Chapter Twelve
Saturday was the usual mix of regulars and tourists at the Wurstspeicher Haus. But the day itself was anything but usual, and I don’t just mean the mayor showing up in full Swiss Family lederhosen and laced boots—although that happening right out of the gate probably should have warned me.
The doorbell tinkled at eight and my body tingled hopefully. But instead of Big Dark and Dangerous with a growled babi, I heard, “Und so here we are the premiere wurst shop ge-having.”
Mayor Meier marched in, jolly in the aforementioned lederhosen and boots and slathering his “charming” DeutscheGlish on with a backhoe. Behind him marched half a dozen clog-stomping, embroidered-suspender-wearing, beschnitzeled refugees from Folk Fair.
I put aside my immediate reaction, which was to hide under a really big slice of bologna, and pasted on my best sausage smile. “Hello, Mayor! How can I help you today?” And who are these evacuees from Freddy’s Oktoberfest, I wanted to add but didn’t. There’s a reason “Tell the customer, not what you want to jabber about, but what they need to hear,” made it to the Top Eight.
“Hello, Gunter Marie,” the mayor said. “These are mayors in my German League of Bürgermeister Towns. The GLBT are here gekommen for the PAC opening und I showing them the sights was.”
It took me a moment to parse that, even knowing gekommen meant come and und meant and. I was never quite sure what language the mayor spoke. Not English, but not German either. Not even what you’d expect from a native German speaker trying English. It was like the squeezings from a sponge that had absorbed both languages, Local Color for Dummkopfs and way too much beer. Eng-Glitch, maybe.
Twyla said he played it up on purpose, part of the jolly German act. I think, like the little boy warned not to cross his eyes, he’d done it once too often and had gotten stuck.
“We have several lovely gift items,” I said when I figured out these were visitors. “Sausage boxes, sausage-making spices and supplies, and mugs and scarves.” Yeah, sausage scarves. What can I say? They sell well so I stock them. Remember, not broke.
One of the mayors nodded. “Oh, just what we looking for are.”
“Ri-ight.” I smiled. Apparently the Eng-Glitch bug was not only catching, it could escalate to fevers, hacking and mucus on the brain. “Far wall, feel free to browse.”
They wandered into the gift corner just as Mrs. Gelb came in for her Saturday hot ham and rolls.
Hot ham and rolls was our Sunday special, but Sunday was sauerbraten night in the Gelb household. Mrs. Gelb’s great-grandma had sauerbraten on Sunday and her grandma and ma had sauerbraten on Sunday and bei Gott (by God) she had it on Sunday too. Corners folk elevated tradition to Sistine perfection.
As I rang Mrs. Gelb up, she raved about some new bar. I didn’t pay much attention until she chirped, “It’s called Fangs To You. Isn’t that clever?”
My fingers froze on the cash register. “Clever.”
“Alba Gruen and I are going back tonight. Free drinks, you know. Not just with that flyer. If you arrive before eight and stay past two, the whole bar is open. Free snacks too. Isn’t that clever?”
“Very clever.” Winter swept through the store, lights going blue and my whole body constricting with cold.
Somehow I finished that transaction. I took her money with numb fingers and fumbled it into the drawer. Stood like an ice sculpture as she took her bag and left. Clever, very clever, beyond clever.
This was how Camille was pulling our audience and keeping them. By taking ruthless advantage of Meiers Corners’s weakness—free stuff.
I put on a sweater and restocked blood sausage. The repetitive task calmed me—and reminded me we were selling a lot of blood sausage, reminding me of vampires, reminding me of visiting vampires, Big Dark and Dangerous—after which I peeled off my sweater, shivering again but for another reason. When the door tinkled, my shiver changed into a shudder of anticipation.
But instead of one special vampire, a trio of humans entered. Three people, one door…a scuffle broke out. “Hey! Get out of my way.” The door slapped wider. Some jostling, some shoving. Oh well, tourists were rude—they didn’t know better.
“Move yer frickin’ butt.” A tourist barreled through, a scowl marring her face… Not a tourist.
My jaw hit countertop. It was Mrs. Roet, wife of Police Lieutenant Roet and mother to eight young kids, including rambunctious triplets just starting to toddle, but that didn’t account for this level of belligerence.
