Vida Nocturna Part 1

VIDA NOCTURNA.

By Mark Diehl.

For Jennifer.

Leaps of faith are easy when I know I'll land next to you.

Special thanks to Rebecca Ochoa, Bayo Ojikutu, and Gypsy Hope Thomas. Thanks also to Rita Dragonette, Jan Winfree, Renee Wilson, Elizabeth Granados-Perez, Libby Wheeler, Josh Lohrius, Matt Johnson, Marcus Thomas, Evan Arnold, Stephanie Friedman, Achy Obejas, Gary Wilson, Jeanne Loboda, Sandy LoMonico, and C. Milton Dixon.

CHAPTER 1.

Old Habits.

SARA'S EYES SCANNED the lobby. A lone figure sat in one of the overstuffed black leather chairs, hidden behind a Chicago Tribune front page with a photo of nuclear devastation and the headline "Reagan Set for Fallout of 'Day After.'" Otherwise the room was unchanged. The floor-to-ceiling mirrors reflected the crazy parquet floor pattern. The ghostly Nagel prints barely smiled with blood red lips from the stark white walls.

The figure didn't move as she rushed past him, her flat shoes rasping across the wood.

She slipped into one of the two elevators, the keys in her fist jingling as she pounded the b.u.t.ton for her floor. A silhouette appeared at the front door. The elevator hesitated. The newspaper reader shifted, turning toward her without revealing a face.

The doors clunked closed and Sara leaned back against the wall, forcing a few deep breaths.

The doors opened onto the third floor landing and the narrow hallway that stretched to her door.

Machinery whirred. The other elevator was coming up.

She ran. Her book bag slipped off her shoulder. She clutched its strap, forcing her numb fingers to tighten. Her hand found the right key but it shook too badly to open her door. Dropping her bag, she steadied one hand with the other.

The other elevator dinged and its doors began to open.

She fought the lock, her keys rattling against the door. She swung it open, tripping over the bag and spilling textbooks as she lunged inside.

She worked the key loose with both hands and shouldered the door shut, shoving the deadbolt home.

Sara was alone again.

She was safe here.

Tears fell to the carpet and the cover of her rhetoric anthology as she slid down the wall and collapsed among her things.

Gowan's Prime Steakhouse should have vibrated with echoes from the dark wood paneling but the stifled atmosphere gave it an eerie hush. A mounted wild boar's head stared down at her father's military-short white hair. Other animals watched gla.s.sily from strategic points around the room.

"I'm going to call your school and find out what happened, Sara," her father said. His unnaturally calm voice probably helped in convincing his patients that they needed cardiac surgery. Sara blinked a few times, pushing the soothing sound of the words from her mind.

"I still haven't seen your grades from last semester," he said. Without breaking eye contact, he gently lifted his Manhattan from the table and downed the last few swallows.

Sara took a deep breath, careful to avoid raising her shoulders. She couldn't let him see her brace herself. She could do this. She was a spy at the c.o.c.ktail party, slipping upstairs to the safe, a superheroine keeping her true ident.i.ty secret, the smart girl who remained alive at the end of the horror film.

"Really, Daddy?"

He watched her brush a strand of her black hair back from her face and over her shoulder. She gave a little shrug, rolling her eyes at the piece of hair. "It's this gloomy weather," she said, brushing one eyelid lightly with two fingertips. "The humidity undoes everything I can accomplish with the curling iron."

His expression did not change. His tailor-made suit flexed as he straightened in his seat, his posture now like a bad guy in a kung-fu movie. Sara turned her eyes toward her steak.

He stared at her, waiting.

"Maybe they're just slow mailing them out?"

His knife rose from his steak as he leaned forward.

"You're awfully calm about this, Sara. I'd think you'd want to know how you did. A motivated student would care." The words came out soft and sticky, like webs.

"Oh, I do care, Daddy. I checked as soon as they were posted on campus."

"And?"

"And ... I did fine."

His head c.o.c.ked slowly to the side. His knife stayed poised above the flesh on his plate. "Fine?"

"I got ... two A-minuses ..." She cleared her throat. "And ... three B-pluses last semester, Daddy."

He stared, his gray eyes as dead as the boar's. Sara wondered if he'd have cared half so much if he'd just learned she'd been killed.

"Sara," he said. "You know those grades will follow you for the rest of your life."

"I know, Daddy."

He directed his attention back to his steak, suspending the knife in his fingertips and making a perfect incision with one smooth stroke. "And what will you do now?"

"I ... I'll just have to work harder."

He made another precise cut. The fork dripped red as he inspected his next bite.

"I'm all alone now, Daddy. First Josh broke up with me, and then Angie moved away, and ... and I haven't made any friends at school. I'm ... really lonely. It's just going to take some time for me to get adjusted."

"Tell me, Sara. What kind of friends do you want to make?"

She shrugged, smiling. "You know, Daddy, just ... the friendly kind?"

His face was blank. "Sara, you brought up the issue of your friends as if it was a serious problem. Now I'm trying to help you, but you're treating it like a joke. Is my concern a joke to you, Sara?"

"No, Daddy. I'm sorry. I ... well, I guess I want friends who I can talk to, who understand me, and ... who can help me when I'm feeling down ...

