YEAR OF THE VAMPIRE 17

Chapter 17

Music from: Summer Rain

Ivy managed to evade the rain that splattered the sidewalk as she and Lornie hurried to her house. Between the umbrella and garment bag, the billowing green barbecue dress Ivy was going to finish at her friend's house that evening managed to stay dry.

They quickly ducked into the side door of Lornie's house near her driveway, where the overhang kept most of the deluge of water from pouring down.

"I've never seen so much rain at once," Lornie said, throwing open the door.

"It's like spring all over again." Ivy followed her friend through the foyer where they left their damp jackets and shoes and umbrellas.

They smoothed their hair in the oval mirror between the two coat trees and took the back way out of the small room. Most times, they went through the kitchen, where everyone headed after coming in the side door, but they could smell brownies baking and that meant Lornie's mom was in charge of a bake sale somewhere. It also meant her three younger siblings would be waiting for near-empty mixing bowls to "clean up"—followed by the standard sugar high. That would naturally lead them to Lornie's room to run off the extra energy.

"Let's get up there before we have to explain again what we're doing," Lornie said, rushing them through the living room and up the staircase. "They know you're spending the night, but not that we're finishing costumes."

"Your Mom's not taking them Trick-or-Treating this year?" Ivy couldn't recall hearing why. "I'm sure the Marvins wouldn't mind if they went with us."

"They're going with Dad for that."

"You're not?"

Lornie shrugged. "I don't want to. He forgot my birthday this summer. Besides, I have the play. I didn't invite him. He can forget that, too, like my birthday."

Ivy nodded. She did recall that angry week in July. "Yeah, that was wrong."

Lornie turned them into her room, which was blues and greens, with tie-dye curtains at the single window—courtesy of her uncle. "Should make for a good guilt Christmas present, huh?"

Ivy shared her giggle. "Should."

Lornie closed the door to the sound of her younger siblings' laughing and arguing over the biggest bowls of brownie batter and frosting and smells of chocolate. She settled with Ivy at the bed where their costumes were laid out. Ivy had wrestled the wet garment bag off hers and had rolled it into an inside-out dry bundle of plastic.

"I'll hang that in the shower," Lornie said, grabbing the plastic and dashing out of the room, returning seconds later. "Should be dry by tomorrow."

Ivy was on her feet, frowning at the pieces of copper, bronze, and brass colors of fabric Lornie had promised to make into a costume. "This doesn't look very done, Lornie."

"You can hang your dress there." Lornie pointed to the overhead canopy that was minus its cotton dressing. "I didn't have time to start once I got the understudy part."

Ivy looked at her as she hung up her dress by a wire rib of the canopy frame. "What are you going to be? No Brass Barbarella this year?"

Lornie plopped onto the bed and sorted through the metallic pieces of cloth. Most were brassy and coppery, with some silver and bronze lamé material. A smattering of grommets and metal findings were neatly lined up near a pillow. "I'll do it next year. The play's my focus right now."

Ivy looked at her dress she'd hung on the canopy frame above them. "I still need to work on mine." On the other side of the bed's frame hung streamers in tie-dye and their school colors of green and black. "What are you going to be?"

"Something very basic." Lornie got up and pulled open her nightstand drawer and took out a package of oval balloons in assorted colors. "I couldn't find round ones."

"You're going to be a clown? We'll need helium to—"

"Not a clown." Lornie crouched beside the bed and pulled out an extra-large clear plastic bag from underneath. She stood and shook it out.

Ivy gaped at the size. "It's huge. You're going as a, a parachutist?"

"Paratrooper, but no." Lornie held up the bag; it was big enough for her to crawl into, but not quite as tall as her. "If I make holes for my head, arms, and legs, I can fill it up with blown-up balloons."

Ivy looked from the package of balloons to the clear bag, then to Lornie's smile. "And that would make you . . . marbles?"

"No, Ivy. A bag of jellybeans."

Ivy envisioned this and burst out laughing. "Jellybeans? Really? That's your costume?"

Lornie refused to take insult with her choice of costume. "I know it's not sophisticated, or complicated, but it's all I have time for this year."

