Fran's Room
The doorbell on chateau Penn was a source of embarrassment to the youngest family member living there. About ten years ago, Mr. Penn invested in a system that came with 100 pre-programmed songs to suit the occasion. The Penns kept the ringer on a seasonal rotation, which meant that when Avery Adlam pushed the button just before October, a slightly tired version of the Addams Family theme announced him.

Footsteps bounded down the carpeted staircase of the modest, two-story home. Once her siblings went to college, Francess had graduated to the attic bedroom, which had a pitched ceiling and was by far the coolest room in an otherwise drab house. She skidded to a halt in the foyer and looked out the peephole.

The porch light was on. Upon verifying that it was Avery outside and not a stranger, she took a deep breath so that she didn't seem spastic and opened the door. "Hey." Because she couldn't help herself, her eyes darted to his wrist to see if Avery wore a splint on it.

Avery had removed the splint a few days previously, determining he was as healed as he was going to get. Instead, he sported his ever-present wristwatch and a black leather cuff he had found at the cafe and no one had come to claim. He liked it because he could snap it off his hand when he was bored or nervous and play with it. He smiled when Francess opened the door. "Hi," he said. "I really meant to call sooner, but some weird stuff happened. I like your doorbell, did it come with the house?"

He had noticed the song, due to his above-par hearing. He stood at the threshold of the door, waiting patiently for Francess to invite him in.

"No, but my weird parents did," she said, rolling her eyes, though it wasn't maliciously done. "You can come in," she offered. "They went out to eat and to a movie. So... nobody'll stare at you and ask uncomfortable stuff." The fact that she had to invite him in didn't occur to her. The only thing on Francess's mind was that she had a male visitor. On a few sporadic dates in her teenage years, they made it as far as the foyer for the required meeting with Mr. Penn and no farther.

Because she was busily packing up her bedroom when Avery got there, Francess wasn't dressed for company. She had on a pair of high school gym shorts, a t-shirt, and footie socks with fuzzy balls on the back. The balls had been affixed with googley eyes that wiggled. Recognition of this came slowly, but it dawned on her, about the time Avery stepped inside. Francess retreated into the shadows of the hallway, where the porch light couldn't quite reach.

Avery entered the house, looking around curiously. It wasn't so unlike his childhood home in New Jersey, except his parents hadn't made any personal touches on the residence. "That's good," he said. "I don't know how well I deal with staring and uncomfortable questions." He stood inside the foyer. "I heard from this guy Connor that you're moving into an apartment with him," he blurted out. "Which is good, because apartments are...nice. And he's pretty nice, I think."

The vampire glanced down at his sneakers. "Should I take off my shoes or something? My parents used to make people take off their shoes, because of the laminate floors."

"You know Connor?" she asked, finding herself surprised at how Chicago seemed to shrink all the time, nowadays. Her whole life, she'd felt like an island, just standing still and watching everyone else move and connect around her, and ultimately sail on past. Suddenly a pattern was beginning to emerge.

"Oh, don't worry about your shoes," she said, waving her hand. "My mom has a daycare. Trust me. This carpet has seen more baby poop and throw-up than you can imagine." It had been intended as a casual way of making him feel better about his tennis shoes, but it was a gross image, and after saying it Francess wished she could take it back. "Not that we're dirty," she rushed to assure him. "I mean... we clean."

The door closed with a click. Downstairs was quiet, but there was a record player on upstairs, and Francess could barely make out the chorus of 'Creeque Alley'. She balled her fingers in her gym shorts. The polite thing to do would be to offer him a cold drink, but he didn't drink sodas. Besides, it would just be a stall tactic to keep him from seeing her bedroom. It wasn't that she was private about it; it was that Francess knew the exact location of a pink bra on her desk chair.

She decided to dash up the stairs ahead of him, in hopes of getting it in the laundry basket before Avery noticed. "Come on up," she said, slinging herself around the bannister post and taking them two at a time. "I met someone you know, too," she said over her shoulder. "Rebecca."

He followed her up the stairs, sliding his jacket off and slinging it over his arm. "Oh," he said. "Where did you meet her?" Avery wondered where their paths would intersect. "Was she nice to you?" The vampire reached the top of the stairs, giving her time to sort out whatever she needed to.

