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

little bit better. Sometimes I felt as though I suffered Harry so I could hang out in this cool basement. Beside the stereo and radio, there was also a 21 inch Color RCA TV set with which Harry accosted me with
Star Trek
every Thursday night. There was a definite bunker feel to the place. We could pull in the door mats, batten down the hatches and “Make the world go away” as the Eddy Arnold song goes. I’d gotten to be such a fixture here, that I’d have meals with Harry and his parents sometimes, and I had a key to the house.
    Was I experienced? Jimi asked on the stereo.
    Not really, but I wanted to be, but only Peter Harrigan.
    What was in store for me with the guy who was Dracula in the school play, was certainly not what I was hoping for at all.
    I closed my eyes and the image swam through my memory. The image of the cast roster.

    DRACULA — Emory Clarke

    “Emory Clarke!” I said, eyes popping open. “Emory Clarke! I didn’t even know he was an actor.”
    “Who’s an actor at high school?” said Harry. “It’s like a starting point. Looks like Emory just got the bug.”
    “But he wasn’t at the audition!”
    Harry munched on some popcorn, musing on that a bit. He washed the mouthful with his Coke. Ice clinked as he set the plastic tumbler back down on the wicker mat coaster on the coffee table.
    “You know what, Rebecca?”
    “What?”
    “Maybe what happened was this. Maybe Emory is in one of Mr. Crawley’s English classes. Mr. Crawley knows him. Mr. Crawley has heard him read. Mr. Crawley thinks, hmm. How about a Dracula with a southern accent?”
    “Well, he’s creepy enough, that’s for sure.”
    “I thought you liked creepy. He’s tall too. With the right posture and direction and a cape he’ll probably make a bang-up Dracula.”
    “Oh thanks, Harold. You’re not the one who has to get fanged.”
    “It’s all under that cape. Nobody but you and Emory see what happens. You can be as cold as ice. Not at all the way it was going to be with Peter. It’s going to be fine.”
    Harold had a good point. Harold was right, basically, but that irked me a bit. Because I could see suddenly see that Harold was happy that I wasn’t going to be getting that close to Peter. Harold still nursed his hopes of draping his own cape around me.
    I took a deep breath and controlled my ire. It was kind of a back-handed compliment, as usual. Like all of Harry’s attention. It was annoying, sure — but it was also not only flattering, but it gave me an odd kind of self-confidence.
    In my heart of hearts, I didn’t think I was that attractive to guys. Not physically, anyway. I was kind of lumpy and my features weren’t all that symmetrical. I kind of liked my brown eyes, I guess, and the Air Force kept my teeth in shape so I had a nice smile, when and if it ever happened. My hair was nice too, I guess. But ultimately, it all just didn’t fit together for me because I just felt awkward as hell. I wasn’t used to my newish breasts (another asymmetry). The whole woman business was just too messy at times. And my moods were hard to deal with even when I realized they were just moods and not the forces of the universe swirling within me, the Center of It All! In my heart of hearts, I had to asked myself — why would an attractive nice guy want to be close to someone was gawky and clunky as me, beautiful neck or no?
    It really hadn’t mattered that much before. Not before I’d met Peter Harrigan, anyway.
    I remember when I first saw Peter. It must have been the second or third week of school and I was just starting to relax, unwinding from the unease of adjustment from being in England to being in Maryland. It was lunch period, and I remember I’d brought my lunch that day. Cheese and apples and bread — my Ploughman’s Lunch, as we called it in England. Good cheddar cheese of course, not the Cheeze Whiz or Velveeta that seemed to be popular in the States now — or the higher end “American Cheese”.