Dinner with the Enemy
The next day at work, my muscles screamed and my mouth yawned in turns. I didn’t get to bed until four in the morning and I got up at seven to make it to the office on time. Marshall didn’t have anything interesting for me to do and I couldn’t tell if he was impressed that I hadn’t run away with my tail between my legs when I saw the file yesterday. I still didn’t know what he knew about me and London. He was a hard nut to crack.
The night before, after an hour of lying my can off to my parents and six hours of manual labor getting London packed up, I got two and a half hours of sleep—plus fifteen minutes standing in the shower, where I could have fallen and cracked my head open. My workday began with forty-five minutes in transit, followed by eight hours sitting in front of a glowing computer screen and the odd lunch hour where I ate cookies and drank bitter cola to keep myself from passing out. After all that, I still had to make dinner for Dudley.
As I came out of the office, he was there waiting for me.
Making polite conversation on the way was unnecessary because we took the train, so we couldn’t have heard each other anyway. I just had to focus on staying conscious and believe me—that was hard enough.
At my place, I made a salad out of the vegetables I always kept in my fridge, so it wasn’t the freshest thing ever, but tough luck for him. All I hoped was that he wouldn’t call me on the somewhat flat lettuce after I lied the night before about having an empty fridge. I made paninis because they were easy and fast. I wasn’t sure about Dudley, but I was hungry, and eating now wasn’t soon enough.
While I cooked, he wandered around the living room. I didn’t care. After four in the morning, there was nothing incriminating to be found. London, and all evidence of her existence, was gone by two. I spent another two hours redecorating, so the place would look respectable for Dudley.
When I finished preparations, I called him to the table. To impress him, I laid the table with my best chartreuse dinnerware.
“It looks good,” he says kindly. If you saw what I put on the chartreuse dinnerware, you’d know exactly how kind he was being.
“Thanks,” I replied, but as we ate, neither of us spoke except to ask for the salad dressing.
Toward the end of the meal, I was holding my head with one hand and the corner of my panini with the other. I couldn’t possibly finish it and as I looked at Dudley across the table, I knew the evening had been a bomb… from a date perspective. From the hiding London perspective—I thought I aced it.
As long as he didn’t have a good time, he’d probably be out the door in five, four, three, two…
“Mind if I turn on the news?” he suddenly asked.
“Go ahead,” I said in my least encouraging voice, hoping he would catch my drift.
Then he, dead-serious, went into the living room, plunked down on the couch, and turned on the evening news. I poured myself another glass of water and joined him, leaving a good-sized cushion between us on the sofa. After all, he was the enemy. I mean, a man whose idea of changing for the evening is to undo the top button of his shirt without taking off his tie could only be an enemy.
Soon, my water was drunk and we were watching some insipid story about how many dogs need to be adopted at the humane society. Bored, I flopped my chin onto my open palm.
Suddenly, Dudley said, “I remembered where I know you from.”
My blood turned cold. “Oh?” I said, trying not to sound like it mattered to me.
“I think I knew you when I was a kid.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I said, pretending to be very interested in the last drops of water in the bottom of my cup. “I’m twenty-three and you look like you’re at least—”
“Twenty-six,” he supplied.
Oh, he was younger than I thought.
“I was older than you,” he went on. “I lived next door.”
Turning toward him, I couldn’t stop gawking. I did remember a boy who lived next door. That was right. He was eighteen, and in the same graduating class as London. He was quiet and my memory of him was precious because I thought he was nice. What was his name? It was with the most monumental effort of my mind that I was able to formulate a name—Tate Crosswood. However, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what he looked like. Could he be the same guy? The first names were the same.
“I was called Crosswood then,” he explained stiffly before I had the chance to speak. “That was the last name of the husband my mum had at the time. When I left home I changed it back to the name I was born with—Dudley. Do you remember me now?”
I blinked. I had no idea how to respond. I couldn’t decide if he was who he said he was or if he was pretending in order to get me to talk about London. “H-how have you been?” I finally managed to stutter.
