Chapter 9
It’s as I pin my yellow Selfridges nametag to my polo neck and look up, willing the escalator to edge its way upwards a little faster, that I see a familiar dark head of hair around five people in front of me: Kenny.
Shit.
I shrink down and hide behind the man in front of me, just in case Kenny turns back.
The best parts of my job are Daphne and that I get to wear black. Black blends in. Black doesn’t show blood. Black is a fair representation of my inner landscape.
The worst part of my job is definitely Kenny.
He’s my floor manager, mediocre in every way, and, honestly, he’s been the bane of my life for the entire four years I’ve worked here.
Daphne says he has a crush on me. The girls who work at Calvin Klein say I should report him for bullying.
My online friend, Sally, agrees with them both.
But me? I deal with him the same way I deal with everything in life: avoidance.
He moves to the next escalator, and I slowly follow behind. I can’t let him see me. He doesn’t deal with lateness well. He doesn’t deal with anything well.
Finally, I reach the third floor.
As Kenny continues up to the fourth floor, I relax my clenched fists, rushing towards the lingerie department.
I work at the Agent Provocateur concession.
It doesn’t pay that well, but that doesn’t matter.
If there’s a silver lining to being alive for 150 years, it’s savings.
Investments. Compound interest. I wouldn’t be considered super wealthy—not by London standards, at least—but what with my thrifty lifestyle (no groceries, no expensive clothes, hell, I don’t even pay for my own internet at home) I have enough that I don’t have to worry about money.
I only have this job because it gives me somewhere to go four nights a week and I like hanging out with Daphne.
Besides, compared with the many other nighttime jobs I’ve had over the years—seamstress, dancer at Moulin Rouge, nurse (not a good fit for me, for obvious reasons), baker, telephone operator, band groupie, folk singer, etc—Selfridges, with its flexible schedules and work I never take home, suits me just fine.
Daphne is helping a customer when I get there. She’s twenty-six, tall and slender, half Kenyan and even when she rolls her eyes at me behind the customer’s back, she looks like she belongs in a Gucci ad. The moment I see her I relax. Soon, I will have a solid plan.
I go over to the tills and put my bag underneath the counter, but leave my phone face-up beside it. I can’t risk missing a text from Jonathan.
‘So . . .’ comes Daphne’s voice and I look up. ‘What happened? I thought everything was good between you two.’
‘He said it was getting too intense, that he thought we needed a break,’ I say, my cheeks warm.
And I feel almost guilty, because there, beneath the heartbreak is another feeling altogether.
It’s a strange and tangled sort of enjoyment I wasn’t expecting.
Because for once it’s me who is going through something.
Usually, I’m the onlooker, the shoulder to cry on while others experience their mini-earthquakes, tearful reunions, lost moments they’ll never get back.
‘Do you think it’s better that he called it a “break” and not a “break-up”?’ I add, hoping she puts my mind at ease. Tells me those are very different beasts. That I’m being negative thinking they are one and the same.
‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘It means he wants to keep the door open. But he didn’t say how long for, did he?’
I shake my head.
‘And he hasn’t checked on you?’
I swallow. ‘No.’
‘Okay, I’m just going to level with you, it’s a break-up. He was probably just letting you down easy,’ she says, pity in her eyes.
A wave of humiliation rolls over me.
‘This is exactly why I told you not to be too intense,’ she adds. ‘It always freaks them out.’
‘But we were both like that,’ I say defensively. It was as if we were living in a bubble and the regular rules of dating didn’t apply to us. Until the bubble popped for him.
‘Yes, but there are two sets of rules, one for them and one for us. They lull you into a false sense of security and then judge you just for matching their enthusiasm. It’s completely unfair.’
I’ve all but stopped breathing. Panic spurts through my veins. What does this mean? That it’s really over? That there’s no way to resuscitate it? She notices, and touches my arm to comfort me.
‘Look, at least you found out quickly,’ she says. ‘You’ve only known him, what, a month?’
‘Five weeks,’ I say. ‘But what do I do?’
She raises her eyebrows. ‘You go out and get drunk and fuck someone else. Come out with me tonight.’
This was not the plan I had in mind.
‘What? No . . .’ I say.
Daphne gives me a stern look. ‘Aubs, come on. Life is short, and you won’t be young and hot forever. You can’t just sit around mooning over some guy,’ she says. ‘And you always say no.’
She might be wrong about my life being short, and me not being young and hot forever, but she’s right about me always saying ‘no’.
She’s asked me out numerous times but I always opt instead for a nice, long night walk and the calm safety of my flat.
However, right now I have an iron-clad excuse: there are two bags of blood in my bag that will expire in a few hours.
I shake my head.
‘Well,’ she says, a mischievous look on her face. ‘If you want me to tell you how to get him back, you’re going to have to come tonight. Those are my terms.’
My stomach twists. I do not want to go. I really do not want to go. But I need help. And whole blood can last eight hours at room temperature and my shift is only five . . .
I let out a big breath. ‘Okay, maybe, just for a little bit. But you have to help.’
‘Of course,’ she says with a wink. ‘He won’t know what hit him. But I’m warning you, it’s crucial that you listen to me this time. You won’t get another shot with him if you ruin it again, okay?’
‘I promise,’ I say.
And then a female voice interrupts us with: ‘Excuse me?’
We both plaster on our counter-smiles and look over to a woman of around forty or so, with perfectly groomed auburn hair standing by a rack of red balconette bras with cobweb-fine lace on the far wall. ‘Do you have any more sizes of this out the back?’ she asks, pointing to them.
Daphne goes over to help her, and I start to untangle the pile of bras on the counter, putting them on hangers, as cheerful Christmas songs play in the background, completely ambivalent to my personal problems. And then, somehow, I find myself reaching for my phone.
I stare down at it, my throat tight, thinking, Do it, text him. Tell him everything.
No, don’t do it. Don’t you dare. You don’t want a repeat of Freddie, do you?
Freddie asked me to marry him in 1939, just after the Second World War broke out.
He was a barman, and out all night, so it was easy to hide my secret from him in a way it wasn’t from other men.
I’d grown to truly care about him, and was touched that he wanted to marry me, but I knew he couldn’t truly love me unless I was completely honest. And, blame the potential end of the world, blame the fact that I was only sixty-three vampire years deep, blame the fact that I hadn’t been burnt by love yet, but I naively sat him down, held his hand, and . . . showed him my fangs.
He bolted, didn’t speak to me again, acted like he’d never met me. Soon after, he voluntarily signed up to go to war. I never saw him again.
But, as much as that stung, the truth is, I never felt for Freddie half of what I do for Jonathan—that cosmic tug beneath my ribs. So I really need to do whatever I have to do to get Jonathan back. I need to listen to Daphne.
Which means I need a distraction. Any distraction. NOW.
I pull up a browser window and navigate to the VHC website, which is where I met Sally.
The Vampire Hunters’ Collective.
Yes, I know, but I can explain.