Sweetblood (9781439108741) (17 page)

Dinner comes off without a hitch. The pig muscle is consumed. I manage to get down a few bites of salad and potatoes, even though I feel kind of nauseous. I don't know if it's nerves or what. Maybe it's my outfit that's making me sick. My father keeps looking at me like he can't quite believe that this is his daughter, but he never says a word about my new look. Maybe he thinks I am making fun of him, or maybe he actually likes it. For all its simplicity, the parental mind is beyond my understanding. We are just about done eating when the phone rings. I jump up and answer it before they remember to invoke the phone ban. It's Dylan.

“I have a serious problem,” he says.

“Is it terminal?” I ask.

“Worse. I might not be able to go to the party tonight.”

“Oh.” I take the phone into the hall. “I wasn't really planning on going anyway,” I say. “Got to do the parentals proud. I'm kind of on a roll.” I'd been good little SweetieHoneySugar all week. Mr. Butterfly can wait one more day. I think.

“My problem is that all my jackets are black,” Dylan says.

“Ah, I understand.” Maybe I will go to the party after all. “You are too cool.”

“They don't go with my outfit. I'd skip the jacket, but it's supposed to be cold tonight.”

“It's freezing out already.” The rain had turned to sleet. Not a good night for the trick-or-treaters.

“I suppose I could just wear one of my dad's overcoats.”

“Maybe… hey! I got an idea.”

“What?”

“It's a surprise.”

As soon as I get Dylan off the phone I call Mark.

“Is this Monkey Schwarzenegger?”

“Is this Skeeter McBee?”

“Speaking.”

“Speaking.”

“Thank God we got that over with.”

“What's up? You trick-or-treating tonight?”

“Oh yeah, I got my little magic princess costume on. Actually, I'm calling to ask a favor.”

“Sure.”

“Only you can't ask me why.”

“Why?”

“Because if you do I'll lie.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

He hesitates, but I know he'll say yes.

The parentals are nothing if not predictable. At 11:00 the television set goes off, then ten minutes of bathroom noises and they are in dreamland. I catch the sleepy, hungry monarch and put it in a shoebox. An old red down ski jacket completes my dork ensemble. I grab my purse and take a last look at myself in the mirror.

“Lucy?” I ask.

The figure in the mirror nods. I take a quick look around. I have a feeling I'm forgetting something. Oh yeah. My glucose meter is staring at me from my desk. Got to check the old blood sugar. Got to be diabetes girl. I think of all the numbers the meter might shout, and none of them appeal to me. Besides, I'm tired of all the finger pricks and blood drops and digital numbers.

I turn my back on the meter and head out. I don't think I can climb down the antenna post holding onto the shoe-box, so I tip-toe down the stairs and slide out through the back door quiet as a bat. It's sleeting out, more ice than rain. I run up the street, ice pellets chattering on nylon and stinging my face. Dylan is waiting at the corner all toasty warm and dry in his daddy's car. He is wearing the stone-washed jeans, as promised, and a black T-shirt with a screen-printed front.

“Is that my dork jacket?” he asks, looking at my puffy red cocoon.

“As a matter of fact, no, this is
my
dork jacket. What's your shirt say?”

He turns so that I can see the words:
Neil Diamond 1987 World Tour
.

“That is so uncool,” I say with sincere admiration and disgust.

“What's in the box?”

“The reason I have to go to Wayne's.”

He looks puzzled.

“You should know. It's all your fault.”

“What did I do?”

“You gave me a butterfly.”

“Oh. It hatched?”

“You could say that.”

“Well, it wasn't from me, really. It was from Wayne.”

“It was?” This gives me a peculiar and not altogether comfortable feeling.

“What about my jacket?” Dylan asks.

“Turn around and drive back down Oak Street.”

A few seconds later I say, “Pull over here.” I jump out and run across the lawn, the heels of my cowboy boots going
squish squish squish
in the soggy grass. I run around the house, down into the backyard where I knock on the door to the walk-out basement.

“Trick or treat,” I say when the door opens.

Wordlessly, Mark Murphy hands me his letter jacket.

Bizarro

Dylan loves it. “This is so beyond uncool it's cool.” He admires his reflection in the glass door of the lobby. The jacket is so big on him the sleeves hang past the tips of his fingers. “Look at me, I'm a football star.”

“Be nice,” I tell him. “It belongs to a good friend of mine.”

“Problem is, it covers up Neil Diamond.”

“So wear it awhile, then take it off.” We start up the stairs.

“I could just sort of hang it off my shoulder.”

“Yes,
très élégant
.” We hear voices as we approach the landing. The door to Wayne's apartment is cocked open; the reek of clove cigarettes carves into my nostrils. We enter and find ourselves in a ghost world of abnormal ordinaries. One of the first people I see is a smiling, fresh-faced young man with carefully combed blond hair, a heather
gray sweatshirt with
GOD LOVES YOU
! printed across the front, cargo shorts, and hiking boots.

“Greetings!” he says, and gives us both a vigorous handshake. “What a great day! Praise the Lord!”

There is a moment when I almost believe I have wandered into a Lutheran day camp—then I recognize him.

“Weevil?”

“No ma'am, my name is Andy Anderson. And may I say you look smashing in your puffy red coat? And you, sir—an accomplished athlete, no doubt?”

“Jeez, Weev, that's really scary,” Dylan says. “Love the shorts.”

“Enjoy! Enjoy!”

Andy/Weevil greets the next pair of guests, a couple dressed in Banana Republic khakis. Dylan and I weave through the maze of rooms to the kitchen, where two girls wearing matching pleated skirts and fluffy sweaters are serving hot apple cider in Styrofoam cups. We each take one. Maybe it will settle my stomach.

