Pamela wore an odd look.
"Just…fuckin’…fix me a lemonade and leave us alone," he told her.
She held his gaze for a moment, then walked off without a word.
"Well…good. Whatever," said Doug as he watched Pam climb back onto the deck. The swing set creaked as he settled again in the seat next to Jay.
Jay said, "Sorry."
"Forget about it," Doug answered. "So what are you doing for the rest of today?"
"I dunno. I thought Cat might call about changing her operating system."
"Yeah. Like that’s really gonna happen."
The kitchen door opened again. Pamela stepped through it, crossed the deck, came down the stairs, and handed Doug a glass of lemonade. She looked pained. Then she walked off again and reentered the house.
Doug frowned at his lemonade. Jay frowned at Doug.
"Did you just hypnotize my sister?"
20
Sound bites, redux
"HELLO?"
"Hi, is this…Mike Storch?"
"Speaking."
"Oh, hi. My name’s Chris Spears, I’m a marketing assistant with Warner Brothers. I work with DC Comics, mostly, and I—"
"Oh! Great, thank you for calling me. Did you…"
"Yeah, I had a look at that police sketch of the kid you faxed to our offices. Someone put it up in the break room."
"I should stop you right there, Chris, and say that it’s not actually a police sketch. It was done by a police sketch artist, but I am not with any law enforcement organization."
"Oh. Well, is this kid in trouble or something?"
"No, probably not. Some people are looking for him, is all. Did you see him at the San Diego Con?"
"Yeah, I’m certain of it. I moderated this DC editors panel, and we gave away a couple prizes before the show. The kid tried to win the prizes, made a real ass of himself, if you ask me."
"Okay. That’s something. You’re sure it was him?"
"Pretty sure. He looked like the sketch, and the height and clothes are right, and…you say something here about strange behavior? Aversion to sunlight?"
"Yeah."
"Well, this kid had a pretty bad sunburn."
"I don’t suppose you talked to him much."
"Well, that’s the thing — our prizes went to the people who’d traveled the farthest to be there. And this kid said he’d come from Philadelphia.
"…Hello? You still there, Mike?"
"I’m here. This is outstanding news. You’re sure it was Philadelphia?"
"I’m sure. He shouted it twice, and then he tried to convince everyone that it was farther away than Maine, and…I don’t think I’d remember all this normally, but, like I said, he was a pain in the ass."
"A pain in the neck, if we’re lucky."
"What’s that?"
"Nothing, Chris. Thanks for your help."
21
Cross
CAT DID HOLD JAY to his promise to reformat her laptop. Doug barely found out about it in time.
He and Jay were IM’ing while Doug web crawled his way through Labor Day afternoon. He didn’t care for chatting or texting much, but he liked talking on the phone even less.Doug: Still there?Jay: sorry had to answer the phone.Doug: I think we should play this new MMORPG called Darkness. It’s about vampires.Jay: don’t u get enough of that irl?Doug: You chat like a 12-year-old girl.Jay: lol! irl = in real life
Doug responded that he knew what it meant, though he had in fact been searching for the abbreviation in an online glossary.Doug: Anyway, Darkness — you can play a vampire or a vampire hunter. Or a werewolf or demon or a lot of other things I don’t care about.Jay: i know, i’ve heard of it.Doug: But get this: one of the goals you can work toward as a vampire is hunting down the vampire that made you. If you kill it, you become a superpowered human.
Doug watched the minutes tick by on his computer. He might get distracted from time to time while Jay was waiting for a response, but Jay was usually pretty attentive. He killed time watching clips on YouTube, but nothing moved him. Where he’d once considered it his duty to tell people who posted stupid videos that their videos were stupid, it felt less important now in the grand scheme of things.Doug: Am I boring you?Jay: sorry, getting some stuff together. i gotta go soon.Doug: Where are you going?
Another long pause. Doug thought, screw this and flopped down on his bed with a comic book. The computer pinged.Jay: ok i might as well tell u i’m going 2 Cat’s 2 help her w/ her os. i wasn’t going 2 tell u cause remember when u said Adam’s nicer 2 us when no one’s around? sometimes u make fun of me more when there r people around. well not more i guess but it bugs me more. but i feel weird going over there alone so u can come if you want. 
Doug felt a twist in his stomach then, a vinegary taste in his mouth. He couldn’t be the bad guy here. In a world of ass-holes, how could Jay think this of him?Doug: I don’t make fun of you. I just joke around. That’s what friends do. If it bothered you so much, you should have told me.Jay: my fault then.Doug: That’s not what I’m saying. I’m sorry. I’ll try to be more careful. I’m sorry.Jay: it’s nothing. so ur coming?
A quick bike ride and poncho refolding later, and Doug was at Jay’s front door. He thought he’d better make it a front door sort of day. He rang the bell and listened as Chewbacca came barking, listened to his tiny terrier nails claw for traction on the hardwood floors, listened as he threw himself again and again against the inside of the door. Usually someone was right on his heels shouting, "Chewbacca! Shut up! Sit! Sit! Stay," and then the door would open. Chewbacca continued to bark and scratch at the door, but even his actions began to sound confused, a little lost, like a man in a bar fight who’s expected his friends to hold him back before he embarrassed himself.
Doug was considering ringing the bell again when the door opened to Pamela’s wary face.
"You can get your own drinks today," she said.
Chewbacca leaped toward Doug, licking and jumping and just hoping to catch a little bare flesh or get a good sniff of groin. After becoming a vampire Doug had braced himself for a lot of growling and biting from previously friendly pets, but if anything dogs seemed to find him mind-blowingly awesome now.
"Jesus," said Pam. Chewbacca had stopped leaping but was teetering like a trick dog on his hind legs, nose aquiver at Doug’s crotch. "You hiding a hot dog in there?"
"Wouldn’t you like to know."
"Probably one of those little cocktail wieners."
He wasn’t going to let her get to him today. Today he would stay cool, cool as a tall glass of lemonade.
"What are you wearing?" she asked him.
It was the same shirt he’d worn at that party in San Diego. Long sleeved, lots of tiny pockets. It was a little snug, but the salesgirl had said it was supposed to fit snug.
"Oh, and you’re qualified to give me fashion advice," he said, "because your swim team T-shirt is so incredibly awesome. Look! It has autographs all over it! Autographs of the other members of the swim team! Are you gonna let me in?"
Pamela took a languid half-step to the right. "Jay gave me three dollars to get the door for him. You two have a spat?"
"How much would he have had to pay you not to tell me he paid you?"
"I don’t know. Seven? But he probably didn’t think he had to. He’s so morally upright."
Doug followed her into the house, feeling carbonated and shivery. He would see Sejal soon. He and Jay would go to her house, Cat’s house, and they would sit and stay awhile. Gentlemen callers.
"Where do you think you’re going?" Pamela said suddenly. Doug had absentmindedly followed her all the way to the door of her bedroom.