Til Death (Immortal Memories) (2 page)

Going into the bakery and buying new cupcakes will do me absolutely no good. I know this to be true, but that truth seems somehow foggy. Inconsequential. So I’ll be late to my meeting? So I’ll be carrying someone else’s cupcakes? Who cares? I take my time picking out the ones I want. That pink one. That mint green one. That one with the cute little kitten painted in the icing. That one with the gorgeous flower designed in alternating shades of red and purple frosting. I’m totally content in the task while some jangling little part of me whispers that I need to leave and leave now.

Regardless, I make my selections, smiling broadly, my thoughts alternating between contentment in cupcakes and the handsome man with the ice cold skin who sent me here. On a whim, while his face is still lingering in my mind, I pick out a red velvet cupcake with red icing scattered across the top - made to look like drops of blood, surely to capitalize on the current vampire craze. It looks out of place next to the kitten and the flower, but for some reason, it’s my favorite one.

I pay the girl at the counter and smile crazily at her.

“You really like cupcakes, don’t you?” She’s looking at me a little funny. I just smile and nod, eager to hand her the cash and get out of here. I don’t want to be the creepy chick she tells her friends about after work. Plus, I’ve got somewhere I’m supposed to be, don’t I?

I hand her the money and like a light switching on, I realize how much time I’ve wasted. I’m going to be so late. I stare down at the box of cupcakes in my hand with its scrolling logo. At first, I see the plain, logo-less box that used to hold my cupcakes, all crunched up and ruined, and then the image is gone. What did I do with it? The ruined box with my ruined cupcakes? Did I throw it away?

The girl’s really staring at me now so I thank her and leave. There’s absolutely no way she’s not telling her friends about me as soon as her shift ends. I sweep my change from her hand and cram it into my bag. She makes an exasperated sound in the back of her throat and mutters something under her breath as I rush from the bakery, but I could really care less what she thinks about me. There’s only one thing I care about at this point. My feet hit the sidewalk, thumping out as quick a pace as I can manage without breaking into a full on run. Each time they hit, the word ‘late’ echoes in my head. Late. Late. Late. I hate being late.

Mia’s board members are gathering up their things with little frowns of frustration and shakes of their head when I burst through the door. My chest is tight, I can’t quite catch my breath. I manage a winded “I’m so sorry” as they hit me with varying looks of condensation and harsh judgements.

I can salvage this. I know I can.

I offer my best warm and winning smile, throwing in a dash of apology with a twist of my head and a slight shrug of my shoulders. “I’m very sorry I’m late. Would you be willing to meet with me anyway?”

There’s a few arched eyebrows as they lock eyes with each other, giving little indications of their willingness to stay and hear me out. I have a chance to study them while they decide. They’re all spike heels and tailored suits. Fancy watches and expensive jewelry. My heart thumps in my chest.

An older man takes pity on me. “Are those yours?” he asks, pointing to the box in my hands. “Intend to win us over with your baking skills, do you?” He smiles and my heart thunders away. I’m not even sure I can speak with the way it’s pounding against my ribcage.

“That was the plan.” I manage that much without so much as a tremor to my voice and bravery goes to work, putting out the little fires of panic that erupted throughout my body. “But also one of the reasons I’m late. I got bumped into on my way here and my cupcakes were ruined.”

“So where did those come from?” The question comes from the pointiest of the women. She’s as thin as a rail, her long legs ending in the highest of heels, wrapped in the tightest of skirts. A tailored jacket wraps up her tiny torso and somehow makes me think of body armor. Her hair is slicked back away from her face. She’s all lines and angles. Not a soft spot on her anywhere.

“I thought …” There’s no good answer. Why stop and bring cupcakes to a business meeting? When they were mine, a demonstration of my skills, it was a great idea. An expected idea. Now, carrying goods from another bakery … well that’s a childish idea. Here I stand, in my casual dress and bright colors, cheap jewelry clinking around on my ears and wrists, doing what? Offering treats? “Well, I guess I was just set on having something to offer you guys,” I finish. It even sounds lame to me.

