Bloodthirsty

Chapter 16
I thought the world would end when Kate and I broke up. But I’d also thought the world would end when Kate told me she knew I wasn’t a vampire, or when I passed out in physics class, and it hadn’t. You may not have noticed this, but I can be a pessimist sometimes. But I shouldn’t be. I mean, I’ve had the name Finbar for sixteen years, and I’ve only been punched in the face once.
After my surprisingly kick-ass game of beer pong that night (Luke and I killed. We should have been playing for money!), I steeled myself to return home and break the news to my mother that Kate and I were no longer… whatever Kate and I had been. But I was actually able to avoid lengthy conversations with my mother for that whole week and so didn’t have that much time to sit around like a hunchback ringing the death knell of my love life. After school, I’d begun training for winter track. Jason Burke was my training buddy. I was pleased to find he wasn’t in as great shape as I’d assumed. I think his muscles were just more defined because he had a spray tan.
In my spare time when I wasn’t running, I was catching up with Jenny. I felt bad. I’d kind of forgotten about her during the whole Kate thing. And I didn’t even remember that I had forgotten her until she invited me to a book signing but followed the invitation with, “But you’re probably busy on a Saturday night. Doing something with Kate.”
“I’m not,” I said. “Kate and I aren’t really hanging out anymore.”
“Really?” Jenny squeaked in delight.
Jeez, she really wanted to go to this book signing. She sounded ecstatic. Of course, she was mildly obsessed with this book. When we met up late Saturday afternoon and took a train into the city, Jenny chattered the whole time about the author and the book. The book was a “graphic novel,” which is a term that adults have created so they can read comic books when they’re middle-aged. Except this graphic novel didn’t have any superheroes, sidekicks, or anything that should have been on a five-year-old boy’s underwear. The author was this Irish guy who drew amazing pictures of his life in Dublin, drinking Guinness, chain-smoking, cheering for his hometown soccer team, and other manly Irish things.
I think of Irish guys as real men’s men, always drinking really heavy beer without throwing up and then punching some English guy’s crooked teeth out because they’re frustrated with centuries of colonialism. And playing rugby. Rugby doesn’t have shoulder pads or helmets. My ancestors were Irish, but somehow we got more wussed out with each passing generation. Although Luke would probably kick ass at rugby.
Jenny, who from the looks of her wouldn’t survive five seconds of rugby, got a special invite to the book signing because she wrote a review of the book for our school newspaper. Usually Jenny’s reviews don’t get published because she refuses to write about any movie with Vince Vaughn or Seth Rogen in it or to profile any Disney Channel starlet caught topless via text message. But the editor liked this graphic novel review because it had so much beer in it. I think our school newspaper editor has a drinking problem. It must be the stress of his job.
Anyway, Jenny had sent the author, Gareth, a copy of her review, which he loved, so we got to meet him before the event started at a bookstore in midtown Manhattan.
“Jenny!” Gareth crowed when she introduced herself shyly. “I’ve got to thank you for that piece you wrote on me. It’s the only nice thing that’s been written about me, other than stuff on the pub bathroom wall.”
Jenny flushed.
“Seriously, brilliant stuff, though,” he said.
Jenny introduced me, and Gareth was surprised by my name.
“I don’t meet many American Finbars,” he told me.
“I’m pretty sure I’m the only one,” I said.
“The Celt stands alone,” Gareth said. “Well, I should get reading. Get good seats, but not in the front row. Ya don’t want me spitting on you.”
Jenny seemed nervous around Gareth and she hurried me away. She pulled me so fast that I didn’t have time to look where I was going, and I bumped into a different short girl.
“Finbar!” the short girl exclaimed.
“Oh,” I said. “Hi, Celine.”
Surprisingly, I hadn’t thought about Celine in a while. After our disastrous date, I had expected to stew over the humiliation for months. But I’d been so busy being a vampire and starting at a new school and getting rejected by a whole new girl that I’d forgotten about Celine.
She looked the same, small and brown and sharp-looking. I couldn’t remember why I’d thought she was so pretty. Compared to Kate, Celine looked like she’d sucked a sour lemon. She pressed that sour-lemon face to mine and gave me a lame French air kiss.
“How are you, chérie?” she twittered. “I haven’t heard from you in ages!”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve been… this is Jenny. Jenny, Celine.”
