Just Wanna Testify

by Pearl Cleage

  Peachy eased around a big red and white truck with the Target logo emblazoned on the side and glanced over at Abbie. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she was awake. He wasn’t worried. By the time they got to Atlanta, he knew Blue would have a plan and he would be there to help implement it. That’s the way their partnership always worked and this time would be the same. All he had to do was keep Abbie cool until they got to the city.

  “How you doin’, sweet thing?” he said gently.

  She opened her eyes and turned to him with a less-than-successful attempt at a smile. “I’m okay.”

  He knew she was a pretty good distance from okay. “So you want to talk about these vampires or what?”

  “Do you?”

  “Hell, yeah,” Peachy said. “What else are we going to talk about?”

  “Do you think they’re in West End looking for men like Louie said?”

  Peachy frowned without taking his eyes off the road. “I thought you said they were here so Aretha could take their picture.”

  “There are a lot of fashion photographers in New York. Why didn’t they use one of them?”

  “There’s a lot of men in New York, too,” Peachy said. “Why would they come all the way here to find something they can round up on 125th Street any day of the week?”

  “I don’t know,” Abbie said.

  The small gold hoops in her ears moved against her cheek and she tugged at one absentmindedly. It was all too weird, so they rode in silence. Abbie had taught Peachy to meditate and the two of them were used to sharing silence without feeling any pressure to speak, but today the presence of the vampires was so strong in their minds, they both heard it loud and clear.

  Abbie watched a pod of six huge Harleys roar by in the passing lane. She had ridden around Spain on a motorcycle behind her second husband, a painter, back in her early twenties, when she was moving through her expatriate years. She enjoyed the sense of danger riding always gave her, although her husband was a tentative cyclist who never went as fast as she hoped he would.

  Sometimes she wished she’d met Peachy when they had had more time in front of them than they had behind, but she didn’t dwell on it. If her postmenopausal visions had taught her anything, it was to appreciate the present moment. She loved Peachy now. And he loved her the same. Who in their right mind could ask for anything more?

  “You know what?” she said.

  “What, sweet thing?”

  “Let’s just try to clear our minds until we see Blue. There’s no point in worrying until we know more.”

  Peachy took her hand and held it gently. “There’s no point in worrying period.”

  Her smile was what he’d been waiting for all morning.

  “How’d you get to be so smart?”

  “Just a born Buddhist, I guess.”

  Abbie laughed softly at the idea of anything other than some form of Baptist being found in Peachy’s tiny hometown. “There are no born Buddhists in Dalton, Georgia.”

  “Then it must be my lady friend,” he said. “The one I was telling you about at sunrise?”

  “She’s done a good job with you,” Abbie said, glad to let the vampires roam around the periphery while she moved Peachy to the center of her Saturday. “And I hear she’s not done yet either.”

  “She better not be,” Peachy said. “I ain’t half as good as I’m going to be by the time I get through.”

  Abbie laced her fingers through his, grateful for the strength of his hand.

  “I love you, Peachy,” she whispered.

  “I love you, too, sweet thing,” he said. “And you know I got this covered, right?”

  “I know.”

  “Me and Blue been in and out of the rowdiest juke joints in south Georgia and neither one of us ever got cut,” he said. “If those vampires start acting a fool, me and Blue got somethin’ for ’em.”

  Abbie wondered what Peachy and Blue would have to use to fight off vampires if it came to that. Was it still necessary to drive a stake through their hearts? The vampires were moving front and center of her mind once again. Peachy must have felt it, too, and he squeezed her hand and turned on the radio.

  “We got this,” he said again, and she started to respond, until she realized he was talking to himself as much as to her. “Trust me.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Random Humans

  It seemed to Blue that everybody in West End needed his attention. Mrs. Robinson was nervous about her new neighbor’s pit bull. Mr. Goodwin needed some help with his nephew who was visiting from Chicago and didn’t want to obey the house rules. Reverend Dunbar stopped in to say hello, and the owner of the flower shop next door wanted to personally apologize for the owner of the delivery truck who had pulled into Blue’s reserved spot yesterday to drop off some birds-of-paradise and raised an objection when he was asked to move.

  By the time the last citizen had shaken Blue’s hand and been politely ushered out, it was after seven o’clock. Henry made a fresh pot of espresso, poured himself a Diet Coke, no ice, sat down across the table from Blue, and waited with impressive stillness. Henry was not a man who was prone to fidgeting. Their nightly conversation could be wide ranging but tonight there was only one item on the agenda.

  Blue downed his espresso and looked at Henry. “Do you think those guys were telling the truth?”

  Henry nodded. “At this point, I think they’re too scared not to. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what those women are,” Blue said. “They don’t seem to be dangerous to random humans as long as they get their tomato juice, but we need to find out as much as we can about them, just in case.”

  “Done.”

  Blue was glad they didn’t have to waste any time discussing the possibility of things that could not be rationally explained showing up on your doorstep. Henry had been with Blue long enough to know that not everything could be explained by what you thought you already knew.

  “Are you really going to let them take those guys away?”