I suddenly feel small and young and unprepared. But those feelings will do me no good right now, so I brush them aside and take a seat when it’s offered to me. The meeting goes by in a blur of conversation, but I can tell each question they ask me is carefully crafted to help me realize that I am, in fact, young and unprepared. They’ve sized me up and found me to be too small. A girl playing dress up, teetering around in her momma’s high heels.

The meeting ends with placating smiles and gentle handshakes. They promise to discuss it amongst themselves and get back to me, but I can tell they’ve already decided against me. I sling my bag over my shoulder and pick up the completely untouched box of cupcakes. I’m not a crier, but I can feel tears burning in my eyes and I want out before they fall.

OK. I take that back. I’m very much a crier. They’re hardwired into every negative emotion I feel and even some of the positive ones. I hate it. The tears make me look weak and I’m not weak. In this instance, they’ll only make me look like the little, unprepared girl these haughty business people in their pointy shoes and pointy suits and pointy attitudes think I am. I bite down on the inside of my lip. Hard. Focus on the pain while I swallow.

I manage to get out of the conference room and then out of the building with a silly little grin painted across my face even though that super critical bitch that lives in my head is busy pointing out all the things that went wrong today. I should have worn something more professional. I should have picked out my clothes yesterday. I should have left enough time to get my cupcakes out of the oven before getting dressed. I shouldn’t have gotten out of the cab. I shouldn’t have taken the vampire’s money and I shouldn’t have gone to the bakery he pointed out.

Whatever. It’s over now. My dreams are truly smoldering, just like the ruined things I plonked down on the stove this morning. What a bad day.

I walk the rest of the way home, wrapped up in a swirl of what-nows, the logo on the bakery box laughing at me the whole time. I’m not two feet in the door when my phone starts buzzing in my purse. I know without a doubt it’s Mia. I answer it and walk her through the whole awful day, glossing over the part where I stopped at the bakery. That was just weird. Unnervingly so.

“Oh, sweetie. I’ll be there before you have time to get into your pj’s.” Mia’s voice is as golden as her hair, as light as her smile, as welcome as anything I can think of at this point in time. We say our goodbyes and I drop the pink bakery box on my kitchen counter before I trudge up the stairs to change. Why do I still have those cupcakes? Why didn’t I throw them away as soon as I left the building? Mia’s as good as her word, stepping through my door as I pull a tank top over my head. She hasn’t had to knock for years. If it’s unlocked, she’s welcome. Hell, if it is locked, she has a key.

“I’ll be right there,” I call down to her, taking a minute to pull my hair back before I follow my voice down the stairs. She’s standing just inside the closed door, a bottle of wine in each hand and a sweet smile on her face.

“You must have been waiting at your door for me to get home.”

“Saw you through the window. It’s how I knew to call.” She leans her head against my shoulder and kind of nuzzles in. It’s the strangest little show of affection and she saves it just for me.

We curl up on the couch, her tucked into one corner and me tucked into the other, and drink too much wine too quickly. We chat about nothing. The weather. The hot guy down at the coffee shop. The obnoxious old lady with her stinky birds three doors down. I need time to digest the day before I can talk about it. Of course, Mia knows and is doing her best to avoid any topic that could lead us to what happened until I’m ready.

When we run out of subjects, silence sits between us. It’s an easy silence, a comfortable one, but Mia’s never been very good with alcohol and the few glasses of wine she’s had make her eager to offer her shoulder for me to cry on. She’s going to ask all those questions I keep asking myself. What are you going to do? Are you going to have to get a job? Are you going to keep trying for the bakery?

What now, Rachel? What now?

I’m not ready to hear those words out loud because I don’t have an answer and that terrifies me. I don’t know what now. I don’t know what I’m going to do. There’s no way I can admit that to her, watch her gentle face crumble with worry. So, as she opens her mouth, takes that tiny little hesitant breath that will become one of the dreaded questions, I blurt out the one thing I know will derail her.

“I think the guy I ran into was a vampire.”

