THIRTEEN
Mr. Frederick J. Fitzwilliam’s Google Search History
how do you kiss if it has been three hundred years since
how can you know if she wants to kiss you
is it a bad idea to kiss your roommate
is it bad to think about or have sex with your roommate
age gap relationships
best breath mints
[EMAIL DRAFT, UNSENT]
From: Cassie Greenberg [[email protected]]
To: David Gutierrez [[email protected]]
Subject: submission for Contemporary Society art show
Dear David,
I wish to submit for consideration my three-dimensional oil and plastics mixed-media piece, Manor House on a Placid Lake, for River North Gallery’s Contemporary Society art exhibition in March. The dimensions of the canvas itself are three feet by two feet, with a cellophane-and-tinsel sculpture attachment extending out from the canvas another ten inches.
I have attached five JPEG images of my completed piece to this email for your consideration. Pursuant to the parameters set out in the Request for Submissions, the finished piece will be available for display in your gallery upon request.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Cassie S. Greenberg
By the time I got to the art studio, Sam and Scott were already there, standing in front of Manor House and staring at it with matching expressions I couldn’t parse.
They didn’t look horrified, at least. That was something.
I dropped my bag off at an empty cubicle and stood beside them. “Thanks so much for taking pictures for me,” I said to Scott. He had a fancy camera with a name I didn’t recognize and was a great amateur photographer. I was grateful he was available to do this. I was planning to submit to the River North Gallery art exhibition that evening, and while I’d already drafted my email to David, I needed to attach five pictures of my piece to it to be considered.
“It’s my pleasure.” Scott lifted his camera—worn suspended on a strap around his neck—without taking his eyes off what he was there to photograph. “Where should I . . . um.” He paused, then looked to Sam, wide-eyed, for help. Sam shook his head and chuckled quietly before turning back to whatever he was reading on his phone. “Where should I stand?”
I pointed to a spot about two feet away from where Manor House hung on the studio wall. “Start there. I think that’ll capture the light as it streams in through the window. Hopefully it’ll reflect off the tinsel-cellophane sculpture and really make the pictures pop.”
Scott’s mouth twitched. “Got it.”
“The manor house itself isn’t quite as large as I’d originally planned,” I mused. The explanation was probably unnecessary—Scott was a trooper to do this for me at all and probably didn’t really care. But I was excited about the finished project and needed to tell someone.
“Oh?” Scott moved around the piece, snapping a new picture every few seconds. “You’d initially wanted to make something bigger?”
“Sort of,” I admitted.
As I’d put the finishing touches on it over the past few days, my mind kept revisiting my conversation with Frederick about his past. In the process I’d inadvertently incorporated some of the details he’d shared about his old home. By the time I was finished with Manor House, the home it showed was smaller than what I’d originally planned, the plain wooden floors he’d described could be seen through the windows, and the roof had taken on a more thatched appearance than had been my original idea.
“The lake and the tinsel sculpture coming out of it are both bigger than I’d originally planned to compensate for the smaller house,” I added, as Scott continued to snap photos.
Scott grinned at me. “The plastic sculpture is the coolest part of it anyway.”
I couldn’t tell if he meant that or if he was just being nice. Either way, I definitely agreed.
“I hope the judges like it.”
What if they didn’t, though? I’d been so preoccupied with simply finishing this piece I hadn’t let myself think about what I’d do if it was rejected.
It would be okay, though. Eventually. It would suck in the short term, just like all the rejections I’d gotten over the past ten years had sucked. But I liked this piece, even if I was the only person who ever would. That had to count for something.
As Scott resumed taking pictures, I went back to the cubicle where I’d stashed my things and pulled out my laptop so I could review the email I’d drafted to David before I sent in my application.
And I nearly jumped out of my chair when I saw the email I’d just received.
From: Cressida Marks [[email protected]]
To: Cassie Greenberg [[email protected]]
Subject: Interview—Harmony Academy
Dear Cassie,
I am writing to let you know our hiring committee has evaluated your materials and would like to bring you to campus for an in-person interview. We are conducting interviews the last week of this month, and every Friday in December. Please let me know at your earliest convenience whether you are still interested in the position and, if so, what your availability is on these dates.