“Enchanté,” Celine said affectedly.
“You, too… I think,” Jenny replied.
“We should go grab seats,” I told Celine. “Nice to see you.”
“Who was that?” Jenny hissed before we were even out of earshot.
“Just a girl I went out with once,” I said.
Wow. I couldn’t believe that phrase just came out of my mouth. “A girl I went out with once.” That made it sound like I went out with lots of girls. I sounded so… McDreamy. Or McSteamy. Yeah, more like McSteamy, because he got more action (yes, sadly, I do know the difference between McDreamy and McSteamy. Again, my mother’s fault).
“Did you like her?” Jenny asked.
Jenny would make a great reporter. She always asks a lot of questions. This particular question made me think, though. And when I thought about it, Celine had been elitist and obnoxious and ungrateful. She used these French phrases, probably to make me feel dumb—obviously she was still doing it. Furthermore, Celine had never thanked me for the ridiculously expensive meal I had bought her. Whether or not I had tried too hard, I deserved at least a thank you.
“Not really,” I told Jenny as we took our seats. “I mean, I didn’t like her as much as I liked Kate.”
Jenny swallowed. “Oh,” was all she said, then she shut up like a clam.
Luckily I didn’t have to talk to Celine again, because Gareth started reading and telling stories. He was really funny. All the girls in the audience were going crazy because of his Irish accent. Maybe I should pretend to be foreign, I thought suddenly. I bet I could get a lot of girls that way. Then I remembered I was still kind of busy pretending to be the last thing I had pretended to be to get girls—a vampire.
For some reason, as Jenny and I walked back to Grand Central Station to take the train home, the city seemed quieter than usual. Actually, it wasn’t quiet at all—it was midtown Manhattan on a Saturday night. But it seemed quiet to me, even as I watched the characters around us. Two self-centered women fought over a cab.
“I can’t walk! I have six Bloomingdale’s bags!” the first woman screamed.
“I can’t walk! Look at my shoes!” said the second, displaying a heel too dangerous to make it through airport security.
Two guys who looked younger than I did came tumbling out of a darkened bar called the Lace Lounge. A bouncer the size of Canada told them, “Don’t come back!” before slamming the door. The two guys proceeded to fight about what had given them away as underage.
“It’s because you can’t grow a mustache!” the first guy said.
“No,” the other argued. “It’s because you brought your little brother.”
“Hey, guys! Wait up!” a smaller voice called. When the two guys parted, I could see a ten-year-old trailing along behind them.
I grinned as we walked past the underage kids and came upon a tall street performer guy singing early Mariah Carey hits in a surprisingly convincing voice. Wow, he was really hitting those high notes! Wow, he… might be a she. Or was it a he? Or was it…
I was about to ask for Jenny’s input when I realized what was making it seem quiet. Jenny was quiet. And that was such a rare occurrence that it threw me off completely. Refraining from asking for her input on the diva’s gender ambiguity, I put my hands in my pockets, and Jenny trudged along next to me. Usually she’d be tugging at my sleeves, asking me a million questions, talking about the reading. But she wasn’t saying anything.
When I looked to the side and opened my mouth to make conversation, I saw the reflection of a streetlight streaming down Jenny’s face. She was crying! What the hell? Why was Jenny crying? More important, what was I supposed to do about it? I turned my head away quickly. Maybe she didn’t want to be seen crying. I wouldn’t want anyone to see me crying. I would want everyone around me to ignore the situation completely.
Jenny didn’t want that. When I turned my head away from her, she sniffed pointedly.
Maybe I just had to change the subject, and she would forget whatever had made her cry. It couldn’t have been that big a deal anyway if I hadn’t noticed Jenny get upset (and I had noticed that transvestite singing Mariah Carey songs).
“That Gareth guy was pretty funny,” I said. “You know, when he was reading…”
A high-pitched wail escaped from Jenny’s chest.
Shit. Were people hearing this? Were people watching this, thinking I made her cry? Had I made her cry? Shit. I should never speak. Or act. Ever. I screw everything up.
“You okay, Jen?” I asked. I subtly scooted a few inches away from her, with the caution of a man diffusing a bomb. What were you supposed to do with a crying girl? Would she want me to hug her? Give her a tissue? I didn’t have a tissue! I suddenly wished I was in Indiana, during the days when I didn’t even talk to girls.
