Forever 51

by Pamela Skjolsvik

  21

  With a blue ballpoint and a nervous hand, Veronica penned a letter to Jenny on the motel’s stationary. Unsure of where to place the scribbled explanation of her whereabouts, she chose the lid of the toilet. The girl would have to pee at some point.

  “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!” Veronica gently jostled Jenny’s body, hoping that by some miracle of the universe, she’d have companionship for the grim task ahead, or better yet, a reason not to go at all. It was so much easier to focus on someone else’s problems, and Jenny had them in abundance, especially now that the meth was all gone and Pembina, North Dakota was not going to be the easiest place to score another fix.

  “Stop it.” Jenny groaned, burrowing her face deeper into the bleach-scented sheets. With one brusque move, she pulled the flowered coverlet over her head. “I have a fucking headache. Leave me alone.”

  “Okay, sunshine. I’ve got to go apologize to a paranoid Norwegian. I’ll be back as quickly as I possibly can, so please don’t do anything stupid or illegal while I’m gone.” Veronica gathered her purse and the keys to the car. “There’s food on the desk if you’re hungry.”

  She let herself out quietly, even though a bomb could have detonated in the ice machine next door, and Jenny would simply flinch or maybe tell it to fuck off. Veronica didn’t understand it, considering the checkered history she had with her own daughter, but she found a lovability in this young woman despite her abundant faults. If anything, Veronica appreciated the fact that Jenny was at least honest about her defects of character. Almost every person she encountered was pretending to be someone else. And as was often said in the rooms of Al-Anon, “If you spot it, you got it.” Veronica had been pretending to be something she wasn’t for almost a century. But that was all about to change. Today was the day she would change that.

  Even without the GPS to guide her, Veronica instinctively knew how to find the old stretch of Jorgenson land. It had been imprinted on her memory like a red wine stain on a honey-colored table. The only novelty would be discovering just how decrepit the place had become in the hundred years since.

  But when she turned into the drive, Veronica was startled to find the small A-frame house freshly painted pale yellow with planters of flowers on the teak wood porch. The surrounding fields of the property still flowing with flax and sunflowers. Someone was tending them.

  Beams of sun warmed her exposed skin as she exited the vehicle. If she hadn’t been on a ninth step mission with time constraints, she would have sat down for a spell on the porch swing before announcing her arrival. A warm day in Dakota needed to be appreciated when it happened—especially in September, when every pleasant day might be the last of the year—but dragging a scared, reluctant vampire to sit with her in the daylight would be about as easy as winning the Power Ball. She could still envision Knud cloistered in his candlelit basement, working on some whittling or sucking the life out of some poor animal that he’d named and grown to love.

  In a soft, tentative manner, Veronica knocked on the front door. There was either going to be an awkward exchange with the new owners or a harder knock he would be able to hear from the basement. As nervous sweat trickled down the inside of her shirt, she visualized ripping a bandage from a reluctant patient. With a renewed fervor to just get it over with, she pounded on the thick oak door.

  “Just a moment, please,” a female voice with a Russian accent called out.

  Disheartened by the excuses she’d have to make to this stranger, Veronica stepped back from the door. As it swung open, a young woman holding a tiny, trembling dog greeted her with a weary smile.

  “Yes?” The ball of fluff yapped at Veronica, while the woman murmured foreign words into its furry ear.

  “Hello, um…” The dog’s insistent barking wasn’t helping her nerves. “I was wondering if, by any chance, Knud Jorgenson still lived here, or if you knew where I could find him.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Yes. And you are with?” She set the dog down. It sniffed Veronica’s ankles, then darted down the steps and into the yard.

  “I’m not with anyone. I’m an old friend. A very old friend. And you are?”

  “Nataliya.” She stepped out onto the front porch. Her bare feet and pedicured toes announced that she wasn’t from these rustic parts. “Igor, stop with the digging. Why must you be so naughty?”

  “Dogs.” Veronica smiled, trying to convince this strange woman that she was totally down with yippy canines and reclusive vampires. Looking towards Igor, who was now pooping in the flower bed, she hoped he wasn’t slated for breakfast. “Is he here? Possibly in the basement?”