Sincerely,
Cressida Marks
Head of School
Harmony Academy
I read the email from Cressida Marks again, too stunned to believe that what I’d just read was real.
“Are you okay?” I startled at the sound of Sam’s voice. He peered at me from where he stood by Scott, worry lines notched between his brows. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Not a ghost,” I assured him. “I just found out I got a job interview I wasn’t expecting.” That was the understatement of the year. I’d only applied to Harmony Academy because I was having a good day and I’d had all the application materials on my hard drive. I hadn’t expected anything to come of it.
And now, just a few days later, Cressida Marks, the head of school at Harmony Academy, actually wanted to interview me for a job.
How was this real?
“That’s great news,” Sam said. He smiled, pulling out a chair from the main table and sitting down. “What’s it for?”
I hesitated. This situation was surreal enough as it was. It felt like if I told another living person about it, the opportunity would vanish in a puff of smoke. I didn’t have a teaching credential. That might not matter to Harmony; some of my classmates from Younker had been able to get teaching positions at private schools without one. But the fact that my entire portfolio was light-years away from what parents wanted their kids to learn in art class would almost certainly matter to a school looking for someone to educate their students.
Sam, though, didn’t seem to pick up on my self-doubt.
“It’s a position at a private school up in Evanston,” I eventually said. “Teaching art at their high school.”
“That’s fantastic!” Sam’s smile grew. “You’re so talented, Cassie. And you’ve seemed to enjoy art nights with the library kids, right? That school would be lucky to have you.”
“You really think so?”
Sam walked over to Manor House and paused, studying it. “I do,” he confirmed. “Of course, I know more about corporate mergers than I do about art. I admit I don’t know exactly what I’m looking at, but I can tell, just from looking at it, that you know.” He smiled at me. “You are someone with vision, and who is passionate about that vision. Who better to teach young people about something than someone who cares passionately about what they do?”
His words surprised me. Sam had always been supportive of me and my goals, but in a vague, I-love-you-but-I-don’t-really-understand-you kind of way. This might have been the most effusively he’d ever praised my skills in all the years I’d known him.
“Thank you,” I stammered, at a total loss. “That . . . really means a lot to me.”
“If you need to give them references, you can give my name if you like.”
I snorted. “You’re my best friend, not my current employer.”
“The offer stands,” he said, with conviction.
“Thank you, Sam,” I said. “I . . . just, thank you.” And then, without thinking, I added, “I can’t wait to tell Frederick the news.”
Sam looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “I’m sorry. Who can’t you wait to tell? I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Um.” I reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “Just Frederick.”
Sam was smirking at me now. “Just Frederick, huh?”
“Yes,” I said. “Frederick. My roommate.” Roommates told each other things, right? Why was Sam acting like this?
“Why are you blushing?” Now even Sam’s smirk was smirking.
“What? I’m not blushing. It’s just . . . warm in here.”
Meeting Frederick in person had apparently put Sam’s mind at ease that I wasn’t living with a serial-killer monster. Which was great, of course. Even if a bit ironic, since Frederick was a literal monster.
Only right now it wasn’t so great. Sam was acting the way he did every time I’d ever confessed a crush to him. And that just wasn’t what was going on here.
Or, even if it was what was going on here, it wasn’t like anything was going to come of it.
I rolled my eyes at Sam, my irritation with him growing, then walked over to Scott, hoping that would be the end of this conversation. Fortunately, Scott was looking at his camera, not at me.
“Could I look through the pictures you took?” I asked, trying to ignore how flustered I was. “I’d like to send my application to the show organizers tonight.”
“Sure,” Scott said. He leaned closer to me so I could see his screen, and then gave me a wide, shit-eating grin. “I won’t even give you grief over how much you’re blushing over your roommate while we do it, either.”
There was a note from Frederick waiting for me on the kitchen table when I got home that afternoon. My heart skipped a beat, and I felt my lips curve into a smile as I unfolded the now familiar sheet of crisp white stationery.
