Teeth: Vampire Tales

Gap Year by CHRISTOPHER BARZAK

When the vampires came to town, there was an assembly in the high school gymnasium. Retta and Lottie sat next to each other on the bleachers, like they did every day in study hall, their hands folded between their pressed-together knees. The three vampires who stood on the stage had something to tell them. “We’re people, too,” said the head vampire, if that’s what you call a vampire who speaks for other vampires. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen. A splash of freckles on his face. Mousy brown fauxhawk. A tight, too-short Pixies concert T-shirt showing off a strip of skin above the waistband of his boxers. He wore jeans with a snakeskin belt hanging loose in the loops. If you saw him in the hallway, you wouldn’t suspect him of being a vampire. Retta and Lottie weren’t sure if they suspected him of being a vampire now, even though he said he was.

“We just want you to know that we’re not all about silk cravats and rural villages that sit at the bottoms of eastern European mountain ranges,” he told the assembled population of freshmen through seniors. “We don’t necessarily kill, although some do, but they aren’t representative of us as a whole.”

“Oh my God,” said Lottie. “I cannot believe they’re doing public outreach. It’s pathetic. I want the cravats, whatever those are. I want the rural villages that sit at the bottoms of eastern European mountain ranges. Not these losers.”

“They’re ties,” Retta whispered. “Victorian ties. Shh.”

Lottie rolled her eyes. She said, “You’re too nice, Retta.”

Retta isn’t Retta’s full name — it’s Loretta; but since they were little, people have called her Retta because she and Lottie have always been best friends and two L-named girls who are consistently spotted as a pair are annoying. Lottie and Retta had once agreed: They didn’t want to be like those siblings whose parents name them all under the tyranny of one letter, like steps going up and down a staircase, the same, one right after the other. It was Lottie who came up with Retta. For a while Retta had wondered why it was her who had to change her name, not Lottie, whose full name was actually Charlotte, but it was Retta that stuck.

“We would also like to disabuse you of the notion that we are all bloodsucking fiends with fangs,” the head vampire told them. His companions nodded behind him. One was a short, chubby boy who looked like he should be playing a tuba in the marching band, glasses that he’d taped together on one side, a potentially obsessive thumb sucker. The other was a hyperthin girl, skin white as paper, wearing black boots, black jeans, black tank top, black earrings made of some kind of dark crystal. She had long black hair and wore black lipstick. She was probably not the head vampire’s best choice in representing the unexpected in vampires. Find comfort in familiarity when familiarity is disappointing, Retta reminded herself. That’s what the guidance counselor had told her at her senior session when Retta had said she didn’t know what she wanted to do after high school but was hoping to somehow get out into the world. “Thanks,” Retta had said upon receiving that wafer of wisdom, then told the next kid it was his turn when she left the counselor’s office.

“Did that dude just say he was abused as a child?” Lottie whispered. “No doubt that’s the reason for his vampirism.”

“Shh,” Retta said again. “They deserve to be heard, too.”

“Too what?” said Lottie.

“Too like anyone,” said Retta. “Lottie, will you please just pay attention? Mr. Masters is looking up at us. We’re going to get detention.”

That shut Lottie up. Nothing was worse than sitting in a stale classroom with Mrs. Markowitz after school. Mrs. Markowitz, who has taught freshman algebra since the dawn of time, expects you to look straight at her as she reads romance novels at her desk during detention. Retta always focused on the cover, the muscular chest of a man as he wrapped the heroine up in his arms. She’d imagine the book, the ink on the paper, make it up as Mrs. Markowitz turned each page. Lottie would spend the entire period burning holes into Mrs. Markowitz with laser eyes. She lacked imagination.

The head vampire said, “We feed, yes, but we do not always feed on blood.”

A boy in the row behind the girls shouted, “Yeah, they feed on your mom!”

Lots of laughter followed. Yuk, yuk, yuk. But the head vampire did not look amused. “That’s right,” he said, staring up at the kid who had insulted him. “We feed on your mom. Your mom, she’s really great. A little misunderstood. I don’t know why people talk so bad about her.”

“Who the hell do you think you are, man!” the kid behind Lottie and Retta said. He was suddenly up and rearing. Everyone in the bleachers turned to look. The bleachers creaked like a ship at sea. Because the kid stood directly behind Lottie and Retta, it felt like everyone was staring at them, all those faces a spotlight. “You better watch your mouth, dude!” the kid behind them said. His face was red and puffy, his long hair shining with the sort of grease that can only accumulate after long periods of not washing. He looked like he could be a vampire. Retta wondered if perhaps he was just afraid to admit it. A self-loathing vampire. Such people existed.

