“Hello?”
“Tegan, it’s Dad.” His tone is grim, which is not a good sign.
“Hello, um, how are you?” I reply.
“I got a letter from your college today,” he says, daring me to pretend I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“Oh, you did.” Shit, shit, shit! My inner voice screams.
“Yes.”
I draw a nervous breath. “Right.”
“They wanted to know if you’ve dropped out, since according to their records you haven’t been attending classes in nearly three months.”
“I – I’m sorry Dad.” Admittance and apology all in one, maybe he’ll go easy on me for the quick yet unpleasant reveal.
“So it’s true then?” his voice informs me that he’d really wanted the letter to turn out to be some kind of clerical error.
“Yes, and I really am sorry but…”
“Why haven’t you been going to college?” he interrupts, disbelief colouring his words. He’s been living in blissful ignorance of how far my life has gone down the toilet these past few months. I feel guilty for enlightening him, but it has to be done.
“It’s complicated.”
“Are you doing drugs?” Accusatory now, ah the old reliable.
Sometimes, my inner voice interjects, but I tell it to shut up. “No.” I answer, voice tight with nervous tension.
He lets out a low curse. “That doesn’t sound very convincing, Tegan.”
“I’m not lying to you Dad, I swear.”
“Then you’d better tell me why all of a sudden you’ve decided to turn delinquent.”
“I can’t. You wouldn’t understand.” And I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to know the sad reality of my life now.
“The hell I wouldn’t! Now you’d better start talking or else I’ll have to resort to cutting you off financially, because I’m not going to fund whatever messed up lifestyle you’re living down there.”
“Fine. Do that then.”
“I’m serious Tegan.”
“I believe you, and to be honest I really don’t care anymore. Cut me off. Go ahead.” I’ve become angry at his harshness. I could never tell him the truth, it would be too weird, and I really just want to forget about Matthew. It’s bad enough that my heart hurts every day. If I tell my dad I’ll have to re-live it all, explain to him what happened, and I just can’t go there right now.
“You’d want to start acting right, you know that?” he threatens down the telephone. “And I’m not sending you any more money until you get yourself back to college and your head on straight.”
With this he hangs up, and tiredly I put the phone back down on the receiver. My lack of sleep last night is beginning to catch up on me. For a few minutes I just sit there, dejected. I don’t feel up to going back to college just yet. I can’t do it. I need to go slowly. Maybe I can repeat next year or something. A moment later my phone rings again and I pick it up.
“Look I’m sorry…” I begin, but am interrupted.
“Sorry for what?” asks a smooth male voice.
“Who is this? Ethan?” I reply.
“The very man,” he answers happily.
“Oh. Hello.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me what you’re sorry for?” he asks, humour colouring his tone.
“How did you get my number?” I ask.
“That’s for me to know and – well, you know the rest.”
“Creepy, very creepy.” I say, irritable after my previous phone call with Dad.
“Not so much. I asked your blond friend for it when I got back to the club last night.”
Well, maybe the means aren’t so psychopathic after all. Still, I’m wary of his persistence.
“Oh.”
“You don’t sound too pleased.”
“I’m having a bad day.”
“Then you should come to the club tonight and unwind.”
“Not likely.” I answer in a tight voice.
“Suit yourself,” says Ethan with a soft laugh.
“Sorry. You just caught me at a bad time.”
“How so? Are you okay?” The concern in his voice is touching, seen as I barely know him. However this only functions to make me ever more suspicious of his motivations.
“I’m fine, I just – I’m having money problems, so I think I’m going to have to forget about going back to college and start looking for a job.”
“Interesting.”
“Why is that?”
“You need a job and I need a PA, why don’t you come and work for me?”
“No thanks, God knows what being your PA would involve.”
He laughs. “Well it would involve the usual, faxing, filing, answering the phones, taking bookings, relieving my sexual needs, etcetera.”
“Yeah I thought as much.” I tell him, my tone doing all the rejecting for me.
“Seriously though, the offer stands. Think it over.” He tells me in a soft voice.
“I don’t have PA experience.”
“I’ll teach you,” he says, in a tone that insinuates other things.
“Sure.”
He lowers his voice. “I think I’d enjoy teaching you things.”
“Can’t say I w-would enjoy it.” Yeah, right.
“You stuttered,” he says, and even though I can’t see him I can tell that he’s grinning.
“And?”
“Usually means a person is lying.”
“Or maybe you’re just making me nervous.”
“I am? Hmm, I think I like making you nervous.” This bastard thinks he likes a lot of things.
“What was it you were calling me about again?” I ask before he takes it any further.
“Will you have dinner with me tonight?” he says straight away, in a very gentlemanly manner. It takes me off guard.
“Oh – you want to have dinner with me?” I’ve never been one of those people who go on dates. It’s just too, I don’t know, pretentious I suppose.
“Very much so,” he answers.
“I can’t I – I’m broke at the moment, and I really don’t have anything to wear.” Nothing but the clothes on my back and some very dirty laundry.
“You think I’d make you pay? Tegan, what kind of men have you been seeing?”