Dear Cassie,
What are your favorite foods?
I haven’t asked my personal question yet today, and I would like this to be today’s question.
Yours,
FJF
This one-personal-question-per-day thing was something new we agreed to try after the night we’d stayed up too late watching Buffy. After he said he wanted to know more about me so he could learn about the modern world, we decided one personal question per day would be a good way to accomplish that.
I knew, on some level at least, that the learning more about the modern world bit was just a ruse we were using to get to know each other better as people. But I tried to shut down that line of thinking whenever it cropped up.
I wasn’t quite ready yet to ponder what that meant was happening between us.
With each subsequent question he asked, though, the truth of what we were doing was getting harder to ignore.
Dear Frederick,
I have a lot of favorite foods! Lasagna, chocolate cake, honey nut cheerios, eggs benedict, and chicken noodle soup are probably the top 5.
Also, this doesn’t answer your question, but guess what? I got a job interview today! There’s probably no chance in the world I’ll get the job but it’s still exciting.
Cassie
Dear Cassie,
Wonderful news about the job interview! Why do you think you would not get the position? If it were up to me, I would hire you in a heartbeat (if you will excuse the figure of speech).
Thank you for answering my question about your favorite foods. That helps my understanding of what humans in their 30s enjoy eating in the early twenty-first century. My question for today has to do with color. Specifically: What is your favorite color?
FJF
Dear Frederick,
That’s very kind of you to say you would hire me in a heartbeat. But you can’t mean that. You don’t even know what the job is! It could be something I have zero qualifications for. In fact, it is.
I have two fave colors: carmine (which is a specific shade of red) and indigo. How about you? Do you have a favorite color?
Cassie
Dear Cassie,
This is probably extremely cliché, but my favorite color is red.
And I meant exactly what I said. I would hire you in a heartbeat. For any job.
I still need to think of a good daily question to ask you, but in the meantime I want to let you know that last night while you slept I visited an all-night cafe with Reginald called “Waffle House.” I think you would be proud of how well I managed to order our food and beverages without either mishap or drawing undue attention to ourselves. I daresay even Reginald was impressed with how fluidly I managed to extract my new credit card from my wallet and pay for everything. (As you may have guessed, impressing Reginald is nearly impossible.)
We did get a few stares from the table of young people adjacent to ours, but I suspect that may have been a side effect of the substances I could smell on them and not due to anything anachronistic Reginald and I were doing. In either case, I am eager to travel to another cafe soon to practice my fledgling skills.
Given that I would not have been able to order that chocolate chip and peanut butter waffle last night without your unending patience with me I wanted to let you know. I couldn’t eat it of course; but it still felt like a small victory.
Yours,
FJF
I picked up the pen that now lived permanently on the kitchen table and pondered what to write in my note back to him.
Sam had just texted me earlier in the day to invite me to a party he and Scott were throwing on Friday evening. Maybe Frederick could come with me. He could practice interfacing with people in public there.
I dashed off a quick note to him before I could talk myself out of it.
Hey Frederick,
Great job at Waffle House. Yeah, I’m sure those kids were only staring at you because they were high as hell (though I may be projecting a little from my own teenage years).
Unrelated—my friend Sam is having some people over Friday night. Do you want to come with me? It could be another opportunity for you to practice your talking with people skills around someone other than me and Reginald.
cassie
I read over my note, torn between leaving it on the table for Frederick and tearing it into a thousand pieces.
In truth, bringing Frederick would probably make the night more fun for me, and could be a great distraction from all the awkward questions I would inevitably get about what I did for a living from Sam’s law school friends and Scott’s English department colleagues. I’d have to pay attention to him, and possibly run interference if things went sideways and he tried to pay for something with gold doubloons or something.
And the more chances Frederick had to put it all into practice, the better.
It was normal for roommates to invite each other to things, right? Just like it was normal for roommates to tell each other about job interviews and their favorite foods, and to semi–feel them up outside a Nordstrom dressing room when they needed new clothes.