Then I felt Jenny pull at my arm. She was dragging me over toward her. Surprised by her force, I stumbled across the sidewalk and suddenly found myself in a dark space between two buildings, all shadowed pavement and fire escapes. We were alone in an alley.
I turned my head rapidly from one side to another, from the piles of trash bags on one side to the squared-off view of the street on the other. I didn’t want to look Jenny in the face.
“Turn me,” she whispered.
Then I had to look, and frankly, she looked bat-shit crazy. Her tears were like magnifying glasses that made her crazy eyes seem bigger and scarier. My own eyes widened in response.
“What?”
I barely got the word out before she had me pinned against the alley wall. Her little palms were pressing into my jacket like she was making me into a kindergarten handprint project.
“Turn me,” she repeated ominously, her little chin thrust toward me, her eyes looking like they could shoot lasers out of them.
For a wild second I thought, is Jenny going to take advantage of me? I was kind of okay with that. I was pretty sick of hauling my virginity around, and obviously Kate wasn’t interested in taking it from me.
“Jenny, I…” I reached a nervous hand out for her arm, but her tendons tensed like rope. Was everyone in the world stronger than I was?
“Turn me into a vampire,” she said.
A brief light from a window above blinded me in my shock.
“What?”
Her arms went slack and I could finally take a full breath.
“I want to be like you,” she said, her voice shaking, her little hands trembling, her lips quivering.
“I want to be cool like you. I want everyone to talk about me. I want to be cool and not care what I say or what I do. Or who I hurt.”
What? Who had I hurt?
“I’ll be better than Kate,” Jenny said earnestly, bringing her arms down to her sides, her face, hopeful, turned up at me. “I’ll be a vampire, like you. I’ll stay with you. She won’t.”
Something twisted in my chest. Jenny liked me. It hurt to have her stand there and tell me, to reveal something to me that would most likely lead to hurt feelings and embarrassment. I saw a lot of my pathetic self in her at that moment. No wonder Jenny had shut up as soon as I mentioned Kate. She was jealous. I was always patting myself on the back for being so perceptive, believing girls would like me because I was sensitive, aware of their feelings, but in the three months of having her constantly around, complaining to me, gossiping, copying my homework, I hadn’t noticed that Jenny liked me. Even when Jenny went on and on about Kate’s jeans, and Kate’s sweating in gym class, and how Kate wouldn’t understand me, I never even suspected the truth. Jenny liked me. Jenny liked me. All my life, I’d waited for a girl to like me, or a middle-aged woman to like me, or a nun, or anyone. I’d thought a girl liking me would make me, to borrow a phrase from everyone who talks about my brother, “the man.” Now Jenny liked me; apparently she’d liked me for a long time—and I’d never felt so terrible in my life. Even when Kate lied to me. Even when Celine rejected me.
“Finbar, please,” Jenny begged.
Oh, shit, right. Back to this. Not only had I hurt Jenny, I’d also told her a massive lie. And this was karma coming back to kick my ass in a back alley. Sure, I’d noticed increasing numbers of girls discussing my vampire potential and debating my strength. And sure, Kayla Bateman had freaked out about me potentially drinking her blood. I knew they all believed, but… Jenny really believed. I didn’t know it would go this far.
My palms got sweaty. I mean, I did owe Jenny. I’d been inconsiderate of her feelings. I’d treated her as badly as Celine had treated me. I owed her at least a metamorphosis. Problem was…
“Jenny, I don’t know how,” I told her.
Raising my hand to my indented chest, I surveyed the damage her fierce little palms had done when she pushed me. No broken ribs. Phew.
“You do know how.”
“I don’t.” Against the alley wall, my shoulders rose in a hopeless shrug.
“You became one,” she accused me, bitterly, from the throat.
Well, I was going to have to turn Jenny into a vampire. Of all the shitty situations I’d dug myself into lately, this one was pretty deep. How could I “turn” Jenny? My Catholic side told me there should be some kind of ceremony. Like the way I got ashes on Ash Wednesday, and how the priest put oil on my head at my confirmation. I looked around for what I could use. With the contents of this herpes-rimmed Pepsi can, I anoint thee, Jenny, a vampire. Or, With the blood of this one-eyed pigeon, I anoint thee… My options were pretty sketchy.