  “I’m prepared to help folks deal with crackheads, sex offenders, thieves, con men, murderers, and unscrupulous land developers,” Blue said quietly. “But I think I have to draw the line at vampires. If you don’t know better than to make a deal with the undead, I can’t help you.”

  Henry nodded again and took a sip of his drink. “I heard that.”

  “I need to talk to Miss Mayflower.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” Blue said. He wanted to get to the bottom of things as quickly as he could, but before he saw Serena Mayflower again, he needed to talk to Regina. “First thing.”

  “Done.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Our Last Hope

  When Regina told Serena that Aretha wasn’t going to be able to shoot the portfolio after all, she didn’t take it well. She didn’t raise her voice or threaten legal action or anything like that. She was just a mask of cold fury, demanding a better reason than the honest one. When Regina didn’t have one and seemed disinclined to invent one, Serena stalked off with another one of those strange, hissing noises Regina had heard from Scylla. It was such an odd sound. Maybe they were sisters after all and that sound was some kind of weird, genetic tic passing through their family like the wind rustling through dry magnolia leaves.

  Relieved that the exchange was over, Regina walked back to her car alone, wondering what Blue would make of the day’s events when she shared them over dinner. The last two days had been more than strange and she was glad to close the book on their foray into high fashion. Waving at the campus security officer patrolling the lot on a golf cart, she saw five young men standing near her car wearing identical blue blazers that identified them as Morehouse men.

  Fans of the Too Fine Five, Regina figured. All dressed up to ask for what? An autograph? An email? A chance to simply say hello? She felt sorry for them, but the closer she got, the less they looked like fans and the more they looked like condemned men considering the
menu for their last meal.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said. “I’m afraid the models have already left the campus.”

  “Oh, we weren’t looking for the models, Mrs. Hamilton,” one of the boys said quickly. “We were waiting to see … to ask if we could have a word with you?”

  “With me?” she said surprised. “Of course you can. What’s on your minds?”

  They shifted uncomfortably and looked at the tallest boy, who stepped forward a little.

  “Mrs. Hamilton, I’ll come straight to the point,” he said. “If that’s all right with you.”

  “Please,” she said. “I’m all ears.”

  The boy took a deep breath. “We’re asking you to intercede on our behalf and ask your husband to please reconsider our request in light of the seriousness of our situation.”

  I should have known, Regina thought. People who didn’t know how things worked in West End sometimes tried to go around Blue by coming to Regina. It never worked.

  “I have no doubt that your situation is serious,” Regina said gently. “But I don’t involve myself in my husband’s affairs.”

  “We know that, Mrs. Hamilton,” another boy spoke up, nervously tugging on the knot of his striped tie. “And under ordinary circumstances we would never, ever, ask you to make an exception, it’s only that—”

  “No exceptions, gentlemen,” Regina interrupted him, wondering what had frightened them enough to seek Blue’s help by waylaying his wife in a parking lot. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  She popped the lock on the driver’s side door and turned away from the five miserable faces. Behind her, she heard a desperate voice.

  “You’re our last hope, Mrs. Hamilton. If your husband doesn’t help us, the vampires are going to make us into their sex slaves.”

  Regina stopped and turned around slowly. “Say what?”

  The desperate-sounding boy spoke up again. “And when they’re done, they’ll eliminate us.”

  Regina frowned, confused. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  The boys shook their heads in one emphatic motion. “It’s real, Mrs. Hamilton. We swear!”

  She wondered if they were high on something. They weren’t making any sense at all.

  “There are no such things as vampires,” she said, hoping for their sake it was all a joke. “Somebody’s messing with you.”

  They looked at her and then at one another with obvious disbelief.

  “Messing with us?” another boy said, his mouth tight and angry. “Like you don’t know!”

  “Know what?”

  “You’ve been working with them for the last two days!”

  “Working with who?”

  “Those models are the ones we told Mr. Hamilton about this morning,” another anxious boy added his voice to the chorus. “They’re the vampires.”

  He kept talking, but Regina’s brain screeched to a halt. The Too Fine Five? Vampires?

  She made an effort to speak calmly. “You told Blue about this?”

  They nodded.

  “I need to talk to my husband,” she said, sounding much calmer than she felt. “If he wants to get in touch with you, he will.”

  The boys seemed to realize that was all the reassurance they were going to get from her, in spite of their pleading, so they stepped away, murmuring their thanks for whatever she could do, but when she got in the car and closed the door behind her, the tall one tapped on the window gently.

  “Don’t let them take us, Mrs. Hamilton,” he said, bending to look her in the eye. “I know we did something really, really stupid, but we don’t deserve to die for it, do we?”

  Regina’s mind was whirling, but something in the boy’s question brought forth one of her own.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “How stupid was it?”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Sharing Their Sushi

  Serena had never liked revolving doors. Maybe she came upon them too late in life and just never had time to familiarize herself with them enough to know when to step in and when to step out. The ones you had to push were so narrow that she often found her knees knocking against the glass in front of her and the self-propelled ones were always too slow. She preferred to alight from a limo and have someone in uniform open the door for her. The smiling bellhop in front of the Four Seasons was only too happy to oblige.