Since when were Corners people anything but disturbingly polite? Whap-you-upside-the-head courteous?
Mayor Meier bustled over and attempted to soothe them. While he was doing that, the bell tinkled again. Before I could get up a good Big Dark Dangerous tingle, Rocky Hrbek slid in. She came directly to the counter. “Junior. I need more blood sausage bribes.”
We were running low, but this was Rocky. “How much?”
“Another pound. For my supervisor. She’s acting weird.”
“Oh?” I got the sausage.
“I rated a couple policies yesterday. I did it right, I know I did. But she made me change them.”
“Rated?”
“You know, assigned risk factors to determine the cost. I had two taverns, both Meiers Corners, similar in risk, so I rated them the same. But my supervisor changed them—jacked up one to ten times the cost, lowered the other practically nothing. It’s Nieman’s, Junior. CIC is charging so much that the bar will be driven out of business.”
“That’s terrible.” In many ways, Nieman’s was the heart of our community. What would Meiers Corners do without a heart?
Then an even worse suspicion hit me. “What’s the other business?”
“Some new club called Fangs To You.”
Shocking. But then came the biggest shock of all.
Rocky went to look at sausage spices. The mayors were discussing the various merits of ginger versus mace. The locals had bought their regular meats and were gone.
I was wiping down counters when the doorbell tinkled. I tingled like all the other times, even though I knew Big Dark and Dangerous was only my imagination.
But this time big was bigger. Dark was darker. And dangerous was deadly, real and standing in the doorway.
Glynn had come.
Er, arrived.
He looked a little frayed around the edges, like he’d been zapped with lightning. But he came…er, glided right to me. His sapphire gaze ran over me like he was starving for me, dropped to my mouth and flared that bright violet.
Almost as if he couldn’t help himself, he bent and kissed me.
Whoa. The amount of tongue on impact? I think he was as focused on “coming” as me.
And then Glynn added hands and I wasn’t thinking at all.
“Was ist hier passiert?”
My eyes flew open. Mom and Pop were emerging from the office catacombs. (“In the Hall of the Mountain King” bopped through my head. You don’t have to know the tune, just picture trolls lumbering from a cave’s depths.)
Bad news. Pop was in the lead.
It was horrible timing. Maybe all parents have a sex alert, something that goes ding when their offspring is up to hanky-panky. Or maybe they just remember their own youth.
Ick. That hurt to think about.
Glynn and I sprang apart. Customers milled around the wares—studiously looking anywhere but at us. Except for Rocky, who was staring like she’d just realized The Story of O wasn’t a kid’s alphabet primer.
My mother went immediately to soothe her, leaving me to deal with my dad.
“Gunter Marie Stieg. Ich habe gesagt, was—?”
“English, please, Pop.” And a little less than jet-engine decibels.
“What are you doing? Messing around with your young man while on the job?”
I blinked. Pop wasn’t upset that I was kissing, just that I was taking precious work time to do it. “Glynn’s not my young—”
“We didn’t get formally introduced the other evening, Mr. Stieg.” Glynn stepped forward, hand extended. “I’m Glynn Rhys-Jenkins.”
My dad took Glynn’s hand.
Time stopped.
A stick will appear jagged or even split into two when poked into a lake. But it’s a single stick. These two men, so different—Glynn the druid prince, Gunter the jolly merchant—felt the same to me. I stared at them, side by side, my father and my…well, I wasn’t sure what Glynn was, but the way my heart was reacting, he was just as important as the man who’d given me life.
That scared me.
“Guten Morgen, Glynn. Where do you come from and what do you do for a living?”
Time snapped back into motion. “Subtle, Pop.”
Glynn’s mouth curved. “I’m a citizen of Wales and the United States, Mr. Stieg, but as a consultant, I travel all over the world.”
My father did not look suitably impressed.
Until Glynn added, “I consult for Kai Elias.”
“The great businessman?” My dad slapped Glynn on the back, resulting in meaty thuds and not moving Glynn one millimeter. Pop looked even more impressed at the muscle. “What do you think of our sausage, young man?”