Luckily, Jenny was more specific.
“Bite me,” she pleaded.
She made her neck extra naked for me, pulling down her collar, revealing a few freckles I’d never seen before.
Oh, Jesus. Lord’s name in vain again, yes. But I really needed help here.
Against my will, without a plan, I felt my head tilt down toward her neck. There was quite a distance to bridge between my beanpole body and her elfin self, and the whole distance I was thinking, What the hell am I gonna do?
But then a thought occurred to me. It was like I suddenly had the wisdom of a thousand-year-old man. Or at least someone old enough to drink.
I made like I was going for her neck, the curve where it met her collarbone, and I did linger close for a few seconds, feeling the desperate heat emanating from those freckles. But then I took a detour. I went up to Jenny’s ear instead, and I told her this:
“Turn yourself.”
She pulled back like I had bad breath.
“What?”
“Turn yourself,” I commanded her. “Just decide that you are someone else. Decide that you are a vampire. If you believe you’re a vampire, everyone will believe you’re a vampire.”
“No.” Jenny trembled. “No, they won’t.”
I leaned closer to her again.
“You believed me,” I said.
I made a sudden move, snapping my teeth together, and Jenny trembled at the elbows.
“See,” I said smoothly.
“What?” Jenny asked. “You’re not really a vampire?”
“No!” I jumped in quickly. “I mean, yes. Well, kinda. I’m mostly a vampire. I have all the… aura, you know? The vampire aura. I have vampire attitude, too. I have the aura, and the attitude. I just don’t, um, drink blood.”
Jenny’s small face was very serious. “So you’re not technically a vampire?”
Well, technically… I called on Chauncey Castle’s ability to answer a question with a question and coupled it with my extensive knowledge of Jenny.
“Would you want to technically be a vampire, Jenny?” I asked. “No more chai tea. No more onion bagels from Dunkin’ Donuts. Plus… you know, you’d be dead. So you’d never get your driver’s license.”
We were already in a dark alley, but the idea of never getting her license was really scary to Jenny. Her arms dropped, freeing my chest and letting me inhale again. Her shoulders dropped, too.
“I guess I wouldn’t want to technically be a vampire,” she said. “I mean, I’d probably rather be Tresora Chest from The Seductress and the Swashbuckler. Or Raven Mane from Dragons and Drama Queens. She’s the one I dyed my hair to look like,” Jenny added, looking up at me.
“Ohhh.” I tried to nod admiringly at her hair, which had grown out so far that it was two-thirds orange and only a third black.
“But no one even noticed when I dyed my hair.” Jenny said, shaking her head. “None of the kids I’ve gone to school with for twelve years.”
Oh, Jesus, I thought. I really needed to invest in some pocket tissues if I was gonna hang out with so many girls.
But Jenny wasn’t crying when she looked up at me. And then she said something really thoughtful.
“I guess I didn’t want to be a vampire,” Jenny said. “I just wanted to be someone else.”
Right after that, Jenny led the way out of the alley and down the street toward Grand Central and our train home. As I followed her little trudging footsteps, I should have felt bad for the girl. With her badly dyed hair and her too-big black jacket, she looked like she’d been kicked out of the Addams family. And suddenly I thought of all these things to comfort her, like some vague compliment Jason Burke had said that week, or the fact that the Irish author Gareth actually seemed semi-intrigued by Jenny, and he’d glanced at her a few times during his reading.
But what she’d said, she’d said so matter-of-factly, like it was normal. “I just wanted to be someone else.” And, I guess, it was normal. Why else would I have given a sex speech in my English class and beat up a bully? Those weren’t Finbar-esque actions. Why else would I have become a vampire?
It seemed so simple now. Somehow quirky little Jenny had simplified it. She wanted to be someone else. I wanted to be someone else. And we couldn’t be the only ones, either. I bet even Luke wanted to be someone else, sometimes—someone who could pass math or sit still through a test. And even Kate, Kate had wanted…
No. I was still angry about Kate. I couldn’t think about her yet.
“Come on,” Jenny called from ahead of me on the sidewalk. “We’re just in time for the express train if you hurry up.”