  “Yes. I will tell him of your arrival. We so rarely get visitors other than the UPS man. Who may I say is calling?”

  “Astrid Dahling.”

  “Igor!” Nataliya screamed. “Would you like a cookie?” The dog sprinted towards the house and through the front door, stopping at her feet. “Astrid. I will be back in a moment. Would you like something to drink?” Nataliya chuckled to herself in a low voice and scooped up the dog, hugging him tightly to her slight frame.

  “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

  “Of course. My mistake. Please have a seat.” She motioned towards a worn leather sofa in the living area.

  The darkened room was nothing like Veronica remembered. Taxidermied animals were scattered about. A grizzly, who was the obvious centerpiece, reared up with wild eyes and exposed fangs while the other animals looked peacefully alive, frozen in their tracks by his terrifying magnificence. An obscenely large flat screen TV covered the two front windows, and on the corner desk sat an expensive laptop. From the living room, she spied new stainless-steel appliances in the kitchen.

  Nataliya peeked her head out from the cellar staircase. “You may come down. He says it is okay. Come, Igor.” She shuffled towards the kitchen with the dog on her heels. “Who is a good boy? You are, you are,” she cooed, somehow sounding more like an evil dictator than a doting dog owner.

  Fearful, Veronica rose from the sofa. Heat bloomed from her skin with beads of sweat as if she’d just entered a sauna. It never failed. Emotion equaled hot flash. As if guided by a power greater than herself, she padded down the old wooden steps into the basement. The last time she’d seen her second husband, he was covered in a motley collection of animal hides that he’d fashioned to honor their blood sacrifice. If anything, he was creative. She hoped that Knud would greet her at the bottom of the stairs to soften her entry into the past.

  “Hello? Knud?” Her voice cracked.

  “Hold on. This auction’s about to end.” In the corner of the room, Knud Jorgenson’s ruggedly good-looking face was illuminated by the blue light of a computer screen. Looking like a hipster lumberjack in black framed glasses, a plaid flannel shirt, worn denim, and thick wool socks, he was physically the same as the day she’d turned him. His full beard hadn’t grown or receded nor had his thick mop of unruly curls. He was a man frozen in time, like one of the woodland creatures upstairs—a mannequin changing with the seasons. Veronica felt a pang of jealousy that he’d endured the years so well.

  “I won, I won!” He pounded the table and hopped up to his feet. Opening his arms like a bear about to maul its prey, he bounded towards her. “Astrid! It’s so good to see you.” He grabbed her towards him, squeezing his muscular body against hers. Stroking her back with his strong, calloused hands, he sniffed her hair. “By golly, I love a woman with some meat on her bones. You just feel so much better than those skinny ladies they keep hooking me up with on that dating app.”

  Veronica could feel the heat rise in her face. Knud was eternally forty-two and dripping with his own kind of heat—from the top of his 6’4” solid frame down to his wool-clad toes. When they first began courting, she felt unworthy of his attention—he was that good looking—and yet he didn’t seem to be aware of the effect it had on those around him. His first wife, along with their only child, had died in labor, cementing her as a saint within
his mind. He never got over the loss but found comfort in Veronica’s own widowed arms. As he sized every inch of her up with his blue eyes, Veronica giggled from the crazy thought that if they’d gotten together today, she would have been considered a cougar.

  “Thank you, Knud. I appreciate that.” She squeezed his arm as if to say that’s enough touching, unless you want to lock that cellar door, and backed away.

  “Have a seat and tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself since 1932.” He plopped down in a chair and leaned towards her, resting his chin on the knuckle of his right hand, like The Thinker.

  She laughed and sat in one of the oversized recliners, placing her purse carefully on the wooden floor. This room used to crawl with spiders, the one thing on this earth she would never get used to.

  Nataliya’s voice called from upstairs. “The UPS man is here with that flying thing.”

