Deadly Offer (9 page)

“Pizza and rides are all you give your friends,” teased Ryan.

“I want to get an A on that essay, you jerk,” said Michael. “It has to be profound. Think of something meaningful.”

“There’s nothing more profound than a really good pepperoni pizza,” said Ryan.

“What do you think, Althea?” Constance asked. “If you wrote about friendship, what would you say?” Constance rested her chin on the seat back and looked straight into Althea’s eyes.

Every hair on Althea’s head prickled.

Constance fills the requirement. She is not my age. So she must be next.

Constance? Beautiful, wonderful, lovely Constance? Getting draggy and trudgy and pitiful like Celeste? Never! That must never happen! Althea forgot to censor her speech. Right out loud she said, “I guess you don’t turn a friend over to a vampire.”

Michael, Constance, and Ryan burst out laughing. Michael laughed so hard he almost drove off the road. Ryan hugged Althea more tightly, as if that were a cue line for a lover; as if that statement meant they understood each other now and were actually dating, a romantic pair.

“What a great rule,” said Michael, shaking his head, and getting back into the proper lane. He turned on his headlights as the sky finished darkening and the winter night closed in. He turned on the heater, and a warm wind caressed Althea’s ankles.

“Next time I meet a vampire,” promised Constance, “I won’t turn a single friend over to him.”

Laughter filled the car, as if a new form of oxygen had been created, as if a different combination of elements had invaded their little enclosure.

Michael turned up Hillside Drive.

Far away and far below, the many-angled roof of Althea’s forbidding house was like a black pool in the early darkness of winter. Three chimneys, solid brick, faded red, reached up toward the night sky.

And one tower.

With three windows.

Whose shutters banged.

Michael was driving so slowly that the world seemed to have slowed down with him. Even the wind seemed to lift the bare branches slowly, while autumn leaves fluttered to the grass slowly, and people getting out of their cars closed their doors slowly and walked slowly inside.

Althea seemed to watch the shutters of her tower for a long, long time; time enough for seasons to change and friendships to end.

They were dark green shutters, shutters the color of ancient hemlocks, the color of impenetrable forests.

He’s waiting for me. He’ll be there when I get back. He needs somebody else. He’ll want Constance. But I cannot, cannot, cannot do that! Michael and Constance are so perfect together. I love them together. I love knowing that there is such perfection in the world. Such beauty.

The shutters moved in unison toward the center of each of the three windows. Gently they closed themselves. One by one, they shut out the night.

Night …

There had been a conversation about night …

What had she agreed to do at night?

Althea’s hair lifted from her scalp, as if the vampire were running his horrid fingers through it, his tarnished foil nails scraping her scalp. Her spine hurt.

I invited Becky to spend the night on Saturday, she thought. I forgot Becky. I forgot her as quickly and easily as I decided to forget Celeste and Jennie. It’s as if I have already given Becky away. So that I can keep Constance.

Horror filled Althea like quicksand, pulling her down the hill, hauling her body by evil gravity toward the shutters.

Toward the vampire.

Toward the end of Becky.

T
HERE WAS SO MUCH
to be afraid of!

Herself, and her capacity to do evil things. The vampire, and his presence, the way he was changing her.

The future, and what she chose.

The friends she had, and how she would hurt them. Or hurt herself.

And this: driving Ryan home. Alone with a boy in a car.

The dark of night was a capsule around them. The interior of the car was their world. How much less relaxed they were, without Michael and Constance to dilute their emotions. They had been a group: easy laughter, easy talk. Ryan’s hand rested lightly on her shoulder as she drove, and his fingers for a moment touched her hair.

The touch spooked her, and she suppressed a shudder.

She could feel the vampire behind her, thinking of her, planning for her, waiting.

Up and over yet another hill she drove.

When she came down the other side, a mass of soil and rock blocked the vampire. It was impenetrable. His dark path could not go that far; she could feel in her ribs, her spine, the flesh of her back, that they had reached some kind of safety.

She knew, as firmly as she knew her numbers and her alphabet, that the vampire could not pierce the hill.

