Sally had intended to tease Lavinia for a while. “You know, when I told my dad to go fuck himself, I was so embarrassed that I didn’t know any good Chinese insults that I looked up a ton of them. I could call you bun dan which means ‘dumb egg’ or yun toe ju nou, that’s ‘pig brain.’ That would be extra good because pigs are, what was it, ‘trayf,’ right?”
But when she saw the fright in Lavinia’s eyes, she just cried, “Loosen up, gweilo. It’s still a big, beautiful yes!”
Lavinia’s lovely face (and it really was a lovely face), relaxed into cautious happiness. “You really thought about it?”
Sally slammed the doors and sat cross-legged beside Lavinia’s stretched-out form.
“One,” she ticked on her index finger, “I was miserable when I thought I’d lost you. I never want to feel that lost and hopeless again.
“Two,” middle finger this time, “I fought for you and almost died rather than lose you again.” Joy dawned which Lavinia couldn’t hide.
“Three,” ring finger, with symbolism she delighted in. “Just being sad when someone is gone isn’t good enough; I knew a couple got married because they missed each other when they were apart but got divorced within a month ‘cause they couldn’t stand being together. So big, fat, fucking three, I love you with all my heart, I’m filled with joy when I’m with you. Most of the time, I mean, when I’m not wanting to kick your butt. But good God, we’ve been together 24-7 for months now and sure we’ve had fights but I love being with you.”
“Okay, I get it,” Lavinia laughed.
“To quote someone I love, shuddup. Four,” adding the pinkie, “okay, you thought you didn’t deserve me. Well here comes some Chinese guilt back at you because just parenthetically you don’t know about guilt until you’ve had a Tiger Mom: I thought you didn’t deserve me either! I never thought I’d tell you that and I feel sick that I ever thought that way.” Lavinia looked relieved and Sally wondered if she had talked in her sleep. She straddled Lavinia and put her face up close.
“But! That wasn’t all. I felt something deeper from the moment I looked into your eyes and you, you damn Jewish-guilt-complex-on-legs, you did too.” Lavinia nodded almost shyly.
“Good, so no more nonsense about getting out of this.” She kissed Lavinia deeply and thoroughly.
Were her lips warmer than they’d been? As they kissed tenderly Sally treasured the crazy idea that her love was healing Lavinia.
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Pulling up from the warm pool, Sally asked lazily, “So what did you stop yourself from asking me to promise back then?”
Lavinia wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Ah, just some stupid…”
“Tell me.” A warm kiss. “Te-ell me.” A longer, deeper kiss. “Come on, you were nobly going to let me walk away for my own good. What did you need me to promise?”
“Aw well, I was gonna ask you, if you did decide to walk, to stake me first.”
Sally felt a pang. “You’d rather have died than live without me?”
Lavinia thought a long time. “If I was still human, maybe no problem, I lived with sad and miserable enough, Jesus fuck. But I didn’t want to exist as a vampire without you. I’m sorry.” She seemed ashamed, like she’d been selfish.
Sally regarded her with great tenderness. “I’ve got more to tell you. Big revelation. Should I get you into sunlight first?”
Lavinia moved her head slightly side to side. “I won’t be able to think if it’s like yesterday. I’m good.” Her eyes were still melted candy. “I’m actually amazingly good. Tell me the rest of it, tiger.”
Sally sat up, still straddling Lavinia. “I was emptying the slosh chamber and thinking now that I’ve seen the spark of humanity in the vampires, I couldn’t pour shit on their heads – don’t laugh, I thought they were down there!
“Anyway, blam, it hit me, just like that. So simple and crazy obvious, I can’t believe not one of us has realized it in five years.”
Lavinia nodded expectantly.
“Think of any vampire you’ve ever seen before last night. Can you remember what any individual looked like? Race, sex, nationality, facial features, anything?”
Lavinia was gratifyingly astonished. “Fuck, no, they’re all generic, white, evil, hissing things.” She thought a moment. “They’re all old movie Draculas.”
Sally nodded excitedly. “Now think of the gang last night. Outside, they were still like that. But once you invited them in some were black, some white, some men, some women.” She wrinkled her brow. “I’ll go further: there was a heavyset Hawaiian guy and one woman of Japanese descent.
“And just now, the vampire I killed last night, in the sunlight I could see him as a black man in his twenties or thirties. The sun was bringing him back but his wound where I … bit him ….” Sally swallowed a lump in her throat. “He died.”
Her eyes widened. “That’s why he looked all ecstatic and crying at the same time: he knew he’d have to die just when he was finally human again. Aw Jesus.”
“Coulda been something else,” Lavinia offered. “Still a fuck of a lot we don’t know.”
“I know.” Maybe putting her hand on his arm (offering forgiveness? compassion?) had given him an absolution he needed before he could let go and die.
He looked like someone I’d have enjoyed having coffee with.
“Anyway, love,” she forced herself to move on. “We know something nobody else knows: vampires can be brought back. And it hit me what I have to do. I have to help everyone see that. We have to help them see that we can cure the world not by shutting the vampires out but by welcoming them back in.”
It had sounded smarter in her head. The words spoken out loud wavered impossible in the air. When Lavinia shook her head, the barest perceptible movement, it seemed they would puff away. Angry, she prepared to defend a cloud castle she could no longer see.
But then Lavinia spoke. “Look me in the eye, tiger. You’re wrong about one big, major thing.” Sally counted four hammering beats of her heart. “I gotta help, we gotta help. But you, you don’t gotta help. You gotta lead.”
Sally gawked like she’d been hit by a solar flare.