by Mary Hughes
Bruno’s mouth opened and his fingers threaded through my curls. He grabbed a little tight, which distracted me. His bear-sized tongue thrust into my mouth, which nearly gagged me.
Then he torqued my head almost sideways to get his tongue deeper down my throat. It nearly threw me off the stool. His mustache got up my nose and I couldn’t breathe.
“Bruno,” I squeaked, only it came out “ack-ack-ack.”
His response was to drag me onto his lap. For a moment I was distracted by the bulge under me. Respectable. Even a couple days ago I would have been very interested.
But Pikes Peak doesn’t compare if you’ve climbed Mount Everest.
I pulled back. Bruno, panting, smiled. “Hey, that was fun. I didn’t know you could kiss, Nixie. I always thought of you like my little niece.”
“Thanks a lot.” I slid back onto my stool.
“So what do you want to do now?”
I shrugged, drained my beer. It was still early, and I didn’t have to be at auditions until nine. Might as well finish the plan. “I want you to meet my parents.”
Chapter Eight
My mom and dad lived in an old-style bungalow. It was the same house my mother was born in, and her father before her. Because of that, I could officially say I came from Meiers Corners. Oh, my dad’s folk, the Schmelings, had been here for two generations. But in the Corners, that was still considered newcomers. My mother’s family, the Gutenbergs (no relation to the printing press guy), were here before The Fire. It was even rumored that Great-Grandpa Gutenberg fought in the Civil War, although no one was sure on which side.
My mother rushed out of the house as Bruno and I came up the walk. The smell of cooking meat overlaid with vinegar and onion wafted out behind her. It was Tuesday, which meant sauerbraten.
“Dietlinde!” She trotted down the stairs wiping her hands on her apron. Today’s was red-bibbed, trimmed with blue ruffles. Under she wore the ever-present house dress, cut like a parachute and stable in wind tunnels up to a hundred miles an hour.
My mother stopped and frowned at me. “Where is your hat, Dietlinde?”
“Uh…at home?”
“It is thirty-five degrees and you are without your hat? At least tell me you remembered your gloves.”
Since I hadn’t, immediate distraction was in order. “Mom, this is Bruno.”
I was twenty-five and single. Normally Mom greeted any unattached male under the age of fifty with open arms. She glared at Bruno like she was trying to remember where she put the bear trap.
“He owns a store,” I added hopefully.
My mother perked up at that. Bruno had passed number one on the Mother Test, Gainfully Employed.
Then Bruno stuck his paw out. “Bruno Braun. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Schmeling.”
“Oh,” she sniffed. “A Braun.” When she took Bruno’s hand, it was like she was picking up a dirty washcloth.
My mother has absolutely no color prejudice. She does not judge by race, age, or gender. But Mom went to school with Bella Butt, who used to bite her at recess. That was in first grade, but Meiers Corners folk have long memories. Bella’s mother is Brunhilde Butt—nee Braun. Everyone knew the Braun kids were kooks. Troublemakers. Class clowns.
Bruno, I could see, had failed Mom’s Test number two: Good Family.
I was a troublemaker and a kook too, but I came from a ‘good’ family. Apparently that made everything okay. I snorted to myself. And Julian Emerson had trouble understanding me? No, no. Not thinking about him. “Bruno’s my date. I brought him home for supper.”
My mother’s lips thinned in displeasure. But she knew her duty as a Meiers Corners hostess. She would be hospitable, even to a Braun, if it killed her.
Half an hour later, after the fastest supper on record, Bruno pushed back his chair, dabbing genteelly at his beard with a paper napkin. “That was awesome sauerbraten, Mrs. Schmeling. I haven’t had food like that since my Granny Butt took us to the parish Sheepshead Tournament and Sauerbraten Smorgasbord.”
“The parish? You aren’t…Roman, are you, Bruno?”
“Me? Naw, I go to Our Savior. Every Sunday, regular as clockwork.”
This was good. My mother was a charter member of the Lutheran Ladies Auxiliary Mothers Association, and church was very important.
She nodded, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Bruno had passed number three (Good Lutheran) on the Mother Test. We were two for three. “Will you be seeing Dietlinde again, Bruno?”