“I sampled the blutwurst at Julian Emerson’s. Very nice. Just the right touch of marjoram.”
My father beamed. “Ach, we are very selective of our importers for just that. And you know Emerson? He helped save our town, I heard.”
Loud as he was, the whole country heard. It meant he was happy. My dad got louder as he got happier, as if jolly were a volume knob on his voice box. (On Christmas Eve at church, he got so happy he outsang the organ. Little kids turned to stare at him during the hymns. Embarrassing growing up, as an adult I took a perverse pleasure in it. In at least this, he was the biggest thing in our little town.)
My dad clapped Glynn on the back again. “I am glad to have met you, Glynn. Take good care of my daughter. Now I must get back to work, ja?” And he left.
I nearly choked. Leaving us alone, together, behind the register? Holy Schnitzelbank, he had us married already.
My mother had finished settling Rocky and the other customers down. Though my dad was the jolly merchant everyone loved, Mom was the one who fixed all the problems.
She caught my eye, flicked a glance at Glynn and made little finger-nudges at me, a nonverbal “get him while he’s hot”. Then she followed my dad out.
Gott im Himmel. Married and bedded, with a dozen grandkinder on the way.
Glynn said, “Your father’s nice.”
I shook my head like it’d rattle sense into it. Like it’d settle CIC’s disparate ratings or Glynn’s desperate kiss or even my parents’ nonparental behavior. But some things are murky and incredibly dangerous and shouldn’t be attempted except by professionals on a closed track. “Loud, maybe. Twyla calls him boisterous, but she’s the daughter of a diplomat.”
“He has a certain joie de vivre. He’s bigger than life.”
“So’s a clown. Why are you here, anyway? Awake. Shouldn’t you be in a”—a coffin or grave—“dark place somewhere?” Which reminded me that, no matter how close I felt to Glynn, I really knew nothing about this man. Male. Sweet exploding sausages, I didn’t even know what to label him.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted. “Thinking about you.”
Just words, but his blue eyes warmed with meaning. Would it be so bad, giving in to this driving need for him, for his touch, his smile? Giving in, not just to the lust, but what I sensed was behind it?
A real relationship.
Glynn was protective and gentle and strong. Loyal, with how he felt about home. With a mystery or two to unravel to keep things fresh, a relationship might just work.
Hey, my BD&D tingle had finally materialized. Why couldn’t other fantasies come true?
Argh. Because it was a fantasy. Real relationship, with a vampire? I had rocks for brains.
And yet despite knowing better, hope bloomed at his warm, loving look, for a “would you go out with me tonight?” or “would you mind if I gave you this exquisite piece of jewelry?” or—
“Would you consider leaving town with Mishela for a few days?”
Definitely not on the list. “You mean after the show closes?”
Glynn’s gaze swept over the milling customers, then came back to me. “Is there somewhere private we can speak?”
I didn’t want to leave the customers unattended. They wouldn’t steal anything, but they might leave without buying, which was a crime in my dad’s book. Still, if it was as important as Glynn’s expression indicated, I should at least try. Maybe he wanted to finish that hot kiss.
“It’ll have to be quick.” I locked the cash register, let the mayor know I’d be back in a moment and led Glynn through the office to the side stairwell.
A feeble square of sun filtered through the door’s window. Glynn flashed up a few stairs, motioned me to join him.
“Mr. Elias is…disturbed by last night. Camille has demonstrated cunning. He’s concerned that if customers continue to be pulled away from the show and local businesses, your Sparkasse Bank will be in serious financial difficulties. That it will fold, leaving the city itself vulnerable.”
Any hope that our tête-à-tête might be to steal a few sweet kisses died. “Camille’s smart and we’re in trouble. That’s not news. And Mr. Elias isn’t the only one concerned.”
“Understood. But he is preparing to step in.”
I brightened. “With cash?”
Glynn shook his head, once, that sharp, almost angry denial. “He’s rich, but Meiers Corners isn’t the only place in need, or even the neediest. With the state of the economy, even all his wealth is only a splint and a bandage.”
“Then what is he planning?”
“He’s put Project Shield on alert.”
“Which means what?”
“Meiers Corners could become a vampire battleground.”