“No, you better watch your mouth, dude,” said the head vampire with his microphone pressed against his mouth, amplifying the challenge. Everyone turned again, a tennis audience, to look his way. Something in his voice was different. And when Retta saw him, something in his eyes had changed. They didn’t glisten or sparkle, they didn’t look like anything but brown eyes in a slightly freckled fauxhawked boy’s face. But they held her.

“Whoa,” said Lottie. “Things are getting kind of rash.”

The head vampire continued to stare up at the greasy-haired kid behind them, and the longer he stared, the quieter the gymnasium got. Whispers faded until no one said anything, and then suddenly the greasy-haired kid burst into tears and sat down, covering his face with his hands. He sobbed. He wiped his face on his shoulder. It was awkward for a minute. Then the principal finally broke out of the spell the head vampire had seemingly put on everyone and said, “That’s enough, all right, that’s enough. We’ve given you people a forum — what else do you want?”

“Respect,” said the head vampire. Then he walked down the stage steps toward the gym doors, his vampire cohorts following, casting glares over their shoulders.

As the doors swung shut, the principal said, “All right, everyone, sorry that got out of hand, but it’s over. You can go back to your classes now and discuss in small groups.”

“Discuss what?” said Lottie. Retta elbowed her, but Lottie had spoken loud enough for the principal to hear.

“Discuss what these young people had to say,” he said, looking up at Lottie. Everyone turned to stare at the girls again. “Times are changing, Ms. Kennedy. If you don’t change with them, you’ll be left behind.”

“Change or die,” Lottie said, smirking. “I get it. Isn’t there a third option, though, Mr. Masters? Why not be a vampire? Like them? That way, you never have to change. That way, you never have to die.”

“That’s a stereotype,” a girl in the front row said. Looking back at Lottie, the girl touched the frame of her glasses, pushed them up the bridge of her nose. Lottie stuck out her tongue. Then the principal said enough is enough again, and sent everyone packing.

On the way out of the assembly, Lottie turned to Retta and said, “Only last period left. Screw it. Want to leave?”

“And go where?”

“Home,” said Lottie. “We can hang at my place for a while.”

“Sure,” said Retta, and they ducked down a hallway that opened onto the student parking lot, where a hundred cars gleamed hotly under the mid-May afternoon sun. Someday soon, in a few weeks, I will never have to see any of this, thought Retta. She ran her hands through her hair, unsure if she should be happy or sad.

They were only halfway across the lot, though, when she saw the head vampire standing against a car, a large maroon Cadillac, staring in their direction. In her direction, actually. His vampire friends were gone. Lottie was saying something about a video game she played online, about a character she’d made last night, someone who carried a sword and wore lots of armor. Retta kept saying, “Yeah? Oh, yeah?” but she couldn’t break from the head vampire’s stare. And finally, once they reached Lottie’s car, Retta said, “I think maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

“What wasn’t?”

“Ditching.”

“Come on, Retta, are you serious?”

“Yeah,” said Retta. “I’m going back in. You go. Sorry.”

“You are acting so weird lately, Retta,” said Lottie. “But whatever. Fine. Take notes for me or something.”

Lottie got into her car, started it while pointedly not looking at Retta, then pulled away.

Retta, on the other hand, turned around and saw the head vampire was still there, leaning against that car. Still staring at her.

But instead of going to her last class, she crossed the lot toward him.

The thing to know about Lottie is that she’s a difficult person to be friends with. Retta used to take pride in her patience with her. Lottie was almost always mad about something. “The world is so full of stupid people,” she liked to say. Retta didn’t know if Lottie really meant that or if she just said it, because Lottie did sincerely get angry with people who said and did stupid things. Like cheerleaders. Lottie hated cheerleaders, mostly because of the cheers, how strident they were, how unquestioning. Lottie once said cheerleaders would be more effective if their cheers called their own team’s ability into doubt when behind in a game, rather than trying to boost morale. But sometimes Retta wanted more than sitting around with Lottie discussing the uselessness of certain teachers, the annoyance brought on by certain students who actually cared about things like prom and the commencement ceremony that they would totally regret missing if they missed it, according to their parents, teachers, classmates, Hallmark greeting cards, and certain television shows modeled on the moralizing tendencies of 1980s and ’90s after-school specials. Sometimes Retta just wanted more more. This is what she was probably wanting when she walked up to the head vampire in the parking lot and said, “Hi. I heard your speech. Very interesting.”

“Interesting?” said the head vampire. He bobbed his head from side to side, pursing his lips, weighing her statement. “I guess so,” he said. “Interesting if you’ve never met a vampire.”

“You’re the first one.”

“That you know of,” said the head vampire. His eyes widened after he said this, and Retta started to think maybe she’d made a mistake, that vampires didn’t deserve a chance at friendship after all. But then he laughed, and then he smiled. “Just a joke,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Loretta,” she said, feeling like she was giving a fake name, as if he might be a stalker, even though she’d been the one to cross the parking lot under a hot sun.

