Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side

  “What you said in class?”

  He seemed uncertain. “In class . . . ?”

  “A ‘bitter, cruel, evil love’? Is that what you really want?”

  When I said that, it was like I’d cut a cord that bound us, and Lucius, still holding my hand, sat upright, pulling me to my feet, gently but very firmly pushing me away. He stood, too.

  “Lucius?”

  He smiled at me then, grimly, like we hadn’t just shared what we’d shared. “We loiter, wasting time, and the laundry waits on the bed,” he said, the old, distancing mockery in his voice. He leaned over the mattress and grabbed a pair of his boxers. “At this rate, every wrinkle will be set. And a Vladescu may fold, under duress, but we do not iron.”

  “Lucius?” I touched his arm. I didn’t want to know, but I had to know. “What, exactly is going on with you and Faith?”

  Lucius shook out the underwear, studiously avoiding my eyes. “Faith?”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yes. Faith.”

  “She intrigues me,” he admitted, managing somehow to fold his own undergarments.

  “Why? Why do you like her?”

  As if I didn’t know. Lucius Vladescu could talk all he wanted about the beauty of curves and curls and the importance of having a presence, but in the end, he was just like every other man—every boy—who fell for the blond, size 0 cheerleader with the flat abs, the perky little breasts, and the skinny butt that played peekaboo from under that stupid short skirt.

  “Oh, Jessica,” Lucius said, sounding somewhat exasperated. “I’ve asked you for months how you can favor a peasant, and you’ve never provided me a satisfactory response. Perhaps these things just can’t be easily explained away.”

  “So you do like Faith?”

  He looked at me then. “I appreciate her.”

  The flat-out admission made me queasy, even though I’d already known the answer. “Is there a difference?”

  Lucius sighed and sat down next to me on the bed, staring at the wall. “Perhaps, Jessica. Does it really matter at this point?”

  “What does that mean? Why do you keep saying things like ‘at this point’? Like the pact is over? And what about the war?”

  “You don’t even believe in the pact or the war.”

  “I do now,” I insisted.

  Lucius ignored this revelation, even though I’d thought it was all he’d ever wanted to hear from me. A small smile crossed his face. “This upcoming Christmas dance. It’s a much anticipated social event, is it not?” he mused. “Girls want to go, correct? Squatty will don his best ‘overalls’ and take you, yes?”

  “About Jake . . .” What am I going to do about Jake? Ever since that day in the gym when I’d confided my doubts about our relationship to Mindy, I’d been distancing myself from him. And when I’d turned too eagerly away from Jake to watch Lucius perform his drama in English lit, I’d known I was turning my back on a great guy . . . a guy who genuinely liked me. Someone sweet who didn’t drink blood or bear dangerous scars. And yet I’d done it. “I don’t know if Jake and I are going to the formal,” I said. “We’re sort of . . . drifting apart.”

  Shrugging, Lucius stood and resumed folding laundry. “You two must do what makes you both happy, Jessica. Do what is right for you.”

  “And you’ll do what’s ‘right for you,’ I guess,” I said glumly.

  “This is America, as I am constantly reminded in social studies,” Lucius pointed out. “We all have a choice in everything here.” He mimicked a scale with his hands. “Pepsi or Coke? Big Mac or Whopper? The old boyfriend or the new?”

  “Yeah, what about Ethan?” I asked. “He and Faith have been together forever.”

  “I just told you, Jessica. We all have a choice. Faith has a choice. Ethan has no claim on her. I’ve seen no ring on her finger.”

  Of course Faith had a choice. And she’d already chosen Lucius. I’d seen it back in the gym and in English lit class. Hell, I’d seen it back at the 4-H competition, when she’d absently gripped my arm, watching Lucius tear up the course on his doomed mare. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself. The whole thing had unfolded before my face, and I’d forced myself to be blind.

  Lucius smiled at me then, although there was something like sadness in his eyes. “You are fortunate, Jessica,” he said. “You are not bound so tightly by tradition, by the weight of the past. You are free here. Not only to choose a soft drink but your destiny. Rather exhilarating feeling, isn’t it?”