Althea heaved a great sigh of relief. It was so huge that Ryan jumped away from her, startled, jerking his hand back and staring at her.

“Sorry,” she said lamely. “I—I guess I don’t drive much after dark, and I—I guess I’m kind of tired. So I sighed.”

Ryan found that a difficult excuse to accept. “It’s okay,” he said stiffly. “Just drop me off and go straight home. You probably have lots of homework anyway.”

She had a sense that she was losing him, that he was fading away from her as fast as daylight had faded on this wintry afternoon. She caught his hand to yank him back. “No, no,” she protested. “I’m just really not that much of a driver.”

He believed her. How amazing. If some dumb girl said that to Althea, she certainly would have some questions. What American teen ever said or believed for a single moment that he or she was a lousy driver? Nobody. Everybody on earth believes they’re an excellent driver. Everybody on earth takes pride in their brilliant driving skills.

But Ryan believed her.

Did the vampire make him? she thought. How much power does the vampire really have? Can he actually invade my friends’ thoughts?

Of course he can. Or he wouldn’t make them my friends.

A gruesome thought invaded Althea. Had the vampire been giving Ryan instructions? Touch her. Smile at her. Take her hand.

She had to ask the vampire next time she saw him; she had to know how much of this was real. Does it count if he makes it happen? she thought. What if I find out it’s not for real? Will I still be thrilled to see Constance smile, and have Ryan hug me and Michael say my name?

Ryan lived in a ranch-style house. His driveway was paved, not gravel like hers. It seemed firmer, more modern, less likely to harbor things.

“Want to come in?” said Ryan.

“I’d love to another day,” she said, “but I have to get home.” She kissed him. She was absolutely astounded at herself. Where had that courage come from?

Ryan, startled and pleased, kissed her back.

They laughed and kissed a second time, breathless and surprised in their sharing. Althea drove away into the night, so full of joy that she felt nothing else could ever exist in her except gladness. She liked a boy, and a boy liked her. What else is there?

She laughed all the way back to her house.

The laugh stayed on her face, like an echo in the air. The curve of her smile kept her face alight and aloft.

She was still laughing when she came in her own door, and the vampire said, “I was out tonight. Did you feel me? Did you know I was there?”

He smiled, framed by the huge, carved doorway, and his smile increased to match the door. His mouth filled more of his face than usual. His teeth were long and sharp as garden stakes.

“Get out of here!” Althea hissed. Forget the questions she had wanted to ask him! She was furious with him for existing, for making her think about what she had done. How could she find peace of mind if she was forced to remember?

“I beg your pardon,” said the vampire. “I live here.”

“It’s my house!” she shouted. She stamped her foot. The porch shook a little from the force of her pounding foot, but the vampire was not affected.

“It’s mine,” said the vampire, lingering on the sentence. Then softly, he echoed himself, drooling over the words,
“It’s mine.”

Althea could not get in her own door. He filled it. His swirling black cape went right up to the edges of it, like pond scum.

“And you,” said the vampire, smiling cruelly, “you are mine, also.”

S
HE WAS DOING HER
math homework when the phone rang. Page 78. Quadratic equations lined up like little vehicles trying to cross the page. The book was very white, and the numbers printed very clearly, very thinly, like a message.

“Hi, Althea?” said an eager girl’s voice. “It’s Becky.”

“Hi, Becky!” cried Althea.

A girlfriend was phoning. It had been years! Years since the joy of having a best friend to call up and gossip with. Althea beamed into the telephone, as if it had been invented just for her.

“I had such a good time at Pizza Hut, didn’t you?” said Becky.

“It was great, wasn’t it? Isn’t Michael funny? Isn’t Ryan terrific?”

“Oh, yes, and afterward, after you left with the boys—well, I stayed on awhile and got to know Kimmie-Jo and Dusty so much better. Kimmie-Jo told me all about this terrific place where she gets her hair done. Dusty thinks I should maybe get mine a little more layered in the back. Dusty thinks I need more volume in my hair.”