"Hmmm. That sounds like the friends you used to have, doesn't it? Or, at least, you thought they were like that."

She nodded.

"But you just told me how they left you. Maybe you need a different sort of friend, especially now that you're growing up a little. Don't you think?"

Another pair of smooth slices, another drip.

She turned her head, looking away from those piercing eyes. An antelope above the fireplace glared back at her.

"You want to meet people who can help you. Isn't that what you said?"

She nodded.

"And what might you need help with as a college freshman, Sara? What's the most important thing in your life?"

"School?"

He nodded. "And how will you find friends who can help with school?"

"By ... doing well? So they'll want me to help them, too?"

"So might there be a way to solve both your problems?"

She bent her face toward her b.l.o.o.d.y plate. "Studying harder."

He raised his eyebrows and nodded slowly.

Sara raised her eyes without moving her head. "How is Mrs. Wilson, Daddy? I haven't seen her in a while."

"Sara, I've told you. She's just Margaret to you now."

"I know. But I forget sometimes. She was always 'Mrs. Wilson' when I was a kid." Sara smiled back sweetly. "I remember when she and Doctor Wilson would come over and you would all play cards or backgammon ... You still see Mrs. Wilso- I mean, Margaret, don't you?"

She locked her ice blue eyes onto him, waiting with her own gla.s.sy expression.

Her father gave a brusque nod. "She's fine."

"But I guess you don't see Doctor Wilson anymore."

"We've run into each other."

"Oh? That must've been awkward. I mean, you used to be best friends ..."

"It was fine. They're getting a divorce."

"So she can be with you."

"It's a little more complicated than that," he said. "But it's not important. Everything's fine." He looked over his shoulder, catching a waiter's eye and raising his empty gla.s.s. For the briefest instant Sara considered asking him to order one for her, too. The couple of drinks she'd had before meeting him were working out of her system; her blood alcohol level was probably close to zero.

"Now," he said, "how did the interviews go for summer internships?"

"The school set up a lot of interviews for me but all the companies said the same thing. They don't take freshman interns." He stared back. She hurried on. "But they all gave me their cards and said they'd be very interested to hear from me next year. And I wrote them all thank-you notes."

"Remember, Sara," he said, pointing at her with the tip of his knife. "You're only worth what someone will pay you. You've got to get an internship and prove your value to the company. They want someone who'll fight with everything she's got."

"Most of them said they don't hire interns after soph.o.m.ore year, either. But they said they'd consider it if a person had enough credit hours. I thought maybe I'd take the maximum load next year ... that way I'd be almost a junior by the time the year was over."

"Do you think your current performance warrants risking your grade-point average like that?"

She lowered her eyes, feigning shame. "I guess you're right."

"Oh," she added, hoping it seemed like she'd just thought of it, "I meant to ask you something, Daddy. When do you think I should take out an ad to sublet my apartment for summer? My advisor said maybe I should stay downtown and go to summer school, you know, to get more credit hours for interviews next year ... But I don't want to be a burden to you, since you're paying for my tuition and rent and everything ... I'm just going to move back into my old room at Mom's house and hang out for the summer ..."

"Don't do that," he said. Sara suppressed a smile when he answered just a little too quickly. "I think summer school is a fine idea, Sara. You don't want to be worried about subleasing that place. A young girl shouldn't be letting strangers in to look around her apartment, anyway. You go ahead and get those credits, and you stay right where you are."

The door latches behind her. She turns, groping, but there is no k.n.o.b on this side.

The club's music throbs through, making the smooth surface vibrate. Much too loud to try pounding on it. n.o.body- at least n.o.body friendly- would hear.

She runs away, heading for the streetlight at the end of the alley. Her heels slip in the light dusting of snow as she dodges the frozen garbage and other debris cluttering the uneven surface of the concrete.

They appear in front of her, like always.

They wear hoods. Sometimes she glimpses the two white lines of their fangs.

She turns They are instantly in front of her again. She sees two or three. There are probably many more. They easily pin her to the filthy pavement.

The pleasure takes over, making her giddy and delirious as they gorge themselves. They will leave her an empty sh.e.l.l. They always do. Little by little, they are making her one of them.

"Oooh!" Mummy clapped her hands a few inches under her chin. Mummy did this when she was very excited, and seeing Mummy feeling so good made Sara proud.

The Easter Bunny would understand why Sara hadn't looked in her own basket yet. With all the arrangements, there had not yet been time. She was six years old, now, and it was time for her to start taking care of things.

Mummy followed a string Sara had taped to her doorframe, down the hallway, and into a spare bedroom. Taped carefully to the brown plaid wallpaper of the opposite wall was a note. Mummy read it aloud, her eyes sparkling: "'If you would like to have some fun, go to where the clothes are done.' The laundry room! Oh, you clever, sweet girl!" They raced there, Sara in her floral cotton pajamas lagging a few feet behind Mummy in her ivory silk.

The game Sara had set up for Mummy led all over the house. They went from room to room, following strings and clues and trails of marbles and jacks, eventually leading to the kitchen, where Sara had placed a little foam bunny she'd bought with her own money.

"Oh, Sara," Mummy said. "How wonderful of you to set up all these things for me to follow. What a special girl I have!"