At the Twilight's Last Gleaming

by David Bischoff

  I blinked.

  I shut the window.

  What a rush. I felt very good, very good indeed!

  And I had to talk to Harold. I just had to!

  My bedroom was suddenly a prison that I had to escape from.

  I dressed quickly. Fortunately, I had plenty of clean turtleneck sweaters. I selected a black one and donned it. Then a pair of jeans and tennis shoes. Brush hair, get coat....

  I managed to avoid contact with parents and brother. Harold’s house was quite a walk, but fortunately the roads were quite clear, so I took my bike. I suppose I could have borrowed one of our two cars as I had gotten my driver’s license last month before Christmas, but frankly I didn’t want to be tied to getting back home any time soon, and besides I really didn’t like driving a car, especially with all the snow and ice about.

  No, my bike was steady and sturdy and would do just fine.

  And so it was that about a half hour later, I pedaled past Crossland Senior High. It sat like an alien spaceship from a planet of weird geometry newly landed in a winter wonderland. A ragged plume of gray smoke wound up from its top, reaching for the blue sky.

  Everything seemed very solid and real now, but somehow all the same, everything felt brittle and unreal. Hidden deep in the shadows it would seem, were hidden levels of reality like caverns under rocks.

  I shivered and peddled all the harder. I wanted to get to Harold’s where I would feel safe.

  The spell of insecurity passed just as soon as a pulled into Harold’s driveway. I parked the bike in his breezeway and rang the door. His Dad, smoking a cigarette and dragging a big comfy book with him, smiled at me and let me in.

  “Good day, Rebecca. I understand you’re here for lunch. A basement lunch, I presume?”

  I should hope so, I thought. I couldn’t talk to the rest of Harold’s family about what I had to say.

  “We’ve really been enjoying your jazz records,” I said.

  “So I hear! That surprises me!”

  “I think we’ll listen to some Miles Davis or John Coltrane today.”

  “Be my guest, young lady! Be my guest!” he said, stepping aside and ushering me in.

  Harold was in the kitchen making some baloney and cheese sandwiches, slathering on the Guldens’ mustard thick.

  “Just don’t give me any of your special brand of cheese,” I said.

  What Harold would so was to take a pack of Kraft American cheese, the kind with thick individual slices. He’d take the slices out of the pack and then leave them in the refrigerator, exposed to the chilly Frigidaire air. In about a week or so the orange of the cheese would turn an angry reddish color and the cheese would get hard as a shingle. When they were ready, Harold would love to eat them this way.

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” said Harold. “Those are mine, all mine.” He patted a slice of caraway seed rye into place on the plate, then plucked out a couple of gerkins. “Milk as usual?” He asked.

  “Sure.”

  Harold got out a tumbler and poured me some milk from a glass returnable half gallon bottle of High’s milk. We’d walked to the store a few blocks away. The drug store next to it had a nice paperback rack that got in most of the new paperbacks. The magazine rack was where Harold got any science fiction magazines he didn’t subscribe to.

  Harold put all this on a couple of trays and we walked them down to the basement.

  “Play some Miles Davis, will you Harold?” I said.

  He looked at me oddly. “Okay. I guess my Dad would like that.”

  “It’s not for your Dad.”

  Harold selected a disk and put it on the turntable. He blew some dust on the needle. Miles Davis trumpet sounds began to move from the speakers.

  “A little bit louder, huh? I don’t want your parents to hear what we’re saying.”

  Harold sat down, picked up a sandwich and bit into it.

  “Okay,” he said, when the bite was half-chewed. “So what’s so important?”

  “It’s Emory. He’s a vampire!” I said.

  Harold stopped chewing. He swallowed, then followed the swallow with milk. “Well sure. Yes. He’s Dracula. Count Dracula.”

  I shook my head. “No. He’s really a vampire.”

  I said it with such a straight face and so sincerely that Harold forgot to put his milk tumbler down.

  “That’s crazy. He’s a little strange, sure, but he’s not --”

  “Okay, so I’ve got to tell you this. You’re my best friend, and I’ve got to tell someone or I’m really going to go crazy. Last night I went to his house.”

  “Oh. Right. You got to meet his father. I’ve seen him on TV. Seems like a nice enough guy.”

  “Just terrific. Just great.. That’s what I thought, anyway...but...like..”

  I sputtered a bit.

  What the heck, I thought. Harold knows me pretty well, and he knows I get crushes. He knows I’m interested in Emory.... And I really need help.

  So, I told him the whole story.

  Harold didn’t eat the rest of his sandwich. His nonchalant, blasé manner totally disappeared.

  His eyes got wider and wider.

  When I was finished, he got up.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I’m going to my Dad’s workbench. He’s got a wood lathe. I’m going to make a stake and I’m going to put it through that son of a bitch’s heart!”

  “Whoa!” I said. “Sit back down! Look, I’m not complaining! I’m just telling you!”

  “What! He’s going to kill you! And then I’m going to have to drive a stake into your heart!”

  “We’ve been watching too much Dark Shadows.”