“Well, after that night, things have been… different. My mum was so terrified of my being caught that she moved me straight to the city. I didn’t even get to go to graduation.”
What was he talking about? He spoke as if I should know, but I had no clue. What night?
“I’ve felt like a hunted man ever since. I wanted to see how you grew up. You’re so different from what I remember. The Sweeper I remember was a pale little teenager with stiff expressions and dark eyes that only followed her sister. You seem much less tense now. I guess that’s a relief because it means you weren’t damaged by our escapade. Even though you’ve changed, there’s still something about you. There was never anything remotely special about London. In my opinion, she was far below average. I’ve always wondered why that vampire chose her.”
“What?” I said. What I meant to say was, ‘What did you just say about my sister?’ Heat filled my head.
Dudley didn’t seem to notice he had offended me. Instead, he seemed lost in thought as he continued. “I finally decided. I think he chose London because he knew she wouldn’t be strong enough to murder him when the time came. While working as a private investigator, I’ve seen a few documents on him. He was a crafty bloodsucker. London was his seventh lover. He was used to the routine. He just didn’t expect you to interfere. Me either, for that matter.”
Dudley looked at my face and he finally seemed to realize that something was wrong with me. I was a mass of confusion. I could only follow a little of what he said. Some of it made sense to me and some of it didn’t. Why would his mother ship him off? I had no memory of that. Not to mention that I was ticked off by the way he had insulted London. Forget whether or not his accusations were justified. It wasn’t his place to say those things about my sister—whether I had thought them myself or not.
“Sorry, I probably shouldn’t be talking about London so casually. Thinking about her probably hurts you.”
Now he was apologizing?
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for,” I say nonchalantly. “It doesn’t hurt me to think about her.”
Now it was his turn to look confused. “Sorry,” he said again. “I just thought you loved her so much that you’d be crushed when she died.” He took one look at my face and revised his comment. “She’s not dead,” he said, realizing his mistake. “Sorry. I’m an idiot.”
“Why did you think she was dead?” I asked briskly.
“I thought she was the weak type. It’s hard to imagine she’s survived all these years. I wonder how she’s made it.”
Now we were on a train of thought I could understand. Whether he knew London and me in the past didn’t matter if he was chasing her for Marshall and trying to pump me for information. He wanted me to brag about how I had been the one to keep her alive. I couldn’t do that. I had to be slick.
“Well, it’s been a while since I’ve seen her. I’m not really sure how she’s making out.”
Dudley’s next expression surprised me. It was like he thought if I hadn’t heard from her recently she was dead for sure. He thought I was being naïve.
Well, I was not volunteering any more information. I was about to suggest to him that he head for the door when suddenly our attention was drawn back to the TV. The news was over and instead of their regular programming, they were showing a movie. Dudley looked interested in it and put the remote on the armrest. Unfortunately, I was not brash enough to throw him out, even though I was dead tired. It would leave a bad impression after he said how we knew each other when we were teenagers.
I did okay keeping my eyes open for the first half-hour of the film. After that, I started to fade. I didn’t want to fall asleep, but the day and the night and the day of hard work were catching up with me and I couldn’t stay awake anymore.
I slept.
In my dream, time turned back years and years. I was beside a fire and I was dead tired—a lot like now. There were slivers of wood in my palms and I tried to pull them out as I lay back, my head resting on someone’s thigh.
Gentle hands took mine, one by one, and the worst of the splinters were removed quickly and painlessly with the tweezers on a Swiss pocket knife.
I looked back at the fire and saw the feet of the vampire we were burning.
Suddenly I woke with a start, my tired mind trying to sort out my dream of the past. Those weren’t London’s hands touching mine. She didn’t help me burn the body. Who else was there?
In the here and now, I sat in my own apartment with my head resting on Dudley’s shoulder. His arm was around me and his cheek rested on the top of my head. “I have never been sorry for helping you,” he said gently.