One hand tentatively on the banister, he shuffled his feet nervously on the carpeted steps. He would have definitely agreed with Francess about Chicago seeming to become a very small place. He was used to things being compartmentalized, but now people and situations were crashing together like dominoes.

"I met her at Borders!" Francess dashed through the labyrinth of boxes in her room, using her long legs to carry her over the biggest obstacles. She slammed a hipbone into the corner of her dresser and sucked in an agonized moan. "Ouch... ssssssh-i-i-t!" she mouthed, massaging it while she snatched up the bra and tossed it into her laundry. The pain knifing through her side was worth a cuss.

"She was nice... she offered to buy me another drink because this guy spilled mine," she said. Francess noticed he wasn't in the doorway. She peeked her head around and saw Avery lingering on the staircase. "It's okay, you can come in."

Avery crossed the distance between the landing and the room. "Right, Borders. Because of the books." He paused in the doorway. "Do you need any help?" He glanced around the room briefly, then back at her. "Where does one find all these boxes, anyway? I always wondered." He leaned against the wooden doorframe, unsure of whether he should stand or sit, or where he should sit.

As if sensing his predicament, Francess attempted to clear off a space in her papasan chair. But all that did was unearth Ivan. The obese cat lifted his white and gray head and sniffed the air, but that was the extent of his reaction. "Oh... I didn't know you were under there," she said, using a completely normal voice rather than one reserved for pets. She dumped the clothes back on him and cleared off a corner of her bed instead. "You can sit here."

Because Avery offered to help, she handed him an old newspaper. "See those figurines? Can you wrap them up and put them in... here?" Francess picked up a liquor box, which had individual cardboard compartments in it. "I think the best boxes are from the grocery store and the ABC store," she said. "If you figure out what day they get deliveries, you can go out back in the afternoon and take all the boxes. They don't even throw them in the dumpster, because they know someone'll take them."

This was a piece of knowledge she picked up when Bea and Gil were packing for college. No way was the Penn family paying U-HAUL or a hardware store for an item they could get for free.

Francess put her hands on her hips and looked around. The room was crowded with the junk of her life. The walls were painted pistachio green, but they could hardly be seen for all the movie posters she tacked over them. She had a case full of ribbons and medallions from marching band, a pair of white gloves dangling from her mirror, and several bookshelves stuffed with colorful paperbacks. Otherwise, her bedroom looked like a typical girl's would, and smelled faintly of powder and lavender.

He took the newspaper from her and sat on the bed, some of the ink smudging on his fingers. He didn't know why, but Sun-Times ink always seemed to smear more than Tribune's. "I like your room. You really weren't kidding about the posters." Avery removed the sheet that comprised the front and back covers, reaching over for one of the aforementioned figurines. He began rolling it up in the newspaper.

"My bedroom's pretty much empty, for now. Although it's blue, so it seems slightly less...blank." He finished one figurine, and picked up another. "Is this your first time moving?"

"In my whole life," she said. "Well, except when I moved upstairs, but that doesn't count." Francess began to put paperbacks in a beer box. Probably her new neighbors and Connor would think she was a drunk, when they got a look at her packing supplies. "I don't really know what to take. I'm used to everything I ever owned being all in one place, so I'm afraid I'll get to the new apartment and all the sudden need something, but I left it." At the top of the box, there was room for one more book. Francess looked at her desk, where the new, tea-stained copy of Jerry Gross's latest book sat.

She lunged across the piles and snatched up the book, catching her balance on the bedpost.

"How come you asked if Rebecca was nice to me?" she asked, the question occurring to her out of the blue.

He froze mid-wrap, watching her curiously as she grabbed what looked like a book. "She can come off as a bit...judgmental, at times. I just wanted to make sure...that she didn't say anything to offend you, or...upset you." Avery glanced over at her shelves. "You have a lot of books. I do, too. I read constantly." He scratched his leg with his opposite foot, setting down the second wrapped figure.

"I've never moved before with the proper piles of boxes and moving truck. My parents bought their house when my mother was pregnant with me. When I left New Jersey, I didn't really bring anything with me. Just what was already on me." He shrugged, glad to have something to do with his hands. "If you do forget anything, you can always come back here, right?"