  “Thank you, honey, just put it in my office,” he yelled towards the ceiling. “I ordered a drone. Can you believe that? It is absolutely crazy the amount of progress we’ve witnessed in our lifetime. Granted, I’ve seen most of it only at night or on a television screen, but still. It’s pretty amazing.” He leaned back in the chair. “It was thirty-two, right?” His tone changed, teetering on accusatory.

  Veronica nodded, feeling a sudden surge of shame. After forty years, she’d slipped out of his life in the winter of ’32 without a goodbye, a note or any sort of explanation. While he was in the barn draining one of their dairy cows, she hopped the Northern Pacific, heading for Fargo, the divorce capital of the Midwest. At the time, she simply wanted to meet her great-granddaughter, Millie.

  “So, what’s been going on? What’s your story?” He seemed genuinely interested, leaning forward in his chair again.

  “Well, I went to Fargo, the big city, don’t you know, and stayed there till…” Veronica looked up at the ceiling as if the answer was written on one of the wooden beams. “Thirty-nine. And then I just traveled around from there. First to Massachusetts then to Michigan. Along the way, I just tried to figure out how best to survive. Right now, I live in Texas.”

  “Yee haw! I bet they love you down there with your big hair. You are so brave to travel and see all these places. I’ve lived here my whole life. I’d love to see the ocean.” His gaze drifted towards the stairs. “If you don’t mind me asking, how are you surviving?”

  She looked down at her trembling hands. “Ethically, for the most part. I continue to have slip ups every now and then, but I’m working on it, with the help of AA.”

  Knud slapped his knee and chuckled as if that was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. “The program for drunks?”

  “Yes. We prefer the term alcoholic.” She could feel her teeth gently nudging at her gums. “I don’t know about you, but I suffer from a drinking problem that has gotten me into a lot of trouble.” She had always hated his dismissive, holier-than-thou attitude. It reminded her of why she left. Animals don’t have souls. It’s the only way. How could you kill another person, Astrid? “The program has helped me in ways you couldn’t understand right now. Anyway, currently I’m working in a hospice facility as a nurse. Many people want my help to pass on, so I help them. It’s all nicey, nicey and nobody is screaming bloody murder. They’re grateful.”

  “Well, I’ll be! That’s great that you found a calling. Did you ever find Ingrid?”

  Veronica nodded, guiltily.

  “Is she still with that young man, what’s his name? Draco? Drago?”

  “Desmond. Not anymore. She’s doing very well, out in San Francisco. She’s been working as a phlebotomist but recently got hired in a funeral home. She’s mortal now.”

  Knud frowned and sat back in his chair. “What do you mean, ‘she’s mortal now’? What does that even mean?”

  “Before we move on to the meaning of mortality and its implications on the modern-day vampire, I’d like to hear what you’ve been up to, between online dating and buying things off the internet.” Just a hint of snark peppered her voice. Veronica felt the power shift back into her corner. It was all in her mind, but it made her pulse slow and her teeth recede.

  For his part, Knud remained oblivious; his shoulders relaxed at this more agreeable subject. “Well, for a good long stretch, I was alone. I continued to hunt at night but as the years progressed, I found I didn’t need as much blood to get by. Then the internet happened, and I found that the whole world opened up to me. I could order anything I could ever want or desire, including companionship, on the world-wide-web, and it could be delivered right to my door without a signature. It was magnificent.”

  “Did you order Nataliya from the internet?” Veronica shifted in her chair, fairly certain of his answer.

  Knud took no apparent offense. “As a matter of fact, I did. You wouldn’t believe the things you can find on the internet. It’s crazy. Heck,” he lowered his voice and leaned in closer. “There’s this thing called the dark web.”

  Veronica raised her brows as a warning to tread carefully. She could tolerate a lot from her years in the ER, but if this conversation veered anywhere near child pornography, she was out. “Mmmhmmm.” She glared at the blinking lights of computer equipment behind him.

  “And I found a group for people like us.”

  Veronica sat up. “What do you mean?”

