At the Twilight's Last Gleaming by David Bischoff Read Free Book Online

nodded, and then let it be.
    “Congratulations!” she said, and clicked back into the office, her curly hairdo quivering a bit atop her head.
    The crowd surged in to look at the list.
    My trained 20—20 vision instantly spotted my name:
     
    LUCY — Rebecca Williams
     
    “You got it, you got it!” said Harry.
    But then, my eyes traveled up the list.
    Yes, there was the name, his glorious name near the top.
    Peter Harrigan.
    But I caught my breath.
    It read like this:
     
    PROFESSOR VAN HELSING — Peter Harrigan
     
    “Van Helsing!” I said. “But who…”
    And my eyes leapt down to name
Dracula
and the name after the dashes which followed.
    I gasped.
    “Oh. My. God.”



CHAPTER EIGHT
    “I CAN’T BELIEVE it. I just can’t believe it!”
    I was slumped on the couch in Harry’s basement rec room. I was morose. I shook my head mournfully.
    “I just can’t believe it!” I repeated for what seemed like the thousandth time. “I just can’t believe it!” Thousand and first.
    “Look,” said Harry. “I know you wanted to get close. I mean really close to him, as in physically. But really maybe this is better.”
    “Better? How can it possibly be better, Harold? We’re not going to get with yards of each other. That was the point! Don’t you see? He was going to get hooked on me! And if not… Well, at least I’d have like….well….whatever you want to call it? A dramatic fling?”
    Harry said, “You’re not thinking straight. You’re still going to be hanging around him. In rehearsals, in productions. Plenty of time to talk to him.”
    I rolled my eyes. I knew that Harry was right, and that was annoying. What vexed me, though, most was that I was so close, so very close. to quick and easy clinches on the guy. How much easier it would be for Peter, during the cast party in the dimness, to put his arm around me while we’re sitting on the couch and just kiss me. I mean, he’d already buried his mouth in my neck hundreds of times. I’m simply wasn’t the kind of person who found it easy to throw myself at a guy. Now, what with all the girls around him, how would he even notice me?
    So went my worst case thinking, anyway.
    I knew that Harry was right, that getting to be around Peter more was a victory. But it seemed only a Phyrric victory. It was frustrating.
    Worse, I’d gotten the role of Lucy and my neck was still going to be bitten, plenty.
    But by who?.
    Who had gotten the role of Dracula. Who was Igoing to work with? Whose hot breath would be caressing my long swanlike neck.
    That was the question that had zoomed around my head as I had searched for the truth, down that surprising list
    And oh Lord, what a shock.
    Now as though to underscore my thoughts and continuing shock a mournful blues line played on the rock song from the record player.
    Harold was a record fiend. His father was a jazz nut who collected records, so it was natural that he would encourage his son to get records himself, and supply money toward that end. So Harold had a good record collection of recent pop and rock and soul records well beyond the range of top forty radio. We’d listened to some Cream already and now Harold had the first Jimi Hendrix album on,
Are You Experienced
?
    Jimi Hendrix is still famous, of course, but back then he hadn’t quite reached the heights, despite his hit song “Purple Haze”. He was kind of like Prince before that other famous purple,
Purple Rain
.
    Now Hendrix’s psychedelic guitar work squealed around the room like an angry, frustrated hornet. But its blues-based feel was good for me. Harry’s basement had that upholstered, safe feel of comfortable, carpeted gloom that suburban basements get. A single lamp glowed at on the other side of a worn leather couch. Dusk was already lapping at the windows. There was a faint not unpleasant musky smell behind the smell of furniture wax and the scent of the popcorn. I munched a handful, and followed it up with iced RC cola. It made me feel a