“Loretta? That’s kind of old-fashioned,” he said, and Retta said only if you think about it for a while. He said, “Why are we talking, Loretta?”

“Just thought I’d introduce myself. I liked what you had to say.”

“Are you a vampire, Loretta?” he said, narrowing his eyes, nostrils flaring.

“Me?” said Retta. “Ha ha. I don’t think so.”

“Sometimes people are and don’t realize,” he said. “Like me. I didn’t realize for a long time.”

“How can you not realize something like that?”

“Because,” he said. “I don’t drink blood.”

Retta asked what he drank instead.

“Emotions,” he said. “Feelings.”

Hearing him say those two words made her stomach flutter.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Trevor,” said the head vampire.

“Well, Trevor,” said Retta. “It was nice meeting you. Good luck with your campaign for vampire equality.”

“Wait a second,” he said as she turned to walk away. “Are you going home now?”

“Why?” she asked.

He said, “I can give you a ride.”

Retta stared at the cinnamon splash of freckles on his cheeks and tried to calculate the potential danger in accepting a ride from a vampire. In the end, she started nodding. And finally she said, “Okay.”

The ride to Retta’s house was just two miles. She could have walked it, she usually walked it, and it seemed to disappoint Trevor when he realized he only had her in his car for a total of eight minutes, almost all of which Retta didn’t look at him. Instead she rolled down the window and leaned her arms across it, her head on her arms, watching the passing houses with beds of bright flowers decorating their front yards. And when Trevor asked questions, like whether or not she was disturbed by the scene that had occurred in the gym, Retta didn’t bother to look at him when she answered. She just said, “I don’t know,” and let the wind take the words from her mouth, watched them tumble behind her, tin cans dancing across the pavement. It was only once they turned onto her street that she sat back against the hot leather.

“Do you think we’ll ever be accepted?” said Trevor.

“Who? Vampires?”

He nodded.

“Sure,” said Retta. “There are precedents. People of color. Women. Gay people. Wiccans. I mean, I already accept you. So there you go.”

“So there you go?” said Trevor, smiling as he pulled his car against the curb.

“How did you know this was my house?” asked Retta. “How did you know this was my street?” She hadn’t given any directions.

“Inside,” said Trevor, lifting his finger to his temple and tapping. “Didn’t you notice me inside, searching?”

Retta stared at him for a long second before opening the door to climb out.

“Hey. I’m sorry,” said Trevor. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Retta closed the door and bent down to look at him through the window. From above, his fauxhawk made him look a little birdlike, a brown baby chick who knew how to drive. “You don’t scare me,” she said, and started up the walk to the front porch.

“Hey, Loretta,” Trevor called after her. “Hey, can I come in?”

“No,” said Retta, turning to look back at him. “That would not be a good idea. If you let a vampire into your house, they can come in anytime they want afterward.”

“I’m not that kind of vampire,” said Trevor, grinning, stretching farther across his seat to call out from the rolled-down passenger window.

“That’s right,” said Retta. “And I’m not that kind of girl.”

When she turned to continue on her way, she let herself smile, just a little.

Vampires had been appearing on all the news channels and in all the papers for several months by then. They were usually sad or angry, mostly because they had all lived isolated lives, misunderstood by normal people. Some were excited, though, to finally have a chance to speak about their lives in public without threat of being hunted, staked in the heart, or burned to cinders so that they could never regenerate. “As if!” one old woman vampire had said on CNN from her living-room recliner. “I wish I could regenerate!” she told the interviewer. “I would never have had my hip replaced!”

There were so many of them, and so many kinds, more than Retta had ever imagined. There were vampires who fed on the blood of others, and there were vampires who fed on feelings, like Trevor. There were vampires who fed on sunlight (they mostly lived in Florida, California, Hawaii, and at certain times of the year Alaska), and there were vampires who fed on the dark, eating their way from midnight to morning. There were vampires who fed on tree bark and vampires that fed on crustaceans, there were vampires who fed on nothing but the sound of human voices, and there were vampires who fed on any attention they could receive (they often took up karaoke, made YouTube videos, or auditioned for reality television shows). They were everywhere, once you started looking, although it wasn’t until Trevor and his friends came to speak that Retta had ever seen one in person. That she knew of, as Trevor had weakly jested. To be honest, she’d expected something different. An old-fashioned vampire with long, sharp teeth, or at least one of the less expected vampires, the sort she could watch with fascination as they ate through a meal of darkness, or one who looked as if she were carved out of ivory, with bright green eyes, or some other sexy, slightly otherworldly physical composition.