“Not good ones, obviously.”
“You deserve better.”
“Thank you.” I say hesitantly. He confuses me, one minute he’s talking like a smarmy flirt and the next he’s the perfect gentleman.
“So, will you do me the honour of your company?”
My heart skips a beat. Oh he can fuck right off if he thinks I’m fool enough to fall for his false chivalry. This thought is in contention with the unexpected answer that slips past my lips.
“Okay then, where do you want to meet?” What the hell, it’s not like I’ve got anything better to do. At least I’m not deluded enough to pretend that I have.
“Come to the club around seven, we’ll go somewhere from there.”
“All right, see you then.”
“See you,” he says and then hangs up.
I can’t say I’m not excited about going out with Ethan, but I get a strange vibe off him, like intense attraction and trouble all mixed in together, it’s confusing.
After buying food today I have exactly eleven pounds and fifty-seven pence left to live on for the foreseeable future. I need to find work and quick. At six-thirty I leave to catch a bus in the direction of Crimson. The fare is one-fifty, that leaves me with ten pounds seven pence. I like to do the maths, it keeps my mind occupied. When I get to Crimson I knock on the door because it hasn’t opened for business yet.
I still can’t get my head around the fact that Ethan owns this place, he just seems so young and care-free, not like a stressed out business owner at all. The big black iron door creaks open and a second later Lucas peeks his head out.
“Well hello, come to see me have you?” He leers, showing off those ridiculous fake fangs again
.
Some people just don’t know where to draw the line between real life and fantasy. My friend Amanda once convinced her boyfriend to let her drink his blood. She made him get tested and all beforehand, but still, I can’t see the logic to it. Or the pleasure. Amanda is a hard-core vampire role-play enthusiast. Perhaps I should introduce her to Lucas. I hesitate, what do I say to him?
“I, um, I’m here to meet Ethan.”
“Yes I know, just playin’ with ya,” he says with a grin, and all of a sudden the tension I’d felt a second ago has disappeared. “Come in,” he says, gesturing into the club.
He leads the way out to the hallway at the back and straight to Ethan’s office. Lucas knocks first, and I hear Ethan’s muffled voice say, “Enter.” How strange and formal, somebody definitely enjoys being the boss.
I peer down at myself to check I look all right. I’m still wearing the black jeans and white cardigan. I hold my coat over my arm. I hope he hadn’t planned on going anywhere fancy.
Lucas waits for me to go in and then says, “See you,” while smiling widely. Funny, the fangs are gone now, and I hadn’t noticed him remove them. He leaves and I stand by the door, the furthest away from Ethan as I can get. I don’t know where that instinct comes from.
“Hi.” I say.
“Hi yourself,” he replies, shrugging into a navy jacket. Then he comes over to me all too quickly, takes my hand and places a delicate kiss on my skin. I shiver.
“You look good enough to eat,” he breathes. “And you smell even better.”
“Sure I do,” I reply, trying for nonchalant and failing. The breathing hitches tend to give me away.
“Shall we?” he says, presenting me with his arm.
“Sure, where are we going?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“There’s this diner I like to go to for food. We could go there if you want?”
“All right, after you.”
He smiles intensely and leads me out the back to the car park. His silvery black Cadillac is parked in the best spot. God, I could probably survive for years on the price of that car.
“Nice wheels by the way,” I tell him as I strap myself in.
“She’s a beauty isn’t she,” he says, all in love with his shiny toy.
“Just out of curiosity, how much did this thing cost?” I ask.
“Bought her in the States last summer, cost about $67,000.”
“Fuck, that’s obscene.” I gasp. I’m also a little repulsed. To spend that on a car seems a waste to me.
“Not really, I like to ride in style.”
“Evidently.”
“It doesn’t sit well with your morals does it?” he grins, seeming to enjoy my obvious disgust.
“What doesn’t?” I feign ignorance, knowing that if I start on the subject I won’t stop until he realises I’m far too left wing for his liking. And pardon me for thinking with my stomach, but I want whatever free meal he’s planning on buying me.
“The fact that I spent all that money on a car,” he answers.
What can I say my brain and my trap are definitely two separate entities. I give him my personal view when I begin, “Well my dad is a school caretaker, and my mother died when I was three, I can’t even fathom having that kind of money to spend in a lifetime of saving. So no, in my view it’s not moral to spend that much on a car when you could just buy something like a Nissan that will get you from A to B and only cost a fraction of the price.”
“A Nissan?” he snorts.
“Yup. Some of us don’t even have the luxury of a Nissan. Some of us have to get around the old fashioned way, with our legs.”
“Yes, some people do,” he says in a deep voice, and I regret having said it because now he is focused intently on that previously mentioned part of my body.
“Speaking of which,” he continues. “Yours are a picture.”
“You should concentrate on the road, Ethan.” I reprimand his wandering gaze.
“Yes you’re right, I really, really should.” But despite him agreeing with me, his eyes still haven’t returned to the road.
I snap my fingers in his face to get his attention. A second later he lifts his gaze and focuses back on his driving.
