“I’ll give you something to remember me by,” I said. “The back of my head.”
I pushed past him and escaped through the door to freedom.
I stepped out of Dullsville High and into the bright glare of the sun.
The year was behind me. Overall, it had been the best year of my life, for I’d met, dated, danced, and fallen in love with Alexander Sterling.
Students were walking home or getting into their daddies’ overpriced luxury cars, heading off to begin their months of fun in the sun with people just like them. I’d spent a whole school year surrounded by people like Trevor.
My nemesis really forced me into seeing the light. It was time for me to be with people of my own kind. I wasn’t going to spend my summer sans Alexander, much less another day.
There was only one thing keeping me and Alexander apart now. Me.
And that could easily be fixed with just a phone call.
2
Deadhead
More than a few months ago I’d waved good-bye to my mother at Dullsville’s Greyhound bus stop and boarded the Hipsterville-bound bus to visit my ultraconservative father’s hippie sister, Aunt Libby.
Today I was on a Prozac high, minus the Prozac, ecstatic to return to the funky town of Hipsterville—home to unique coffee shops, with handmade coffee mugs and fresh scones (not the overincorporated cutout kinds with focus-group canned-in music), goth and hipster boutiques, and the perfectly morbid Coffin Club. I was excited to see Aunt Libby again, but even more important, I was only a few hours away from being reunited, or so I hoped, with my number-one vampire-mate.
I passed the bus ride doodling in my Olivia Outcast journal, imagining my reunion with Alexander. We’d meet inside the Coffin Club, where pale mannequins with bat wings hung from the ceiling and ghostlike fog permeated the air. Alexander would be waiting for me in the middle of the packed dance floor, with a single black rose. I’d run into his arms and he’d envelop me in them like a gothic Juliet. He’d lean into me and greet me with a long, seductive kiss, sending chills from my head to my combat boots. We’d dance the night away to the twisted sounds of the Skeletons until my legs could no longer hold me up. Alexander and I would venture off into a tiny church’s graveyard, and we’d climb into a vacant crypt, where an empty coffin would be awaiting us. He’d close the lid on our night as dawn approached, and we’d snuggle together in darkness.
I was halfway through an episode of The Munsters on Billy Boy’s borrowed (or rather bribed) iPod when I noticed the two-mile exit sign for Hipsterville.
Last time I arrived in Hipsterville, sunny skies and puffy blue clouds hung over the town. This time I was met with ominous clouds and a fierce downpour.
I covered myself with my skull-and-crossbones hoodie as the driver, undeterred by the pouring rain, unloaded suitcases from the bus’s cargo hold. Finally I saw my suitcase, grabbed it, and huddled underneath the bus-stop shelter along with a crowd of other passengers. One thing hadn’t changed—Aunt Libby was nowhere to be found.
I watched as each traveler was picked up by their party until I was the only traveler left waiting at the stop. When tapping my boots in the rising puddles grew boring, I headed for the convenience store a few yards away. I checked the aisles for any hippie chicks with the scent of potpourri or women wearing Nairobi sandals and tie-dyed skirts. Unfortunately, all I saw were a few truckers and the hungry bus driver.
I grew more excited to see my hipster Aunt Libby again. She and I were outsiders among the Madison clan. My aunt lived an unconventional lifestyle, working as a waitress in a vegan restaurant to support her acting career. She was a free spirit, and Hipsterville was a funky town where she could be her organic-eating, hemp-wearing, liberal self. Though we had different tastes, I always felt bonded with her in that we shared a passion for being different.
Ten minutes later, Aunt Libby was still nowhere to be found. Perhaps she was stuck in a rehearsal or filling up the saltshakers at the restaurant. I could feel the glare of the tattooed cashier. I didn’t want to appear to be loitering, which I was, or stealing, which I wasn’t. My stomach started to growl. I hovered over the candy aisle, debating which sugary cavity-forming candy to buy, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around. A beautiful lady wearing pressed pants, a Happy Homes real estate jacket, and my dad’s smile was standing in front of me.
“Aunt Libby?” I asked, confused.
“Raven! It’s great to see you!” She gave me a hard squeeze and I could feel her rain-stained face against my own dampened one. “I hope I wasn’t too late.”
“I just got here,” I fibbed.
“I bet you’re starved. We can stop and grab a bite. I took the rest of the day off.” She lifted my suitcase and we hurried into her vintage Beetle.
I couldn’t help but stare at my aunt, who had traded her waitress outfit for a real estate one, as we buckled in.
“Surprised to see me in a suit?” she asked, obviously reading my thoughts.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without sandals and a flower in your hair,” I teased.
“I figured it was time to get a real job,” she confessed. “I didn’t bother telling your father. I haven’t been working that long and I’ve already taken a half day.” She laughed. “So who knows how much longer it will last.”
She started the car and the engine putt-putted as she motored through the historic downtown area.
Aunt Libby was such an independent spirit, I felt disappointed and sad that she was giving up her dream. I didn’t want her to change, nor did I ever want to change. I wondered, if Aunt Libby had to give up her passions, would I have to, too?
“Have you given up acting?” I asked.
“No, it’s in my blood,” she said. “In fact, I’m doing a one-woman show. You can take the girl out of acting but not the acting out of the girl.”
I felt relieved. “A one-woman show…That’s great. Soon enough you’ll have your own Oscar.”
Aunt Libby chuckled, then turned serious. Raindrops pelted the windshield and the rustic wipers struggled to clear them as we headed toward her apartment.
Something felt strange as I gazed out the window. An eerie shadow blanketed the town as we drove through it. I thought I saw a few bats hovering over a church.
“Wow…Those look like…”
“Bats?”
“Yes.”
“There was a nest of them in one of the houses we have on the market. You would have loved it!”
“Awesome.”
“And you would have loved this house we just rented.”
“Really? Is it spooky?”
“Completely. It was a half-dead manor house.”
“A manor house?” I asked. It couldn’t have been the one Alexander and Jameson had occupied last time I was here.
“Yes,” my aunt replied.
“Well, there must be a lot in this town,” I hinted.
“Not too many. And not one like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“It had been abandoned for years. The back lawn was completely overgrown, and I think the floors needed to be rehabbed, but the new renter didn’t seem to mind.”
“Is it the one on Lennox Hill Road?”
“Yes. How would you know?”
“Uh…I remember seeing pictures of it in the paper the last time I was here,” I lied.