Show and Tell

Originally written Saturday, January 14, 2006 (cont.)

“I can’t… I don’t know… it’s complicated," I lamely sputtered.

“Well, I can see that. But I think you know me well enough. I can take complicated.”

“There are things I try not to talk about to just anyone.”

“I’m just anyone?”

“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry.” No getting out of this bind. “But at this point, yeah. You are.”

“And you want me to stay just anyone?”

“No, of course not.”

“So tell me. Something. Anything. Even a little bit.”

“Jeanine, are you serious? Is that an ultimatum? Tell you something you really shouldn’t know ‘or else?”

“Something I really shouldn’t know?” She scoffed contemptuously. “OK, it wasn’t an ultimatum a second ago, but now you’re digging yourself deeper, Miss Marya, and I really don’t care what it is. You’ve got your own secrets? Fine. But don’t pretend to try to protect me.”

“Don’t protect you.”

“No.”

I paused to look at her. An idea was formulating. She’s a grown woman, and she would be able to decide for herself what to get involved in, but I did not entirely want to be responsible for dragging her into it. If it were only about the School of the Grey Orchid, I could have been straightforward with her long before (however reluctantly), but matters have grown so much more complicated in the past few months. “You don’t know what you’re insisting.”

Another scoff. “Again with the condescension.”

“I’m not gonna tell you.” We’d circled back to the dining room-living room part of the flat. I wasn’t looking at her, but I knew she was rolling her eyes, so I said, “But I’ll show you.”

I had my bag in my hand, and I was rummaging in one of the kitchen drawers. Shoving aside the spare batteries, takeout menus, scissors, I pulled out two wooden stakes. I dropped one into my drawstring purse, the same one I’d brought to the club, and handed the other to Jeanine as I led her back into the big room.

“A vampire?” she asked, almost sarcastically. “Is that what this is about? You know you can be honest about that. We had that whole big—”

“I want you to stake me.” I stood in front of her, squared with her. I put my bag on the floor, held my arms at my sides.

And finally she was silent, dumbstruck.

“I need you to try. Aim for my heart.” I unbuttoned my shirt halfway. With a clean entrance and extraction, there’d be little to no bleeding, but I didn’t want it torn, a second shirt in one—or rather, two nights—destroyed. If, that is, she actually followed through.

“But you’re not… or, but, I just saw you in the mirror. And I can’t….”

“I promise you can’t kill me this way. You’ll see. But if you don’t want me to protect you, then you have to be able to protect yourself. I want to make sure you can.” I hadn’t meant to go into teacher mode with her. Hadn’t wanted to. Sometimes I just slip into the role. In some respects I never leave it. “We need to get this overwith quickly, though. We might be running on a deadline here.”

“I can’t do that.” Her voice was as far away as the knocking on the door had been before. The stake dangled from her fingertips, a fraction of a muscle movement away from dropping to the floor. “Do you know what you’re asking me?”

I made sure she was looking me in the eye as I said, “If you can’t do it to someone who won’t die, how can you do it to someone who will? If you can’t do this, I can’t let you into this part of my life.”

The events of this day to be continued...