Teeth_ Vampire Tales - Ellen Datlow [24]
She took her hands away and wiped the tears from her face, stood up, and almost fell over. Her center of balance was nonexistent. The room spun, then slowed to a stop. She felt like she could lift off the floor, drift over to the window and out into the sky if she wanted. “I think you should go,” she told him.
“I won’t be able to go down that trellis now,” said Trevor. He stood, put his hands in his pockets again, sheepish. “I’m full now,” he said. “The trellis probably won’t hold me.”
Retta said that he would have to go as soon as her parents were asleep. He assured her he’d leave as quietly as he’d come. “Where were you the past week, anyway?” asked Retta.
“At school,” he said. “I don’t go to your school. I don’t live in your town. I live in the next town over.”
“Do people there know you’re a vampire?”
“Yeah,” said Trevor. “But it’s pretty liberal there. No problem.”
“Am I going to become a vampire now that you fed on me?” she wanted to know.
“No,” said Trevor. “Vampires aren’t made, they’re born.”
“So I couldn’t be a vampire even if I wanted?”
He said, “I don’t think so. No.”
“What a waste,” said Retta. “What a waste of a perfectly good cultural icon.”
The next day, Lottie said, “I’m afraid for our friendship.”
Retta said, “Lottie, why does everything with you have to be a chick flick?”
“It so does not have to be a chick flick!” said Lottie. “Ser-iously, Retta, you have been a total space-a-zoid for the past few weeks. It’s not cool. Everyone has noticed.”
“Who’s everyone?” said Retta. “You’re my only friend. I’m your only friend.”
“I’ve made some other friends, I guess,” said Lottie. She stopped walking down the mall concourse and took hold of Retta’s arm, squeezing gently. She’d brought Retta here, to the place where they’d spent most of their free time the past few years, in a last-ditch attempt to remind Retta about the bonds of their friendship, to surround her with shared memories of shopping and telling each other they looked good in certain outfits. But as Retta looked around at all the neon commerce and mass-produced entertainment surrounding her, she couldn’t help but sigh and wonder why none of any of it made sense to her any longer.
An enormous man eating a Frisbee-sized chocolate chip cookie passed behind Lottie as she waited for Retta to react to her declaration of having made other friends. The fat man was the sort of thing Lottie usually would have seen coming a mile away and would have commented on; and, at one time, the two of them would have bonded over making fun of him. Retta felt her face flush, embarrassed. She didn’t want to be the sort of person who boosted her sense of well-being by laughing at other people’s addictions, just because she herself didn’t know what she wanted so badly. And though she would have disapproved of Lottie’s blithe nastiness, now she just wanted her to say something terrible. It would have made ignoring her plaintive grasping easier.
“You’ve made other friends,” said Retta. “That’s nice. Who are they?”
Lottie winced. She was wearing a T-shirt Retta had bought in a store for boys a year ago, lent Lottie six months ago, and never gotten back. It had a yellow smiley face smack dab in the middle, stretched across Lottie’s ample chest. Lottie folded her arms over the face, as if to emphasize her unhappiness. Even the smiley face wasn’t allowed to be happy.
“It doesn’t matter who they are, Retta,” said Lottie.
“Loretta,” said Retta.
“What matters,” said Lottie, “is me and you. Us! What happened? We’ve spent our whole lives together and now we’re graduating next weekend and you’re all like, Whatever whatever, I’m in love with a vampire!”
“I am so not ‘Whatever whatever, I’m in love with a vampire!’” said Retta. “I’m . . . enlarging my environment. That’s all.”
“I can’t believe you will stand here and lie to me like that, Retta.”
“Seriously, Lottie?” said Retta. “We’re standing in front of Victoria’s Secret, not