But then, a small part of me wondered—would falling for him really be so bad? Sure, there was the whole drinking blood thing, and the whole hundreds-of-years-older-than-me-and-also-immortal thing. But he was being really good about keeping his promise to never eat in front of me. And I’d dated guys with much bigger strikes against them than immortality.
Before I could talk myself out of crumpling up my note, I sketched a quick picture of the two of us, dancing, amidst a sea of floating musical notes. I drew the cartoon version of him with a smile on his face—because he really did have such an incredible smile.
I left the note on the kitchen table before I left for my evening shift at Gossamer’s, not sure if I hoped he’d say yes to the invitation or turn me down.
When I got back home at midnight from my shift, Frederick was at the stove, his back to me as he stirred something that smelled suspiciously and deliciously like chicken soup.
This was the first time I’d seen him so much as stand in the kitchen since my first night there, when I’d gone on that futile search for cookware. I’d certainly never seen him cook anything. I didn’t know why he was doing it now; his food preparation routine was, as far as I knew, limited to cutting into bags from the blood bank.
He didn’t seem to notice my presence, so I decided to just stand there in silence and watch him for a while. He really did have an incredible build for men’s T-shirts. And an amazing ass for jeans.
Taking him to the mall and getting him new clothes hadn’t only been a favor to him. It had been a favor to humankind.
“Frederick?”
He whirled around at the sound of my voice, a wooden spoon with something dripping from it clutched in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other. He wore a black apron over his clothes with the words This Guy Rubs His Own Meat in large white Comic Sans lettering.
I huffed an involuntary laugh, momentarily forgetting what I’d been about to ask him. “What are you wearing?”
He looked down at himself, then back at me. “It’s an apron.”
“Yes, I can see it’s an apron, but . . .” I managed to convert the giggles threatening to escape me into a cough, but barely. “Where did you get it?”
“Amazon.” He set his wooden spoon down on the stove and smiled at me, clearly proud of himself. I made a mental note not to let Frederick navigate Amazon on my laptop without supervision anymore. “I saw this apron and immediately thought, This message conveys competence in the kitchen. Which is exactly what I’d hoped to convey as I prepared your meal.”
My eyes went wide. “You’re cooking something for me?”
“I am.”
I didn’t know what to say. “But why?”
He shrugged. “To thank you for helping me. I see what you feed yourself, Cassie. All those snacks and ready-to-grab things you keep in the fridge.” He looked back over his shoulder at me. “It’s important to get adequate nutrition, you know.”
I stood there, heart in my throat, struck dumb at the idea that a centuries-old vampire was lecturing me on the importance of three squares a day.
No one had cooked a real meal for me since I’d left my parents’ house. Not even Sam.
“And so you’re making me—”
“Chicken soup.” He gave me a shy smile. “I might have had an ulterior motive when I asked you for your favorite meals. I also cut up some fresh fruit for you. Pineapple and kiwi. There’s a bowl of it on the counter.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, my chest tight. I was an adult and had been taking care of myself for years. But the idea that he wanted to care for me . . .
It did something to me.
Trying to distract myself, I turned and sat at the kitchen table. My laptop was there, and I decided I might as well check my email while waiting for Frederick to finish the soup.
I grabbed a slice of kiwi from the bowl of fresh fruit, popping it into my mouth and enjoying the bright burst of flavor on my tongue. Humming appreciatively, I clicked the mouse button on my laptop.
The screen lit up, and—
HOW TO KISS: TEN FOOLPROOF TIPS TO HAVE YOUR PARTNER CLAMORING FOR MORE!
I stood up from the table so quickly I knocked over my chair. I rubbed my eyes with my fists, thinking maybe I’d just hallucinated the Buzzfeed headline in thirty-six-point font I’d just seen on my laptop.
I checked again, and . . .
Nope.
There was definitely a kissing-tips article pulled up on my laptop.
I was one hundred percent certain I had not Googled anything that would yield a result like this the last time I’d used my computer.
I had, however, given Frederick permission to use my laptop whenever he wanted to.
“Um. Frederick?”
“Hm?”
I bit my lip. Should I admit to what I’d just seen?
