Fangs for Nothing (Vampire Hunting and Other Foolish Endeavors) (5 page)

“
Rini is a real girl, Grandma, but no, I’m not talking to her.”

“Oh
.” Grandma changed her tone instantly. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t realize. You go right ahead and take all the time you need.”

“Thanks, Grandma.”

“But get off in ten minutes.”

“Okay, Grandma.”

Turnover: Sherbie?

Sherbert:
  Yeah?

Turnover:
You’re making me feel insecure over here.

Sherbert:
Sorry. I was talking to my grandmother.

Turnover:
Well, do you?

Sherbert:
What?

Turnover:
Want to hang out when I get there?

I decided to accept my fate and just go with it. Once some girls pick
ed up Xander’s scent, it was almost impossible to shake them off for at least a month. Besides, if I could convince Lana to come by the house once or twice, it would appease Grandma for a while, and I’d be able to chauffer her crankiness around town without her trying to set me up with every female under the age of forty and over the age of twelve.

Sherbert:
Sure. When are you coming in?

Chapter
5

The Lake View Cemetery was founded in 1869. That’s post-Civil War, baby. It’s super pretty, so we like to hang out there on sunny afternoons. Rockefeller is buried there, aka the original Mr. John D. Standard Oil. He was a billionaire back when a billion dollars really meant something. He’s got a big old obelisk at the top of a small hill, the highest point in the cemetery. I guess he wanted to be able to look down on everybody. The lesser Rockefellers are buried around him in concentric rings. Rini always wants to put a dime on his grave, even though she usually borrows it off of Xander. He always seems to have one handy.

The story
of the dime goes that one day this poor guy approached Rockefeller and asked him for some money. John D. asked why he should give the guy some dough and the guy replied, “Because I’m poor and you’re rich.” So Rockefeller had his accountant calculate how much he was worth that day. Then he had him calculate how many people were in the world. He divided the first number by the second number and handed the guy ten cents. He said, “If I took all my money and divided it up among everybody in the world, here’s what you’d get.” I don’t know if the story is true or not, but that’s why people put dimes on Rockefeller’s grave.

If you look down from Rockefeller’s
monument, you see an entire forest of obelisks marking the final resting places of people who were rich but not quite as rich as the original robber baron. But hey, they probably didn’t give as much money to charity as he did, either. I guess obelisk grave markers were all the rage in the 1930s. Looking out at all of them always makes me giggle a little. It’s as if the departed are whispering from the grave, “I’m dead now, but remember my penis.”

I much prefer the
mausoleums. There are all sorts of miniature pharaoh’s tombs and Greek temples. Some of them even have stained glass windows and everything. I always think that post-apocalypse, I’ll move into one of the mausoleums and set up residence there. At least it would be a pretty place to wait out the end of the world.

Xander is always hot to get inside the Wade Chapel
during the afternoon sun, and here’s why. In a word, Tiffany. In three words, Louis Comfort Tiffany. How cool is the middle name Comfort, by the way? Someday I hope to own a piece of Tiffany glass. Not Tiffany and Co., mind you, but the L.C.T. himself. That would be totally cool. If you hit the Wade Chapel when the light is streaming in, it’s like a religiously themed enchanted fairy garden. It’s unbelievably pretty. Good old Louis Comfort really knew what he was doing.

W
e made our rounds, as we do. Sometimes, if we have a little alcohol, we even go sneak a drink by the grave of Elliot Ness—that old, ironic drunk. Sure, he made the big time busting prohibition bootleggers, but that didn’t keep him from dying penniless of alcoholism.

T
oday we were just taking in the vista and enjoying the sunshine. Rini parked herself on a bench and said, “I think I’ve got a stone in my boot. You guys look at the Garfield monument for a minute while I deal with it, okay?” Garfield, one of America’s assassinated presidents, is also buried at Lake View. He’s got a pretty cool tomb. Plus—trivia flash—his wife was named Lucretia. How cool is that?

I plunked down next to Rini
, ready to have a little break and to soak up the panorama. Xander stood looking at the yard for several moments. It was only us in the cemetery, so I couldn’t figure out why he was deploying his Tyrone Power eyes, contemplating the tombstones in a deep and detached way. It was probably just habit. Then fishing in a satchel he was carrying, Xander sidled up to Rini. “I got you a present,” he said, pulling out a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.

“What?” I
sputtered. “Why are you always getting Rini presents? What about me? Why don’t I get any presents?”

He glanced over at me.
“Because you smell.”

“I do not smell
,” I said with a little more vehemence than I had intended.

“Relax, Sherbie
.” Rini laughed at me. “You guys have been friends like forever. Can’t you tell when he’s teasing?” She toyed with the knot in the twine. “I’m sure it’s something for all of us to share. Isn’t that usually what happens?”

She was right. Xander took great delight in yanking my chain from time to time. He was always treating for dinner or buying our airplan
e tickets. In a way, I was pretty spoiled from being his best friend. And he did frequently come up with stuff that he thought we’d all like. I guess he gave the presents to Rini because, as straight guys, it would look a little funny if he gave them to me. To be honest, I’ve really never heard of any teenager with Xander’s largess. Or any adult for that matter.

Xander
slid up to Rini on the other side of the bench. “Open it,” he said, nudging her with his shoulder.

Making short work of the paper
and twine, Rini pulled out a slim, leather-bound book. “
The Devil’s Dictionary
by Ambrose Bierce,” she read from the cover. “Hey, isn’t that the
Occurrence at Owl Creek
guy?”

“
Exactly.” Xander nodded. “He wrote his own dictionary. Some of it is really funny. Check out what it says under
Mausoleum
.” Rini gave him an odd look, but he insisted, “Go on. Look it up.”