  “One of us has, anyway,” said Harold. “What’s going on? Look, I’m sorry. I’m just upset. Anyway, I haven’t seen any evidence --”

  “Well, okay. Just look at my neck!”

  I was on the couch, and I wriggled a bit toward the light, unwrapping my neck. I peeled the turtleneck down and leaned over so that Harold could have a look.

  Dutifully, he examined my neck.

  Then he leaned back against the cushions, covering his face with a hand.

  “Sheesh!” he said.

  “Pretty awful, right?”

  “You really had me going for a while, Rebecca. What is this, April Fool’s Day in February?”

  I was stunned. “You mean there are no marks there any more?”

  “Oh, there are marks there,” said Harold. “Like, hickey marks! You made out with him all right. Sheesh, what a shmoe I am!”

  “Hickey? That’s disgusting!”

  “You’re telling me!”

  Flabbergasted and bemused, I got up and hurried over to the basement bathroom. I turned on the light and looked into the mirror, pulling down my black turtleneck.

  Where just an hour or so ago, two polite fang marks shown clearly on my neck, now there was only a purple and red bruise.

  And a mouth-shaped bruise at that.

  Easily interpreted, as Harold said, for that peculiar sign of teenage activity, the “hickey.”

  I blushed.

  I could see the red suffusing my face.

  But then, I took a deep breath and thought it over.

  I turned and marched back to Harold.

  “I should have taken a Polaroid of it or something,” I said. “But I swear! Bite marks!”

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “I -- I don’t know....okay, I guess. Maybe...uhm...better than okay.”

  He sighed. “You say you fell asleep at Emory’s? And that before you looked in the mirror, you were having a nightmare.”

  “Yes. So?”

  He shook his head. “Delusions! Hormonal d
elusions!”

  “You don’t believe me!”

  “Look, you don’t think I have hormonal delusions?”

  “You don’t believe me! I can’t believe you don’t believe me! You think I’m crazy!”

  I glared at him fiercely.

  “No, I’m the crazy one!” He said, looking away. “I have them about you.”

  He seemed to kind of fall into himself. My fury collapsed.

  I felt sorry for him. And I felt --- great affection for him.

  “You do? Oh, that’s so sweet, Harold!”

  “Yeah. Right,” he said moodily.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. I put a friendly hand on his arm. “I’m just so wrapped up in all this, I haven’t been considerate. You know you’re like my best friend. That’s why you’re the only...only person I could really talk to about this.”

  “Why don’t you just accept it! Vampires don’t exist! They’re fantasy! They’re no hard evidence for them! And there’s plenty of hard evidence for delusional behavior. Heck! Maybe he put some kind of Southern-fried LSD in that root beer.”

  I felt my neck.

  Harold did have a point. Come to think of it, I did react oddly when I started drinking that root beer.

  For a moment I stared over at the record collection.

  Being in the middle of the hard reality of Harold’s basement -- the safe familiarity of it all surrounding me, suddenly all this vampire business didn’t seem real.

  I felt my neck.

  “I do get kind of obsessed, don’t I?”

  “You do.”

  I nodded. “I should talk to Emory.”

  “Oh, for sure you should talk to Emory. But don’t start calling him a vampire or anything.”

  I fell back against the couch.

  “It just seems so real.”

  “It seems so unreal to me, my friend!”

  “I’m telling you....there was blood. If I can show you my bloody sweater....”

  “Look, when are you going to see Emory again?”

  “During dress rehearsals next week.”

  “You didn’t make any other dates with him?”

  “No.”

  “How did he act -- after the deed!”

  I laughed. “He curled his mustache!”

  “No really!”

  I thought back. “Uhm... Well, shy....and sheepish, I guess.”

  “Hmm. Sure doesn’t sound like any vampire I’ve ever heard of. Sounds like a normal guy.”

  I looked at Harold. “Look, are we still friends?”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean, there’s a little detail here. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, though.”

  “Spill. I’m bracing myself.”

  “Well.... It’s not like Emory was predatory or anything. I mean, it was his father who suggested he show me that copy of Dracula. And....and.....”

  “Well, there was this couch. And I was the one who wanted to sit buy him... And I was the one who....well, okay. I kissed him!”

  Harold grinned. “Wow!”

  “Wow? Wow what?”

  “Like, who’s the vamp here? I mean, what does Emory’s neck look like!”

  “Harold, you’re mean!”

  “Okay, okay. Well, yeah -- I mean that all falls in line with what I’ve been saying. I mean, vampires....they are the hunters, right? Attractive females are the prey.”

  “Look, I don’t know. I mean, I was thinking that I just woke something dark and deadly in him.”

  “But you’re not feeling ..uhm... anemic or anything. In the books and movies the victims get sick.”

  “Lucy in Dracula certainly does.” I took a breath. I closed my eyes. I did an inventory of sorts. Head. Check. Torso. Check. Limbs. Check.

  I opened my eyes.

  “No. Actually, I feel....great. Physically. Except for the ache in my neck.”

  “And that’s getting worse.”