That didn’t sound good. “How many vampires are we talking about?”
“Maybe fifty Alliance, but the best of the best. Perhaps five hundred Lestat.”
I rested my head against the stairwell wall, closed my eyes. “Isn’t war a bit premature?”
“The alert is only a first step, in response to Camille’s tricks. Elias is never rash. But if the show doesn’t make a profit by closing night, that’ll be a second warning and he’ll go to high alert. If, at the end of the month, the Meiers Corners businesses can’t meet their expenses and start going bankrupt—”
“It’s war. I get it. And the humans? What about us Meiers Corners…sizians?”
“That’s why I want you out.” Glynn’s tone was flat with suppressed anger. “We’d take every precaution, but even if we win decisively, Lestats may escape. If the Coterie pulls in muscle from other cities, winning isn’t even guaranteed.”
I processed that. Blood and gore featured heavily. “If we’re only at elevated threat level, why do you want me to leave? The fight won’t happen for weeks.”
“I’ve worked with Elias long enough to know how he’ll probably do things. But in case he doesn’t wait until the end of the month…I don’t want to stake your life on it. Or Mishela’s.”
“Glynn, I can’t go.”
He got all Mr. Grim Vampire. “You must—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. But can’t you see this is my fight too?” I put fingers on his cheek. “I need to stay and not just for the show. I need to do everything I can to keep us from hitting red alert. We need to win tourists back from Camille. I need to help. Do you understand?”
Reluctantly, he said, “Yes.” Even more reluctantly, he added, “I’m very proud of you, Junior Stieg. Honored to know you.”
It wasn’t a hot kiss or jewelry. But in some ways it was even better.
We returned to find the store packed with customers. I automatically slapped on my sausage smile, unlocked the cash register and rang through pounds of summer sausage, bologna and brats. The work helped me forget about the approaching horrors.
Until I tuned in to nearby conversations.
“That club is just incredible. I drove from Orland Park to visit.”
“I stayed the whole night. Tonight I’m getting in line before the doors open.”
“That goth club is so exciting. And I love the free little cheese novelties. What are they called?”
“Ooh, the ones that fizz in your mouth? GObubbles. Love those. I could eat those forever!”
While yay, new tourists, boo that they were all being snared by the opposition. Still, they were in my store now and their credit was as good. My smile stayed bright, if brittle.
The door kept tinkling. Rocky and the mayors left, but new people packed in until the checkout line stretched the length of the store. I punched numbers and bagged so fast my fingers bled—but the line only got longer and the store fuller.
Mom and Pop couldn’t help. The way product was flying off the shelves, Pop was running his legs off restocking and Mom was in the Wurstmobile couriering in emergency supplies. I was desperate enough to phone my rent-a-kid, who was busy with soccer practice and couldn’t help.
I was officially screwed when the line backed out the front door. The May heat poured in. Our aged coolers started clanking like they’d burst. I waved people frantically inside, but they only packed the open doorway, staring like I was demented.
Glynn saw my dilemma. Brilliant guy that he was, he glided to the door and did his vampire compulsion thing. “Inside, please. Form the line here.”
He shepherded them all in and shut the door, then nudged the line to wind through the aisles. Oh, wonderful man. Vampire. Whatever. I didn’t think I could love him any more.
Until he got behind the counter and started bagging.
Yep, confirmed. Keeper.
Time leaped forward in a flurry of cashiering and bagging. It wasn’t until my stomach growled that I looked up. Two minutes to noon. “Wow, that went fast.”
My dad insisted on a break every four hours, even in the midst of chaos. I hung up my Wurstspeicher smock and Pop took my place behind the register.
“Lunch?” Glynn followed me upstairs.
“No, I have to practice. There are a couple gnarly parts I need to keep under my fingers.” With the outcome of the show so important, I didn’t want to do anything less than shine.
“Surely you have to eat.”
My stomach growled again, answering him. “I’ll power down a bagel when I’m done.”
In the attic, he followed me so tight I started getting doggy ideas. So of course upon entering my room, the first thing I saw was my bed. I blushed, suffered my stomach rumbling again, snapped, “Outside. I really do have to practice.”