Most of the people there are very strange-looking. Nobody is wearing anything that would excite comment in the mundane universe. The outfits are mostly what you might see on a Saturday afternoon at the mall. But none of it looks quite right. If alien invaders land and try to blend in using the Sears catalog as a reference manual, they might look something like this. For one thing, almost everybody has black hair. A lot of them are showing tattoos, and a close look reveals various punctures and indentations—evidence of piercings not currently in use. Then there is the way they move. Everybody is kind of stiff and tentative, and I know how they feel. I, in my corduroys and cowboy boots, am as uncomfortable as the rest of them. I feel naked without my makeup.

The strangest thing of all is the way everybody keeps
smiling
. And
laughing
. But their smiles and laughs do not have a happy, relaxed sound. They are more like the coughs and twitches and grimaces of discomfort, embarrassment, confusion, awkwardness.

Someone puts a Celine Dion CD on the stereo. It's the perfect choice—she's an alien in disguise too—but I'm not sure I'll be able to stand it. I take a sip of my cider. It's very odd-tasting.

“What is this?” I ask Dylan.

“I think it's hard cider,” he says. “It's got alcohol in it.”

“I don't want to get drunk.”

“Then don't drink it.”

“I'm really thirsty.”

“Maybe there's some soda or something—hey, is that Marquissa?”

It is. Marquissa wearing a baseball cap. Her hair, gathered into a ponytail, is strung through the back of the cap. It gives her an uncharacteristically perky, long-necked look. Standing beside her, smoking a cigarette, is Fiona Cassaday, wearing a Seward Stingers cheerleader's sweater. The funny thing is that last year Fiona actually
was
a cheerleader.

“Hi guys,” I say.

Marquissa gives me her usual heavy-lidded look. Some things never change. But I get a double take from Fiona.

“Oh my
god
!” she says, eyes wide. “Is that
you,
Lucy?”

“Tonight you can call me Lucille,” I say. I take another sip of my cider. It tastes pretty good.

Fiona grabs my arm and pulls me aside. “Do you
know
these people? Have you
been
here before?”

“Sure,” I say as if I've been there a thousand times.

“This is so
peculiar,”
Fiona says, eyes darting.
“Marquissa's been trying to get me to come here
forever
. Look at how
weird
everybody's
dressed
.”

“It's a costume party, Fiona.”

“
I
know
that
. I even dug out my cheerleader sweater. Hey, what's in the
box
?”

I'd forgotten I was carrying it. “A present for our host.”

“Was
I
supposed to bring one?”

“No. Just me.”

“I hear he's really
weird
.”

“Actually, the weirdest thing is how normal he is.”

The second I say that, a creature in black glides into the room and all conversation comes to a halt.

At first I think, This guy didn't get the message about the costume party. He is wearing a flowing black cape over a black leather corset and black leggings. His lips are painted red, his hair is black and oily and combed straight back, his face and hands are pale with foundation: a caricature of a Hollywood vampire.

“Good evening, my children,” he says. The voice is familiar… then I see who it is under all that makeup and everything makes perfect sense.

After all, this is Bizarro Halloween.

All of us black-clad freaks are dressed as mundanes, why shouldn't Denim Jacket/Nike T-shirt Wayne Smith dress up all vampy? Actually, he doesn't look half bad. The leather corset is a little silly, but I suppose he needs it to hold his belly in. Maybe I should get one for my dad.

“You
are
a spooky-looking bunch,” Wayne says, putting his hands on his hips. I look down and notice his high-heeled boots. No wonder he looks taller.

“Hey, Wayne,” I say.

He snaps his head around and fixes his eyes upon me. “Did I hear a peep?”

I give him a little finger wave.

“Ah,” he says. “The raven-haired mundane speaks a strange name. Who is this ‘Wayne' you speak of?”

Now I'm confused. Maybe this
isn't
Wayne. I don't know what to say, so I shrug.

He walks over to me and looks into my eyes. “Allow me to introduce myself, child.” He holds out a red-nailed hand. “Draconius Mundo.” He bows and plants a kiss on the back of my hand, then looks up at me. Lips curl back from stumpy little teeth, and he winks. Definitely Wayne.

He releases my hand and spins, his cape billowing. “Cider in the kitchen, children. Wine in the study.”

Wayne, aka Draconius, does another cape-swirl and stalks off.

Fiona says, “Was that
him
? I thought you said he was
normal
.”

“This is Bizarro Halloween. Everything is backwards.”

“Well I think he's
creepy
.” She follows Marquissa out of the room.

I search for Dylan and find him sitting on a sofa eating potato chips and slurping hot cider and listening to a girl dressed in a ruffled powder-blue blouse and a matching pleated skirt. Last time I saw her she was in fishnet and vinyl.

“What did you mean before, about Wayne giving me the chrysalis?” I say, interrupting her.

Dylan looks up with a mouthful of chips. “Huh?”

The girl has a nasty little smirk. I'd give her a black eye like I gave Gruber, only I'm afraid it would look good on her.

I say, “You told me in the car that this”—I'm still holding the shoebox with the butterfly—“was from Wayne.”

Dylan gulps his cider. “Oh. He told me to give it to you.”

“But he didn't even know me then.”

“He knew who you were.”

This sends a shiver up my spine. “How did he know that?”

“How should I know? Why don't you ask him?”

I stare at Dylan with new eyes. He looks small and young and weak. Mark's Seward Stingers letter jacket is huge on him. I can see why they call him Dilly.

“What are you, his message boy? That's really pathetic.”

“What-
ever
.” He shrugs and drinks more cider and the jacket sleeve slides back to reveal his wrist. The hilt of his tattooed sword is missing.