But despite the fact that they seemed harmless, over the weekend phone calls were strung from house to house, and by Sunday parents were either frowning or wide-eyed with terror. Retta’s mother came into her room after receiving a call from her best friend, whose daughter was a junior and had been at the assembly, and said, “Why didn’t you tell me about these vampires, Retta?”

She stood in the doorway, hands on her hips.

Retta said, “Oh, them. I forgot about them.”

“How can you forget about vampires, Retta? They got into an argument with a boy who was sitting behind you! Seriously, I am livid. What did Mr. Masters think he was doing by having them in for an assembly?”

“Helping to educate us about vampires?”

“Retta,” said her mother, “you are so unwitting. Listen, because I’m only going to tell you once: no vampires, young lady. Not in this house, not outside it. Understand?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Retta, closing her book and sighing.

“I know you, Retta,” said her mother. “You’re the sort of girl we call ‘susceptible.’”

When she left, Retta said, “Who’s we?”

But her mother didn’t answer. She was already down the hall in her own bedroom yelling at Retta’s father about vampires, as if their existence were all his fault.

Retta wanted to disown them. She wanted to disown everything: her room, her house, her street, her town. She even wanted, after twelve years of best friendship, to disown Lottie, who sat down across from her at a picnic table during lunch on Monday and said, “You total slut,” without any prelude.

Retta looked up from her cup of strawberry yogurt and said, “What are you talking about?”

“I saw you,” said Lottie in a harsh, whispery voice. She leaned across the table and said, “I saw you ride home with that vampire kid last Friday. You didn’t go back to class. You totally went off with him.”

“What are you, some kind of stalker?” asked Retta, twirling her spork in the plastic yogurt container, trying not to look at Lottie.

“Stalker? Oh, really? Is that how it is? I’m a stalker, not some kid who says he’s a vampire?” Lottie tucked her hair behind her ears and shook her head in resignation.

“You are so dramatic, Lottie.”

“What’s his name?”

“Trevor,” said Retta, who could not help but smile a little after she said it, as if she were only telling one half of a secret, keeping the rest to herself.

“Uck,” said Lottie. “Even his name is a loser name. What are you going to do? Marry him and have loser vampire babies?”

“Grow up, Lottie,” said Retta. “You don’t know anything about him.”

“Neither do you, I bet,” said Lottie. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned back, sitting up straight. “I bet you don’t even know where he lives.”

“No,” said Retta. “You’re right. I don’t.”

“But he knows where you live,” said Lottie, tilting her head to the side, smirking like she’d just won a game of chess.

“I’m okay with that,” said Retta, and stood up to throw away her yogurt.

“Hey,” said Lottie. “Where are you going? What’s the matter with you? Retta?”

“I’m late for chorus,” said Retta, and kept on going.

Behind her, Lottie said, “Retta! I’m serious! You should be more careful!”

“I am,” said Retta over her shoulder. “I’m always careful. I’m nothing but careful.”

But there was nothing for Retta to be careful about, really, because when she stepped out of her last class and into the parking lot that afternoon, he wasn’t there. And he wasn’t there the next day either. Or the next. It was Wednesday, then it was Thursday, and although everyone was still talking about the vampires, it seemed like they might never see one again. There were a few people who now claimed they were vampires, of course: Jason Snelling, who had been a nose picker for as long as anyone could remember, so no one was really impressed; and Tammie Galore, an ex-cheerleader who had quit cheering because she’d fallen from the top of a pyramid a year ago, and six months of wearing a cast up to her crotch and having multiple surgeries to fix her leg afterward had left her afraid to return to the happy squad. Apparently she was a vampire, too, although she never revealed what kind, exactly. Most people assumed she was lying for the attention.

And there were others who came forward: a quiet librarian who wore cat-eye glasses and white blouses with pearl buttons, tight little navy blue skirts; a plumber who lived just three streets over from Retta, who had actually been in her house to fix a toilet, but since it was for pay it probably didn’t invoke the vampire right to enter a house once he’s been invited, said Retta’s father; an old man who played the saxophone downtown on Friday and Saturday nights, wearing sunglasses as if it were still bright out. Retta had always assumed he was blind. Go figure.

It was a week of lively discussion that followed the appearance of Trevor and his vampire friends. Even the PTA had met by that Thursday evening to discuss whether Mr. Masters should be penalized for having allowed the vampires to speak at all. “Of course he should be,” said Retta’s mother after she came home from the meeting. “He should be fired. We should sue him for endangering the lives of our children.”

“We only have one child,” said Retta’s father, hanging up his Windbreaker in the foyer closet.

“It’s a figure of speech, Clyde,” said Retta’s mother. “It’s a figure of speech.”