Cracking open
the volume, she thumbed through the pages. “Mausoleum,” she read aloud. “The final and funniest folly of the rich.”

Simultaneously
, our eyes shifted to the ornate miniature marble houses and hundreds of phallic symbols that were laid out before us thrusting toward the sky. “That’s pretty good.” I chuckled.

“
Isn’t it?” Xander flashed his pearly whites. “I thought you might like it.” Both us guys leaned toward Rini to get a better look at the book. “Now, read the definition for
grave
,” he instructed.

Rini complied
. “Grave. A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.” She smiled at Xander. “Oh, grave robbing. That’s so dark and historical. I’m already in love with this book.”

“Yeah
.” I had to agree. “Me, too. It’s hilarious.”

Xander
was pleased.

Some dendrophiliacs
, aka arborists, strolled past,  presumably from a nearby university. Lake View has trees from all over the world, so tree people frequently visit to study the different species. Something mustard colored among the obelisks caught my eye. It was Violet Girl. Again! This time she was monochromatically clad in a vibrant dark yellow. Enough was enough. It’s one thing to “run into” Xander at the Westgate Mall, but completely something else to follow him to Lake View. This was our cemetery. No stalkers allowed.

I
jumped to my feet and swiftly started walking toward her. She withdrew behind an obelisk, but I knew where she was. “Hey, you,” I called. “You in the mustard dress.” I rounded the monument to confront her, but she wasn’t there. “What the…” I said to myself, scanning the headstones. A glimpse of yellow twenty yards away caught my eye as the girl dashed behind a statue of an angel signaling to all souls that if everything went according to plan they should be heading north. Quickening my pace, I pursued her.

“Where you going?” Xander called after me, but I waved him off.

The afternoon was pushing on toward evening causing the shadows from the grave markers to stretch across the lawn. It was stupid to be chasing this crazy girl, and I knew it, but that didn’t stop me. By the time I got to the angel, the mustard dress had disappeared around the back of an art deco mausoleum. I was going at a full-out sprint by that point, determined to confront the girl.

The back of the mausoleum was bereft of crazy girls, but I did catch a glimpse of her skirt rounding the building. I slowed to a sneaking pace and tiptoed after her. Two pony
-sized sphinxes guarded the front of the tomb. Now, I am normally very respectful of graves, art, and other people’s property, but Violet Girl had really worked me up into a lather. Using the closest sphinx like a pummel horse, I vaulted over the statue and landed square in front of the mausoleum’s entrance. Caught completely by surprise, Violet Girl jerked back into the shadow of the doorway.

“
Um…” I hadn’t really planned what I was going to say once I caught her. “Hello?” She peeked out at me but still stayed hidden. “Yeah, I see you. What are you doing here?”

She
came out from the front of the tomb and stared at me with her emerald eyes for several seconds, breathing heavy from her flight. I felt like I was a new species she had stumbled across in the Australian outback and she was trying to decide if I was poisonous. “It’s a cemetery,” she eventually said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s open to the public. Just don’t pee behind a tombstone and they pretty much let you stay.”

“Yeah, but I saw you at the market
yesterday. And at the mall.”

“I know.
I saw you, too. Are you following me or something?” She casually touched her collarbone, running her fingertips along a thin silver chain to a familiar bat necklace. She was pretty. With her face slightly flushed from running, she looked even prettier than I remembered her at the market. Her long black hair swirled around her shoulders, and little tendrils curled against her alabaster skin. Her ears and nose came up in little peaks. She was definitely a sexy elf. I guess I was staring at her a bit because she added, “To be honest, you’re kind of creeping me out.”

I was at a loss for a moment
and a little embarrassed, but then I got annoyed. “Listen,” I told her, “I know what you’re up to, and it’s not going to work.”

“You do?”
She seemed surprised and took a small step backwards. I had obviously made her uncomfortable.

“Yeah, I’m not an idiot. I can figure these things out.
”

“You can?”
She acted even more alarmed.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She withdrew into herself a little more. Her face became pinched. “This isn’t good. I didn’t know I was being that obvious.”

“Well, y
ou are. And I’ve got to tell you, you’re not the first girl that’s tried this.”

This really threw her.
“I’m not?”

“No
.” It was probably best just to tell her straight out. “Girls fling themselves at Xander all the time. Women do it, too. And men. Actually, it’s pretty exhausting, and I’m just his friend.”

She took in my meaning. “Oh…” Her face relaxed
, and she expanded a little. “Xander. I get you.”

“
Are you going to stop following us around or what?” I asked.

She looked me
over as if she was trying to decide if she wanted to take me for a test drive. “I don’t know. That depends. I’m going to be under the bridge tonight. If you show up, I can’t guarantee we won’t run into each other.”

Th
at wasn’t exactly what I thought she was going to say. “Uh… Okay, fine. I won’t go under the bridge.” I had thought the piece of paper Xander had given me was a fake that he drew, but I was starting to wonder.

“Don’t let me stop you
.” She gave me a small smirk. “You can come if you want to.”

“
No, I don’t want to go under a bridge,” I assured her. “I won’t see you there.”

“Have it your way.
” She turned to go. “Anyway, it was nice talking to you, Herbert.”

“Wait
.” I stopped her. “Xander told you my name?”

She gave a small laugh.
“Not exactly.”

“Well, what’s your name?”

“Does it matter? Don’t you prefer calling me Violet Girl?” She laughed again and hurried away, disappearing among the headstones.

“Yeah, but that only works if you’re actually wearing violet,” I called after her, my voice echoing
inappropriately in the peaceful graveyard.