“Dietlinde?” Bruno asked, looking confused. “I don’t think so.” He gave me a “Who’s Dietlinde” look and I discreetly pointed at myself and mouthed, “Daggy name.”
But it was too late. Bruno had failed both number four (Thoroughly Enthralled by My Daughter) and number five (Has a Brain).
To be honest, Bruno had failed the last on my own private test, too. Not that Bruno was dumb—he wasn’t. But he was smart only about certain things. And I simply wasn’t into any of the things he was smart about. Like conspiracies, or guns, or hand grenades—or even stiletto heels.
Julian Emerson is smart, a little voice in my head whispered. Very smart.
Shut up, I whispered back.
He’s so smart, the voice whispered, he can read your desires in your eyes.
Yeah, my pussy murmured in agreement.
Both of you shut up, I hissed mentally.
“Nixie—is something wrong?”
I blinked. Bruno and both my parents were staring at me with some concern. “Uh, no.” I sprang up. “I’ll just go start the dishes.” I grabbed up plates and utensils and sped off to the kitchen.
Bruno did not follow. Too bad. He failed the most important test, one both my mother and I had. Number six: Helps With The Housework.
By the time I finished rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher, Bruno had gone. To be fair, he had his store to run. To be catty, Bruno had no regular hours and could have opened at nine as well as eight.
But it left more dessert—German chocolate cake with to-die-for homemade cooked coconut frosting—for me. We sat at the table, my mother, my father, and I, and savored cake. It was the one part of the meal where no one talked. Like being in church. You don’t chat in the presence of the Holy.
“Well,” my mother said after we’d finished the last crumb. “That was an—interesting—young man.”
“Bruno’s a nice guy,” I said. “More of a friend, though.”
My father, who had not said a single word during the whole meal, put down his coffee cup. Patted his lips with his napkin. Folded it neatly and set it on the table.
From living with him so long, I didn’t need subtitles. My father’s words were in his actions. He was relieved.
So was my mother. Enough to try to set up Bruno’s replacement. “You’ll never guess who I ran into at the deli today. Denny Crane! And guess what? He’s taken on a new partner in his law firm. Just out of school. Graduated top of his class at the East of Chicago University.”
I didn’t point out that east of Chicago meant Lake Michigan.
“Bart is his name. Isn’t that nice? Bart just moved to Meiers Corners.”
I grimaced. Oh, no, I thought. Here it comes.
“Mr. Crane says Bart doesn’t know anyone here. I bet he’s lonely.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Lonely. And probably bored, too, after the hustle-bustle of the big city. I bet a nice law school graduate would like some company. Don’t you think so, Helmut?”
My father was reading the paper. Smart.
“I bet a nice law school graduate would like the company of a sophisticated young lady.”
I felt my eyes roll, slapped my hand over them. “And I bet a grown man can find something to entertain himself, even in Meiers Corners.”
My mother humphed. “Mr. Crane agreed with me. He thought Bart would like a little companionship.”
Danger, danger, Will Robinson. “Mother, what have you done?”
“It’s only one meal, Dietlinde. Not ev
en a date.”
“Mother—”
“Friday night. Dinner here at the house. We’ll have chicken and dumplings.”
I gritted my teeth. “Mother, I can’t.”
“Saturday, then. We’ll have pot roast.”
“Mother, I work weekends!”
“That band?” my dear, sweet mother scoffed. “That is not work, Dietlinde. That is a hobby.”
We’d been having some variation of this conversation since I was thirteen. Arguing was just a waste of breath. I rolled my eyes and didn’t cover it this time. “Yes, Mother.”
“What kind of paycheck does playing in a rock-and-roll band bring home? You can barely live, much less raise children.”
She’d have an even bigger fit if she knew I sometimes only got paid in pitchers of beer. “Yes, Mother.”
But she was just getting started. “And how can you interest any kind of decent husband if you will not be home weekends to take care of his needs? You mark my words. A man won’t stay with the cow if she doesn’t give him any milk.”
Gosh, and other girls got lectured about giving the milk away for free. I should consider myself lucky. “Yes, Mother.”
