Teeth_ Vampire Tales - Ellen Datlow [22]
It was a week of lively discussion that followed the appearance of Trevor and his vampire friends. Even the PTA had met by that Thursday evening to discuss whether Mr. Masters should be penalized for having allowed the vampires to speak at all. “Of course he should be,” said Retta’s mother after she came home from the meeting. “He should be fired. We should sue him for endangering the lives of our children.”
“We only have one child,” said Retta’s father, hanging up his Windbreaker in the foyer closet.
“It’s a figure of speech, Clyde,” said Retta’s mother. “It’s a figure of speech.”
Retta left them arguing over the issue in the kitchen and went upstairs to sit on her bed and look at her room as if it would offer her something special at that very moment. But all she saw was her hairbrush, curling iron, an uncapped lipstick on the dresser, a rumpled bedspread, clothes she hadn’t worn in a long time strung out on the floor in twisted shapes like the chalked outlines of murder victims. Then her cell phone rang and she reached for it with extreme zeal, glad that, finally, the world had responded in a timely manner to her request for a reprieve from her own inertia. She looked at the call screen. It was Lottie. “Hello?” said Retta.
“Hey, did you hear about the PTA meeting?”
“Yeah, my mom and dad just got home,” said Retta. “Penalty or no penalty? Poor Mr. Masters.”
“Sounds like they’ll let it go this time,” said Lottie, “but not if he screws up again.”
“Lottie,” said Retta, “why are we even interested? We’re graduating. We’re out of here. If I want to talk to a vampire, I can. We’re adults, aren’t we?”
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. Then Lottie said, “You are so hot for that kid! I can’t believe it!”
“Shut up!” said Retta. “You’re not even listening to me.”
“You’re not even listening to yourself!” said Lottie.
“Whatever,” said Retta. “Anyway, what are you going to do this summer? Or next fall, for that matter?”
“I’m thinking about finding work as one of those people who do sleep experiments,” said Lottie. “They’re always adver-tising for those. Seems like a steady job.”
“Hmm,” said Retta, “sounds as good as anything I’ve got.”
“College?” said Lottie.
“Oh, yeah, that. My mom brought home an application for the community college the other day, said I could stay here if I didn’t feel like trying school somewhere else. I don’t know. Don’t British kids go on something called gap year after high school? Where they go to some poor eastern European country or some island in the Mediterranean for a year and help people out and stuff? That’s what I’d like to do. Maybe.”
“Retta, you’re not British.”
“I know,” said Retta. “It’s a figure of speech.”
“No, it’s not,” said Lottie.
Retta was about to ask if Lottie was going to pick her up on the way to school tomorrow, then maybe they could go to the mall afterward and stare at things and people, but as she opened her mouth to speak, a spray of pebbles rattled against her bedroom window. “Hold on a sec,” she told Lottie, the mall forgotten, and got up from her bed to look out.
It was night out, but beneath the big oak in front of the backyard’s mercury light, she could see him, his face covered in leafy shadows, the hands that had tossed those pebbles up to her window like he was out of some 1950s movie now stuffed in the front pockets of his jeans. He pulled one out when Retta showed up at the window, lifted it into the air to flick her a wave.
She told Lottie it was her mom calling her, and clicked the phone off before Lottie could argue. Then she pulled up