Althea loved to talk about hair. She told Becky that she, personally, thought Becky’s hair was extremely attractive, the way it clung to her head, and Althea loved the ponytail, which was exactly the right length, shoulder length. Becky could curl her hair for elegant occasions, but if Becky cut it layered, she would have volume, but no ponytail. And was that really what Becky was after?

Becky said she was really after a boyfriend, and hair volume kind of ran second to that.

They laughed shrilly and eagerly into the phones, and got into more comfortable positions, because this was a conversation with all-night potential. Althea was sorry she had no snack next to the phone. Althea frowned at her quadratic equations and did one.

After they were done with hair, they moved on to makeup and clothing, and then they got to the important part: what Althea had done with Michael and Ryan. Althea told Becky everything, while Becky sighed in vicarious pleasure at each description. “ … and then he took his hand off my shoulder and touched my hair,” said Althea.

“How did he touch it?” Becky said. “I mean, did he run his hand over it, or through it, or what?”

Althea did another quadratic equation. A really good equation, thought Althea, is a girlfriend on the phone asking what you did with a boyfriend in the car.

They discussed exactly what happened, Becky moaning with envy. They pondered whether Althea, too, needed more volume in her hair and should go with Becky to the new hairstylist. Then Becky was struck by the thought that perhaps Dusty and Kimmie-Jo had been trying to say that Becky looked stupid and needed professional help.

“You know them better than I do,” said Althea. “Are they mean or nice? Are they thoughtful or cruel?” Althea finished up two more equations.

Becky told several interesting stories about various nice or else cruel things that Kimmie-Jo and Dusty had done. Then she said casually, and yet carefully, “ … about sleeping over, Althea? I asked my mother about Saturday. But I thought I should check first and see if, you know, if Ryan, like, asked you out. Because. I mean, I wouldn’t hold you to your invitation if Ryan—well—he would come first, of course.”

Althea suddenly remembered why she had stopped being friends with Jennie when they hit high school. It had been a conversation just like this one. How could she possibly have forgotten? The pain had paralyzed Althea for months! For her whole freshman year.

The conversation replayed in Althea’s head like an old record: one of those big, slow records that you found boxes of at yard sales, because nobody even owned a turntable anymore.

“But you said I could stay over at your house Saturday,”
Althea had protested.

“I know, Althea, but grow up! Dave asked me to the movies! I mean, what counts here, Althea?”

“I’m your best friend.”

“Althea!”
(How irritated Jennie had sounded; as if she were looking at her wristwatch; as if she could not believe her romance was being slowed down by this dumb, dumb, dumb conversation with some worthless girl.)
“Althea, this is a boy. Remember how there are two sexes? Of course, you haven’t found out yet. But I have. And I’m not about to tell Dave I can’t go to the movies because my friend Althea wants to come over!”

That Saturday night seemed eons ago, but it wasn’t. It was only a year and a half.

A year and a half ago that the best friend of all her life, and all her joys and sorrows, had said,
“Let me spell this out for you, Althea. I have a boyfriend now.”

Jennie had not added—had not needed to—
I don’t want you, Althea. I’m not available now. I have better things to do. Better people to be with.

Memory was harsh and painful.

I’m not that kind of friend, she thought, proud of herself. I wouldn’t write a friend off into the background like that. She said firmly, “Of course it’s on, Becky. I can hardly wait. There’s only one trouble. Is there any chance that I could stay at your house instead of you at mine? I mean—well—you know how it is—I just can’t have company right now.”

Becky replied delicately that she understood; families could be difficult. “I’d love to have you stay here,” said Becky. “Actually, that’s better in a way, because even though I’m sixteen, my parents don’t like me to stay overnight at anybody’s house when they haven’t met the family. They’re really old-fashioned, Althea, you wouldn’t believe it. I have so much to tell you.”

Althea folded up into her chair and cuddled the phone like an infant. She was safe for another weekend, at least. Nobody would be here to cross the dark path.

“Ryan didn’t ask you out for Saturday, then?” Becky asked just to be sure.

“Even if he had, I would have explained to him that I had to check with you first. I’m not that kind of friend, Becky.”