“And who was that young man you were seen with at the mayor’s office?”
“Yes, moth…what?”
“Alba Gruen heard it from Kristin Fenster who was at Dolly Barton’s Curl Up and Dye today getting her roots touched up.”
Oh, great. I was featured gossip at Dolly Barton’s, Meiers Corners’s gigabit rumor router. “Um, I wasn’t with anybody. You done with that?” I sprang up, grabbed the desert plates and escaped into the kitchen. There, I took my time rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher. As I added soap and started the cycle I wondered if all the uncomfortable questions were a secret mother ploy just to get me to do the dishes.
I left my parents’ house and headed southwest. It was still too early to go to band auditions. I got the bright idea that I should go walk around the festival area. Then I could decide if I needed a shuttle, or if the drunk people could just stumble from one event to the next.
My parents lived on Fourth and Roosevelt, on the upper east side. The official festival parking lot was at Nieman’s Bar, where we’d also be holding the Sheepshead Tournament. That was on West Fifth and Main. I humped the mile over.
It took me about fifteen minutes. I still had an hour or so to kill until auditions. So I walked north on Fifth, then ambled around the area.
The beer tent would go nicely in the Good Shepherd parking lot, one block north of Nieman’s. The midway (sans rides) would be set up in the church basement. I kept going.
The whole next block was tourist central. Fudge shoppe (The Fudgy Delight), pastry/bakery store (The Pie Delight), deli (you guessed it, the Deli Delight), and the Caffeine Café. The deli would host the cheese tasting, the pastry/bakery was doing the cake contest. The beauty pageant, perversely enough, was being held at the Fudgy Delight. That had been a dance hall in the forties and had a small platform stage and twenty tables with chairs. Chairs, of course, were the rarest commodity. So far, so good.
The biggest problem was finding someplace large enough to house the bands. It was bad enough trying to find a place to audition them. Having a crowd listening and dancing added a whole new level of logistic and equipment nightmares. Dentist office, nope. Dolly Barton’s salon, nope. Blood Center, double-nope with a dollop of ick.
Sighing, I walked back to the fudge shoppe. Not enough room for performance, but it would do for tonight’s auditions. Cary Grant still hadn’t paid his electric bill and The Fudgy Delight was the only place big enough that wasn’t full of customers on a Thursday night. I stopped in, to double-checked the arrangements.
To my surprise, an auditionee was already there, setting up a karaoke machine. The comfortable, baggy clothes and haphazard chestnut hair clued me to her identity even before I saw her face. Rocky Hrbek, the flute player in our orchestra.
I knew Rocky from high school. As a gawkward teenager, Rocky was overweight and plagued with acne and greasy hair. Her best friend was her flute. I sort of empathized with her, since mine was my guitar Oscar. I never knew what she called hers.
High school was not forever, thank heavens. After college Rocky came back to Meiers Corners slimmed down and cleared up. She was now incredibly hot.
She didn’t know it. Not a clue. In some ways that made her hotter. Guys…and even some gals…made passes at her, but Rocky just didn’t get it. She dressed like a frump, cut her own hair, and never wore makeup. She was hot, but I think she still felt like a high school misfit. I really sympathized with that.
The door of the Fudgy Delight jingled when I entered. Rocky turned. Seeing me, she gave me her stunning smile. Stunning, as in I had to pick my jaw up from the floor. “Hey, Nixie.” She had a smooth contralto that sounded like honey.
I cleared my throat, to give me time to recover my composure. “Hey yourself. Um…what are you doing here?”
“Auditioning,” Rocky said, as if it were the most natural assumption in the world. “I came early so I could warm up.”
I stared at her. Rocky was classically trained, more comfortable with Dvorak than Dragonforce. “This is for rock bands.”
“Yes, I know.” She patted the machine. “That’s why I brought this.”
“You’re…singing?”
“Of course not, Nixie.” Rocky laughed, a bell-like sound that made you want to amuse her forever just to hear it. “I’m playing my flute. The Mozart Concerto in G.”
“But—” How did I phrase this? “Isn’t that classical?”
