Interview With a Jewish Vampire (32 page)

“
If it’s still in there it will come out by itself,” Tess said confidently. “Vampires automatically expel foreign matter and are not vulnerable to bacteria. There’s only one problem. She’s going to be ravenously hungry when she wakes up. Miriam probably is ravenous now, but she’s too polite to say so. Luckily Hannah is on duty at Miami-Dade Memorial. I’ll ask her to bring us some blood from the blood bank. We don’t like to do it, because technically it’s stealing, but this is an emergency.”

I relaxed in relief. Tess, as usual, had everything under control.

“
Sheldon, I need to rest myself. And it’s bedtime for you too.”

“
Here’s your bedroom, I prepared it beforehand.” Rachel showed us to a bedroom with a huge king-size bed. I couldn’t see much more because it was so dark. “The blackout curtains are drawn. Everything is ready for you,” she said.

I tried to thank her but she shushed me. “If we Golden Grandmas don’t stick together we’re sunk. Do you know what happened to her and Miriam? How she wound up kidnapped by drug dealers?”

“
I haven’t had time to ask. I guess we’ll have to wait until she wakes up.”

As soon as Sheldon and I got into bed I wrapped myself around him and started crying.

“
Oh baby, it’ll be OK, Mom will be OK, I promise.”

“
It will never be OK. She’s going to be a vampire forever and have to struggle with hunger and desires she never had before. She’s looks old but feels young, that’s a hell of a built-in dilemma. Mom is so headstrong, I’m afraid she’ll keep on getting into trouble.”

“
We’ll keep a closer eye on her from now on,” Sheldon promised.

“
How will we do that? I hardly ever see you when we’re home.”

“
That’s going to change too,” Sheldon took my face and kissed me. “A lot of things will change when we get back. There are a lot of things I haven’t told you. It’s time for me to tell you the truth.”

Suddenly I realized how much constant anxiety about our relationship had been plaguing me, how much misery I was in from never knowing what was going to happen from week to week, when he would show up, when he would disappear. The possibility that Sheldon was going to open up with me, be there for me, that things would change, lifted a burden from my heart, relieved an ache so persistent that I hadn’t even known it was there. I’d somehow learned to live with that pain—to almost ignore it. Suddenly I felt for the first time in a long time that maybe we could be happy together.

“
You mean that, Sheldon? Will you tell me what’s been going on with you? What’s been keeping you from making a commitment?”

“
Yes, Rhoda, I’ll tell you, but not now, not until we’ve got your mom sorted out and I figure out a few other things about my life in Crown Heights.”

“
I have stuff to tell you too, secrets I’ve been keeping.”

Sheldon smiled at me and raised his eyebrows, “I’m sure you have. I can’t be the only one with secrets.”

“
Let’s make a pledge to stop keeping secrets from each other from now on.”

“
I wouldn’t go that far, Rhoda. I’m a vampire. There are things about me you don’t want to know, that I’ll never tell you until …”

“
Until when?”

“
Let’s not talk about that now.”

I knew he was referring to me becoming a vampire someday, something which we had never actually discussed. I knew it was something I wanted when I lost enough weight. I knew it was something he didn’t want, both the weight loss and me changing into a vampire. But how would we deal with me getting old, or marriage, or any of that unless I became one. But if I did would he love me as much? He always said he loved my being human. And then there was another secret, one I’d never brought up with him and hardly ever admitted to myself. I wanted a child. Yes, I was forty-one but that wasn’t too late, lots of women had babies after forty. Could vampires father children? Or would I have to have in vitro with a human sperm donor? Did he want a child? How could I become a vampire and be the mother of a human child? Was there such a thing as a half-vampire, half-human? A demi-demon perhaps? Bella had a baby with Edward, maybe I could have one with Sheldon. There were too many goddamned questions and no answers, at least not yet.

Mom woke up the next night ravenous for blood, as predicted.

“
I need the elixir of life!” she shouted from the bedroom. “I am parched. I feel like I am trudging across the desert seeking an oasis.”

“
Can the hyperbole, Mom,” I shouted back. “Tess is getting you and Miriam some blood. You’re both in the doghouse here so watch it. You almost got us all killed.”

“
I would never kill a doggie, so no dog house please. I’ll take the pigpen. I know they’re not kosher but who cares, they are tasty.”

I walked into her bedroom and saw that she was sitting up looking very healthy. It occurred to me that she had fed recently—on human beings. I needed to get the details but I could wait.

“
I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor anyway.”

“
No, dear, although captivity was no fun.” She hadn’t looked all that upset when we found them, but I didn’t bring that up.

Tess walked into the bedroom with one wineglass full of red liquid for Mom and one for me.

“
I’ll take the Merlot, give her the Type O.”

Tess laughed, “I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

After Mom drank her fill I suggested a walk on the beach, just the two of us. I felt she would be more open if it was just me. Tess could question Miriam. Sheldon was still sleeping. He was totally beat.

We walked across the sand almost to the water’s edge. There was still a tinge of orange sunset on the horizon, and a huge full moon in the night sky. The waves sparkled as they rolled into shore gently.

“
I can see why someone wrote ‘Moon Over Miami,’” I said to Mom. “This is quite a beautiful sight.”

“
I used to dance to the Ray Charles version with your dad. It was terribly romantic,” she sniffled. “I wish he was around. I wish we’d done this together, then I wouldn’t be so lonely.” Mom gazed far into the distance.

I wished he was around too, then I wouldn’t be so worried about her.

“
I didn’t know you were lonely, Mom,” I murmured, trying to comfort her, putting my arm around her shoulder.” You never used to be. You’re always busy running around with the girls. Actually I thought I was the lonely one, at least until I met Sheldon.”

