Vida Nocturna Part 3

Sara nodded. The warm feeling was fading away.

"You can just tell him that you're not comfortable with all those eyes on you, watching you, waiting to laugh at your mistakes. You'd get nervous, isn't that right?"

Daddy would be proud if she sang. But not if she made mistakes.

Mummy wrinkled her nose. She looked kind of like the lady on Bewitched. "Just don't do it, Sara. Tell him you won't do it."

"Whoa. That went fast," Jeff said, taking her martini gla.s.s.

"Want another?"

"Yeah- Oh, wait, no," Sara said. "Alexander said to give him fifteen minutes. He was going to meet somebody and bring the car up front. No time for another drink."

"A date, huh? And he's bringing the car around? Pretty special treatment."

Sara laughed. "Is that what you call it when he reads my mind and tells me I want to go out with him? Anyway, I'm not sure I like him bringing the car. It makes me uncomfortable."

A waitress gave Jeff a ticket with some drink orders. He poured some Blue Curacao into a gla.s.s. "Oh, c'mon. It's not the most feminist thing in the world, but some of that chivalry stuff is all right, isn't it? Like a knight protecting his lady from the elements or whatever?"

"It's not because of feminism. I just feel uncomfortable when someone pays me that much attention."

Jeff laughed, shaking his head. "You picked an interesting outfit for someone who doesn't want attention."

Sara looked down at the black Diane Von Furstenberg wrap dress she was wearing over black silk hose and lingerie. "Too much?"

"No, no, no. You look great. But you don't exactly fade into the background, either. It's an interesting choice, going for the super white makeup and the really dark red lipstick..."

She smiled without parting her lips, like a woman with a dark secret. "I kinda thought I'd be going out with Alexander tonight, you know, so I brought this to change into. This way we kind of match- you know how pale he is. And look at this: black nail polis.h.!.+" She held up her hands, nails out. "My friend Angie gave it to me one year at Halloween."

A hand grabbed Sara's shoulder. She started to stand, ready to run.

"Sara?"

Megan Conlon, vice president of her high school graduating cla.s.s, stood next to her at the bar. Megan looked exactly the same as she had in high school - brown eyes like a baby seal's and long blonde hair in big curls that cascaded over the lapels of her camel hair coat.

"Oh ... Hi, Megan."

Megan took a moment to study Sara's white face powder and black fingernails.

"Wow," she said at last. "You look different!"

Megan talked quickly. It always seemed that whatever she happened to be talking about was the single most exciting subject that she had ever discussed in her life.

"Um ... yeah, well, I'm ... waiting for my date. He went to get the car."

Megan's face looked like a salesgirl telling a customer how great an outfit looked. "Good for you, jumping into the whole dating scene again. I know it must've been hard to start again after the whole Josh thing."

Sara attempted a casual shrug. "He did what he thought was best for him, I suppose." The restaurant crowd was growing. She felt stares from faces hidden in the darker corners now.

Megan's eyes opened a little wider still. "That is really a great way to look at it." She shook her head slightly in something approximating amazement. "Angie was your best friend, and Josh was your boyfriend, and you're just ... so cool. Really. That's just so amazingly cool of you to be like that."

Sara stared. Alexander was probably out front by now. "What do you mean?"

"You know, how they started dating over the summer ..." Megan shook her head and batted her eyelashes in wonder. "But you're just moving on, and keeping busy, and you're just sooo cool about the whole thing!"

Megan made a point of telling only accurate information.

And Sara had memories to match the story.

Angie and Josh had seemed to get along so much better right around graduation. Sometimes they'd laugh at something private, forcing Sara to ask what the joke was.

Some part of Sara slid down inside her head, drowning in images. Angie helping Sara home from school when she'd thrown up in cla.s.s and Mummy was nowhere to be found. Sara's first real date with Josh, when he'd agreed to leave the restaurant because Sara was too afraid of the crowd. Angie and Josh kissing in his room- No. Never saw that.

Making out in his car. Falling all over each other at some stupid, stupid high school party where everybody would know and they'd all laugh at her and laugh and laugh. And Megan would laugh, too.

I'd bet Megan laughed the hardest. Megan's face was suddenly transparent, revealing her veins and arteries and nerves and her dirty, nasty little brain. b.i.t.c.h.

