Vampire Auction

When I woke up the next morning, James was gone. He wasn’t sleeping in his coffin. Actually, I don’t think he really sleeps in there. He once told me it was just for effect. Not wanting to waste time on the jerk, I got ready. I brushed my teeth, and changed into a pair of nice fitting jeans and a personalized polo shirt that I got at a multicultural festival in middle school.
After brushing out the seemingly endless knots in my accursed brown hair, I went downstairs expecting to find Jade or my parents eating. I was right, but there was another woman at the dining table. She was tall for an average sized woman and had medium short wavy light brown hair. As if sensing me, she looked up upon my arrival and met my blue eyes with her own. I grinned when I recognized her.
“Aunt Gina! When did you get here? You weren’t here last night.” I practically ran up to her and then hugged her tightly around her waist.
She smiled warmly at me and hugged me back. “I got here way earlier this morning. You and Jade were still sleeping. Lori and Will picked me and Roman up at the airport.”
“And that’s why we were late last night. We wanted to keep Gina and Roman a surprise.” My dad spoke up when he had finally chewed and swallowed the eggs he was eating. “Roman and Gina wanted to rent a car at the airport, but none of the car rentals were open. So, we took them here. They’ll rent a car later.”
“Oh, everybody’s here. So, who’s talking about me?” I heard an amused voice say. I turned around to see my uncle Roman coming out of the downstairs guest room. Roman was really tall. He had the kind of hair that stuck out, but didn’t look bad. He claims to be thirty-two years old, but he looked like he could be twenty-eight. Aunt Gina once told me that they met when they were in high school, but never actually started dating until she graduated. So I guess you could call them high school sweethearts, except for the fact that Aunt Gina admitted she really didn’t like Uncle Roman when they first met.
“I came to understand him and then he grew on me like mold.” She told me when I innocently asked her why she would marry someone she didn’t like.
I looked up at my uncle and smiled. “Don’t flatter yourself, Uncle. No one’s talking about you.” I went over and hugged him like I hugged Aunt Gina. I loved, and I mean LOVED Aunt Gina and Uncle Roman a lot.
He laughed and hugged me back. “Are you sure? You’re not talking about how amazingly handsome I am?” He stepped back and ruffled my hair in the way he knows I hate it.
“Wow, Uncle. Somebody needs to knock down that insanely huge ego of yours. How about a nice game of football? Then we’ll see how amazingly handsome you really are.”
“Well, before you do that,” My mom started in that tone she uses when you have some explaining to do, “Beth, we got a call from Dr. Carmen. You never showed up for the clinic yesterday like you were supposed to. What were you doing yesterday?”
“Well, uh,…” I wasn’t sure how to respond. I couldn’t tell my parents, or anyone else for that matter, that I had been kidnapped by a vampire with a big inferiority complex against his brother who made a bond with me that I don’t know how to get rid of, or what it specifically does to me. They would probably try to lock me up in an asylum telling me everything was going to be okay. “Um, I met an old friend from, uh, elementary school and, um, he, I mean she, took me to, uh, her house and we both lost track of time.”
My mother looked disbelievingly at me. “Oh? And who exactly was this friend?” My mom asked suspiciously.
“Her name is, uh, Jamie…O’Dile.” I cringed internally at the unoriginality of my made up name. I was going to say James, but it was too much of a boy’s name to pass for a girl. And the last name is pronounced like “Odile” from Swan Lake.
“Jamie O’Dile? I don’t remember you having a friend named Jamie. Are you sure—”
My mom was interrupted by Aunt Gina. “Lori, let it go. I think we all know Beth is willing to take responsibility for her actions. Right, Beth?” Aunt Gina looked my way and smiled. My hero.
“Yes, of course.” I turned to my parents, “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry, Dad. I’ll go over to Dr. Carmen’s office today and apologize to her, too. I’ll serve yesterday’s time today. I’m not doing anything important today.” Except for watching out for James.
My mom relaxed in her chair. “Okay, but if I hear you do the same thing as this time, you best be ready for the consequences.”
I smiled innocently. “I understand, thank you Mom.” I walked over to her and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll call her now and see if I can go to her office after breakfast.” Leaving the dining room, I walked into the kitchen where the phone was. After looking up Dr. Carmen’s phone number, I dialed the number written next to “office” and waited for her to pick up.
“Dr. Carmen’s office, how may I help you?” A clear and confidence voice came from the other line.
“Hi, Dr. Carmen, this is Beth. I wanted to apologize for not showing up at the hospital yesterday and I was wondering if I could come in today instead?”
“Oh, hello, Beth. Of course you can come today. And don’t worry about yesterday, I didn’t need much help. So what time should I be expecting you?”
I quickly checked the clock that hung over the phone receiver and estimated. “I’m going to be eating first, so in about an hour. Is that okay?” An hour should give me time to eat and walk over to the clinic where she worked.
“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll see you in an hour then. Bye, Beth.”
“Okay, bye.” I hung up.
*****
About twenty minutes later, I was walking out the front door and I still haven’t seen James around. I turned to say good bye to my aunt and uncle. “Bye, Aunt Gina, I’ll see you later. Uncle Roman, we’ll have to play our game of football later, ‘kay?”
They both smiled at me and waved. “Alright, just come back soon. We’ll talk later.” Aunt Gina called after me as I shut the door.