Retta left them arguing over the issue in the kitchen and went upstairs to sit on her bed and look at her room as if it would offer her something special at that very moment. But all she saw was her hairbrush, curling iron, an uncapped lipstick on the dresser, a rumpled bedspread, clothes she hadn’t worn in a long time strung out on the floor in twisted shapes like the chalked outlines of murder victims. Then her cell phone rang and she reached for it with extreme zeal, glad that, finally, the world had responded in a timely manner to her request for a reprieve from her own inertia. She looked at the call screen. It was Lottie. “Hello?” said Retta.

“Hey, did you hear about the PTA meeting?”

“Yeah, my mom and dad just got home,” said Retta. “Penalty or no penalty? Poor Mr. Masters.”

“Sounds like they’ll let it go this time,” said Lottie, “but not if he screws up again.”

“Lottie,” said Retta, “why are we even interested? We’re graduating. We’re out of here. If I want to talk to a vampire, I can. We’re adults, aren’t we?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. Then Lottie said, “You are so hot for that kid! I can’t believe it!”

“Shut up!” said Retta. “You’re not even listening to me.”

“You’re not even listening to yourself!” said Lottie.

“Whatever,” said Retta. “Anyway, what are you going to do this summer? Or next fall, for that matter?”

“I’m thinking about finding work as one of those people who do sleep experiments,” said Lottie. “They’re always advertising for those. Seems like a steady job.”

“Hmm,” said Retta, “sounds as good as anything I’ve got.”

“College?” said Lottie.

“Oh, yeah, that. My mom brought home an application for the community college the other day, said I could stay here if I didn’t feel like trying school somewhere else. I don’t know. Don’t British kids go on something called gap year after high school? Where they go to some poor eastern European country or some island in the Mediterranean for a year and help people out and stuff? That’s what I’d like to do. Maybe.”

“Retta, you’re not British.”

“I know,” said Retta. “It’s a figure of speech.”

“No, it’s not,” said Lottie.

Retta was about to ask if Lottie was going to pick her up on the way to school tomorrow, then maybe they could go to the mall afterward and stare at things and people, but as she opened her mouth to speak, a spray of pebbles rattled against her bedroom window. “Hold on a sec,” she told Lottie, the mall forgotten, and got up from her bed to look out.

It was night out, but beneath the big oak in front of the backyard’s mercury light, she could see him, his face covered in leafy shadows, the hands that had tossed those pebbles up to her window like he was out of some 1950s movie now stuffed in the front pockets of his jeans. He pulled one out when Retta showed up at the window, lifted it into the air to flick her a wave.

She told Lottie it was her mom calling her, and clicked the phone off before Lottie could argue. Then she pulled up the window, stuck her head out, and whispered, “I can’t come out there. My parents would see you.”

“Then can I come up?” he whispered back.

“How?” said Retta. “Do you have a ladder?”

The next instant he was climbing her mother’s rose trellis, hand over hand, the tips of his shoes seeking purchase. In a minute he was three feet beneath her window. “Can you give me a lift?” he said, reaching with one hand, holding on to the trellis with the other.

“Are you serious?” said Retta. “I can’t lift you.”

“I’m lighter than I look.”

She sighed, leaned out, stretched.

He was telling the truth. He was light, so light, in fact, that she pulled him over her windowsill not quite like a rag doll, but not far from it. It made Retta want to diet. “What are you?” she said. “On a hunger strike or something?”

“No,” he said. “I’m empty.”

They sat down on her floor, and Trevor folded his legs beneath him like an Indian guru. “So what are you doing here?” asked Retta, trying to keep things business formal.

“I missed you,” he said.

She said, “You don’t even know me.”

“Sure I do,” he said. “I know you better than you think, remember?” He tapped his temple like he did the day he’d given her a ride.

“So you read minds?”

“A little,” he said. “Enough to know you’ve been wondering where I’ve been for the past week.”

“Everyone’s been wondering where you and your friends disappeared to for the past week,” said Retta. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“But you’ve been wondering more than everyone else,” he said. Retta made a face that said, You are so stupid.

“You have,” he said. “Admit it.”

“Okay,” she admitted. “Maybe.”

“Loretta,” he said. “Loretta, Loretta, Loretta,” he said, like her name was something musical.

“What?”

“I was just thinking about your name. Do you have a nickname?”

“No,” she said.

“Doesn’t anyone call you Lo?”

She shook her head.

“Then that’s what I’ll call you. Lo.”

“Loretta is fine.”

“But Lo is much better,” he said. “Can’t you feel it?”

“Feel what?”

“The sadness in Lo. The anguish.”

“I don’t feel it,” said Retta. “No.”

“Because you don’t like feeling,” he said. He stood and went to her mirror, primping his fauxhawk, which wasn’t really out of place. “You don’t like feeling because it hurts too much,” he said. “You numb yourself to feelings. But you feel more than you ever let yourself know.”