Francess nodded. "If I don't report in once a week, my mom might send out a search party," she predicted. For the first time, it occurred to her that when Avery was turned, he might've had to leave a lot of his personal possessions behind, and maybe even keep on the move. Because she'd only ever lived one place, Francess had never faced losing her belongings. It was an awful thought; she found a lot of safety in comfortable surroundings, to the point that she didn't even like hotels. "I just pictured you hitchhiking down the highway with a red polka-dot bag on a stick," she said, smiling. The book about spiritual travel was carefully placed in the box. Francess began to bend down the flaps in sequence, so the box could stay shut without tape.

"So... what's she judgmental about?" She didn't mean to be a pest, returning to the subject, but Francess was curious what a woman who helped the unfortunate might look down on. Wasn't that kind of contradictory?

He grinned, looking up from his task. "What, you mean like...walking backwards with my thumb stuck out?" Avery looked back down at the newspaper. "The person I was with at the time, they had acquired a car." He paused, an article catching his eye. He scanned over it quickly before speaking again.

"I didn't say she was judgmental, just...I could see how someone would interpret her words and actions to be...judgmental." That was one of those sentences where he didn't realize its absurdity until it left his mouth. "It's the British way, I think." He leaned over to tuck the wrapped articles into the proferred box.

Rubbing her lips together, she nodded. "I didn't mean to insult your friend," she said, making certain that she didn't sound like a jerk. "She was nice to me." Francess picked at a roll of clear packaging tape, trying to get it started. After a couple of false starts, the adhesive unwound noisily. Francess stretched it across the box in a criss-cross pattern.

The record player continued to spin through the sixteen greatest hits of the Mamas and the Papas. Francess listened to the tune Midnight Voyage, and clamped her teeth down on her tongue. She had the wild urge to ask Avery how his arm was doing, but if she did, he'd know that Rebecca told her something he didn't seem to want Francess to know. It was hard not to pipe up. She couldn't remember wanting to blurt something out so badly in years. Not since when a high school teacher would ban everyone from talking, and suddenly there were a dozen things she just had to say.

"Can I see your new place sometime?" she asked instead. It wasn't nearly so satisfying.

"It's okay," he said. "I've always had this habit of defending people, and I don't know why. Even if there's nothing to defend them from, I just...I always end up apologizing for other people's actions. You'd think realizing it would make me stop, but it's...you know, it's a habit." Avery watched her tape the box.

"Oh, yeah. I had been meaning to invite you over, actually. I'm still working on it, it's kind of empty. I think I mentioned that already." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Maybe you could come with me one day, while I look through the thrift stores in the area for stuff. Lamps, for instance, and..." He tried to think of what he had in his old room. "I had a trophy for 'most improved', from Little League. It was a consolation trophy."

She laughed and tried to cover it up. "Were you very bad?" The brunette spun the box around and shoved it across the carpet. Another pile of notebooks awaited packaging. They were full of story ideas Francess got from her imagination, but none of them were actually written. Instead they read like a bunch of book jacket summaries. On occasion she wondered if she could get a job like that, where she just had to read and write melodramatic paragraphs that enticed others to do the same.

"I'm not good with any sport that involves balls," she said. "When we played softball in gym, I stood in the outfield and begged to god they didn't hit anything at me." Francess put up her hands in a shield over her face, making one of them roughly mitt-shaped. "Like this."

"I was never very athletically inclined," he explained, before pausing a beat. "I was really bad. My dad signed me up when the doctor said exercise would make me sleep better." Avery gestured to the ribbons. "What are those from?" He swiped his hands over his jeans, leaving faint black marks on the light denim. Various things around the room caught his attention, and he had to stop himself from asking about each thing like some nosey kid.

"Oh, band," she said, after following his hand. "I was in the marching band, but there was also a competition called solo ensemble. Which actually doesn't make any sense, phrase-wise." Francess crinkled her nose. "But basically you rehearsed a piece of music and played it for judges, and then you played a piece you never saw before, and some scales. If you scored high you got a ribbon." The actual instruments were stacked in the bottom of Fran's closet, next to her shoes. There was a piccolo and a flute. Gilbert's old trumpet was around somewhere, too. Most of her classmates covered their instrument cases in stickers, but she didn't want to mess hers up.

It was slightly embarrassing, Fran thought, being surrounding by those things. Everything was from the glory days of high school (which weren't actually too glorious), as if she had nothing new. Right there on the spot, Francess became determined to pick up a new hobby.