I started walking down my street towards the main street where the clinic was located at and started to wonder where James was. Not that I was worried or anything. For all I care, he can stay away. But he did say that was going to stalk me for all eternity or something along those lines. Maybe I’ll get lucky enough that I won’t see him all day today…
“So, where are you going?” Startled, I couldn’t help the involuntary yelp that came out of my mouth. I turned and saw James. I tried, and failed, to keep a disappointed frown off my face.
“Ugh. I thought you disappeared for good. Guess your absence this morning really was too good to be true.” Recovered from my shock, I briskly started walking away from him. He caught up to me with ease.
“Aww, don’t be like that. I had an errand to run and some people to greet. Some more family came in last night and it’s rude to ignore them. You didn’t, by any chance at all, miss me?” He teased.
I blushed at the thinly disguised double meaning in his words. “That’s ridiculous. I couldn’t have been happier while you were away. My aunt and uncle came to visit and I didn’t have to wake up and see you this morning, which is almost as good as it gets. Now if I could make you disappear permanently…”
“Well, I guess we can’t all get what we want. So, where are we going today?”
“I’m going to Dr. Carmen’s office, and you’re going to stay away from me.” I tried to walk faster, but James easily kept up with me.
“I don’t know why you hate me so much. What have I done to irk you this much?” I glared sharply at him. He couldn’t be serious. How can one person be so damn irritating and still do whatever he wants?
“You have got to be freaking kidding me.” I turned to face him, “What do you want with me? What do I have that interests you so much that you have to stick around? And why did it have to be me? You know, I really hate that. I really hate how you’re screwing with my life the way you are. Maybe if you weren’t such an asshole, I would be less of a bitch to you.”
James stared almost uncharacteristically calmly at me. “I chose you because I wanted to. You know, just because a vampire can, doesn’t always necessarily mean we choose someone randomly. We do have standards. Even though it doesn’t seem like it, we normally choose we actually like. Tell me, if you had to spend eternity with someone, would you do it with someone you hate, or would you do it you at least mildly like?”
I couldn’t say anything. When he put it like that, it made him seem like he was just looking for a friend. I couldn’t blame him for that. I never like it when people I hate crack and reveal their soft emotions. It made me stop and reminded me that even assholes have feelings.
“Okay, I see your point. But you didn’t really like me when we first met.” I seemed compelled to point that out.
“Not really. You didn’t like me. Not the other way around.”
“You would have freaked out too if you thought you just bought a corpse for $700 at a middle school auction!”
“Actually, no. I would have been amused.” I looked disbelievingly at him. He pointed at himself. “Vampire, remember? I don’t think the way you do.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course you don’t. You probably see dead people every day.” James just grinned.
“You’re wrong, of course, but don’t you have to be somewhere?”
“Oh, right. Dr. Carmen’s office.” I turned to go, but then stopped. I turned back towards him and, almost grudgingly, said, “You can come with me, if you want.” And I walked away without saying another word. I heard him follow silently.
When I finally arrived at Dr. Carmen’s office, I received some good, or bad, news, depending on how you looked at it.
“I’m sorry. The state sent me a new policy notice some time after you called me on the phone. I tried to call back and tell you, but your Uncle Roman told me you had already left. So, I had no choice but to wait for you to get here. The new policy states that I can’t use underage volunteers here in the hospital because there was an issue about volunteers getting distracted during their job. So they’ve put down a, hopefully, temporary policy that restricts minors. I’ll just write off that you did all your community service so you won’t have to worry about it, okay?” Dr. Carmen had misunderstood my look of horror to be a horror for not being able to finish my community service. That wasn’t it.
“No, it’s okay. I can get community service elsewhere. I wouldn’t want to cheat on my part of the deal.” This was a half lie. If it had been any other situation, I would have snatched the offer faster than the roadrunner running away from the coyote. But since I was being stalked by a vampire, I needed the community service to give me something to do.
“Oh, you don’t have to prove you’re a hard worker. It really is okay. I’ll just sign the papers that verify that you have done the volunteering. Give me the papers tomorrow.” She smiled. “I really am sorry.”
I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t honestly tell why I didn’t want the offer. What could I have said? Sorry, I can’t accept your generosity because I’m actually using community service as an excuse to escape my creepy, stalking vampire. Oh, yeah. That would go over so well.
I ended up leaving the small hospital clinic with Dr. Carmen still apologizing for the “inconvenience.” And what an inconvenience it was. Not surprisingly, a few minutes later, James appeared. “Wow, isn’t that convenient. I particularly liked the expression on your face. I didn’t know you liked community service that much.”
“Well, I’d take community service over paying six months of my allowance for any day!” I groaned. “What am I going to do now?” I meant it as a rhetorical question, but he answered me anyway.
“Well, you could always give me a tour of the city.” I just stared at him.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, right? You’re immortal, don’t you know the city be heart or something?” I was already wary of him just standing here. I couldn’t imagine spending the entire minute of the day with him.
“You forget that I just turned eighteen recently. So, naturally, I had no reason to go out of the house until now. It won’t hurt. Just one tiny, little tour of the city. It won’t hurt.”
“Maybe for you.” I grumbled. I sighed, exasperated. “Fine, but if you don’t follow along the first time, tough luck, okay? I’m not repeating myself.” I turned and started walking towards the nearest park, deciding to start the tour there.
“Okay.” I could practically hear the grin in his voice.
“I mean it. If you can’t keep up, I’m leaving you behind.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Okay.”
“Great.”
“Awesome.”
“Stop talking now, please.”
“Alright.”
“James. Seriously, shut up.” Silence followed. Good. But what have I gotten myself into this time?