The Traveling Vampire Show (23 page)

“Think the fire’s ready yet?”

“Maybe. I’ll be right back.”

Leaving my beer on the step, I stood up and started toward the grill. As I walked, I could feel a slippery wetness in the lining of the swimming trunks that I wore under my jeans. It dismayed me. I mean, we’d just been kissing. It had been the most wonderful kiss of my life. It had been overwhelming, but sweet and pure, not sexual. At least that’s what I’d thought while it was happening. I hadn’t had a hard-on—at least I didn’t think so—and I certainly hadn’t ejaculated.

I’d sure leaked, though.

A hot, sick feeling flooded through me.

While I still had my back to Slim, I glanced down. The front of my jeans was safely hidden by the hanging front of my shirt. Rusty’s shirt, actually.

Vastly relieved, I looked down at the fire. The paper and kindling had burnt away, but the charcoal briquettes were just about right: the gray had almost reached their black centers.

“Looks ready,” I called to Slim.

“I’ll get the burgers.” She took another swig of beer, then reached down again and set her bottle on the step. Standing up, she plucked at the legs of her cut-offs. Then she turned around and rushed up the stairs. At the top, she swung open the screen door. She vanished into the kitchen.

I waited for the door to bang shut. My back to the house, I looked down and pulled aside the front of my shirttail.

No wet spot on my jeans.

One less thing to worry about.

Pretty soon, the kitchen door swung open and Slim came out with a platter of burgers in her hands. Though her hair wasn’t much longer than mine, a wispy flap of it draping her forehead and the fringe around her ears bounced as she trotted down the back stairs. So did her bikini top. I could see it jouncing up and down ever so slightly through the front of her T-shirt. The crew neck of her T-shirt drooped a little to the right from when she’d pulled at it to wipe off our mouths.

“I put salt and pepper on them,” Slim said as she came toward me. “Also, I found the buns.”

“Good deal,” I said.

While she held the platter, I removed the patties one at a time. They felt cold and greasy in my fingers, and sizzled when they hit the grill.

I looked at my hands. “Guess I’d better wash.”

“You could’ve used this.” Slim reached behind her back. Her hand returned holding a spatula, which must’ve come from a back pocket.

“Now you tell me.”

She grinned. “Go ahead and wash up. I’ll watch the burgers.”

“Right back,” I said. Taking the platter with me, I ran to the house. I set it on the counter next to the buns. The buns were already on another plate, open and slathered on both sides with mayonnaise.

Slim knew what we liked.

I hurried over to the sink. When I tried to wash my hands, I found that cold water wouldn’t take off the grease. I had to . use hot water and soap.

Through the window in front of my face, I could see Slim standing by the barbecue. Pale smoke was rising in front of her and drifting away on the breeze. She was frowning slightly. I couldn’t tell whether she was worried about something or just thinking hard. Maybe she was concentrating on the burger patties, trying to judge when to turn them over. She had the spatula ready in her right hand, but wasn’t using it yet. Her left arm hung by her side. She stood with her left leg stiff, all her weight on it, that side of her rump sort of pushing out against the seat of her cut-offs.

I might’ve kept staring at her forever, but the water burnt my hands. I gasped and jerked them out from under the faucet. They were stinging, so I let cold water run on them for a while. Then I dried them on the dish towel.

Slim was a big fan of cheeseburgers. So was I, for that matter. So I hurried to the fridge and took out our Velveeta. Carrying it to the counter and unwrapping it, I found myself remembering the Velveeta at Rusty’s house. And his mother’s bridge club. And Bitsy catching us. And how we’d run away from her.

Life had seemed wonderful for the past few minutes, but now I started feeling a little rotten again.

In my mind, I saw the eagerness on Bitsy’s face when she thought we’d be taking her with us.

Then I heard Rusty’s mother. Elizabeth has always been very fond of you.

I found our cheese slicer in a drawer.

I must say I’m terribly disappointed in you.

I pushed the tight wire of the slicer down through the block of Velveeta. When I had four slabs, each about half an inch thick, I put them on the plate with the buns. Then I picked up the plate and hurried outside.

Slim watched me trot down the stairs. She still had that frown on her face. As I neared her, she smiled. “Velveeta,” she said.