Megan licked her lips, giving her best fake smile. "But they were never like you, anyway. I mean, you're this fun, party chick, and they're both so geeky. I guess I never understood why you hung out with them, anyway.

Sara forced her eyes to focus on Megan's face again and gestured toward the door. "Yeah ... well, they were good designated drivers. My ride's probably outside. Gotta go." She hurried out.

"So this is your room?" Sara asked, looking around. A Spider Man poster was pinned on the closet door. Star Wars action figures were arranged on his desk with R2-D2 in the center like a strange little nativity scene. Chemistry models and plastic toys hung from strings all around the ceiling, and a stack of empty 7-11 Big Gulp cups stood next to his desk, taller than he was.

"Yeah," Josh said. "I guess it's a little childish for a high-school junior, huh? All the toys and stuff."

"No. I think it's great." It was hard to breathe here, especially when he looked in her eyes, like now. She felt herself floating outside her body, looking down on the two of them as they talked. Maybe this was what love felt like.

He shrugged. "I like this stuff. I can't help it. Comics and sci-fi are great escapes, you know? At least I'm not some zombie turning in to watch the same stupid TV shows every night, right?"

Her eyes widened. "Right. So ... what are you escaping from?"

He blinked. "Um, I dunno. Just school and stress and stuff, you know."

"Oh." She pursed her lips. "I used to be really into fairy tales when I was a little kid. They were a great escape, too, until I figured them out."

"Figured them out?"

"The happily ever after thing. It's great when she marries the prince or whatever and they say that. But they just don't show the part where there's a revolution and they drag her to the guillotine."

A huge golden retriever flashed through the doorway, knocking over the stack of cups and carrying off several. Josh chased after, shouting "Samwise!"

Sara took a few deep breaths. She had to get her head straight.

Josh returned, closing the door behind him. "Sorry. I'm saving these cups for the proofs of purchase. Someday they'll probably have a promotion where you have to save them and get prizes ... Otherwise why put proofs of purchase on a paper cup, right? By keeping them now I'll be way ahead of the game!" His face looked like one of those pictures of proud fishermen holding their catch. She nodded.

"Anyway, I usually have the door closed to keep Sam out." He shook his head, returning the tattered cups to the stack and righting it. "You got any pets?"

Sara's voice answered but her spirit was still elsewhere, watching. "No, my mom says a pet would mess up the house. But someday I want to have a raven." Her face smiled. "Wouldn't that be cool? A raven for a pet? I'd name him Quoth."

Josh shrugged. Sara's hand reached into her bag, pulling out a few comic books. On top of the stack was Tomb of Dracula #2, The Fear Within. "Thanks for letting me borrow these," she said. "I really liked the part where Dracula told Frank how lonely he was and how he'd wished they could be allies. Most vampire stuff doesn't talk about how the vampire feels, you know."

He smiled. "You're really into vampires, huh?"

Her hands covered her face. It was a good gesture of shyness but it didn't come close to how she would have felt if she was still in her body. "I can't believe you caught me reading over your shoulder like that."

"Hey, no problem. It's how I got to meet you. Lucky I was reading that one instead of something else." His smile was so comfortable. It would have warmed her if she could feel anything. His house was comfortable, too. If she married Josh she could live in a comfortable house like this, and have a dog ... She pinched her left ring finger as if feeling for a wedding band. That finger was always a little numb, making it a little easier to imagine that there really was gold there, promising her that she'd be loved forever.

"So ... how did you get interested in the undead, Sara?" he asked, sounding like a sitcom psychologist.

"I don't know," her body answered with a surprising amount of real emotion. "I really liked that book, Interview With The Vampire, where it talks about how isolated the vampires are and how they can still have human feelings. Like, they're banished to the shadows, taking power from their victims ... And they are the scary things in the night, you know? They never have to be afraid. Have you read it?"

"No. I'm not much for horror. When I read anything besides comics it's usually fantasy stuff like Lord of the Rings ... or sci-fi. Like Brave New World. Have you read that? It's a good one. It makes you think about whether we control our inventions or they control us."

She shrugged. "Maybe I'll check it out."

Silence fell between them. It should have been awkward, the two of them staring at each other like that. He leaned in towards her. She watched her eyes close, her lips tighten.