The wine has slowed down her thought process and I get to watch her emotions happen in real time as they parade across her face. First there’s frustration at having been interrupted. Then there’s confusion as she processes what I’ve said. Understanding gives way almost immediately to horror. Fear dances with concern and morphs into some strange form of indignation.

“Rachel!” Her eyes are wide. Her mouth open. Her free hand flutters up to rest against her collarbone. “Why didn’t you tell me? Are you OK? What did he look like?” Each question seems to want out of her mouth at the same time. I can’t help but smile and Mia pauses, caught off guard by my reaction. “Wait. Are you joking with me?”

Maybe I should tell her I was joking and be done with it because having this conversation with her might just be as painful as having the other conversation with her. Just the tiniest of what-nows flits through my mind, reminding me that the vampire conversation is, in fact, hundreds of times easier than the ‘what am I going to do with my life’ conversation.

“No. I’m not joking. I really think he was a vampire.”

Mia explodes off the couch and starts pacing the length of my apartment, from the door through the living area, into the dining area. It’s all just one big box with one little wall separating the kitchen from the rest of the place. I set my wine glass down on the coffee table as I stand to catch her by the shoulders.

“Mia.” I look straight into her eyes. “I’m ok. It’s ok. Relax.” Good advice. I’ll use it on myself the next time I start to wonder about the rest of my life.

“I just knew this would happen!” Mia is trembling like a new leaf in late winter snowstorm.

“Sweetie, nothing happened.” Using a gentle grip on her shoulders, I guide her back to the couch and tuck her into her corner. She clutches a pillow to her lap and rather than folding myself back into my end of the couch, I perch on the cushion next to her and search her eyes. I know my Mia is hiding somewhere in this terrified girl in front of me. “I’m ok. What’s got you so upset?”

Apparently, that was the wrong question. “What’s got me so upset? Rachel! There are
vampires …
running
loose
... in the
city
!” She emphasizes every few words, pausing between them as if she thinks I’m an idiot and she’s sure I’m not quite catching her drift. “Vampires that will kill us! Vampires that want to eat us! We’re just weak little nothings to them …” Her voice catches and she trails off. I had no idea her fear ran this deep.

“Mia.” Somehow I feel like if I just keep saying her name, she’ll come back to me. I don’t know this terrified version of my friend. I want the golden haired, sweet little thing to come back. The only thing I can think to say is the same thing I always say. “We’ve lived twenty-one years with vampires running loose in the city and we’ve never had trouble yet.”

The familiarity of the statement does seem to settle Mia down just a touch. “But this might be the beginning of the trouble.” Her physical reaction reveals just how deeply her fear runs. The blood’s drained from her face. Her knuckles have gone white from being balled into tight little fists against the pillow. Even though she’s stilled, she still looks like she’s vibrating with energy, her entire form trembling where she sits.

“What has you so afraid?”

She doesn’t have a good answer to my question. She fears their superiority. She fears being the prey. She fears having been hunted all her life and never having known. She fears being alone, without a single other person in her life to come to her rescue if she needs it. Mia’s an island. Abandoned by family through death and distance.

“But you’ve got me,” I remind her when her voice hitches.

She smiles, relief evident in the way the corners of her eyes crinkle. “I know.” Her cheeks flush with color again and her hands unclench around the pillow. “I wish I was strong like you. I feel so weak. So out of control. I hate it.” If only she’d seen the tears burning my eyes as I left my meeting, she wouldn’t think me strong or in control. But that moment was mine and mine alone and I wouldn’t admit it if she begged me.

I sidestep the issue. “If I tell you about him, will that make you more afraid?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice is drenched in uncertainty, but her eyes sparkle with curiosity. I tell her how strikingly good looking he was. I talk about his white hair and his white skin and his gray eyes. “He’s like an ice sculpture,” I say as I think about how he reminded me of a statue deserving a pedestal in a museum for people to study and appreciate. I tell her about the kiss on my hand and his insistence that I buy more cupcakes, his honest desire to make amends for ruining the ones I carried.