  “Welcome back, Ms. Mayflower,” he said. Serena tipped the guy twenty dollars every time she saw him, which would have earned her such personalized service even without her startling beauty and the notoriety of the Too Fine Five.

  She nodded without speaking, swept into the lobby, and headed for the elevators before the gawkers could work up enough nerve to approach her. As she pushed in her security card to gain admittance to the penthouse level, she was thinking about Aretha Hargrove, trying to understand what had made her back out of what Serena had thought was a done deal.

  The explanation that Regina had offered apologetically but firmly did not make any sense. Nobody was forcing any little kids to stop scarfing down their Happy Meals. What the hell did negative body images have to do with anything? High fashion wasn’t even about the body. It was about the clothes. She had thought any fool would know that, but obviously she had thought wrong.

  When Regina asked if she could have a word after they finished the last shot of the day and Scylla had taken the girls back to the hotel, it had never occurred to Serena that she was going to cancel the contract. Not that she cared one way or the other. Aretha had just been insurance to neutralize Blue Hamilton. Now that the portfolio shoot was off, they would stick out like a sore thumb. Six sore thumbs.

  The elevator doors opened at fourteen. She walked soundlessly down the heavily carpeted hallway and slipped her card in the door of her suite.

  “There you are!” Scylla was standing at the wet bar mixing up a big pitcher of Bloody Marys. She had changed into a pair of impossibly skinny jeans and a black cashmere sweater that exposed one smooth shoulder. Her black stilettos were still lying beside the door where she had kicked them off as soon as she walked in. “I was starting to worry.”

  “I had to clear up a few things with Regina Hamilton.” Serena watched Scylla pour two Bloody Marys over ice. “Are we having a party?”

  “Sort of,” Scylla said, handing one glass to Serena and flopping down on the couch to take a long swallow of the other one. “The stylists are packing up the clothes. The girls are downstairs with plans to gather in Sasha’s room later to torture the room service operator, and, as you can see, I have already washed that crap out of my hair and off my face and made us a pitcher of your favorite drink.”

  Serena dropped her coat on a chair and sank down gracefully on the couch beside her friend. “I am forever in your debt,” she said, using a phrase vampires don’t take lightly, and taking a big swallow of her own drink. Scylla had tired of the tiny little bottles provided by the minibar, and Serena could see six huge bottles of Campbell’s tomato juice and a Texas fifth of Absolut standing at the ready. Scylla had laid in enough supplies for the duration.

  “We should toast,” she said, looking at Serena.

  “What are we toasting?”

  “That the first part of this charade is over,” Scylla said. “In seven days, we’ll be back on our own lovely little island with our own organic, homegrown tomato juice and a fine new batch of absolutely brilliant boys, guaranteeing our immortality for at least another five years.”

  Serena clinked her glass lightly against Scylla’s. “I wish it was that simple.”

  “It is,” Scylla said. “All we have to do now is wait out these next few days, gather up the boys with a minimum of confusion, and get back to where we belong.”

  Serena sighed. “And where is that, do you think?”

  Scylla cocked her head to one side. “What’s wrong?”

  “Ms. Hargrove has decided she doesn’t want to do any more fashion photography.”

  “You mean after she does our fake
portfolio?”

  “I mean as of today.” Serena kept her voice even. There was no use setting Scylla off any more than was absolutely necessary. “Regina Hamilton said she’s concerned about us being a bad influence on little girls because we’re so thin.”

  Scylla just looked at Serena for a minute and then she fell back against the couch cushions and threw her arms up gracefully as if in defeat, while at the same time emitting a deep guttural hiss.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “We’re vampires!” Scylla said, wiping the corners of her eyes even though they were incapable of shedding tears of either joy or pain. No longer necessary, the gesture survived only as an evolutionary tick, on its way out like tails and webbed feet. “Being thin is the least of it, don’t you think?”

  Serena had to agree, glad they had broken the tension of the moment so they could start strategizing.

  “This is not really a problem, is it?” Scylla said. “We don’t need a reason to be here. We’ll go shopping. We’ll see the sites. Tourists come here all the time, don’t they? Gone with the Wind reenactors? King groupies? We’ll blend.”

  “That’s not going to make Blue Hamilton put out the welcome mat like giving Miss Aretha her big break would have done.”

  Scylla hissed her displeasure softly. “Please! What’s he got to do with anything? All he controls is a tiny little neighborhood in a half-ass southern town.”

  “You’re underestimating him.”

  Scylla turned back and a small frown made a tiny wrinkle in her very smooth forehead. “So what do you suggest? We can’t make her work for us if she doesn’t want to.”

  “Let me think for a minute,” Serena said, and closed her eyes.

  The reason she was the team leader was testimony to her courage, tenacity, and quick thinking. This was a moment that called for all three. Scylla knew it, too. She moved over to sit closer to Serena, happy to wait as long as it took, settling down so gently, she barely dented the cushion. It didn’t take long.