  I guess I’d lived so long with my possibilities that I didn’t find them quite as “exhilarating” as Lucius did. In fact, I really wished, at that moment, to be bound a bit more tightly by the past. Yet, at the same time, a sudden anger lurched through me. Anger at Lucius.

  “If you’re so into Faith, then what the hell was that?” I pointed to the leather chair, where we’d just been tangled up together like the laundry on the bed. Where I’d sworn Lucius was about to kiss me—at the very least. “Back in the chair? When you had your arm around me?” I demanded. “What was that, Lucius?”

  Lucius lowered the T-shirt he’d been folding, arms dropping to his sides. “That, Jessica,” he said sadly, “was very nearly a mistake.”

  A mistake? Had he really just said, “A mistake”?

  Rising to my full five foot four inches, and mustering a strength that I never knew I possessed, fueled by an indignation I hadn’t known I was capable of, I drew back my open hand and slapped Lucius Vladescu so hard across the face that his head snapped sideways.

  He was still rubbing his jaw when I slammed the door.

  Stupid Romanian bloodsucker. He was lucky I hadn’t bestowed another exalted scar on his imperial body. If he ever messed with Jessica Packwood—Antanasia Dragomir—again, he’d really get the royal treatment. Lucius Vladescu could take that to the Bucharest Federal Savings and Loan and bank it—right into his damned trust fund.

  Chapter 35

  “FOCUS, JESS, FOCUS,” I urged myself.

  But the more I tried to force myself to concentrate, the further concentration slipped away from me. It was like I was grasping at soap bubbles floating on air. Bubbles filled with meaningless numbers and mathematical ciphers. Plus signs, minuses, square root symbols swirling around my head. They all popped the second I grasped them. Popped and disappeared.

  Somehow, in spite of skipping several practices, I’d made it to the countdown round of the Lebanon Regional Math Olympics, where the top students competed. No pens. No paper. Not even a chance to reread the questions. Just the moderator firing off oral problems and ten of us standing there trying to answer first.

  I wanted to win so badly. This was one arena where I could shine. You didn’t have to be beautiful, or blond, or rich, like Faith. . . .

  Stop it, Jess. You can get to the state level if you get your head on straight.

  Glancing at the modest crowd lined against the cafeteria walls, I saw Mr. Jaegerman sweating in today’s polyester suit selection—a hideous taupe number—watching me. He smiled and offered a thumbs-up. Mike Danneker was sidelined, too, having been knocked out during the sprint round, when he got inexplicably panicked by some routine polynomials.

  Mike cupped his hands around his mouth. “Don’t blow it,” he stage-whispered. Like that was helping.

  The moderator finished shuffling her papers. “Question number two. A distracted bank teller transposed the dollars and cents when she cashed Mrs. Jones’s paycheck, handing her dollars instead of cents, and cents instead of dollars. After buying a cup of coffee for fifty cents, Mrs. Jones realizes that she has exactly three times as much as the original check left. What was the true amount of the check?”

  I could do this. A Diophantine equation. That’s what it was. So why wouldn’t my brain function?

  I thought harder and harder, and the harder I thought, the more the whole language of equations seemed foreign to me. It was as if a part of my mind was just shutting off. Dying. It had started weeks ago, when I’d
begun drifting away from Jake and toward Lucius. Away from regular humanity and toward a world where blood smelled delicious. Calculus had begun to make my mind wander. Algebra had slowly lost its appeal. And now I was standing in a room full of top mathletes, where I should have been a dominant force, and instead all I could think was Dollars? Cents? Coffee sounds good. . . . Where can you get a cup of coffee for fifty cents? But I didn’t want coffee. I wanted to go to the state level. Think, Jessica. . . . But no thoughts came. Not the right kind, at least. Would coffee really help?

  “No!” I hollered, not even realizing I’d said the word out loud until the already quiet room went completely silent, and all heads swiveled toward me.

  I started sweating like Mr. Jaegerman on a June day getting excited about a word problem involving a high wall and the angle of the sun. Humiliated. I’d been humiliated.

  “Sorry,” I said, addressing everyone and no one in particular. They were all still staring—my competitors, my teammates, the spectators—and so I left my designated spot on the cafeteria floor and walked, with what I hoped was a little dignity, toward the door.