Glynn backpedaled, sat himself on the bare boards just outside my door. “I’ll wait here.”
“Thanks.” I scooted my chair out, sat, assembled clarinet and flute and started woodshedding the tornado scene, lots of fast chromatics.
When I stopped to adjust my reed, Glynn called in, “Why do you practice those nasty parts so hard when they’re covered up by brass?”
No real answer for that, so I just snarled at him.
He laughed. “Emerson warned me about that.”
“About what?” I twirled the screw of my ligature as I waited for him to expand on that, tightened it one crank too tight. “What?”
“Just that you might get like this.”
I tossed clarinet onto stand and glared out the door.
He sat with his back to the wall that framed my door, eyes closed. I glared harder, trying to poke through his nonchalance. No go, so I snatched an old reed from my clarinet case and threw it at him. He caught it one-handed without even opening his eyes. I snarled louder. “Do vampires practice being cryptic? Or is it like immortality and you’re just built that way?”
“We’re not immortal. And I wasn’t being cryptic.” Glynn slipped the reed inside his jacket. “Emerson simply said you’re small, so you might get crabby if you’re not fed often enough. His wee wife does.”
“That sure as hell was crypt…hey. I’m not crabby. Focused on my work, maybe. If you guys aren’t immortal, how do you explain Mr. Elias and his older-than-the-mists-of-time shtick?”
“We can be killed. That makes us mortal.” Glynn’s eyes opened, directly on mine.
I almost fell into those blue jewels. Hell, I nearly dove in like the Hawaiian cliff diver pictured on my west wall. But fortunately I was too crabby…hungry…focused on work. I spun back to my instruments. “You don’t age. Immortal.”
“Oh, we age.”
“You do?” I picked up my flute.
“We just heal it.”
“You ‘heal’ aging. My head hurts. Look, I’m going to finish practicing and get back to the store. Do you need to sleep? I can draw the curtains for you.” Although thinking of Glynn, on my bed…well, it didn’t conjure images of sleeping.
“What about your bagel? You promised to eat.”
“Sure, I’ll grab it on the way down.” I started playing.
“Junior.” He blurred to his feet and filled the doorway, eyes blazing—so handsome he’d have gotten my attention even if he hadn’t suddenly loomed bigger than life. “You need to sit to eat, take time to digest.”
I paused with my flute at my mouth. “Love to, but I need to spell Pop more. With a crowd like that, Mom can only restock solo for so long. If she’s even in the Haus.” Not to mention all the other behind-the-scenes work they did.
Yeah, I admit it. They couldn’t run the store without me, but I couldn’t run it without them, either.
“I’ll spell your father.”
I blinked. “You what?”
“I’ll run the cash register while you eat. I’ve done many things in my time, including a bit of retail. Your register doesn’t look too hard.”
Glynn was offering to do my job so that I could eat. Not just eat, but sit down with my food. Chew it. Digest it. Maybe even relax a little.
No one had done that for me in a long time. Nobody had sat with me while I practiced, either, not since Nixie and Rocky in high school.
Sitting with me, talking with me, sharing my work… Things a friend did. A good friend.
“Yeah, but—” Words collided inside me, a traffic jam of feeling. I settled for, “I can’t pay you.”
He wrapped fingers around either side of the doorjamb and leaned into the room to press a quick kiss to my lips. While I was gaping, he swung back out. “I’ll go relieve your father. Take your time eating.”
He went poof in that vampire way, leaving me with the feel of his mouth on my lips. And a big smile.
Fortunately for customer wait time, Glynn stayed the rest of the day. Unfortunately for me, the crowd, heavy and a little aggressive, kept us busy right up until I had to pack my instruments. Even if I was hoping for a little nooky—which I wasn’t—I didn’t get any.
We waited in the hallway for the limo. I might’ve hoped for a quick orgas…I mean kiss, but Glynn said, “Emerson’s called a council of war tonight, directly after the show. I must attend.”
“Oh.” No nooky right away. “After that?”
“Junior.” He took me by the upper arms and started speaking earnestly. I watched his gorgeous mouth, not really hearing him, standing breast-to-ripply-abs and ultra-aware of our size difference—and ultra-aroused by it, to the point that my body was screaming “damn the commitment, full speed ahead”.