If he wanted to read internet how-to articles about kissing, he had every right to do exactly that. My flushed cheeks and racing heart needed to stay out of this situation entirely, as it had nothing to do with me.
My lack of response must have clued Frederick in to what made me jump out of my chair, because two seconds later he inserted himself like a six-foot-tall vampiric shield between me and the kitchen table. His hands shot out, gripping my upper arms like twin iron vises, cool fingertips digging into my warm flesh.
“Laptop.” His voice broke on the word. “Did you—”
No point in denying it now. “Yes.”
“Um,” he said. He licked his lips, and—look, after finding that article on the computer, it wasn’t my fault that my eyes fell reflexively to his mouth. “Listen—”
“You don’t have to say anything,” I said very quickly. “I said you could use my laptop and . . . it’s none of my business what you use it for. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said, his fingertips flexing a little on my arms. “It’s your laptop. You don’t need my permission to use it. I’d meant to put that article away before you came home, but I got caught up in preparing the food, and . . .” His eyes dropped to the floor. “I must have forgotten.”
We stood like that for a long moment, his hands still on my arms. The soup was still bubbling away on the stove, but we both ignored it. It felt like I was supposed to say something—something to defuse the situation, probably—only I wasn’t certain what it should be.
So I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Are you . . . curious about kissing?”
Probably a stupid question, given what I’d found on my laptop. But he looked surprised all the same. His eyes snapped to mine. “What makes you think that?”
I huffed a laugh. “Your browser history.”
I could all but see the wheels in his mind turning as he cast about for how to reply. But after an interminable moment he seemed to regain some of his composure.
He stepped a little closer to me. At the heated look he gave me, all rational thought fled.
“I know about kissing, Cassie.”
He sounded genuinely affronted, and I cringed at what I’d just implied—even as my knees went weak at the implication of what he’d just said. He’d been alive—or, his equivalent of alive—for hundreds of years. He’d probably kissed hundreds of people. Maybe thousands.
In fact—he was probably really good at kissing.
“I’m sure you do,” I said, too flustered to look at his face anymore. My gaze drifted down to his ridiculous apron. This Guy Rubs His Own Meat. I flushed deeper with the awkwardness of this entire situation. How was any of this happening? “It’s just . . . well. That website.” I paused. “You can see why I might think that—”
“Right, right,” he said, impatiently, waving a dismissive hand. “I understand what it must look like. But I swear, my only reason for reading that was . . . that is to say, I just wanted to see if . . .”
He trailed off.
He dropped his grip on my arms and ran an agitated hand through his hair.
I peered at him. “You just wanted to see if . . . ?”
His expression was unreadable. “I just wanted to see if anything . . . significant . . . had changed.”
What? “You wanted to see if . . . anything had changed?”
He nodded. “Yes. It has been a while, since I . . .” He shook his head and shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. “Over the years there have been . . . trends in this area, you see. What is desirable in a kiss in one era may not be pleasurable in another.”
Oh.
Oh.
“And you’re curious about what those trends are right now?”
He swallowed. “Yes.”
I had no reason to think his curiosity about modern kissing trends was anything but purely intellectual. He was curious about a lot of things in the twenty-first century—everything ranging from urban sewage systems to Midwestern politics. But something about the way he was now steadfastly looking at everything in the room but me made my heart knock hard against my rib cage—and gave me the courage to admit something very stupid.
“I’m curious, too.”
His eyes snapped to mine. “What?”
Operating on pure nerve, I clarified. “I’ve never kissed a vampire before.” I didn’t have to admit that I’d wondered what it would be like to kiss him specifically, right? “So I’m curious about what it’s like.” At the thunderstruck look on his face I added, “Purely from an intellectual standpoint.”
A beat. “Of course.”
“For science, honestly.”
“Science.”
“Comparison purposes.”
“What other purpose could there be?”
We stood there in the kitchen for what felt like entire minutes, just staring at each other. The soup was still bubbling on the stove. It sort of smelled like it was burning at this point. I didn’t care.