  Out in the hallway, I leaned against the cool, tiled wall. What was happening to the left side of my brain? The part meant to control analysis and objectivity felt numb. And tingly. Like it was being chewed away by the right side, the random, intuitive, non-logical side. I pressed my fingertips against my temples, massaging them, trying to ease an ache that I knew wasn’t really physical.

  “Jessica, are you okay?” Mr. Jaegerman burst through the door and jogged to my side, puffing a little, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief. I knew what he was thinking. His prize racehorse had just broken a leg in the last furlong. He’d invested four years in me, and I had come up lame.

  “Math just seems . . . hard lately,” I tried to explain, staring at Mr. Jaegerman with no small degree of desperation. “I don’t know what’s happening. I can’t concentrate.”

  “Are . . . are things okay at home?” Mr. Jaegerman attempted to ask. The effort to forge a real human connection between us—one not bridged by numbers—made the sweat pool above his upper lip and cascade around the corners of his mouth. He used his tie to dab his chin. “Not . . . boy trouble?” he ventured gamely, sputtering. He seemed on the verge of some sort of spasm. Like he’d wandered too far into a deep cave only to realize that there was no oxygen there.

  If I’d actually started to unload, he might have passed out right there in the hall. I had to save him, let him breathe.

  “No, it’s not a guy,” I lied, sparing Mr. Jaegerman a heart attack.

  “Oh, thank God,” he cried, clutching his chest. He immediately realized what he’d said. “I mean . . . of course, if it was a boy, you could tell me . . .”

  “It’s fine,” I insisted. “It’s nothing like that.”

  But it was something “like that.” Actually, it was that exactly. Only Lucius wasn’t a boy, really. He was a man. And I wanted him back. Too late, I wanted him back. But I knew it was hopeless. He wanted Faith.

  “I’ll do better next time, Mr. Jaegerman,” I promised. “I’ll hit the books tomorrow. Focus.”

  “Good girl, Jess,” Mr. Jaegerman said. He reached out to pat my shoulder, hesitated, then withdrew his hand.

  “Let’s go back inside,” I said gamely. “I can at least listen from the sidelines, try to solve the problems for fun.”

  “Yes, yes,” Mr. Jaegerman agreed, clearly relieved that our too-personal moment was over. “That’s an excellent idea.”

  I followed my coach back toward the cafeteria. But to be honest, solving problems didn’t sound fun or excellent at all. It sounded like the most miserable activity I could imagine.

  Chapter 36

  DEAR VASILE,

  Were you aware that here in the United States, “choices” are so abundant that some feckless, feeble-minded individuals actually find themselves overwhelmed and in need of psychological counseling (I know—we laugh!), all because they are unable to navigate the seemingly infinite options inherent in literally every small act?

  Here, even ordering a pizza (at last, I stumbled upon something edible) requires multiple decisions. Large? Extra large? Miniature meatballs and pepperoni? Some sort of vegetable? More cheese? Less cheese? Cheese concealed, like a stringy surprise, within the crust? And speaking of crust . . . Thick? Thin? Hand-tossed? Or should one reconsider the entire order and opt for “Chicago-style deep dish”? Or “Sicilian,” even?

  Really, Vasile, calling for “delivery” (I have also finally discovered that I command a virtual army of erstwhile servants, all patrolling about in battered “Ford Escorts”) requires as much strategizing as some generals devote to a battle in which actual blood, not just tomato sauce, will be spilled.

  Speaking of which, I was sorry to learn that the Dragomirs grow weary of waiting for the return of their princess and the completion of the pact.

  They always are an impulsive, impatient lot, are they not? But really, to accuse me of not “doing my best” to fulfill my obligation—and then attempting to stake a Vladescu in a fit of ire . . . That sort of thing can precipitate a nasty skirmish, Vasile. And I find the whole prospect, suddenly, so tiresome.

  Must we vampires always resort so quickly to violence? Could we not all sit down over a “refreshing Bud Light” and “just chill,” as my television and my teammates relentlessly urge me to do? (You would be amazed to see the effort that American teenagers put into securing any quantity of beer, which is verboten until age twenty-one. It’s astonishing, really, Vasile, all for a bit of fermented hops. One would think it was blood.)

