Vampire 01 - Daughter of Darkness

expect it to lead, anyway? A date? It would be like playing with fire. You would be teasing him, giving him hope that something could come of a relationship.
    I didn’t trust Ava. I had nightmares about what she might do, regardless of the restrictions Daddy placed on her. I could call Buddy to warn him.
    But how? Would he believe what you told him if youdared to tell him? You’d be betraying your family, betraying Daddy.
    But what if you don’t tell him anything?
I thought.
What if one night, you heard Ava’s car drive up and you saw Buddy Gilroy step out of it? Would you just watch in silence, or would you cry out? And what would you cry out? “Run”? “Watch out for my daddy”? What?
    Wouldn’t it be better to avoid that scene, and what better way is there to avoid it than to go to him, to warn him ahead of time?
    I sat on the bench again, but before I could decide, my cell phone rang. It was not outside the realm of my thinking to imagine that Ava or even Daddy knew I had tried to call Buddy. I let it ring again, and then I flipped it open and said, “Hello.”
    “Who is this?” I heard. “Huh? You called me, but I couldn’t answer it in time. Is this Elsa?”
    “Elsa?” I asked.
    He laughed.
    Who was Elsa? Then I remembered. That was Ava’s phony name the night we went to Dante’s Inferno. He must have given her his cell-phone number, too. Otherwise, why would he even think it was Ava calling him? She wasn’t lying to me, then. She had come on to him, and she had him infatuated with her. I felt like hanging up and really trying to forget him, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.
    “No,” I said. “It’s Lorelei.”
    “Lorelei? Really?” The excitement in his voice encouraged me.
    “Yes, although I guess you were expecting someone else.”
    “No, no. I wasn’t expecting anyone else. What a great surprise. Please. Where are you? When can I see you?” His eagerness made me smile.
    “What makes you think I want to see you?” I teased.
    “Hey, when a prayer is answered, I never question it,” he said.
    I looked at my watch. Since Ava was picking up Marla, I didn’t have to return directly home after school. If I left early and Marla found out, she would surely tell Ava. No, I had to tolerate the rest of the school day, although it was going to be as useless for me as the morning had been.
    “I’ll meet you at three-thirty on the Santa Monica Pier,” I said.
    “Three-thirty?”
    “Is that all right?”
    “I’ve got to cut a class, but that’s fine. I hate the class anyway,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
    Another thought occurred to me. “Really, Buddy, was Elsa supposed to call you today?”
    “Sometime soon,” he said. “Why?”
    “If she calls, please don’t mention I called you or that you’re seeing me.”
    “No problem.”
    “It’s very important. If you do mention it, I’ll never be able to see you again.”
    “Okay. How’s this? Elsa who?”
    I smiled to myself. That was the reaction from him that Ava had expected if my name was ever mentioned.
    “Great. See you then,” I said, and hung up before I could change my mind.
    What had I done? At least four times before the school day ended, I paused to step outside and call him again to cancel, but every time, I resisted. When the final bell rang, I hung back so that Ava and Marla would leave the parking lot before I appeared. I stood by the doorway and watched Marla get into Ava’s car. As soon as they pulled away, I hurried out to my car. Just as my fingers had trembled when I had gone to insert the keys to Daddy’s desk drawers, they trembled again. When the car started, I sat back for a moment and took deep breaths.
    Every teenage girl in that school behind me surely had done something in defiance of her parents, whether it was drinking alcohol, smoking pot, going places that were forbidden with other girls or boys who were forbidden, or merely staying out too late. There was probably a list of defiant acts that would fill a few shelves in the school library. No matter what act she committed, the first thing she had to have felt was fear. I wasn’t thinking of those girls who were so bad, so defiant, that they couldn’t care less if they were caught. The girls I was thinking of were more like me, girls who had made promises, who had been obedient and responsible, girls who were always trusted. In their hearts, they dreaded being discovered and seeing that look of deep disappointment on their parents’