She got up and folded the flaps down on Avery's liquor box of figurines. She let go long enough to pick at the tape. "Oh, guess what?" she asked. "I got promoted to a full-time assistant manager position at the theatre. That's how come I can afford to pay rent."

"Really? That's great. Are you in charge of things now?" Avery peered at the pile of slightly shifting clothes on Francess' chair. "That just reminded me that we haven't seen any movies together lately. Maybe we could rent some." He wondered how he would go about acquiring a membership. He scooted back on her bed, as he had been perched tenuously on the edge. "Do you think the power will corrupt you? And one day you'll realize it and you'll have this redemptive inner struggle?"

He winced at himself. "Sorry. I had intended to shut up but my mouth kept moving."

Francess froze mid-tape. "What?" she asked, looking at Avery as if he'd grown an extra eyeball. "The power of... managing the snack food counter?" The thought was so ludicrous that she had trouble imagining how that would pan out. "Like... the soup nazi, but with Raisinets?" For a moment she pictured herself lording her authority over the concessions domain. No extra butter for this one. No additional nacho cheese for that one. For some reason in this image, she was standing on a raised platform. Instead of a movie theatre uniform, she was dressed like Rebecca.

"Maybe I shouldn't rent movies with you. You're weird," she said, jostling his knee with her bare one. She peeled off a piece of tape and stuck it to Avery's shirt. When she was younger and more foolish, she might've placed it over his mouth. However, an incident involving strong tape and a missing layer of Fran's bottom lip convinced her otherwise.

Avery nodded. "Don't worry, I'm quite aware of how ridiculous that was. And I thought you liked that I was weird?" He glanced down at where their legs had briefly touched. Peeling the tape slowly off his shirt, he held it up to examine it. Little specks of blue lint lined the sticky surface. "Hey, that's neat. It's like a lint brush." He stuck it back on his shirt, but it had lost most of its adhesiveness, so it was only partly affixed. "Lint is so...omnipresent."

He felt something fuzzy brush against his ankle, and he looked down at her feet before laughing quietly. "Your socks are looking at me."

"I do like that you're weird!" she interjected, especially how he was observant about nonsensical things, like she was. Then he pointed out her socks.

"They are?" Francess bent her leg and grabbed her ankle. The balancing act was somewhat reminiscent of a flamingo, only less pink. She examined the sock pom-poms with their stuck-on googley eyes. "So they are," she agreed, rolling her foot so the pupils went round and round. Francess hummed a few spooky notes and sang, "'A big green worm with rolling eyes, crawls in your stomach and out your eyes...'"

He leaned down and gave one of the pom-poms a poke with his index finger. Straightening, he grinned at her as she sang. "That reminds me, Halloween is coming up." Avery reached over and brushed a few strands of dark hair away from her eyes before dropping his hand to his side again. "What do you usually do to celebrate?" Avery, for one, liked roaming whatever neighborhood he was staying in at the time, looking at the different houses decked out in various states of decoration. At the moment, though, he was living in a neighborhood full of mid - and high-rises, which didn't offer much in the way of holiday elaboration.

She smiled into the touch. It had been unexpected, which made it all the better. "Sometimes I dress up and hand out candy on the porch," she said. There was an entire collection of oddball costumes in her history, including being made into a giant toilet. Francess picked up the taped box of figurines and stacked it on her books. That cleared a spot on the mattress. She sat down beside Avery, angled towards the vampire.

"But this year I want to do something scary." She waved her hands. "Or at least pretend-scary. You know, when you get so much adrenaline that someone could poke your ribcage and you'd scream your head off? Or almost wet your pants?" Francess wasn't sure if regular things still scared Avery or not; what she did know was that everything scared her. She was a giant sissy.

Noticing the leather band on his wrist, she reached across and touched it, simply curious about it. "Are you ever scared? Not bad scared, but good scared."

After she touched the band, he compulsively went back to it, snapping and unsnapping the little clasps. "Good scared," he repeated. "Well, there's the kind of scared where you know nothing bad's going to happen, but you're scared just for the fun of it, like when watching a horror film? As a kid, I was afraid of a lot of things, but they kind of faded when I got older." Avery slipped off the cuff. "But I have been known to enjoy a good haunted house. I haven't been to one in ages, though."