  But returning to the minor flare-up of tensions between the Dragomirs and Vladescus. Please advise both sides to remain patient, reminding them that we are vampires. What is the hurry when we have eternity ?

  And while we are on the subject of impetuous Dragomirs and violence . . . Our princess-in-waiting dealt me quite an impressive blow across the side of the face the other day. You, of all vampires, know how difficult it is to make my head snap sideways with an open hand. I must say, I rather admired the force behind the slap. Very authoritative. And the way her eyes flashed, very regal.

  As for the cause of my humbling at the palm of Antanasia’s hand . . . Perhaps that is best reserved for another missive.

  In the meantime, might I impose upon you to ship, posthaste, some of my formal wear? Say, perhaps, the Brioni “tux” I secured in Milan. And dispatch a discreet set of cuff links, too. I trust your judgment. Keep in mind that most of my fellow partygoers will be attired in “rental” tuxedos. (Were you even aware that one could rent clothes, Vasile? Does it not seem a bit . . . cringe inducing? Slipping into trousers worn by a succession of predecessors of dubious pedigree and uncertain hygiene ? But it is true.) My point is, I desire, of course, to present myself in a manner befitting my station—without unduly upstaging others. Deliberate sartorial one-upsmanship is just crass, don’t you think?

  Thank you in advance for your assistance,

  Your nephew,

  Lucius

  P.S. What the hell. Why not sign off with the traditional American greeting? “Merry Christmas,” Uncle Vasile. “Happy holidays to you.”

  P.P.S. Really—“counseling”!

  Chapter 37

  “JESSICA, THE PHONE is for you,” Dad said, poking his head into my room. “It’s Jake.”

  “I didn’t even hear it ring,” I admitted, sitting up and accepting the cordless from his hand. I’d been lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking as usual about faithless vampires and the fact that my brain seemed to be disintegrating, and wishing that my life was just normal again. “Hey, Jake,” I said into the receiver with less enthusiasm than I knew I should have. “What’s up?”

  I should break up with Jake. I knew it, and yet I hadn’t done it. Why? What am I waiting for?

  “Hey, Jess,” Jake said. “I was just calling . . . well, I was wondering if we’re still on for the Christmas formal. I
haven’t seen much of you at school . . .”

  “Yeah, I guess I’ve been busy,” I said. “I’ve been thinking we should get together and talk, though . . .”

  Outside, I heard the sound of a loud squeal, then laughter. I pulled aside the curtain. Lucius and Faith were in the yard, having a very vigorous snow fight. As I watched, Lucius swept up Faith and plunged her into a pile left by our plow, rubbing snow onto her pink wool hat. “Oh, Lucius,” she screamed, kicking at him. “You are such a jerk!”

  Yes, Lucius . . . yes, you are.

  “Jess—are you there?”

  “Oh, sorry, Jake.” I let the curtain drop. “I’m here.”

  “I was asking about the formal, because I have to rent a tux . . .

  Outside, more delighted, horrified squeals.

  Jake added, a little uncertainly, “I really hope you still want to go, Jess.”

  What a nice guy. A nice, nice guy . . .

  Beneath my window, Faith shrieked, “Don’t touch me!” It sounded as though she wanted quite the opposite.

  I clutched the phone, forcing myself to pay attention to Jake. Was I really sure I wanted to break up with him? Was I going to stop living just because I’d been thrown over by an overbearing foreign exchange student who’d tried to seduce me in his apartment only to admit that it would have been a “mistake”? Was I going to waste my entire senior year lying in bed, worrying about being a vampire, for god’s sake?

  No, I would not.

  “Of course I want to go, Jake,” I said, forcing my voice to sound far more cheerful than I felt. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  Relief flooded his voice. “Great, Jess. I’m going to get my tux tomorrow, then. If you’re sure . . .”

  Will Faith Crosse never stop shrieking in my yard?

  “Of course I’m sure, Jake,” I said, adding just before we hung up, “It’s going to be great.”

  I stretched back out on my bed, pulling my pillow over my face, covering my ears to shut out how much fun my former blood-pact betrothed and Faith were having outside.