  “Like vampires from around the world and their lineage or some such nonsense. I could only access that thread and I ended up getting malware from it, so I never went back. It was probably just a couple of bored teenagers who’d just read Anne Rice.”

  Veronica rolled her eyes. He loved the sound of his own voice, and she didn’t imagine Nataliya did much talking to anyone besides the dog. “How have you survived?” Her gaze darted around what once used to be a dank, depressing cellar. It was now a digital wonderland. “And thrived?”

  “It’s helped that my father’s land in Western Dakota struck oil. I’m loaded, and with the help of a few unethical attorneys, I’ve managed to forge birth and death records to keep me as the sole inheritor of the estate. The fur trade died, as you can imagine, and now I just do taxidermy as a side project to keep my hands busy.”

  “Are you happy?”

  Knud looked down at his empty hands, then met Veronica’s gaze. “As happy as one can be without an expiration date.”

  Veronica crossed her legs and uncrossed her arms, anxious not to let her chronic case of resting bitch face sabotage her kind intentions. “The reason I came here, in case you were wondering…” She took a deep breath and smiled on the exhale.

  Knud nodded enthusiastically, as if he’d been waiting all his life to hear what she had to say.

  “…is to apologize. I took advantage of you. You were sad and lonely, and I was desperate to cling to someone after Ingrid turned me. You just happened to be that person. Which wasn’t that bad, now that I think about it. I could just as easily have sucked the life out of Einar Halvorson, but he wasn’t as enigmatic or attractive as you. Knud, what I’m really trying to say is that I robbed you of a normal life—and for that I’m truly sorry.”

  Knud rose from his chair with his arms extended and a big, goofy smile on his face.

  Veronica raised her hand defensively. “Sit back down. You’re going to feel a bit funny here in a sec and I don’t want you getting hurt.” She felt completely in control, even as her own body shuddered from his soul’s exit.

  He fell back into the chair, grasping his chest. “I think I’m having a heart attack,” he gasped. “What’s happening?”

  “Don’t worry, you’re not having a heart attack.” She stood and rubbed her stomach. “Dang, I suddenly feel a ton lighter.” She offered her hand to him, which he took as if it were a lifeline. “Up, Simba. Let’s head upstairs.”

  “The sun’s out, and Nataliya is upstairs watching TV. Why don’t we just stay down here?” He pulled her onto his lap, as if he were suddenly healthy as a horse and the last thirty seconds hadn’t happened. “Ya know, Astrid, tech
nically we’re still married.” He buried his face in her neck.

  She could feel through her yoga pants that he wasn’t joking about the offer. For a fraction of a second, she entertained the thought of surrendering, but all she could think about was Frank. She had every intention of returning to him at the end of this journey with a clear conscience and a retirement plan that involved the two of them getting frisky in the back of a Winnebago.

  “I’m flattered. Truly, I am.” She freed herself from his grip and hopped from his lap. “But I’m a married woman. And I go by Veronica now. Or as my husband Frank likes to call me, Ronnie.”

  “I respect that.” He stood, grasping one of the ceiling beams and stretched towards her like a preening Marlon Brando. His blue flannel shirt revealed a small slice of his pale, muscled stomach. He wanted to make sure he still had it. “So, are you going to tell me what just happened?”

  “I want to show you. Let’s go upstairs before I do something I’ll regret. Jesus, man.” She stopped gazing at his stomach and began to climb the rickety stairs. Stopping midway up, she turned and waved him up. “Come on. I promise that everything is going to be okay. How do you think I was able to arrive here at eleven in the morning and not burst into flames?”

  “I don’t know.” He took a step forward, then stopped. “I don’t think I can do this. Seriously, I…” He blinked and wiped at his eyes.

  “I, what?”

  His face crumpled, as if Paul Bunyan had just found fifty tons of blue roadkill at the top of the stairs. “I—I’m scared.”

  “Knud Jorgenson, I got you into this mess and I intend to get you out of it. Get up here right now,” she demanded and held her hand out to him.

  “I fear change.” He walked towards her, sliding his feet into a pair of worn Birkenstocks at the bottom of the stairs.