Until his words cut through my slobbering brain. “…better if we not indulge. Easier. So I won’t be seeing you anymore.”
“What?”
The limo’s horn cut me off. Before I could screech What do you mean you won’t be seeing me anymore? Glynn nudged me out the door and zipped with my sax to the limo. I dashed after, but by the time he stowed sax, shoveled me into the limo and slammed the door, he was the color of boiled lobster and his cryptic remark was the least of my concerns.
I laid a hand on his forehead, flinched at the unnatural heat. “Are you okay?”
“I…will be. In a moment.” He was panting.
“Damn it, why didn’t I notice this before?”
“Softer…day. And I…disguised it.”
“Glynn can’t shapeshift yet.” Mishela flashed brightly inquisitive eyes between the two of us. “But he can morph small things like his face. I can’t wait to do that. No more greasepaint for me. So what have you guys been up to all day? Alone. Together.”
Which explained the brightly inquisitive. “We did retail, and not alone.” Unfortunately. Except he didn’t want to see me anymore. I shook my head. “Vampires can shapeshift?”
“After we reach a thousand.”
“A thousand what?”
“Years.” Mishela ignored my gaping. “Glynn doesn’t have long to go.”
Nearly a thousand years old. And I’d thought we might have a chance at a real relationship?
No wonder he didn’t want to see me anymore. My heart ached. What could be worse?
Well, sure. Having only six people in the audience. Twyla, Nikos and Mayor Meier were joined by all three members of the Teapot Jihad, a radical sect of Meiers Corners teetotalers. (Really. They picketed the Alpine Retreat and Bar on Labor Day, bombed Nieman’s on Independence Day with red white and blue smoke balls, and every St. Patrick’s they took out an ad in the Zietung newspaper pushing green milk. If you think that’s yuck, they also distributed pamphlets with full-color close-ups of drunks and toilets, too gruesome to describe.)
Onstage the cast put out SRO energy, singing and dancing their little hearts out. But without audience feedback, without applause or laughs or even a chuckle, it was hard to keep up. Like a balloon in the freezer, the performance slowly deflated.
Oh, there were moments. Toto tried the golden leg-lift on the captain of the Winkies. The captain, wearing tall black rubber boots, just smiled—until Toto started humping black rubber. The captain tried to shake the dog off, but Toto grabbed boot with all four legs and rode it out. It looked like the dog was actually enjoying it.
I snorted into my sax. Which, since the part was half-note stings, was fine.
Aside from that, the show was awful with occasional squalls of horrendous. Which fit my mood. I won’t be seeing you anymore.
Now, too late, I wished I had processed, wished I’d confronted my feelings after our incredible night together, wished I’d confronted him. If we’d hammered out what was going on between us—a bout of sex, a short-term affair, or something more—then I wouldn’t feel so confused. So lost.
So why not confront him now, hammer it out now?
Immediately my confusion vanished and my mood improved. The moment our disaster of a show was over, I ran to the dressing rooms, where he’d be hovering over Mishela.
Empty.
Oh, yeah. The actors did a meet and greet in the lobby after performances. I had time, so I packed up my instruments. Then I went to the lobby.
Empty.
Except for the mayor, who looked a little lost. No tourists, and he’d know what that meant. I wondered how much he knew about the added-value issue, the vampire turf wars. No, this was only temporary. The show would be successful. Eventually.
The mayor saw me and brightened. “Ach, Gunter Marie. How are you?”
I could have run, but why? No Glynn. This would be the first time he hadn’t seen me home in…dammit, I wasn’t wistful. “Hey, Mayor Meier.”
“Ach, I didn’t tell you this morning, all my attention on the GLBT mayors, but how you have grown! You, who I have known since wearing diapers—”
“Wow, Mayor, thanks!” Rude, but I had to interrupt. The mayor has this thing about diapers—and whips. Not together, thank goodness. Any other city, it’d have been a scandal. Here, it was one of those small-town secrets, which everyone knows and nobody talks about. Because, come on. Santa in lederhosen with a whip and diaper fetish? So wrong. “What did you think of the show, Mayor?”