Ivy nodded, thinking it over. "I think Sandy would get a kick out of it. I've got to take a picture of you in it."

"'Course, I can't sit down." Lornie found her sewing kit from her closet and settled at the bed with Ivy. "I'm glad we only have a matinee on Saturday. That should be plenty of time for Camille's party."

"She sure hasn't had time for us this month." Ivy sorted through her sewing basket—not her needlework bag handed down from her mother, which never left the house, but her travel bag—and found her green thread that matched the ribbon she was using for the dress' sash and trim. She set it aside and unfolded the corset she'd pieced together over the last few days. "At least her new crush is nice."

"Not like that stuffy Vohn guy. Who knew she and Fritz would hit it off?" Lornie took the rolled green velvet ribbon Ivy pulled from her duffle bag. "Wow, it matches the sash perfectly. You want two bows, like the film pictures?"

"Please," Ivy said in her most pleading voice. "I can't tie a decent bow to save my life. Yours are always professional quality."

Lornie smiled. "Hey, Bow-Maker 500 videos on YouTube. It was the only thing I did two years ago when I broke both legs. Damn roller derby. So much for frustration busting."

"Some safe alternative to field hockey, I know." Ivy laid the corset on the bed, the panels and channels already sewn in. The linen color coutil was already reinforced and she'd allowed for the spiral and steel boning. She wanted it film-accurate, with no buckling or flipping.

Lornie frowned at the design. "Why so many channels? I thought you only needed twenty."

"I went with thirty." Ivy's face took on a defensive look. "What if I eat too much and pop out? I want it to keep me in, rolls and all."

"You don't have rolls, Ivy." Lornie giggled. "And even if you did, the corset would push them up into cleavage."

"And down into peplum hips." Ivy pulled the material to her and placed the facing over it, then gathered the metal boning to insert. "You ever hear of that old house on Oaks Lane being used for an old Carrie movie float? Like, a long time ago."

Lornie was intent on the velvet ribbon in her hands, stretching it out to arm's length. "No. Was it?"

"Not for the real, original movie, but for a school float photo. My dad said it was from his high school time."

"That old? No, never heard . . . of that." Lornie let the ribbon slip through her fingers. "But I think my mom might know. She's about the same age as your dad." Her voice lowered despite the door being closed. "I'll get her old yearbook. She won't mind. It'll be better than asking her to find it for us. You know, in case Dad's in any of them."

Ivy nodded. "Good thinking."

"You've been heading that way after school, I noticed." Lornie raised an eyebrow, resuming her bow making.

Ivy ignored the pink threatening her cheeks. "Yeah, well . . . Dred lives in that old house now."

Lornie chortled a bolt of laughter. "No . . . Really?" When Ivy nodded slowly, Lornie shook her head. "I didn't think that place was even livable. Condemned or something. You've been there?"

"A few times."

"A few times?" Lornie squealed a giggle. "What's it like? It looks haunted."

Ivy felt a sudden surge of protectionism for the odd lot of people she'd only recently met. "It does look haunted, but really, it's nice, in an old, damaged way. I mean, the house isn't damaged, just . . . full of character."

"Sounds like something your dad would say."

Ivy watched a complicated bow form of the green velvet in her friend's hands. "I think I'd like to find out its history."

Lornie nodded. "Probably has a lot. Those old fuddy-duddies at the Historical Society would know."

Ivy nodded, intent on slipping the metal stays into the corset. "Probably."

It wasn't until after dark and dinner that Ivy and Lornie had time to look at her mother's old yearbook. They blew past the student photos, most with far too much hair and shot in dull gray and white from the 1970s. It was in the back, past the sports and club sections, where the extracurricular photos of homecoming and talent contests made a menagerie of collections on six pages.

Two pages were paper-clipped together, and Lornie carefully removed the clip. She pulled the pages open, bracing. On the left page were photos of prom couples, among them her mom and dad. She resisted a cringe.

"You okay?" Ivy asked, watching Lornie's face carefully.