I took another step closer, until we were near enough to one another that I could see all the variations of color within his dark eyes. They weren’t a monochromatic brown, like they appeared from a distance. His irises contained very subtle pinpricks of hazel as well, combining with the brown to create the richest, most beautiful eye color I’d ever seen.
I licked my lips. His eyes fell directly to my mouth.
“What do you think about us showing each other what it’s like?” His voice was barely above a whisper. “For science. And comparison purposes.”
I nodded. “I’m hardly an expert, but I’m probably at least as knowledgeable about modern kissing trends as that article.”
His jaw tightened. “Probably.”
“And given that I am your point person for lessons on living in the modern era—”
“It only makes sense that it should be you,” he agreed. “Likewise, I do not claim to be an expert at vampire kissing, but . . .”
He trailed off. His eyes were still focused on my mouth.
The offer was out there, now—for both of us. There was no taking it back now.
Before I could remind myself that kissing this gorgeous, undead man who wanted to make me chicken soup and said he liked my art might end up being the worst decision I’d made in a lifetime full of not-great decisions, I placed my hand on his chest, right over the place where his heart would be beating if he were human.
He closed his eyes, taking several very deep breaths. He inclined his head a little towards me, again making me wonder if he could hear, or even smell, my heartbeat.
He covered my hand on his chest with one of his own. His palm was so cool against my heated skin. He squeezed my hand gently, making me shiver, and shifted even closer to me.
And then he kissed me, just a gentle, barely there press of his lips to mine. He pulled back a half moment later, ending the kiss as soon as it began. To give me an out if this wasn’t what I wanted.
“I—we—kiss like this,” he whispered. I traced his plush bottom lip with the tip of my index finger, thrilling at the way his eyes fluttered closed at my touch. Slowly, as though moving through a dream, I cupped his cheek in my hand, tilting his face a fraction so he had to look me in the eyes.
His eyes were heavy-lidded, unfocused.
He needed no further encouragement.
The second brush of our lips was chaste and unhurried, his free hand coming up to cup my face in a mirror image of how I was now touching him. His mouth was as soft as it looked, in sharp contrast with the rasp of his stubble against my palm and the hard lines of his body as it pressed against mine. From a distance I could hear the grandfather clock down the hall marking time, but it felt like time had stopped—Frederick’s arms slowly coming around my body to pull me closer, the steady beat of my heart an indelible reminder of just how long I’d wanted this to happen.
My fingers soon wound their way into his hair, carding through his impossibly soft locks. The tug of my hands seemed to unlock something inside him. He pulled me closer, allowing me to feel every cool, unyielding inch of him against the front of my body. His breath hitched as he tilted his head again and kissed my mouth with intentionality and considerably more pressure than he’d used before. I opened to him instinctively, his quiet, needful intensity parting my lips before I even realized it had happened.
And then it was over. He pulled back abruptly, resting his forehead against mine, breathing very hard for someone who didn’t technically need oxygen to survive. He shook his head minutely and then squeezed his eyes tightly shut, like he was trying to regain control over a situation that was rapidly slipping through his fingers.
“That,” he breathed, “is what it is like to kiss a vampire.”
From a technical standpoint it turned out to be not much different from kissing anyone else. And yet I’d never experienced anything like it. He still held on to me, his arms wound just as tightly around my body as they’d been while we were kissing—which was a good thing, as my knees felt moments away from buckling under my weight. As he worked to calm his breathing I detected the faint but unmistakable metallic scent of blood on his breath. I wondered if self-consciousness over a recent meal was why he’d ended our kiss so abruptly.
When he opened his eyes, his expression was so guarded I knew both that the mutual kissing lessons were over, and that whatever the reason for it was, I shouldn’t pry.
“You did well, too,” I said, trying to sound—feel—detached about the whole thing. The reality, of course, was that I felt anything but detached. I wanted to kiss him again. Right then. With a reserve of will I didn’t know I possessed I stepped back, but not before I registered the flash of disappointment that crossed his face when I moved away. “You’ve got the modern trends down, I’d say. You’re a quick learner.”
Frederick straightened, then gave me a self-possessed smile that stole the breath from my lungs.
“So I’ve been told,” he said.