  “No, to be honest, it’s fading.”

  Harold nodded. “Okay. Everything sounds in order ...except for your heart.”

  “My heart?”

  “Yeah. Well, how do you feel about Emory now?”

  “I ...I don’t know..... Look Harold, my head’s still kind of in a swirl on that subject, okay?”

  “Okay. But like....remember Peter Harrigan?”

  “Sure I remember Peter.”

  “When you auditioned for Dracula, the idea was to get close to Peter. To get him to pay attention to you.”

  “Right. I was there. So?”

  “How do you feel about Peter now?”

  I pursed my lips.

  “I don’t know. He’s still handsome and cool.”

  “Sure. But how does he make you feel.”

  “Okay. So maybe I’m not thinking of him every other minute. There. You satisfied. I’m fickle!”

  “That’s because your nuts about Emory now.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “He certainly is fascinating. But..no... No, it’s not the way with Emory as it is with Peter.”

  “Okay. I hear you. I’m not going to press. I appreciate your feelings and I appreciate you sharing them with me.”

  “How do you feel about the whole thing.”

  “I feel a lot better. I was scared at first. Now I feel like it’s just one of those things that will work out.”

  I wanted to say, “How can you say that? Last night could have been one of the most important days of my life!” But I held my tongue.

  Harold took this in and thought for a minute.

  “Sounds like that’s just that. For now anyway.”

  “What that’s supposed to mean?”

  “It means,” said Harold, “that if you really want to do something now, you’ve just got to call Emory and talk to him.”

  “I don’t want to do that!”

  “I didn’t think so. Sounds like he needs to think too.”

  “Right. Think. We both have to think about it.”

  “Exactly. And since you were pretty much the one who started it there on that couch, he might kind of freak out if you pursue him too much!”

  “Me? The aggressor!”

  “Yes. Innocent you.”

  I harumphed.

  But he was right.

  Harold was absolutely right.

  I could talk to Emory about it, sure. But I should wait and see. Which would mean I should at least give the situation time to cool off.

  Somehow, with this decision made, my neck began to throb less.

  But as my neck throbbed less, I think I noticed how much my heart was throbbing.

  And I knew, then and there, what the true situation was.

  I was in love.

  I was desperately in love with Emory Clarke.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE WEEKEND PASSED glacially.

  I went home and attempted to do homework, to not much good effect.

  I tried to read a gothic novel -- a really good one, by Victoria Holt -- but my mind kept straying.

  I managed to get some dinner down me, and then watched a black and white movie on our pathetic black and white television set. Saturday Night at the Movies. On NBC. It was an old Paul Newman movie, Rally Round the Flag, Boys. I had a very hard time paying attention.

  All the while, I kept hoping the phone would ring.

  Hoping it would be Emory.

  On Sunday, I begged off church, with a supposed headache. Somehow church didn’t seem to be the thing to do at the moment.

  I went over to Harold and managed to get some homework done. Then we played some Scrabble and for the first time he beat me. I just couldn’t concentrate.

&nbs
p; I was in love with Emory Clarke.

  The phrase kept going through my head, but it wasn’t a phrase going through my body. I felt gripped by some force. I simply couldn’t stop thinking about him. Previous crushes I’d had paled in comparison. It felt like I had all the swelling oceans in the world in me, and Emory was pulling me around like the moon pulls the tides.

  Sunday night I dreamed of him. He wasn’t wearing his usual black clothes. He wasn’t wearing a Dracula cape. He was wearing jeans, and a tea shirt. He had his hair swept back, like James Dean. He just stared at me through dreamy half-closed eyes, thumbs in his jeans pockets -- full of danger, mystery, challenge --

  And absolute beauty.

  I woke up all sweaty, hugging my pillow.

  My neck hurt again. I went to the mirror.

  No bite marks. In fact, there was no bruise mark, no discoloration at all.

  I went back to bed and fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

  WHEN I AWOKE the next morning, I felt wonderful.

  I felt absolutely great.

  “Emory!” I said.

  Then I hopped out of bed and got into the shower.

  It was early. So I took a long soothing shower. Then I used my Mom’s blow dryer longer than usual, and brushed my hair longer than usual, until my usual rat’s nest fairly glowed, straight and long. Then I dug deep into my closet and got out a light gray skirt and a bright blue blouse with a pretty pattern on it. I got out a nice sweater that hadn’t fit me last month. I tried it on, and realized to my joy that I’d lost some weight. It fit!

  I put the sweater on.

  Then I found my faithful penny loafers, the brown ones. My lucky shoes, I called them. My ruby slippers, my Oz-wear, my Off-to-See-the-wizard shoes.

  There’s a line in William Shakespeare’sThe Tempest that the heroine says when she sees her first gorgeous man.

  “Oh brave new world, that hast such creatures in it.”

  That’s exactly the way I felt.

  That’s precisely the way I felt about Emory. Whether he was a vampire, or a Senator’s son, or just a shy, sweet, tender guy trying to get through life like everyone else -- suddenly Emory was making me see everything in a new way.

  I had a different point of view on life.