He pulled back. "That's nice," she said. "I've never kissed anyone before."

"Me either."

She put her arms around his neck as they kissed again.

Alexander's car was at least ten years old. The huge body had been painted flat black, its engine sounded like a diesel train, and there were two slots at the front of the hood that were apparently for letting air in. The car gave her the same impression Alexander did, that of rising up and thriving long beyond the time everyone expected it to be gone. The orange tip of a cigarette glowed through the winds.h.i.+eld.

"What is this thing?" she asked, making exaggerated craning motions with her neck, as if trapped in a submarine. Talking was important. Talking would keep out those memories of Angie and Josh.

"This," he said, far too seriously, "is a '72 Olds Four-Four-Two." Everything about him was serious, now. He seemed to be staring out the winds.h.i.+eld at something way off ahead on the horizon. There was no half smile. There were no jokes. Sara had no idea what he was talking about with the car so she just stayed silent.

"It has a four-fifty-five - one of the biggest motors ever built - a four-barrel carburetor, and dual exhaust."

"Oh."

He exhaled sharply and turned the wheel, and the admittedly huge motor propelled them into the street. The inertia pressed her backwards into the seat as they sped off.

"How long have you had it?"

"About a year," he said, glancing over his left shoulder before darting into another lane. "Used to belong to a guy I knew. I sort of inherited it."

They stopped for a red light. The car shook with each chug of the engine, twitching and trying to lurch forward. She closed her eyes, listening to the radio. "... Lost inside adorable illusion and I cannot hide ..."

She raised her voice over it. "So what are we doing?"

"I've got to go to the club with my group," he said. "I thought you'd come along- if you don't mind, of course."

"Your group?"

"Just some people I know."

She rode in silence for a little while. "Um, yeah. okay. That's cool. I've been having kind of a s.h.i.+tty night so I'll go anywhere I can get a drink."

He didn't say anything. They rode without speaking for a while. Memories of Angie and Josh crowded into Sara's head. She covered her eyes with her hand, then shook her head. She could wait to reach the club. She could wait. She just needed to distract herself, to keep him talking.

"Did Neil call you Biff at the restaurant tonight?" she asked.

Alexander nodded, taking another drag off his cigarette and blowing smoke out the slightly lowered driver's side window. "I played football in high school," he said. "Neil thinks that's funny."

"I don't know that I'd say it's funny," she said. "Bizarre, maybe. I can't imagine you all decked out in your school colors and running with a ball."

He stayed silent.

Angie. Josh. Megan. Her best friend. How could Angie have done this to me?

Sara shook her head and swallowed. She saw them together, holding hands ...

She pinched her thigh. Stop it. focus on something else. Alexander's head turned toward her.

"So where did you grow up playing football?" she asked. "Mayberry or something?"

He lit the new cigarette in his mouth with the old cigarette in his hand, then pushed the old one out the window as he spoke around the new one. "Lake Forest."

"Really? I'm from Glencoe. We're like neighbors. Maybe that's why we get along. Two spoiled suburban kids, right?"

He pointed out the window. They were driving past a building with stone sphinxes the size of cars on either side of the front door. A crowd of well-dressed party people milled outside and a kind of electric excitement buzzed around the entire building. Blue and green neon formed an Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol of a flower and spelled "Blue Lotus" above the door. "That's the place," he said.

"Oh," she said. "It's ... it's a big crowd. I don't do so well with big crowds."

Angie stood on the porch with her finger ready to press the doorbell again. The look on her face was something between concern and annoyance. Behind Sara, the living room stereo played. "...I just can't get enough, I just can't get enough ..."

"Oh, here you are," Angie said. "How nice I found you."

Sara stared back. "Did you bring any food?"

"I heard you ran out of cla.s.s again," Angie said, brus.h.i.+ng a strand of jet black hair away from her almond eyes. Sara had always envied her gorgeous Asian hair and willowy figure. "Are you trying to get kicked out of high school?"

"I don't want to talk about it. Did you bring any food?"

"How could I bring food? I came straight from school." She looked up and down at Sara, wedged tightly between the door and its frame. "What is this? Red Rover, now? You're not gonna let me in?"

"I'll let you in if you promise not to bring it up again."