“So, take me on the tour,” I suggested, changing the subject far too enthusiastically. “I’ve only seen two rooms of your house. The parlor and your bedroom.”
“That wasn’t my bedroom,” he said. “That was a guest room.”
“You left your fledgling vampire childe to rise in your guest room?”
His lips twitched, and I could see him slowly coming out of his bad humor. “Where would you put a fledgling vampire childe to rise?”
I paused to think about it. “I don’t know. So, show me your bedroom. And I mean that in a perfectly respectable home-tour kind of way.”
Gabriel’s bedroom was surprising. I’d expected something lavish and baroque. Sort of Henry VIII meets Rudolph Valentino. But the walls were bare, a pale blue edging toward purple, the color of the sky just after dawn. The bed was wide and soft but plain, something you’d order from Ikea and then immediately regret. A thick navy tapestry curtain was pulled back, revealing a broad cushioned window seat, the only seating in the room. And his bathroom featured a shower big enough for six. He specifically mentioned that, which, frankly, worried me.
I ducked my head into his closet. Black as far as the eye could see. Black T-shirts, black sweaters, black button-down shirts, black slacks, broken up only by occasional splashes of slate gray.
“You ever thought about wearing a print?” I asked. “Maybe even a jewel tone? One of the less intense colors. Blue. Green. How about red? We know you like that one. Wait, are you color-blind?”
“I don’t wear jewel tones,” Gabriel muttered, leading me back out into the bedroom. “Or prints.”
There were no pictures, no mirrors, nothing on the walls save for a print of Edvard Munch’s Vampire, an ambiguous portrait of a seminude redheaded woman with her arms around and head bent over a dark-haired man. I stood, studying the image with a tilted head. Is he the vampire? Is she? Is he simply a lover seeking comfort at his redhead’s breast? Or are they two humans cowered in the shadow of the dark form looming behind them?
“What do you think of it?” he asked.
“It’s beautiful and sad and vague,” I said.
“You know, the original title of the painting was Love and Pain,” he said. “An art critic picked up on the underlying vampiric theme, and the name stuck. Munch experts were and are horrified, but you can’t deny the subconscious imagery.”
“You know, his ears are sort of shaped like yours,” I commented, looking from the slightly pointed painted ovals to Gabriel’s own lobes.
Gabriel grinned. “The artist found the back of my head to be quite compelling.”
“So, this is an altar to your vanity?” I asked, teasing.
“I enjoy the irony. A man interpreting me as a vampire but being told it’s impossible. What brought you rushing to my front door if it wasn’t bad news?” he asked as I pulled him back down the stairs toward the surprise I’d brought for him. He offered more than a little resistance as I pulled him farther and farther from the bedroom.
“I thought we might actually leave the house for a date. I figured we’ve covered the couch date. You are master of the corner lean and the casual backrub that might lead to something. I thought you might like to up the degree of difficulty. It’s time to leave the comfort of the make-out couch, Gabriel. Let’s go out to see a movie.”
He arched his eyebrows at me as I pulled him to the foyer.
“Moving images projected onto a screen in front of a darkened room full of people.” He shot me a withering look. “And since I don’t think even your broad horizons are quite ready for the Hollow Cineplex, I thought we would visit the dollar theater.”
“The dollar theater?”
“The old two-screen place downtown. They show old movies for a dollar a ticket. It’s sort of a gamble. Sometimes you see the ending, sometimes the film melts. But the seats are cushy, and there’s a lot of ambience.”
“You mean the Palladium?”
I chewed my lip. “I think that’s what the sputtering neon sign says.”
“The Palladium used to be the premier moving-picture palace in this end of the state. I saw my first film there, Casablanca.”
“You waited until the 1940s to see your first movie?”
He shrugged. “I had things to do.”
“Well, now the Palladium is the place where you can buy a bucket of beer with some very stale popcorn.”
“But … all those humans.”
“We’re vampires. If someone talks during the movie, we tear their throats out. Come on, I wore my cute date shoes and everything.”
He peered down at the strappy black pumps peeking out from my jeans. “You know I can’t resist you when your toes are exposed,” he grumped.
“Good, that means wearing open-toed shoes in winter is well worth it. And since we can’t exactly swing by for a pizza on our way into town, I brought you this.” I pulled a very nice bottle of donated Type B-positive, which I knew Gabriel favored, from the picnic basket.
“Very nice,” he commented, appraising the label. “Your palate is improving.”
“Thank you. Now let’s go.”
“What about drinking this?”
“I have a whole thing planned. Just relax that ramrod spine of yours and come with me.”
I took Gabriel to Memorial Park, a tiny patch of grass in the middle of downtown. It was home to a gazebo flanked by blackened cement statues of famous Civil War veterans from the Hollow, including Waco Marchand, who now served on the local commission for the Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead. High-school kids posed for pictures in their prom-night finery at the gazebo each spring. But tonight it was abandoned, empty save for the fairy lights strung from the carefully preserved gingerbread eaves. I winked at Gabriel and began unpacking the picnic basket on one of the gazebo’s little wrought-iron benches.
“It’s December,” Gabriel said, staring at me and tucking his coat tighter around his body.
“We stay at room temperature,” I reminded him, patting the bench. “Besides, we have twinkly Christmas lights, only available at this time of year. We have a lovely bottle of oaky B-positive. We have grapes and cheese, which, I’ll admit, I bought on the way over to your house strictly because I’ve seen people pack them for fancy wine picnics in movies. We have romance and atmosphere out the ying-yang.”
He gave me a smile that assured me that he was working hard to humor my girlie romanticism.
“I’m wearing the date shoes,” I reminded him.
“Curse your sassy toes,” he huffed. “Let me open that. You don’t want to cork it.”
“Are you implying that a little old thing like me can’t operate something as complicated as a corkscrew?” He grinned at my indignant tone. “OK, you’re right. But that’s not because I’m a woman. It’s because most of the stuff I drank when I was alive involved screw tops.”
“I’ve always enjoyed your little quirks.” He grunted at the faint pop of the cork coming loose. He carefully poured into the plastic wine glasses that came with the picnic set.
“What do we drink to?”
“World peace?” I suggested. He grimaced. “To doing things that normal couples do?”
He cleared his throat and raised his glass. “To Mrs. Mavis Stubblefield, without whom we would not be here together tonight.”
I laughed. “That’s kind of twisted.”
He nodded while he sipped. “But true.”