“Yep.”

“Just a sec.”

Fire was leaping around the patties, fueled by their dripping grease. Slim had already flipped them over. Their upturned sides were brown and glistening, striped with black indentations from the grill. They sizzled and crackled and smelled delicious. As I watched, Slim pressed down on each of them with the spatula, squeezing them flatter, making juices spill out their sides. Each time she mashed one, the fire underneath it went crazy.

After pressing all four of them, she switched the spatula to her left hand. With her right, she picked up the slabs of Velveeta. She laid them out, one on top of each patty.

Until she came to the fourth slab of Velveeta.

She gave me a quick grin. “This’ll be mine,” she said, and took a bite. A blissful look on her face, she started to put the remaining three-quarters of the slice on the fourth patty. Instead of letting it go, however, she brought it quickly back to her mouth and snapped off another quarter of it. “Gotta even up the sides,” she said through her mouthful. Then, reaching through the smoke and flames, she neatly set the remaining strip in the center of the patty.

By then, the cheese on the other burgers was starting to melt. “These are going to be great,” Slim said.

“Yeah.”

“But you know what?”

“What?” I asked.

“I’ve been thinking about Rusty.”

“Uh.”

“He really wants to see the Vampire Show.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I’ve been thinking, it might not be so easy for him to get out of his house tonight. They probably won’t let him out, and he won’t be able to sneak out in time if they’re keeping an eye on him.”

“Maybe it’s just as well,” I said. “It might be better if we all miss it.”

“He really has his heart set on it, though.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“He’d be so disappointed,” Slim said, and looked at the grill. Melted Velveeta was starting to spill down the sides of the patties and drip into the flames. “Uh-oh.” Quickly, she stabbed the spatula underneath one of the burgers, lifted it off the grill and slid it onto a bun.

“Should we go to Rusty’s rescue?” I asked.

“I think we’d better.” Slim scooped off another burger.

“I thought you liked it better without him around,” I said.

“I do,” she said. She flashed me a sly smile, then transferred another burger from the grill to a bun. “But he’s still our friend.”

“Yeah.”

“More appreciated in his absence than in his presence....”

I laughed.

She took off the last burger, the one with half as much Velveeta. “This one’s yours,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I’m kidding,” she said. “It’s ...”

“No, really, I’ll take it. I’d rather have that one.”

She laughed softly and shook her head. “If you want it that much, you can have it.” She set the top of the bun in place and pressed it down with her open hand. “She’s all yours.”

The sun normally would’ve been blazing in our eyes at this time of the evening, but it couldn’t get through the heavy clouds. Though the air felt muggy, a breeze came along every so often. A warm breeze. It felt pretty good, anyway.

We sat at the picnic table near the back of the lawn. It was painted green and had benches along both the long sides. Slim and I sat across from each other.

The cheeseburgers tasted great but they were very messy to eat. Juices and Velveeta dripped off their sides, ran down our chins, dribbled down our hands and fell onto the table. After just a few bites, I ran into the house to get napkins.

We’d finished our beers and needed something to drink with our burgers. So I went to the fridge. I half intended to grab a couple more beer bottles, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I took out a couple of Pepsis instead.

Then I hurried outside.

Watching me, Slim said, “Ah, Pepsi.”

“If you’d rather have more beer ...”

She shook her head. “This is just what I wanted.”

I put the cans on the table, gave Slim a couple of napkins, then sat down.

“Anyway,” she said, “we don’t want Rusty’s parents to smell beer on our breath.”

“Why are they gonna smell beer on our breath?”

She gave me a whimsical, tilted smile. “We drank beer.”

“I know that, but ...”

“And we’re going over to Rusty’s house when we get done eating.”

“We are?”

“We want to rescue him, don’t we?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, we can’t exactly go in and kick butts, you know? I mean, this is Rusty’s family.”

“Right.”

Her smile spread. “What we’ve got to do is kiss butts.”

When she said that, I suddenly remembered the wager about Valeria. Rusty had suggested that the loser would have to kiss Slim’s butt. And I’d imagined myself doing it. I imagined it now, too, and my face went red.

“That’s a figure of speech,” Slim pointed out.

“I know.”