“
Since I became a vampire I’ve been feeling lonely. It’s like my hormones are turned on, even though I know they’re not. I miss being loved. I miss sex.” She looked wistful.

“
Too much information, at least the sex part. Is that why you went off with those boys, who were gay, by the way, in case you didn’t realize it.”

There were two couples tossing a volleyball in a big circle as we walked around them. The ball went wild traveling fast in our direction. Mom grabbed it right out of the air and tossed it back.

“
You didn’t know I used to play girls beach volleyball, did you? I was pretty damned good. And now I’m good again.”

“
I knew you were a tennis whiz, but I didn’t know about beach volleyball.”

“
I looked good in a bathing suit too, but that’s over. I hate feeling young, being able to do what I used to do, but looking old. I want it all I guess.”

“
So, were you hoping those boys would relieve your loneliness, Mom?”

“
I knew they wouldn’t, not really. But it was so flattering being fussed over by them. I knew they were gay, but I’ve always liked the gays and they like me.”

“
What happened? Tell me the entire story.”

“
I’ll try. Some of it went by in a drugged haze. They gave us all kinds of stuff. We can’t drink alcohol but we can smoke just about anything.”

“
Where did you meet them?”

“
At that reggae club. Moses asked me to dance. I was flattered of course and we danced for hours.”

“
Did he know you were a vampire?”

“
He figured something was strange about me. He asked, ‘What’s a nice old lady like you doing in a place like this?’” She giggled. “I said, ‘I’m not so nice.” He asked what I meant and I told him. He got really curious and asked all kinds of questions about what I ate, where I got blood, whether I’d ever attacked a human and drank their blood--ghoulish questions. I was already high on something he gave me, pot or maybe even crack, I have no idea, so I answered them. I was flattered by the attention.”

“
How did you wind up at The Morgue?”

“
They both asked if we wanted to go there after the reggae club, and we said sure. They told us it was a Goth club. I’d never heard of Goth so they explained what it was, and said they’d love us over there. They were all kids pretending to be vampires and we were the real thing. That was how it started.”

“
How what started?” Mom talked so softly I had to ask her to raise her voice so I could hear her.

“
We starting meeting them at the Morgue a couple of nights a week, we got hooked on whatever they gave us to smoke, and to drink.”

“
Drink?”

“
This is the hard part. They were drug dealers. They had us killing rival drug dealers and drinking their blood. It was addictive. They used us to get into these dealers’ places and surprise them. Then we’d pin them down and drink their blood. It was easy, I hate to say. The blood, well, it was the most delicious stuff I’ve tasted in my life. I couldn’t stop.”

“
So they just kept you around to be their hit girls?”

“
No, that’s not all. They could have done their own killing, they wanted us to get hooked on the blood and turn them into vampires. That’s what they really wanted from us.”

“
You didn’t do it, I assume?”

“
We couldn’t. We really didn’t know how. I know Sheldon turned me and Tess helped, but I couldn’t have turned them. Too complicated. They’d need a coffin, a burial place and all the other mishegas. I didn’t know how much blood I was supposed to take from them, we were afraid that if we started sucking their blood we couldn’t stop. Then I had no idea how much of our blood to give them, or how to give it.”

“
Thank goodness for that.”

“
I guess.” Mom did not sound anywhere near as relieved as I felt.

“
What do you mean, you guess?”

“
It was exciting. I miss the killing, the blood drinking. I know I was supposed to feel guilty but they were drug dealers, I couldn’t work up too much sympathy for them. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

I was too shocked to respond. Here was my sweet little mom talking about how much she liked killing and drinking blood.

“
I’m going to take a swim, Mom. Join me if you want.”

Swimming was the only thing I could bear to do at the moment—it had always been my escape, my best anti-anxiety medication. I’d worn a bathing suit under my capris and t-shirt, just in case I needed a salt water fix. Tonight I hoped cutting through the surf would clear my head so I could think of what to do next. Unfortunately in New York there was nowhere I liked to swim, but here was a warm, inviting ocean. Plunging into it was irresistible. Maybe I could wash away my sins, and by extension, Mom’s.

She did not join me. She found a stray broken beach chair that someone had abandoned and sat down with her head in her hands while I swam furiously until I was exhausted.

By the time I got out I’d realized one thing for sure, I couldn’t deal with her alone.

Tess and Sheldon were ready for us when we came back. They handed us brochures from the After Dark Rehab Center in Miami,
which they had had been discussing with Miriam, who didn’t look happy.

“
Fanny, they say we have to go away to rehab, that we’re too far gone to just go home,” Miriam said glumly.

“
What’s rehab?”

“
You go to a center for twenty-eight days as an inpatient to regain your sobriety.”

“
I’m sober,” Mom said. “I haven’t had a drink since I became a vampire.”

“
Mom,” I said, stretching out the middle vowel, “sober, as in no human blood. You’ve had a lot of human blood lately, and you got it in the worst possible way.”

“
You need to be detoxed, Fanny,” Sheldon chimed in. It won’t be terrible, much easier than for alcoholics or drug addicts. You just have to be weaned from human blood and get used to animal blood again. While you’re there you go to individual and group therapy to talk about your problems, whatever caused you to fall off the wagon in the first place.”

“
Problems? I haven’t got any problems.” Mom protested.

“
You were just telling me about how lonely you feel, how you want what you can’t have, Mom. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, but these are problems in your lifestyle.”

“
Fanny, a lot of vampires go through extreme emotional as well as physical changes when they’re turned. You, being older, have even more to face.” Sheldon went over to her, took her hand, and looked sympathetically into her eyes. I noticed he diplomatically said “older” instead of old. Sheldon was such a sweetie.

“
We can go together,” Miriam said. “It won’t be so bad.”