“I am dejected, liebchen. The attendance is in the toilet, nein?” Then he brightened. “But tomorrow is Sunday. The matinee will be better attended, ja?”
Well, who was I to burst his tiny beer bubbles?
Then I realized the matinee started at three in the afternoon, well before Fangs To You opened. There’d be no competition for the timeslot.
Rainbows and leprechauns and St. Murphy the Good filled my head. If people but experienced the joy of our show, they’d want to tell their friends. All we had to do was put butts in seats. “You betcha, Mayor! And I’m going to make sure of it.”
Hey, if Camille could market with flyers, why couldn’t a cute and totally competent sausage retailer?
Julian’s limo took me home. But before I made flyers, I had that little outstanding issue to deal with. I won’t be seeing you anymore.
I rushed to my bedroom to call Glynn, not as simple as it sounds. Before I called, I had to close my bedroom window, shut my door tight and stuff a sock into the crack underneath. Not that I thought the parents listened to my personal conversations. I knew they did. Hey, even paranoid people have parents.
When I was as private as possible, I touched my UK map for luck and called his cell phone. The line clicked open.
“Hello, babi.”
Glynn’s deep voice vibrated out of the phone and down my spine, echoed inside. Not hearing that voice ever again… Confused feelings fled. “What the hell did you mean, you won’t be seeing me?”
A breath of air came over the line, a sigh. “Junior. I think I love you.”
I sucked my heart into my throat, where it stuck.
“Perhaps we could have…ah, but we’ll never know. I’m aware of your duty to your parents, your dreams of New York. But when I’m near you, all I want is to make you mine. Even today, with the sun a check on my libido, I wanted you so badly I nearly tossed you on the counter to have you a dozen times, despite the crowd, despite your parents. So I must stay away.”
“But Glynn, what if I wanted to be yours? I don’t know what I’m feeling, but I do know you’re special. That we’ve got something special. While you’re here, couldn’t we at least see each other?”
“Babi. If you don’t know what you’re feeling, sex will only confuse matters. Can you honestly say you’d give up New York? That you’d choose me over your dreams?”
I swallowed. ”But…couldn’t we…”
“No, love.” His voice was soft and full of regret. “We can’t.” He hung up.
Today’s a matinee and our prospects are good.
Sunday morning I repeated that mantra as I stapled, taped and thumb-tacked flyers from Eisenhower to Cedar, from East Thirteenth to West. It took all morning (I skipped church and caught hell from Mrs. Gelb—that is, a stern finger-shake), but I papered the whole city.
It also took ten dollars’ worth of paper and forty dollars of ink, but saving the show would be worth it. Saving the show—and Meiers Corners, by keeping Mr. Woo-Hoo Ancient from unleashing his Ray o’ Vampire Deathiness. The show, Meiers Corners, Chicago—and maybe the world! Yes, I was one awesome woman, one big fish in this small pond, thank you, thank you.
Taking mental bows, I crossed Jefferson onto my block, saw the shreds of the Cheese Dudes’ worm, and grinned at the display of Glynn’s caring. Remembered he cared too much I think I love you and got depressed.
Wait. I’d saved the show. Was there a problem in the universe I couldn’t overcome? No! I was SuperSausageLady, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, catch bullets with my teeth and command the weather with a wave of my hand. Maybe not the last, but relationship troubles were easy-peasy. After I saved the show and the city and world, I’d just convince Glynn to come to New York with me.
Should have known when I started thinking words like easy-peasy that I was tripping, Yellow Submarining toward chicken buh-awking insane.
Totally oblivious, I headed into our shaded walkway, butchering the lyrics to “Singin’ In The Rain”. Felt the pound of a very different music.
Vague horror frosted my spine. I turned. Across the street, the sun glared off blisteringly shiny black marble. I squinted—what I’d taken for shadows resolved into a long line of black-garbed people.
The line was moving. Fangs To You was open.
Dad waited at our door. “Ach, Junior. That racket has been going on since eleven. Even Good Shepherd had trouble filling its pews today.”
Numb horror bloomed into actual ice. Good Shepherd, with its cosmic whip, had trouble getting people in the seats? What chance did my little paper and ink carrots have?