He turned toward her and nudged her knee gently. "We should find one."

Fran's eyes lit up with enthusiasm. "We could go together?" She gathered her legs beneath her and picked up the drawstrings for her gym shorts. She twirled them around her fingers. "That would be fun." Packing was forgotten for the moment. "But only if you promise not to laugh at me when I cry like a baby." Of course when Francess got legitimately scared, she was more likely to faint than anything, but knowing it wasn't real would help, as would being able to cling to or hide behind a nice, safe vampire.

He put his arm around her loosely. "I wouldn't laugh at you, I promise." He wanted to lean his head on her shoulder, but wondered if it would be weird since they were in her bedroom. On her bed, no less. "What do you think it will be like, living on your own? Or at least, without your parents?" Avery's experience had been an odd one; his parents had been like his safety net. Even when he entered college, he never fully left them.

An indirect answer to his question about weirdness came quickly. Carefully maneuvering while remaining in the loose circle of his arm, Francess twisted around and shoved most of the crap across her bed. A large space opened up behind them, and she flopped down on her back, carrying Avery's arm with her. It wasn't any obvious attempt at being suggestive; Francess just felt like flopping. It was more comfortable than perching on the edge of her mattress.

Once comfortable, she brought her knees up and rocked them back and forth. "Lonely," she said. "At least for a while. I bet the hardest thing will be... not having the right soundtrack. Like... I'm used to hearing all their people sounds, you know?" Francess turned her head to look Avery. "When it's early morning, I can hear Mom trying to get a biscuit pan out of the cabinet without making a racket, only she always drops one. I hear Dad coughing and when he turns on the shower. At night, I can hear them watching the news and--"

She blanched at what she almost said. That not was not a pleasant, homey memory. It had just happened to come to mind, and Francess barely caught the runaway train before it skipped the tricks.

Avery flopped down next to her, eyes scanning over the ceiling before he met Francess' gaze. He listened to her intently, smiling at the descriptions. "I know what you mean," he said. "What about breakfast smells? On Saturday mornings. It's probably cliche. Sometimes my dad would be there, sometimes not. But my mom always made sure to make a big weekend breakfast, regardless. Sunday was always quiche. I think she clipped the recipe out of a magazine."

The vampire lifted up one of her hands with his free one, and spread out his fingers against hers.

She tilted her head and saw how Avery's fingers were only a little longer than hers. The touch was cool and, as Francess let the contact continue, she felt warmth seeping from her hand into his. She wondered if he liked that, or if it was an ordinary thing.

"My mom makes pancakes," she said, "With nuts in them, and instead of syrup, she puts on honey and butter." Already the thought of home was becoming nostalgic for her, and a fresh twist of grief made her heart hurt. Sometimes Fran questioned why she'd been in such a big hurry to leave, but if she didn't, she'd probably get stuck in a rut. Or maybe she was already in one.

"I like to bake. I wish you could taste things still." If it was true that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach, Francess figured she was out of luck. She lifted her head to fan her hair out, so she wasn't laying on it, then turned to ask. "Are there things you can taste, besides blood? And... does it taste the same as when you were human except you like it better? Could you add salt to it, or;sugar or hot sauce?" She smiled.

His own lips quirked up in a soft smile as he slowly entwined his fingers with hers. "I still have, I guess, comfort foods. The taste is kind of dulled, I suppose, but I still know it's there. Like when you have a head cold. Some things are stronger than others, but I wonder if that's more to do with smell." Avery tilted his head to the side to look at her fully. "My least favorite food is pickles." He kicked off his shoes so he wouldn't track any dirt onto her bed, and brought his socked feet up so his knees leaned against Francess'. "What do you bake?"

"Aw I love pickles," she protested, as if on behalf of them. "Especially mini-gherkins." The brunette wrinkled her nose. "I think I just like mini-versions of things." She laughed and felt her neck flush because he was so close. When you weren't the type of girl who had done much touching, each little one was a thrill of sensation.

"I bake homemade cookies and cakes and banana bread." Francess rotated their joined hands, getting a look from both sides. "I like to figure out how to put things in bread." On an impulse she turned her head and wound up close to him.

"You know what my least favorite word is?" she asked.

