Buca di Beppo
read the fancy script and neon lights.

“Isn’t it great?” Edwart asked, touching my shoulder and then taking it away and then firmly placing it back when I directed him to. “To think—Italy is full of these … these bistros.”

I was awestruck, and flattered that Edwart would want to introduce me to his cultured lifestyle. And yet a tiny part of my heart, maybe the pulmonary valve, sank. Were we
really as good a match as I told myself repeatedly in the mirror we were? He was more worldly and more otherworldly than I. What world could I bring to our relationship?

The underworld
, I thought, resolutely ripping in half my “Get Into Heaven Free” coupon. Looking back, I probably could have come up with a better world if I’d given it another moment of thought. Sea World comes to mind.

Edwart led me to a small, intimate table by the bar television. Interestingly, the waitress was very quick to interrupt our private tête-à-tête on whether the blue team was evil or good with her own irrelevant commentary on specials. And was it just me, or was her back completely turned to me as Edwart spoke? Maybe I was being territorial, but it seemed that she was standing on the table for the express purpose of snubbing me and filling her entire purview with Edwart.

“I’ll have a lasagna—buca small,” I told her muscled calves.

“Make that a buca large,” Edwart said.

“Are you sure?” asked the waitress. “A buca small feeds seven to nine people. We do things ‘family’ style here. ‘Screw sustainable population growth family’ style.”

“I’m sure,” he said, smoothly winking at me through her legs. She crossed her legs. We couldn’t really see each other after that.

Once she left, Edwart turned his dazzling, disco-ball eyes to me. Just looking at him transported me elsewhere, to a rave. A rave with pulsing, multicolored eye-shaped lights.

“I wouldn’t normally order for you,” he said, “but with
everything that’s happened in the last hour, all so confusing and fast-paced and condensed for comedic purposes, I’ll bet you’re pretty hungry.”

“How could you tell? It’s like you can read my expression.”

He frowned and looked down at the tablecloth. “Actually, you’re the one person I can’t read. I’ve always considered myself good at looking at people’s expressions and making wild guesses as to how they feel, but you—I look at your face and try to guess what you are thinking, and all I hear is ‘BEEEEEEEEEP.’ Just this giant beeping sound—the sound a medical monitor makes when you die and everything goes blank. ‘BEEEEEEEEEP.’ Like that.”

Ah, the old BEEEEEEEEEP—a sound I had grown accustomed to. A default sound, if you will, that my mind returns to whenever it has nothing more interesting to think about.

“I know what you mean,” I said.

“There’s that sound again,” he said. “What did you say? Because to me it just sounded like B BEEP BEEP BEE BEEP.”

The waitress carted my lasagna platter over.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” she asked Edwart, typically.

“Actually, do you make blood-sausage?”

“Yep.”

“Great. One order of that then. Easy on the sausage, though.”

“Easy on the sausage?”

“Yeah, I’m more of a sauce guy.”

“A blood-sauce guy?”

“Yeah—a blood-sauce guy.” He turned to me. “You were saying?”

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP, I thought as I grasped wildly for something else to say. Then I had another one of my well-researched epiphanies. His constant use of Purell, his love of video games, his lack of friends, planet gazing, and flail-run.

“You’re a zombie,” I gasped.

“No. I’m not,” he said.

I went back to the vampire theory.

On the drive back home, he asked me if I had any other theories.

“A few,” I said. “You know how they say the universe is ever-expanding? Well, I think outer space is a hoax and NASA is a retirement home for CIA officers,” I explained. “The moon is real.”

“I meant theories about me,” said Edwart. “The way you look at me sometimes … okay, the way you look at my teeth sometimes and comment on how inhumanly pale or inhumanly cold I am and the way you are putting your ear to my chest right now … I mean,
what
is going on inside that head of yours.”

“You have absolutely no heartbeat.”

“That’s what I’m saying! Why do you say things like that? What could you possibly think that I am?” He glanced over at me nervously. “You don’t think I’m a robot like the others,
do
you? Please Belle … I … I just couldn’t take that.”