I found out that afternoon. Two people were in the audience, Mayor Meier and the PAC’s janitor.
We ran the show, but it was worse than the first rehearsal. The mayor was dejected, the pit was dejected, the actors were dejected. Dumas wasn’t even yakking about Method acting.
Toto was still humping everything in sight.
But we were losing money, losing audience, losing tourists. Losing to Camille and the Coterie. And unless Fangs To You’s novelty wore off damned soon, there was nothing we could do about it. Nothing I could do about it.
My entire morning felt like a lie. I wasn’t a big fish, I was a very small fish floating in my tiny pond—on my side.
Worse, when I looked for Glynn after the show (I know, I was weak), I only found Mishela, who told me with a pitying look that Emersons would give me a ride home.
At home I ran up to my attic hideaway and threw off my concert blacks. Stomped naked around my room until a bam-bam from below told me I’d stomped too hard. No growls came through the window (it was still light out but I’d been hoping), so I gave up and tugged on cutoff jeans and a baggy T-shirt over my naked skin and moped for a while. I tried visiting the places on my wall, first escaping to the Globe Theatre, then sticking my arms out like the Rio de Janeiro statue and shouting inanely, “I’m the king of the world!”
But running in my mental background were the facts, an acid eating away at my manufactured confidence. No audience meant no impressed Broadway backer, no fabulous job in New York. No asking Glynn to come to New York with me.
Phooey. I was catastrophizing. It had only been three days. Surely the good Corners folk would come to their senses soon. Surely by Thursday the novelty of free drinks until you puke would have worn off and we’d have an audience.
Surely they’d get tired of Camille’s before it was too late.
I had to believe that. Because, besides playing the very best reed two of my life, there was nothing I could do about it.
Sheesh. No wonder theater people were superstitious.
Although if our audience didn’t come to their senses… Even supposing we survived vampageddon, I’d never see Glynn again…oh, God. What was I going to do?
I crawled into my roof crenel, stared into the warm evening. Now would be a good time for that all-powerful Ancient One to show up with a plan, or the mayor to find a spare hundred thousand in the budget. Deus ex machina would be very handy right now.
Instead I got Dirkus ex Ruffles. He called to sheepishly let me know that, since the matinee was over, my flyers were classified as litter.
Some days are so shitty, they qualify as their own sewage district. And Murphy, the ass hat, was laughing.
Slamming out of our home, I walked the city, ripping down my useless flyers. Ruffles wouldn’t have called on his own. But who put him up to it?
Sure. The Cheese Dudes.
Maybe not, but they were the most likely. So when I got home, I stalked next door to “discuss” it with them. I don’t think the discussion would have involved tweaked noses, but I never found out because either they were gone or holed up. I beat my fists for five minutes against their door without an answer.
It left me worn out and deflated, with nothing to do—except see Glynn.
My mood immediately improved.
Bend me over and spank me with a Knackwurst—the single bright point in my life was a male I’d first met Monday? How pathetic was that?
I still had duty. I still had dreams. I was still confused about whether sex with Glynn was a really hot affair or something more. But it’s hard to argue with the tug for companionship when you’re so damned dejected you want to smack yourself in the foot with a meat cleaver because it’d at least be hurting about something real.
Except he might love me, and because of that didn’t want to see me. I should respect that.
The thudding music across the street was a painful counterpoint to the throbbing in my head. This was worse than Buridan’s ass. I wasn’t midway between two good things, I was sinking in a Bermuda Triangle of three bad. Which reminded me of Glynn’s triangle of tchotchkes, which started my feet south.
They took me to Walnut and turned west. Not really just my feet—I knew what I was doing, homing in on Glynn for comfort. I just didn’t want to admit it.
I won’t be seeing you anymore.
His going all noble on me only proved he was a male of worth, as in worth getting tangled up over. Worth derailing my future? Maybe not, but he might say yes to New York.
That finally convinced me—just as I got to the townhouses. My feet had kept going while I argued with myself. They knew which side would win.
They’d made one stop along the way, to buy condoms. Glynn had only had the one, and I wanted to come…er, arrive prepared.