He pictured her making tiny versions of various baked goods. "I like raisin bread," he informed her. Trying not to become nervous from the increase in proximity, he smiled again, letting her move his hand. "What's your least favorite word?"

"Nubbin," she whispered, trying not to gag in its aftermath, as if the word were so vile, she could barely stand to hear it spoken aloud. "Ick. Now my mouth feels all tainted because I said it." Francess reached for a pillow and slapped it on her face. In a muffled voice she admitted, "There are others."

Avery gently pulled the pillow back, away from her face. "Okay, that isn't the most pleasant-sounding word, but carbon dioxide isn't the answer." He poked her playfully in the shoulder. "What are the others?"

Francess chewed her lip and wrapped her free arm around the pillow. "But if I tell you all my gross words, then you might use them to word-torture me," she said, searching Avery's face for any sign of deviant intentions. When she was satisfied that he appeared clean, she looked up and concentrated on the ceiling, as if staring at the apex of the two green walls would help. "Globule... and... ointment... moist... succulent."

He laughed, letting go of the pillow. "I won't use them against you, I promise. Besides, you already know most of my weaknesses. If I started repeating those words, hypothetically you could come after me with a stake. And that's no fun." Avery rolled onto his back, looking up at the ceiling again thoughtfully. "I wonder what I would dress up as, if I were going to, for Halloween. I don't think I'd go for scary. Maybe comical. What do you think?"

"I wouldn't stake you. Just... tickle you until you begged for mercy." Hopefully vampires were still ticklish, or else her entire revenge strategy would crumble. Now it was Fran's turn to roll onto her side. She stuffed the pillow beneath her head for comfort and studied Avery's profile. "Umm..." She bumped her foot against his. "You could beeeee..." She rummaged through her mind to think up a cool costume and discarded most of the traditional choices.

"Oh! An idiom!" Francess stuck her thumbnail between her teeth, trying to subdue her excitement. "You know, you dress up as the embodiment of one. Like for 'chip on your shoulder' you could wear an all black outfit, and glue a potato chip up there. Or... for a back seat driver, you could make a cardboard car and wear it around your torso, only you're in the backseat and you have a little," she shook her hand, "wheel."

Avery turned back on his side, looking at her in amazement. "That's one of the best ideas ever. I particularly like the chip one, although backseat driver would be interesting to execute." He leaned in then, grinning slightly before closing the gap between them and kissing her softly. "You amaze me on a continual basis," he disclosed. "I'm...not helping you get your packing done, am I?"

It would be an understatement to say she was flattered. Francess, still buzzing from the kiss, ducked her head. "You helped," she said, smiling to herself. She picked at a piece of lint on the bedspread. "There was the newspaper wrapping."

She curled her legs up tight.

"But I won't try to keep you all night," she said, meaning it in a figurative way. "Packing's boring even when it's your own stuff." Francess glanced at her dresser. She had to box up her clothes next. The thought of attempting to pack her undergarments in front of Avery was a little mortifying. The worst part about never moving was that she kept too much; Mixed into her more adult pieces were a few ridiculous holdovers from her teenage years, like a pair of panties with cartoon hot dogs all over them.

Before he could budge, though, Francess reached for his ear and smoothed a few pieces of hair behind the lobe. "I think you're really gorgeous," she blurted out, completely startled because she hadn't planned to say a thing. Hurriedly before she could chicken out, she leaned in and kissed him a second time. While their lips touched, she kept her fingertips on his ear, stroking it lightly.

When one of her knees literally knocked into his, Francess pulled back and said, "Thanks for coming over."

"I think you're beautiful, and I really like your smile, a lot." He unbent his knees, wondering if he should sit up now. "It was fun. I'm glad I got to see your room before you moved out of it." He brushed at a non-existent piece of lint. "And when it comes to the actual moving, I can help. You know, if it's nighttime." Something occurred to Avery. "Where are you moving to, anyway?"

"Oh, we got an apartment in Logan Square," she said. She commanded her body to actually move instead of laying there like a lump. "It's not too far from the theatre, but I keep forgetting the street address. I can text it to you though."

Once sitting on the corner of the mattress, it was much easier to actually stand up. Francess gathered her hair over one shoulder and began to pick a delicate path through the boxes. "Come on," she reached out a hand to Avery and pulled him up, too. "I'll walk you out."