Teeth: Vampire Tales

There were so many of them, and so many kinds, more than Retta had ever imagined. There were vampires who fed on the blood of others, and there were vampires who fed on feelings, like Trevor. There were vampires who fed on sunlight (they mostly lived in Florida, California, Hawaii, and at certain times of the year Alaska), and there were vampires who fed on the dark, eating their way from midnight to morning. There were vampires who fed on tree bark and vampires that fed on crustaceans, there were vampires who fed on nothing but the sound of human voices, and there were vampires who fed on any attention they could receive (they often took up karaoke, made YouTube videos, or auditioned for reality television shows). They were everywhere, once you started looking, although it wasn’t until Trevor and his friends came to speak that Retta had ever seen one in person. That she knew of, as Trevor had weakly jested. To be honest, she’d expected something different. An old-fashioned vampire with long, sharp teeth, or at least one of the less expected vampires, the sort she could watch with fascination as they ate through a meal of darkness, or one who looked as if she were carved out of ivory, with bright green eyes, or some other sexy, slightly otherworldly physical composition.

But despite the fact that they seemed harmless, over the weekend phone calls were strung from house to house, and by Sunday parents were either frowning or wide-eyed with terror. Retta’s mother came into her room after receiving a call from her best friend, whose daughter was a junior and had been at the assembly, and said, “Why didn’t you tell me about these vampires, Retta?”

She stood in the doorway, hands on her hips.

Retta said, “Oh, them. I forgot about them.”

“How can you forget about vampires, Retta? They got into an argument with a boy who was sitting behind you! Seriously, I am livid. What did Mr. Masters think he was doing by having them in for an assembly?”

“Helping to educate us about vampires?”

“Retta,” said her mother, “you are so unwitting. Listen, because I’m only going to tell you once: no vampires, young lady. Not in this house, not outside it. Understand?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Retta, closing her book and sighing.

“I know you, Retta,” said her mother. “You’re the sort of girl we call ‘susceptible.’”

When she left, Retta said, “Who’s we?”

But her mother didn’t answer. She was already down the hall in her own bedroom yelling at Retta’s father about vampires, as if their existence were all his fault.

Retta wanted to disown them. She wanted to disown everything: her room, her house, her street, her town. She even wanted, after twelve years of best friendship, to disown Lottie, who sat down across from her at a picnic table during lunch on Monday and said, “You total slut,” without any prelude.

Retta looked up from her cup of strawberry yogurt and said, “What are you talking about?”

“I saw you,” said Lottie in a harsh, whispery voice. She leaned across the table and said, “I saw you ride home with that vampire kid last Friday. You didn’t go back to class. You totally went off with him.”

“What are you, some kind of stalker?” asked Retta, twirling her spork in the plastic yogurt container, trying not to look at Lottie.

“Stalker? Oh, really? Is that how it is? I’m a stalker, not some kid who says he’s a vampire?” Lottie tucked her hair behind her ears and shook her head in resignation.

“You are so dramatic, Lottie.”

“What’s his name?”

“Trevor,” said Retta, who could not help but smile a little after she said it, as if she were only telling one half of a secret, keeping the rest to herself.

“Uck,” said Lottie. “Even his name is a loser name. What are you going to do? Marry him and have loser vampire babies?”

“Grow up, Lottie,” said Retta. “You don’t know anything about him.”

“Neither do you, I bet,” said Lottie. She folded her arms across her chest and leaned back, sitting up straight. “I bet you don’t even know where he lives.”

“No,” said Retta. “You’re right. I don’t.”

“But he knows where you live,” said Lottie, tilting her head to the side, smirking like she’d just won a game of chess.

“I’m okay with that,” said Retta, and stood up to throw away her yogurt.

“Hey,” said Lottie. “Where are you going? What’s the matter with you? Retta?”

“I’m late for chorus,” said Retta, and kept on going.

Behind her, Lottie said, “Retta! I’m serious! You should be more careful!”

“I am,” said Retta over her shoulder. “I’m always careful. I’m nothing but careful.”

But there was nothing for Retta to be careful about, really, because when she stepped out of her last class and into the parking lot that afternoon, he wasn’t there. And he wasn’t there the next day either. Or the next. It was Wednesday, then it was Thursday, and although everyone was still talking about the vampires, it seemed like they might never see one again. There were a few people who now claimed they were vampires, of course: Jason Snelling, who had been a nose picker for as long as anyone could remember, so no one was really impressed; and Tammie Galore, an ex-cheerleader who had quit cheering because she’d fallen from the top of a pyramid a year ago, and six months of wearing a cast up to her crotch and having multiple surgeries to fix her leg afterward had left her afraid to return to the happy squad. Apparently she was a vampire, too, although she never revealed what kind, exactly. Most people assumed she was lying for the attention.

And there were others who came forward: a quiet librarian who wore cat-eye glasses and white blouses with pearl buttons, tight little navy blue skirts; a plumber who lived just three streets over from Retta, who had actually been in her house to fix a toilet, but since it was for pay it probably didn’t invoke the vampire right to enter a house once he’s been invited, said Retta’s father; an old man who played the saxophone downtown on Friday and Saturday nights, wearing sunglasses as if it were still bright out. Retta had always assumed he was blind. Go figure.

It was a week of lively discussion that followed the appearance of Trevor and his vampire friends. Even the PTA had met by that Thursday evening to discuss whether Mr. Masters should be penalized for having allowed the vampires to speak at all. “Of course he should be,” said Retta’s mother after she came home from the meeting. “He should be fired. We should sue him for endangering the lives of our children.”

“We only have one child,” said Retta’s father, hanging up his Windbreaker in the foyer closet.

“It’s a figure of speech, Clyde,” said Retta’s mother. “It’s a figure of speech.”

Retta left them arguing over the issue in the kitchen and went upstairs to sit on her bed and look at her room as if it would offer her something special at that very moment. But all she saw was her hairbrush, curling iron, an uncapped lipstick on the dresser, a rumpled bedspread, clothes she hadn’t worn in a long time strung out on the floor in twisted shapes like the chalked outlines of murder victims. Then her cell phone rang and she reached for it with extreme zeal, glad that, finally, the world had responded in a timely ma

“Hey, did you hear about the PTA meeting?”

“Yeah, my mom and dad just got home,” said Retta. “Penalty or no penalty? Poor Mr. Masters.”

“Sounds like they’ll let it go this time,” said Lottie, “but not if he screws up again.”

“Lottie,” said Retta, “why are we even interested? We’re graduating. We’re out of here. If I want to talk to a vampire, I can. We’re adults, aren’t we?”

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. Then Lottie said, “You are so hot for that kid! I can’t believe it!”