Jane nodded, although she had no idea what the girl was talking about.
“I recorded that in, like, four different places,” said Chloe. “Mostly on the tour bus between gigs on my last tour. And the parts that Monkee Bidness raps? He did those over the phone from jail.” She inhaled, then blew the smoke out in one long blast. “This is pretty much the same.”
“Then how do you stay in character?” Jane asked her.
Chloe looked perplexed. “What do you mean?”
“Your character,” said Jane. “Barbara Wexley.”
“Is that her name?” Chloe said. “It just says Chloe in the script. How did you know what she’s called?”
“I wrote the novel,” Jane told her, trying to mask her shock at the girl’s ignorance. “The one the movie is based on,” she added when Chloe seemed not to understand her meaning.
“It’s based on a book?” said Chloe. “No wonder my agent wanted me to be in it. It will make me look smarter.”
Smarter than what? Jane wondered. She decided to abandon the topic of Chloe’s ability to remain in character despite constant distraction. Unfortunately, the only other topic in which they both had any interest was a more painful one.
“You probably have all kinds of questions about what it means to be—like we are,” Jane said.
Chloe lit another cigarette, her fourth in half an hour. “Not really,” she said. “I mean, what is there to know? You bite people and drink their blood. How hard can it be?”
“Well, that’s a good question,” said Jane, relieved to have found an opening. “It’s easy to think of feeding as simply—”
The sudden appearance of Byron in the trailer startled her, and she stopped talking.
“Now that is cool!” Chloe exclaimed. “How do you do that? Show me.”
“Later,” said Byron. “Right now we have more pressing matters to attend to.” He looked at Jane. “We’ve found Ned,” he told her.
“Where?” Jane asked.
“At the train station,” Byron explained. “He was heading to Montreal.”
“Ned,” said Chloe. “He’s the one who made me like this.”
Byron glanced at Jane. “You didn’t tell her yet?”
“I was getting to it,” Jane said.
Chloe tapped some hot ashes onto the carpet, where they burned for a moment and fizzled out, leaving a black circle in the pink shag. “Tell me what?” she said.
“It’s too complicated to get into right—”
“Ned bit you, but Jane turned you,” Byron said. He ignored the furious look from Jane. “But she had to do it to save your life,” he added. “So don’t blame her. We’ll talk about it later.”
“She—” said Chloe.
“I—” said Jane.
“Later,” said Byron. “Jane, you come with me. Chloe, don’t eat anyone. We’ll be back for you later.”
“Fine,” said Chloe. She pouted and kicked at the spot on the carpet. “Whatever.”
“Then it’s settled,” Byron said. He looked at Jane. “Best go invisible so no one sees you running away,” he said.
Jane sighed, closed her eyes, and concentrated. To her great satisfaction, she disappeared almost immediately.
“You have to teach me how to do that!” Chloe called out as Jane and Byron left the trailer.
When they were several blocks away Byron materialized behind a hedge. Jane followed suit.
“You’re getting very good at that,” Byron remarked as he walked toward his car, which was parked at the curb.
“Aren’t I?” Jane agreed. “I’ll be turning into a bat in no time.”
“A what?” said Byron as he opened the door.
“A bat,” Jane repeated. “You promised to show me how, remember?”
“Of course,” said Byron, starting the car. “It slipped my mind.”
He pulled away from the curb and started driving. “Ned is at my house,” he explained. “With Ted, of course. They’re still dressed alike, and I’ll be damned if I can tell one from the other even now.”
“We should tag one of them,” said Jane. “Through the ear. Like they do with cows.”
“We could brand them, I suppose,” Byron said thoughtfully. “We used to do that with sheep, remember?”
“I do,” said Jane. After a moment she sighed. “It all seems so long ago,” she said.
“It was long ago,” Byron replied.
Jane looked out the window at the passing houses. “Do you ever get tired of it?” she asked.
“Of what?” said Byron.
“Living,” Jane said.
Byron stopped at the corner, looked for oncoming traffic, and turned left. “No,” he said. “I never tire of it.”
“I don’t believe you,” Jane said. “But let’s assume for the moment that you are not lying to make me feel better—which you are. Don’t you ever think about that last day?”
“You’re a confounding young woman,” Byron said. “What last day?”
“The last day,” said Jane. “Of existence. Of everything.”
“We’re immortal,” Byron said. “There doesn’t have to be a last day.”
“I don’t mean our last day,” Jane said. “I mean, I do, but I’m speaking about the last day of the world. It has to end sometime. At some point the sun will die and everything will go black and freeze, or whatever happens when suns die. I don’t know. But it’s sure to be grim and very final.”
“Oh, that,” said Byron as he turned onto his street. “I don’t worry about that.”
“How can you not?” Jane asked. “If we indeed live forever, we’re going to be here when it all comes to its dreary end.”
“By then we’ll have figured out how to live on the moon, or Saturn, or somewhere else,” Byron said.
He reached his house and drove up the driveway, coming to a stop and turning the car off. “Look,” he said. “I know you’re going through this existential crisis about Walter, and that’s to be expected, but—”
“This is not about Walter,” Jane exclaimed.
“Yes it is,” said Byron kindly. “You just haven’t figured that out yet. But you will. Right now, however, we need to go deal with our wayward child. Would you like to be the nice parent or the mean parent?”
Jane stared at him. She wanted to argue with him some more about what he’d said about Walter. To her annoyance, however, she realized that he was right. “I’ll be the mean parent,” she said. “He won’t be expecting that.”
“Frankly, neither was I,” said Byron as they got out of the car. “I must say it’s rather arousing.”
“Shut up,” Jane snapped.
Byron smiled seductively at her as he opened the front door and waved his hand. “After you, mistress,” he purred.
Ted and Ned were in the living room, seated next to each other on the J. and J. W. Meeks sofa Byron had recently purchased from an antiques store in New York. He’d had it reupholstered in garnet velvet, and it reminded Jane of a sofa that had been in the villa at Lake Geneva the summer she’d met Byron. She vaguely remembered him making love to her on that sofa, and for a moment she became flustered.
She calmed herself, stood in front of the boys, and looked down at them with what she hoped was an expression of disappointment and anger.
“Just where did you think you were going?” she asked. Unable as yet to determine which brother was which, she addressed the space between them.
The brother on the left lifted his head and looked at her. “I was afraid you would be angry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Jane narrowed her eyes. “Fangs,” she barked. “Show me.”
The young man opened his mouth. A second later a pair of fangs clicked into place. Jane nodded. “Ned,” she said. She looked at the other brother. “You can go,” she said sharply.
Ted looked up. “But—”
“Go!” Jane repeated. “Back to the store. Lucy will be wondering where you are.”
Ted’s eyes darted to Byron, who stood in the doorway.
“Don’t look at him,” said Jane. “Just do as I say.”
Ted stood, gave his brother a worried look, and walked out of the room. Jane waited until she heard the front door open and close before she continued.