"Yeah. They just looked so happy there. Married young, had kids later in life." The photo was old, dull in black-and-white, of two full-haired seniors in a tacky pastel suit and flowery polyester off-shoulder prom dress. Their smiles were real, even if the setting seemed like a movie still for a '70s sitcom. "Look at those clothes."

"Well, the short skirts came back; good thing those suits didn't." Ivy didn't see any parade floats on either page. "Try the next page."

Lornie turned the page.

They had moved to the window seat built into the wall in her room after dinner, Ivy's dress hanging to one side on a wooden peg. It was a warm place to sit, since the living room below had a fireplace on the wall and Lornie's mom had built a fire in the hearth to get the chill out of the air, so she termed it.

Ivy sat back, pressing her back to the warm wall. She couldn't understand why Lornie's dad would leave such a welcome home. She'd always been a little jealous of Lornie Van Dormann, with all her younger siblings and both parents, when she was a child. The homey Van Dormann house, the noise of family, the delicious smells of cooking and baking—these were things Ivy wanted to come home to.

But that was when she was very young. Now, since Lornie's dad had left three years ago, everything was different. Different sounds and smells, no sports on the TV or pot roasts in the oven; different cars in the driveway as Lornie's mom sometimes struggled with bills and needs for four children. For two years it had been casseroles and limited TV stations, a very used car until last year. Then things had picked up for the household. Visitation schedules, child support caught up—according to Lornie—and more smiling from her mom.

Ivy couldn't count the times Lornie had let her grades slip, and worse. She'd always been there for her friend, as Lornie had offered an open ear to anything Ivy wanted to talk about.

Even with all that, Ivy didn't want to share what she knew of Brylinden Hall. Not yet.

"Is this it?" Lornie held up the yearbook to better light.

Ivy looked closer at the image on the page. It was the Hall in black-and-white, looking much the same, with a float made of tissue flowers. A scarecrow-like "Carrie" character was draped on a fake fence, her bloody dress hanging on her, with stuffed "bodies" arranged around the flatbed trailer. About twenty high school students were making peace sign Vs with their fingers, mugging for the camera.

"I think so."

"Lornie! Phone call!" her mother's voice hollered up the stairs.

Lornie groaned. "Probably Dad again. I told him not to call my cell."

"Oh."

"Back in a minute." Lornie pushed the yearbook to Ivy and left the room.

Ivy took the book in her lap and switched up the light setting on the snake-arm lamp hovering over the seat. She didn't find her dad in any of the float pictures. The Hall was simply a backdrop, as he had said, not really part of the float concept. She flipped back to the individual pictures by grade and found her dad.

He was geeky and nerdy—nearly everyone was—with a few big-haired boys and ironed-flat-haired girls. She found her mother a grade younger, and smiled at the image. She could see the resemblance every time she looked in a mirror, but there was no rush of familiarity. She hated to admit it, but she had few memories of her mother aside from crocheting or knitting; most were memories of what her mother would have been like.

She flipped through the pages, being careful, pausing on some of them to laugh at the school or a few names she recognized. She passed one on the juniors page, and then stopped and went back.

The girl was much like the others, with long, straight hair and a beaded necklace over her solid color turtleneck, but her eyes held Ivy's attention. She sat forward, pulling the lamp head closer.

Sure enough, Maeve's piercing eyes looked back at her. The girl's direct stare, her commanding poise, her ageless appearance despite the decades of time—there was no mistake.

She found the girl's name in the list of students on the page. "Mary Gretchens." She frowned, then looked up the name in the back student directory. There was only the one listing, with no extra curricular activity noted.

". . . the last time," Lornie grumbled as she returned, nearly slamming the door. "Doesn't he get it? I don't need him anymore." She plopped down beside Ivy and rested a napkin of warm brownies on her knee. "Have some. Comfort food."

Ivy closed the yearbook, her mind twisting with the old image of Maeve. "Thanks." She forced her thoughts to her friend's pensive face. "Everything all right, Lornie?"

"Yeah. I'm okay." She popped half the brownie into her mouth. "Everything's better with chocolate."

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