“Sure. But I rearranged it. Flute and garage band. I thought it’d make a nice alternative to sappy pop charts everyone else will be doing.”
I was speechless but tried anyway. “Uh…but…”
“I based my arrangement on Weird Al’s sound. I like what he does with accordion.”
I didn’t bother to point out that Weird Al does parodies. Flute and garage band was already disastrous enough. But sarcastic flute and garage band? Yikes. I was trying to work out what I could possibly say when my cell phone tweedled “Flight of the Bumblebee”.
My phone is set with a different ring tone for each of my family and friends. My parents are “Home on the Range”. Elena is the theme from Cops. You get the picture.
“Flight of the Bumblebee” meant Unknown Number. I pulled out my phone and stared at the display. Blocked call.
Interesting. And fortunate. “I’ve got to take this. Um, see you in thirty, Rocky.” Maybe I would think of something to say by then. As Rocky waved a cheerful goodbye I slipped out the door and spun open my Juke. “Talk to me.”
A slight pause. Then a harsh, deep voice rasped, “Dietlinde Schmeling.”
There was something creepy about the voice. It sounded hollow. Too hollow. Spooky-hollow, like there was no person behind it. It had to be machine-enhanced because no human vocal cords could have produced that voice.
The best defense against spooky is Attitude. I reached in my pocket for some chewing gum. As I popped it out of the blister-pack I stuck the phone between shoulder and jaw. Using my best punk tone I said, “What’cha want?”
“Dietlinde Schmeling. You will resign.”
He kept repeating my daggy legal name. No matter how creepy, that was plain annoying. “Resign what, Deep Throat?”
“You will resign as head of the fundraiser, Dietlinde Schmeling.”
He’d done it again. Dietlinde. It was like a hit between the shoulder blades. “That don’t make no sense, Deep Whoever-you-are. Why should I?”
“Because if you don’t”—ominous pause—“something bad will happen.”
“Something bad, uh-huh. Is that something bad or something Bad? Or something B-A-D? And who the hell are you, anyway?”
“This is no joke, Dietlinde Schmeling. If you do not resign immediately, you will regret it. Do not cross Lord Ruthven.” He hung up.
I stared at my phone a moment befo
re swinging it shut. That was just psycho. Especially that “Lord Ruthven” shit. Who’d he think he was, Bob Dole? I began to wonder if maybe Bruno wasn’t on to something with all his woo-woo theories.
I shook the thought away. I still had to find a place for the bands to perform.
So, trying to put that double-weird conversation out of my mind, I walked one block east, to Fourth and Jefferson.
And saw it.
Heavenly angels sang, fairies danced, and fireworks lit the night sky. It was the Perfect Place.
Kalten’s Roller Skating Rink had been a hopping spot in the heyday of roller blades. Now it did more weddings and parties than skating. But it was big, it had chairs, and it was near enough to the other venues for people to walk (or stumble, if they were drunk, or drag themselves there with their lips). A convenient little sign in the door gave me a number to call for party reservations. I pulled out my cell phone, punched it in. I got an answering machine, but I left my name and number and slipped my phone away, feeling tons lighter.
“Well, well. What have we here? It’s Emerson’s little blood-chick.”
I jerked around. A man emerged from the shadows. A man in a suit. He looked like—no, that was impossible.
This was even creepier than the voice. The guy emerging from the shadows looked like the suit from the gang. The first suit. The Der Arnold guy—Cutter. Who had possibly been a headless body the last time I saw him.
He was remarkably recovered now.
I kicked my breastbone up. My shoulders automatically squared, my spine straightened. I was scared, but at least it didn’t show. “What do you want?”
“Where’s your protector, chickadee?” Cutter murmured, coming closer. “Are you all alone? Mine for the taking?” He reached out, skimmed fingers along my jaw. I jerked back.
He smiled at my reaction. It revealed long canines. Really long. Almost like—fangs.
I didn’t stop to think. I whipped my keys out of my pocket, fanned like claws between the fingers of my fist. Putting my body behind it, I slashed them up into his face.
Cutter howled, covered his face with his hands. Blood dripped from behind.