“Why don’t I do the asking and you do the answering?” I asked. To be honest, the robot theory was new to me. It would require further reflection.

“All right. Shoot.”

“Is there a reason we shouldn’t be together?”

He sighed. “I was afraid you would ask that. The truth is, I’m not good for you Belle. I’m dangerous.” He started driving in a zig-zag way. “Too dangerous. I don’t want to hurt you.” He ran through a red light. “I would never forgive myself if I put you in danger.” He stopped at the yellow light so he could turn left during the red.

“Why don’t I drive next time?” I asked.

“That would solve it,” he chuckled. “I never did get my license. Now there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, too: What’s your favorite color?”

“Blue.”

“What’s your favorite flower?” “Daisies.”

“Cool. Well, I’m all out of questions for you. I think it’s interesting that you have a favorite flower. That was my trick question.”

“I lied about the color. I really don’t care about colors. Blue has no value to me.”

He took his hand off the steering wheel to tuck the hair behind my ear further back behind my ear. “That’s what I mean about you. You’re special. We both are. We both think about more things than the others.” He parked the car and turned to me. “You want to have a discussion about those things?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’d love to have a discussion about those things.”

We had a discussion. It was really interesting. “I should probably go inside,” I said when it was over. “It’s nine p.m., and I’ve got to start making breakfast for my Dad.”

“Good-night,” he said and squeezed my hand.

I leaned over to kiss him good-night on the cheek. Suddenly, I was kissing thin air. He was gone.

“Don’t ever try any funny business again,” an angry voice rebuked, floating up from below the driver’s seat.

“I’m sorry, Edwart.”

“We’re not even going steady yet!” the voice said. “I need time to get acclimated to being near you. Time to practice hand-holding, for Gosh sakes!” His head popped up between the seat and the steering wheel. “Belle, can we be totally honest with each other?”

“Of course, Edwart. We can’t be in a relationship unless you’re totally honest about the destruction you’re capable of.”

“Right. Well … what if I told you that I’m not capable of destruction? That I have to lift apple juice out of the fridge with no less than two hands and that I would never be able to open a jar of anything for you. What if I told you that once there was a spider in my shower and I threw cup after cup of water at it until it slowly drowned and I lived with the subsequent guilt complex for years before I became vegetarian?”

Vegetarian in vampire-world means you drink every type of blood but human. Frankly, I think a more adequate
analogy is “Kosher,” and a better method would be for a vampire word committee, similar to
L’Acadamie française
, to get together and come up with an original word for it. I’m not sure whom to contact about this, though. And I don’t really have time to find out. I’m pretty busy with school and stuff.

“What if I told you,” Edwart continued hypothetically and not very relevantly, “that you are the second girl who has ever held my hand, the first being my mom? And then confessed that TV yelling reactivates my hernia? Would you still want to go out with me?”

“Well, Edwart. Firstly, if those things were true we wouldn’t even be in the same car together,” I pointed out. “Secondly, I could never go out with a liar who lied about how he couldn’t lift ten gallons of apple juice. Frankly, I think your superhuman ability to hurl jugs of apple juice as big as cars is the most attractive thing about you. Please, Edwart,” I said, staring deeply into his soul and seeing that in his soul were many other awesome vampire secrets, “I’m the one person you can trust forever. From here on out, let’s be straight with one another.”

He looked as if he were about to cry, obviously from the joy of casting off the terrible burden of his secrets. “Okay,” he finally said. “You got me. I am the biggest threat to your safety and if we dated, I can’t promise that I would be able to stop myself from … from …” he faltered, too ashamed to utter all the terrible things he was capable of.

“From turning me into a deflated sack of skin?” I whispered.

“You are strange, Belle,” he said with the comfort of someone who knows you so well that he can tease you from time to time about your flaws, which, though inexcusable, are nonetheless adorable. “You’re beautiful. But shockingly, inconceivably strange.”