“Okay, Trevor,” said Retta. “What am I feeling right now?”

“You feel like you’re going to tear this town down. You feel like you’re waiting for something to happen, for someone to tell you what you want. You feel all that and more. You feel a lot, Lo,” he said. “You feel so much.”

Retta looked down at the carpet and didn’t say anything. He left the mirror and came over to her, his red Chuck Taylors inching into her vision. She looked up, blinked, unsure whether to be angry or relieved that he’d said all that. That he’d known.

“I can help,” he said. “We can help each other.”

“How?”

“I can take some from you, if you let me.”

“Take what?”

“Some feelings.”

“You know,” said Retta, “I’ve been very tolerant and accommodating about your condition, but at this point I think I should probably say that I never quite believed you and your friends. Nor the old woman on CNN this past week, nor the librarian, nor the blind musician downtown.”

He sat down across from her again and said, “Let me show you.”

“Really, Trevor,” said Retta, ready to protest, but her next words surprised even her: “Okay, sure. Show me.”

He reached over and grabbed her hands from her lap, his fingertips brushing against her palms, tickling. Then he closed his eyes, and Retta felt something move inside her, displacing her organs, shifting around. She shivered. Then it was in her chest. She tried to say, “Maybe this isn’t something I want to do after all,” but she couldn’t. By then it was in her throat. She gulped, trying to swallow down whatever it was. Then she opened her mouth and began huffing and puffing. Tears formed, trembled, rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t stop them. She couldn’t take her hands away from him either, even though Trevor barely had hold of them. She was stuck, breathing in short, sharp bursts, whimpering. Then he opened his eyes, licked his lips, and said, “Thank you.”

She took her hands away and wiped the tears from her face, stood up, and almost fell over. Her center of balance was nonexistent. The room spun, then slowed to a stop. She felt like she could lift off the floor, drift over to the window and out into the sky if she wanted. “I think you should go,” she told him.

“I won’t be able to go down that trellis now,” said Trevor. He stood, put his hands in his pockets again, sheepish. “I’m full now,” he said. “The trellis probably won’t hold me.”

Retta said that he would have to go as soon as her parents were asleep. He assured her he’d leave as quietly as he’d come. “Where were you the past week, anyway?” asked Retta.

“At school,” he said. “I don’t go to your school. I don’t live in your town. I live in the next town over.”

“Do people there know you’re a vampire?”

“Yeah,” said Trevor. “But it’s pretty liberal there. No problem.”

“Am I going to become a vampire now that you fed on me?” she wanted to know.

“No,” said Trevor. “Vampires aren’t made, they’re born.”

“So I couldn’t be a vampire even if I wanted?”

He said, “I don’t think so. No.”

“What a waste,” said Retta. “What a waste of a perfectly good cultural icon.”

The next day, Lottie said, “I’m afraid for our friendship.”

Retta said, “Lottie, why does everything with you have to be a chick flick?”

“It so does not have to be a chick flick!” said Lottie. “Seriously, Retta, you have been a total space-a-zoid for the past few weeks. It’s not cool. Everyone has noticed.”

“Who’s everyone?” said Retta. “You’re my only friend. I’m your only friend.”

“I’ve made some other friends, I guess,” said Lottie. She stopped walking down the mall concourse and took hold of Retta’s arm, squeezing gently. She’d brought Retta here, to the place where they’d spent most of their free time the past few years, in a last-ditch attempt to remind Retta about the bonds of their friendship, to surround her with shared memories of shopping and telling each other they looked good in certain outfits. But as Retta looked around at all the neon commerce and mass-produced entertainment surrounding her, she couldn’t help but sigh and wonder why none of any of it made sense to her any longer.

An enormous man eating a Frisbee-sized chocolate chip cookie passed behind Lottie as she waited for Retta to react to her declaration of having made other friends. The fat man was the sort of thing Lottie usually would have seen coming a mile away and would have commented on; and, at one time, the two of them would have bonded over making fun of him. Retta felt her face flush, embarrassed. She didn’t want to be the sort of person who boosted her sense of well-being by laughing at other people’s addictions, just because she herself didn’t know what she wanted so badly. And though she would have disapproved of Lottie’s blithe nastiness, now she just wanted her to say something terrible. It would have made ignoring her plaintive grasping easier.

“You’ve made other friends,” said Retta. “That’s nice. Who are they?”

Lottie winced. She was wearing a T-shirt Retta had bought in a store for boys a year ago, lent Lottie six months ago, and never gotten back. It had a yellow smiley face smack dab in the middle, stretched across Lottie’s ample chest. Lottie folded her arms over the face, as if to emphasize her unhappiness. Even the smiley face wasn’t allowed to be happy.