“Anyway,” she said, “if we were literally going to kiss their butts, we wouldn’t need to worry about beer on our breath.”

“We’d have bigger worries.”

We both had a pretty good laugh, and then we went on eating. When we were done, we carried everything into the house and cleaned up. Slim washed the spatula, knife and platter. I dried them and put them away. Soon, every trace of our supper was gone except for the two empty beer bottles.

“What’ ll we do with those?” I asked.

“Find a sack. We’ll take them over to my place. We’ll put them with my mom’s empties, then grab a couple of fresh ones and bring them back here.”

I grinned. “Good plan.”

“Elementary, my dear Thompson.”

My dear.

She only said it to make a play on Sherlock Holmes, but the words gave me a warm feeling, anyway.

“We’d better take care of that, first,” she said. “Get it out of the way before we try to liberate Rusty.”

I found a grocery sack. The brown paper kind. (This was before anyone came up with the notion of “saving the trees” by providing plastic grocery bags—which now decorate the trees and fences and streets and rivers and never go away.) Mom used the grocery bags to line our wastebaskets and sometimes to wrap packages for mailing. So she had a good collection of them.

I got one and held it open for Slim. With the empty bottles in her hands, she bent down in front of me, the top of her head almost touching my belly. The bottles clinked together as she set them on the bottom of the sack.

Then she straightened up. We looked each other in the eyes. Smiling softly, she said, “Let me smell your breath.”

I set the sack down beside me. Slim moved in close, very close. She put her nose in front of my mouth and sniffed. I expected a smart remark, but didn’t get one. Instead of commenting on my breath, she put her mouth against mine and kissed me. Her arms went around me. She pressed her body against mine.

I thought about hugging her, but was afraid of her cuts. She didn’t have any cuts on her rear end, though. I could put my hands down there. I wanted to. But I didn’t dare. After all, that was below the belt.

While I was still struggling to work up the nerve, Slim took her mouth away and stepped back. “Your breath’s fine,” she whispered.

“Yours, too.”

“Smells like beer and cheeseburgers.”

“I thought you said it’s fine.”

“It is,” she said. “Only thing is, Mr. & Mrs. Simmons are going to know you’ve been drinking.”

“You, too.”

She smiled. “Maybe if we don’t let them kiss us...”

“They’d better not try.”

“Why don’t you go and brush your teeth?”

“I don’t think that’ll take care of it.”

“Can’t hurt. I’ll brush mine when we get to my place.”

“Well...”

“Go ahead, I’ll wait here.”

I ran up the stairs two at a time and hurried into the bathroom. After brushing my teeth, I used the toilet. This was the tough part about wearing swim trunks instead of underwear; they had no fly. Usually, I tried to maneuver myself out through the leghole of the trunks and the zipper of my jeans. But I didn’t feel like struggling, so I just dragged everything down around my ankles. My skin was hot and damp from being trapped inside all those clothes. In front, I was slippery as if I’d been dipped in liquid soap. I could hardly hold on to take aim. But the air felt great on all those hot, wet places.

Before flushing, I used a lot of toilet paper to dry myself. Then I pulled up my trunks and groaned at the way their hot, clammy lining clung to me. Quickly, I tugged them down again. I took off my shoes, jeans and trunks, then put my jeans back on. The dirty clothes hamper was next to the toilet. I dropped my trunks in, put my shoes on, then washed my hands and left the bathroom. Without anything on under my jeans, I felt dry and loose and free.

I could stay like this, I thought. Nobody’ll ever know.

But I knew I didn’t dare.

In my bedroom, I shut the door and turned on the light. I unbuttoned Rusty’s shirt, took it off, turned toward my bed and gave his shirt a toss.

On the pillow of my bed was a yellow rose.

My stomach dropped.

I leaped to my open closet, pulled a clean shirt off a hanger, then snatched Rusty’s shirt off the bed and ran to the door. I jerked it open.

“Slim!” I shouted.

“Yeah?” Her voice sounded far away. “What is it?”

I slapped the light switch. As darkness collapsed all around me, I raced down the hallway to the top of the stairs and then I ran down the stairs.

Slim was standing in the gloom of the kitchen, the grocery sack in her hand. “What’s wrong?” she asked.