“I knew it!” I threw my arms around the air around him so he could acclimate himself to my delicious blood scent. It was grapefruit flavored.

“I’ll come by to pick you up at seven tomorrow morning for our first Price Elasticity meeting.”

“And what dangerous activity is that a cover for?” I asked as I got out.

He stroked his hairless chin in silent contemplation. “You’ll see,” he finally said.

I scampered into the house, confused but excited. Did vampires have their own special way of conjuring dollar bills? Wouldn’t that severely affect inflation? Wouldn’t price changes have zero effect on Edwart, since he has been saving money over hundreds of years?

Then again, the economy these days.

“Hey, Belle,” called my Dad when he heard me come in. “How was your night?”

I didn’t answer. It would take too much explaining. He had no idea there were real vampires out there and his concern for me was nothing more than a chemical reaction in his brain to ensure gene preservation—a similar reaction to the one that caused me to find vampires so darn cute.

I COULDN’T SLEEP THAT NIGHT. I KEPT WORRYING
there was a leech outside my window. I kept worrying it was going to jump from the tree onto my window screen and then worm its way in, using its hemoglobin sensors to find where all my blood was. The problem with having great smelling blood is that everyone is going to want some. I got up and closed the window. But that only caused a whole new slew of fears, because what if the leech
were already in my room?
What if he and Edwart were in cahoots, and the leech was merely second banana to him, hiding under my bed until I fell asleep? One thing was for sure—I wasn’t going to stop that leech from doing its job. That’s no way to do my part for the economy. I opened the window wide and went back to bed.

I tossed and turned for minutes. Luckily, my absentminded mother had packed the tranquilizer gun I used to
use on her when she’d get in one of her moods, so I shot myself with it and slept soundly. She also packed our VCR and her diamond ring.

Despite the tranquilizer, I was still nervous the next morning. What was Edwart going to do to me? Was I putting myself in grave danger? Why did a leech sucking my blood disgust me but not a vampire? Most importantly, how was I going to balance wearing a ball gown with not looking like I cared too much about my appearance? I ended up scratching the ball gown and going with a button-down shirt, but a girl’s button-down shirt. You can tell by the pockets.

I heard a knock on the door and breathed in sharply. How thoughtful of Edwart to knock when he could just as easily break down the door. I opened it expectantly.

It was the mailman, grinning at me with that typical Switchblade smile.

“Hi,” he said. “Nice weather.”

I shifted awkwardly. I felt comfortable talking about a lot of things, but not the weather. I didn’t quite have the terminology down, having skipped the grade in which you learn about various atmospheric conditions.

“Yeah—the sun’s on today,” I guessed tentatively.

“Well, you tell your dad I said hello.”

It was then that I finally understood. He was in love with me. It was all there—the doorbell ringing, the door standing, the showing off with his weather knowledge. Were there no other girls in this town to diffuse the responsibility of being loved?

I took the one letter he had for us. It was from the Switchblade Gas & Electric Company. I didn’t know I had admirers there too, but I wasn’t that surprised. I threw it in the trash with the IRS’s love letters and closed the door without reply.

I went into the kitchen to have some breakfast before Edwart came. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and this was my most important day of the year. I would eat two breakfasts in recognition of this.

Dad was in the kitchen, as usual, fumbling around with the drawers. He couldn’t even pour himself cereal! I wonder how he managed to exist by himself before I arrived.

“Here’s a
bowl
, Dad,” I said.

“A what?”

“It’s like a plate, but with sides,” I explained. As I pulled it out of the cupboard, I accidentally flung up it towards the ceiling fan. I pulled out another bowl and gave it to my dad. He stared at it until I poured the cereal in.

“Here, Dad. Here’s the spoon. Eat your cereal with the spoon.”

“Thanks, Belle,” he said appreciatively. He was pretty clueless, but at least he could feed himself, which was not true of my mother. I used to do the airplane thing to feed her, but then a plane crashed near our house, and so the sound scared her. After that, I would imitate flying cars, which is roughly the same sound, but on a lower register.