“It doesn’t matter who they are, Retta,” said Lottie.

“Loretta,” said Retta.

“What matters,” said Lottie, “is me and you. Us! What happened? We’ve spent our whole lives together and now we’re graduating next weekend and you’re all like, Whatever whatever, I’m in love with a vampire!”

“I am so not ‘Whatever whatever, I’m in love with a vampire!’” said Retta. “I’m. enlarging my environment. That’s all.”

“I can’t believe you will stand here and lie to me like that, Retta.”

“Seriously, Lottie?” said Retta. “We’re standing in front of Victoria’s Secret, not some hallowed monument to truth telling. And I’m not lying! Vampires are retarded. I could live for the rest of my life without seeing another vampire and be totally happy. Why won’t you let me be happy?”

Lottie’s jaw dropped. “I don’t even know you anymore, Retta.”

“Loretta.”

“Whatever,” said Lottie. “I can totally do without Loretta. Call me when Retta comes back.” She turned, arms still folded over the smiley face, hands clamped on her forearms like the mall air conditioning had just gotten way too chilly, and walked away in a hurry, leaning forward as if she were trudging uphill through driven snow.

Retta couldn’t feel the chill, though. She couldn’t feel anything, or wouldn’t allow herself, like Trevor had told her. And it wasn’t until Lottie had disappeared from sight that Retta remembered Lottie had driven them to the mall, that she was stranded.

She called her mom on her cell phone to ask if she would pick her up, but all she got was voice mail, her mother’s happy voice singing out the obvious fact that she couldn’t answer the phone. Retta looked at the time — six o’clock — and realized her parents had probably just arrived at their Friday Night Out, drinking wine in a restaurant with a bunch of people going ha ha ha, fanning their faces with their hands because something someone had just said was way too funny.

So she started walking.

Walking was what Retta did for the next few days, for the final week she would spend in that building that had housed her throughout her weekdays for the last few years of her teenaged life. She walked through her neighborhood, looking up through the new leaves at the sun, daring it, trying not to blink. She walked down the newly edged sidewalks on Monday and Tuesday, heading to school with her head hanging, watching her feet go back and forth. Lottie drove past both days, on the way to school, on the way home, but never looked at Retta, even though Retta looked at her, ready to wave. Lottie only sat in her car face forward, windows down, the wind blowing hair around her face.

Maybe it was better that way, spending the last week of classes getting used to not being around Lottie, who used those same last-minute days of their secondary education making an attempt at fast friendship with Tammie Galore, of all people, the ex-cheerleader turned vampire, which, it turned out, had been completely fabricated, as everyone had suspected. Retta supposed that Tammie’s backpedaling on her declaration of vampirism, along with her previous defection from the cheer squad, was what probably made her seem like a potential candidate for Lottie’s new best friend. In fact, by Thursday of that week, Tammie Galore was no longer Tammie but Tam-Tam, which everyone thought was cute and why hadn’t they all been calling her that for ages? Retta could have told them. Because Tam-Tam is not a cute name. Because Tam-Tam reeks of the desire to be someone you’re not.

She was walking home on Friday, taking long steps — trudging, really — when Trevor pulled alongside her in his car. She kept walking, though, so he began to follow, driving slowly, revving his Cadillac’s engine every now and then. “Hey, Lo,” he called out his window.

Retta looked over and said, “What?”

He grinned before saying, “Well, someone isn’t very happy.”

“That’s right,” said Retta. “I’m not happy. I’m not sad either, though, Trevor, I think you should know that.”

“What are you then?” said Trevor, and Retta stepped over the devil strip to the road, opened the passenger-side door even as his car idled forward, hopped in.

“I’m nothing,” she said, slamming the door shut. “I don’t feel anything. I’m affectless, a sufferer of ennui, apathetic, aemotional.”

“That’s not true,” said Trevor. He pushed down on the gas to go faster. “I tasted your feelings. You filled me up. I was full for days.”

“There could be a banquet inside me and I wouldn’t be able to taste any of it,” said Retta. She wanted to cry, because now was the sort of moment a person would cry, at a crisis point, confessing to their own flaws and weaknesses. But she couldn’t. If she had any tears, they weren’t raising their hands, volunteering their services.

When they pulled up to her house, Retta said, “I wonder if I could feel someone else’s? What if you were right? What if I’m like you and just don’t know it? What if I’m a vampire, only I can’t feel my own feelings?”

“I guess anything is possible,” said Trevor.

“If I was like that,” said Retta, “would you let me have some of yours?”

“Who? Me?” said Trevor, pointing at his chest, eyebrows rising higher on the slope of his shiny forehead.

“Yeah,” said Retta. “Is there anyone else in the car?”