“What is your problem?” I hiss.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s like you’re constantly sexed up. It’s making me uncomfortable, and I get the exact same vibe off your friend Lucas, even Delilah. Are you three some sort of sex addicts or what?”
He laughs deeply. “No, Tegan, we are not sex addicts. Have you considered that maybe it’s you?”
Is he mental? I have not made one step towards even light-hearted flirting with him, Delilah or Lucas. It’s certainly not me. “How could it be me? You lot are the ones coming on to me.”
“I can assure you, we’re not like that with everyone.”
“So what then? Am I somehow leading you on, without consciously being aware of it? Because it’s definitely not something I’m doing on purpose.”
“That’s exactly it my darling. It’s just you, and I’ve yet to discover what it is about you that is so – alluring.”
I look down at my feet and let my hair fall over my face. Hiding the blush on my cheeks.
“I like it when you do that,” he says, looking from the road to me.
“Do what?”
“Hide behind your hair.”
“Oh.”
“It makes my mind wander.”
“Right.”
“Do you want to know where it wanders to?”
“I have a feeling I don’t.”
He laughs softly and then pulls into the car park of a fast food restaurant, all glowing signs and traditional American diner style décor. Ethan gets out of the car and opens my door for me.
“Milady,” he says, bowing slightly and smirking. Then once again he offers me his arm and I take it.
When we get inside the people in the place hush their conversation for a moment, some nodding to Ethan in a respectful manner. After he nods back they return to what they were doing before we arrived.
“Ethan my man, how’s business?” says a tall, bulky but muscular man with curly red hair. He’s standing behind the counter and wearing a stained chef’s apron.
“Good. Business is booming so I’m happy,” Ethan replies while giving the man a sturdy handshake.
“That’s what I like to hear. I’ve been busy myself with this place.”
Then Ethan turns to me and says, “Tegan, Tommy, Tommy, Tegan,” introducing the two of us to each other.
“Hello,” I say quietly. The stature of the man is a little intimidating.
“She’s a cute one, Ethan,” says Tommy looking from me to my ‘date’. “Table for two is it?”
“That’d be great.”
Tommy leads us to a secluded booth at the back of the restaurant, hands us two menus and tells us he’ll send the waitress over to take our order.
“So you’re a regular here then?” I ask to fill the silence.
“Tommy makes the best burgers in the city,” says Ethan.
“I better order one then,” I reply.
“Order the whole menu if you want.”
Oh, well just colour me swooned. “Thanks for the offer but I think a burger will be enough.” And then, as if in disagreement, my stomach growls loudly. How embarrassing.
“You sure about that?” he laughs.
“Positive. I just haven’t eaten today yet that’s all.”
“You shouldn’t starve yourself, I know how women can be about their figures these days.”
“It’s not that. I didn’t have an appetite because my dad called this morning to tell me he found out I wasn’t attending my lectures, and now he’s cut me off. That kind of news tends to kill a person’s appetite, particularly when they don’t know where the money is coming from to fund their next meal.”
“Is that why you have to find a job?” he asks.
I nod.
“You
know, the offer still stands for you to come and work for me. If you’re not comfortable being my PA you could work in the club pulling pints and collecting glasses.”
“That’s nice of you to offer.” I say, mildly sarcastic, but I don’t think he picks up on it.
“I like you.”
“Um – thanks. But I’m going to put out some feelers first, and if I can’t find anything I might take you up on it.”
“I think I’m offended,” he smirks.
“Why?”
“Because you just said you’d take the job with me only as a last resort.”
“It’s not like that.”
“What is it like then?” he asks, clearly enjoying himself.
“Well, we’re on a date aren’t we?”
“Yes.”
“So I don’t think it would be wise to mix my work life with my personal life.”
“So you consider me a part of your personal life,” he breathes, leaning in closer to me over the table. Here we go again.
A second later we’re interrupted by a blond waitress who asks, “You two ready to order?” and I have a feeling that the sultry note in her voice is for Ethan’s benefit. Is it wrong to be irritated by that?
Ethan nods toward me. “Tegan?” and I have to admit that I like his manners.
“I’ll have the cheeseburger with fries and a coke, and could I get extra pickles on the burger?”
“Sure,” replies the waitress, and I think I see her scowl at me for a second before she turns to Ethan to take his order.
“I’ll have the bacon cheeseburger, large fries, a side salad and a large coke.” Then he shuts his menu and hands it back to her, before saying, “Thanks.”
She smiles lazily and replies, “No problem, honey.” Then she saunters off with an over-emphasised swing of her ample hips.
I find myself staring at the golden flecks that shine through Ethan’s hair, when he catches me watching him he smiles and says, “I’m getting under your skin aren’t I?”
“Not particularly,” I lie with a casual shrug.
“Admit it, Tegan,” he says, in a voice so low it’s almost a whisper.
“There’s nothing to admit.”
“You can try to avoid it all you want, but we will be together, it’s inevitable.”
“So what are you now, a psychic?” What an idiotic thing to say. If I had any cool at all I would have come up with something suave to say like, nothing’s inevitable but death, honey.