“Sure,” said Trevor, shrugging. “Yeah, you bet.”

“Can we try then?” said Retta.

“You mean now?”

“Yeah,” said Retta. “Now. Why do you keep answering my questions with questions?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I guess. I just wasn’t prepared for this.”

“Because you came to feed on me, didn’t you?” said Retta. “Not the other way around.”

“Um.,” said Trevor. “I guess?”

“Don’t worry,” said Retta. “If you’re right and I have more feelings than even I’m aware of, there should be plenty. There should be more than enough for both of us.”

Back at her house, they sat down on the floor of her room, guru-style again, where Trevor showed Retta how to hold his hands properly, how to push forward, he explained, into someone else. “If you’re a vampire,” he said, “you’ll be able to do it. It’s not a trick. You’ll just be inside me with the slightest effort. Then, well, you’ll know what to do. Trust me.”

Retta touched her fingertips against the palms of his hands and pushed forward, as he’d instructed. Immediately the room went dark and she couldn’t even see the outlines of sunlight around the blind covering her window. She was inside him. And when she pushed a little further, she found them, his feelings, all tied up in the most intricate of knots. She took hold of one, unraveled it, slipped it inside her mouth, and started chewing. It was glorious between her teeth, bittersweet, like her mother’s expensive chocolate, soft and sticky as marzipan. It was the way she’d always imagined feeling should be. Visceral. Something she could sink her teeth into.

She untied another, and another, and another, until finally she felt herself lifting up, up, up.

Then — out of him.

She opened her eyes. Light hit her in the face, so much light she felt she might go blind like that street musician downtown. Is that what this did to him? A moment of blinding brilliance after his first taste of something wonderful? Then things began to readjust and her room was her room again, its peach walls surrounding her, and Trevor sat in front of her, sniffing, wiping the backs of his hands against his eyes like the greasy-haired kid had done at the assembly.

“That was hard,” he said.

“Then take some from me,” said Retta. “Take all of them. Just let me take some back when you’re finished.”

He stared at her for a long moment. The ridge of his fauxhawk looked like it was wilting. Finally he said, “Lo, this could be the start of something beautiful.”

She grinned, all teeth, and nodded.

In the morning, she rose with the first coos of the doves and thought about how symbolic all her actions were, how quickly everything she did now took on sudden significance. It was almost as if she could see everything, even herself, as if she were a benign witness to the actions of others and to the ones she herself was taking, as if she were someone else altogether different from the girl she had been. It was as if she floated above the town where she’d spent the first eighteen years of her life wondering how she’d gotten there, where she was, where she was going. Now she could see everything, as if it were no more than a map she’d hung on her wall, sticking bright red tacks into the places she wanted to visit.

Trevor was passed out on her bed. She’d drained him a few hours earlier, taken what he had and what she’d given, untied all but one of those bright little knots in his stomach, and left him empty. As she stepped carefully down the stairs with his keys in one hand and a bag of clothes in the other, she wondered what he would do when he woke, wondered what her parents would do when they, too, woke to find a vampire in their daughter’s bed instead of their daughter.

On the way out, she stopped in the kitchen to scrawl a message on the dry-erase board magnetized to the refrigerator. It’s been fun, she wrote in purple, her favorite color, and realized even as she wrote the message that purple was her favorite color. You are all lovely people. But I’m off to start my gap year. XO, Loretta!

When she was twenty hours away, drinking coffee as she drove down the interstate, eating up mile after beloved mile, her cell phone rang. It had been ringing for the past seventeen hours, but each time it had been one of her parents, and each time she didn’t answer, knowing that as soon as she pressed the talk button, nothing but hysterical screams and shouts would come out. This time, though, it was Lottie’s name on the screen that kept blinking. Retta answered, but before she could say anything, Lottie spoke in a sharp whisper.

“Retta,” she said. “I am sitting in a commencement assembly next to an empty seat with your name on it. Where are you? Your parents are freaking out and that vampire kid has filed a stolen vehicle report, so you’d better watch out. I guess I was wrong about you. You weren’t hot for him. You totally ditched him. But I still don’t understand. Tell me one thing, Retta,” said Lottie, and Retta imagined Lottie, arms folded over her chest, cell phone pressed to her ear, her plastic black gown and that square little hat, the golden tassel she would flip to the other side in half an hour, her legs crossed, the one on top bouncing furiously. “What happened? Why are you being such a bitch?”

“It’s Loretta!” screamed Loretta into the phone, like some rock star in the middle of a concert. “And it’s because I’m a vampire, Lottie! Because I’m a vampire! Because I’m a vampire!”

She flipped the phone shut and threw it out the window.

It was late morning. The sun was high and red all over. She snarled at herself in the rearview mirror, then laughed, pushed down on the gas, made the car go faster.